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

CHAPTER 26

She was ready, crouched close to the window of her room, when the

signal came, but first she was not sure, because the sound was as

faint as a memory. Moreover, it might have been a freakish whistling

in the wind, which rose stronger and stronger. It had piled the

thunder-clouds higher and higher, and now and again a heavy drop of

rain tapped at her window like a thrown pebble.

 

So she waited, and at last heard the whistle a second time,

unmistakably clear. In a moment she was hurrying down to the stable,

climbed into the saddle, and rode at a cautious trot out among the

sand-hills.

 

For a time she saw no one, and commenced to fear that the whole thing

had been a gruesomely real, practical jest. So she stopped her horse

and imitated the signal whistle as well as she could. It was repeated

immediately behind her—almost in her ear, and she turned to make out

the dark form of a tall horseman.

 

“A bad night for the start,” called Wilbur. “Do you want to wait till

tomorrow?”

 

She could not answer for a moment, the wind whipping against her face,

while a big drop stung her lips.

 

She said at length: “Would a night like this stop Pierre—or McGurk?”

 

For answer she heard his laughter.

 

“Then I’ll start. I must never stop for weather.”

 

He rode up beside her.

 

“This is the start of the finish.”

 

“What do you mean?” “Nothing. But somewhere on this ride, I’ve an

idea a question will be answered for me.”

 

“What question?”

 

Instead of replying he said: “You’ve got a slicker on?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then follow me. We’ll gallop into the wind a while and get the horses

warmed up. Afterward we’ll take the valley of the Old Crow and follow

it up to the crest of the range.”

 

His horse lunged out ahead of hers, and she followed, leaning far

forward against a wind that kept her almost breathless. For several

minutes they cantered steadily, and before the end of the gallop she

was sitting straight up, her heart beating fast, a faint smile on her

lips, and the blood running hot in her veins. For the battle was

begun, she knew, by that first sharp gallop, and here at the start she

felt confident of her strength. When she met Pierre she could force

him to turn back with her.

 

Wilbur checked his horse to a trot; they climbed a hill, and just as

the rain broke on them with a rattling gust they swung into the valley

of the Old Crow. Above them in the sky the thunder rode; the rain

whipped against the rocks like the rattle of a thousand flying hoofs;

and now and again the lightning flashed across the sky.

 

Through that vast accompaniment they moved on in the night straight

toward the heart of the mountains which sprang into sight with every

flash of the lightning and seemed toppling almost above them, yet they

were weary miles away, as she knew.

 

By those same flashes she caught glimpses of the face of Wilbur. She

hardly knew him. She had seen him always big, gentle, handsome,

good-natured; now he was grown harder, with a stern set of the jaw,

and a certain square outline of face. It had seemed impossible. Now

she began to guess how the law could have placed a price upon his

head. For he belonged out here with the night and the crash of the

storm, with strong, lawless things about him. An awe grew in her,

and she was filled half with dread and half with curiosity at the

thought of facing him, as she must many a time, across the campfire.

In a way, he was the ladder by which she climbed to an understanding

of Pierre le Rouge, Red Pierre. For that Pierre, she knew, was to big

Wilbur what Dick himself was to the great mass of law-abiding men.

Accident had cut Wilbur adrift, but it was more than accident which

started Pierre on the road to outlawry; it was the sheer love of

dangerous chance, the glory in fighting other men. This was Pierre.

 

What was the man for whom Pierre hunted? What was McGurk? Not even the

description of Wilbur had proved very enlightening. Her thought of him

was vague, nebulous, and taking many forms. Sometimes he was tall and

dark and stern. Again he was short and heavy and somewhat deformed of

body. But always he was everywhere in the night about her.

 

All this she pondered as they began the ride up the valley, but as the

long journey continued, and the hours and the miles rolled past them,

a racking weariness possessed her and numbed her mind. She began to

wish desperately for morning, but even morning might not bring an end

to the ride. That would be at the will of the outlaw beside her.

Finally, only one picture remained to her. It stabbed across the

darkness of her mind—the red hair and the keen eyes of Pierre.

 

The storm decreased as they went up the valley. Finally the wind fell

off to a pleasant breeze, and the clouds of the rain broke in the

center of the heavens and toppled west in great tumbling masses. In

half an hour’s time the sky was clear, and a cold moon looked down on

the blue-black evergreens, shining faintly with the wet, and on the

dead black of the mountains.

 

For the first time in all that ride her companion spoke: “In an hour

the gray will begin in the east. Suppose we camp here, eat, get a

bit of sleep, and then start again?”

 

As if she had waited for permission, fighting against her weariness,

she now let down the bars of her will, and a tingling stupor swept

over her body and broke in hot, numbing waves on her brain.

 

“Whatever you say. I’m afraid I couldn’t ride much further tonight.”

 

“Look up at me.”

 

She raised her head.

 

“No; you’re all in. But you’ve made a game ride. I never dreamed there

was so much iron in you. We’ll make our fire just inside the trees and

carry water up from the river, eh?”

 

A scanty growth of the evergreens walked over the hills and skirted

along the valley, leaving a broad, sandy waste in the center where the

river at times swelled with melted snow or sudden rains and rushed

over the lower valley in a broad, muddy flood.

 

At the edge of the forest he picketed the horses in a little open

space carpeted with wet, dead grass. It took him some time to find dry

wood. So he wrapped her in blankets and left her sitting on a saddle.

As the chill left her body she began to grow delightfully drowsy, and

vaguely she heard the crack of his hatchet. He had found a rotten

stump and was tearing off the wet outer bark to get at the dry

wood within.

 

After that it was only a moment before a fire sputtered feebly and

smoked at her feet. She watched it, only half conscious, in her utter

weariness, and seeing dimly the hollow-eyed face of the man who

stopped above the blaze. Now it grew quickly, and increased to a

sharp-pointed pyramid of red flame. The bright sparks showered up,

crackling and snapping, and when she followed their flight she saw the

darkly nodding tops of the evergreens above her. With the fire well

under way, he took the coffeepot to get water from the river, and left

her to fry the bacon. The fumes of the frying meat wakened her at

once, and brushed even the thought of her exhaustion from her mind.

She was hungry—ravenously hungry.

 

So she tended the bacon slices with care until they grew brown and

crisped and curled at the edges. After that she removed the pan from

the fire, and it was not until then that she began to wonder why

Wilbur was so long in returning with the water. The bacon grew cold;

she heated it again and was mightily tempted to taste one piece of it,

but restrained herself to wait for Dick.

 

Still he did not come. She stood up and called, her high voice rising

sharp and small through the trees. It seemed that some sound answered,

so she smiled and sat down. Ten minutes passed and he was still gone.

A cold alarm swept over her at that. She dropped the pan and ran out

from the trees.

 

Everywhere was the bright moonlight—over the wet rocks, and sand, and

glimmering on the slow tide of the river, but nowhere could she see

Wilbur, or a form that looked like a man. Then the moonlight glinted

on something at the edge of the river. She ran to it and found the

coffee-can half in the water and partially filled with sand.

 

A wild temptation to scream came over her, but the tight muscles of

her throat let out no sound. But if Wilbur were not here, where had he

gone? He could not have vanished into thin air. The ripple of the

water washing on the sand replied. Yes, that current might have rolled

his body away.

 

To shut out the grim sight of the river she turned. Stretched across

the ground at her feet she saw clearly the impression of a body in the

moist sand.