Riders of the Silences, Max Brand [best books for 8th graders txt] 📗

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

But she was trembling so, either from fear, or excitement, or both,

that he had to take a firm hold on her arm and almost carry her up the

steps, shove the door open, and force her in. A hundred eyes were

instantly upon them, practiced, suspicious eyes, accustomed to search

into all things and take nothing for granted; eyes of men who, when a

rap came at the door, looked to see whether or not the shadow of the

stranger fell full in the center of the crack beneath the door. If it

fell to one side the man might be an enemy, and therefore they would

stand at one side of the room, their hands upon the butt of a six-gun,

and shout: “Come in.” Such was the battery of glances from the men,

and the color of Pierre altered, paled.

He knew some of those faces, for those who hunt and are hunted never

forget the least gestures of their enemies. There was a mighty

temptation to turn back even then, but he set his teeth and forced

himself to stand calmly.

The chuckle which replied to this maneuver freed him for the moment.

Suspicion was lulled. Moreover, the red-jeweled hair of Jacqueline and

her lighted eyes called all attention almost immediately upon her. She

shifted the golden scarf—the white arms and breast flashed in the

light—a gasp responded. There would be talk tomorrow; there were

whispers even now.

It was not the main hall that they stood in, for this school, having

been built by an aspiring community, contained two rooms; this smaller

room, used by the little ones of the school, was now converted into a

hat-and-cloak room.

Pierre hung up his hat, removed his gloves slowly, nerving himself to

endure the sharp glances, and opened the door for Jacqueline.

If she had held back tremulously before, something she had seen in the

eyes of those in the first room, something in the whisper and murmur

which rose the moment she started to leave, gave her courage. She

stepped into the dance-hall like a queen going forth to address

devoted subjects. The second ordeal was easier than the first. There

were many times more people in that crowded room, but each was intent

upon his own pleasure. A wave of warmth and light swept upon them, and

a blare of music, and a stir and hum of voices, and here and there the

sweet sound of a happy girl’s laughter. They raised their heads, these

two wild rangers of the mountain-desert, and breathed deep of the

fantastic scene.

There was no attempt at beauty in the costumes of the masqueraders.

Here and there some girl achieved a novel and pleasing effect; but on

the whole they strove for cheaper and more stirring things in the line

of the grotesque.

Here passed a youth wearing a beard made from the stiff, red bristles

of the tail of a sorrel horse. Another wore a bear’s head cunningly

stuffed, the grinning teeth flashing over his head and the skin draped

over his shoulders. A third disfigured himself by painting after the

fashion of an Indian on the warpath, with crimson streaks down his

forehead and red and black across his cheeks.

But not more than a third of all the assembly made any effort to

masquerade, beyond the use of the simple black mask across the upper

part of the face. The rest of the men and women contented themselves

with wearing the very finest clothes they could afford to buy, and

there was through the air a scent of the general merchandise store

which not even a liberal use of cheap perfume and all the drifts of

pale-blue cigarette smoke could quite overcome.

As for the music, it was furnished by two very old men, relics of the

days when there were contests in fiddling; a stout fellow of middle

age, with cheeks swelled almost to bursting as he thundered out

terrific blasts on a slide trombone; a youth who rattled two sticks on

an overturned dish-pan in lieu of a drum, and a cornetist of

real skill.

There were hard faces in the crowd, most of them, of men who had set

their teeth against hard weather and hard men, and fought their way

through, not to happiness, but to existence, so that fighting had

become their pleasure.

Now they relaxed their eternal vigilance, their eternal suspicion.

Another phase of their nature weakened. Some of them were smiling and

laughing for the first time in months, perhaps, of labor and

loneliness on the range. With the gates of good-nature opened, a

veritable flood of gaiety burst out. It glittered in their eyes, it

rose to their lips in a wild laughter. They seemed to be dancing more

furiously fast in order to forget the life which they had left, and to

which they must return.

These were the conquerors of the bitter nature of the mountain-desert.

There was beauty here, the beauty of strength in the men and a brown

loveliness in the girls; just as in the music, the blatancy of the

rattling dish-pan and the blaring trombone were more than balanced by

the real skill of the violinists, who kept a high, sweet, singing tone

through all the clamor.

And Pierre le Rouge and Jacqueline? They stood aghast for a moment

when that crash of noise broke around them; but they came from a life

where there was nothing of beauty except the lonely strength of the

mountains and the appalling silences of the stars that roll above the

desert. Almost at once they caught the overtone of human joyousness,

and they turned with smiles to each other, and it was “Pierre?”

“Jack?” Then a nod, and she was in his arms, and they glided into

the dance.