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

CHAPTER 38

So Mary, running through the wilderness of boulders, was guided

straight and found Pierre, and before the morning came, they were

journeying east side by side, east and down to the cities and a new

life; but Jacqueline, a thousand times quicker of foot and surer

of eye and ear, missed her goal, went past it, and still on and on,

running finally at a steady trot.

 

Until at last she knew that she had far overstepped her mark and sank

down against one of the rocks to rest and think out what next she must

do. There seemed nothing left. Even the sound of a gun fired she might

not hear, for that sharp call would not travel far against the wind.

 

It was while she sat there, burying Pierre in her thoughts, a white

shape came glimmering down to her through the moonlight. She was on

her feet at once, alert and gun in hand. It could only be one horse,

only one rider, McGurk coming down from his last killing with the

sneer on his pale lips. Well, he would complete his work this night

and kill her fighting face to face.

 

A man’s death; that was all she craved. She rose; she stepped boldly

out into the center of the trail between the rocks.

 

There she saw the greatest wonder she had ever looked on. It was

McGurk walking with bare, bowed head, and after him, like a dog after

the master, followed the white horse. She shoved the revolver back

into the holster. This should be a fair fight.

 

“McGurk!”

 

Very slowly the head went up and back, and there he stood, not ten

paces from her, with the white moon full on his face. The sneer was

still there; the eyelid fluttered in scornful derision. And the heart

of Jacqueline came thundering in her throat.

 

But she cried in a strong voice: “McGurk, d’you know me?”

 

He did not answer.

 

“You murderer, you night rider! Look again: it’s the last of the

Boones!”

 

The sneer, it seemed to her, grew bitterer, but still the man did

not speak. Then the thought of Pierre, lying dead somewhere among the

rocks, burned across her mind. Her hand leaped for the revolver, and

whipped it out in a blinding flash to cover him, but with her finger

curling on the trigger she checked herself in the nick of time. McGurk

had made no move to protect himself.

 

A strange feeling came to her that perhaps the man would not war

against women; the case of Mary was almost proof enough of that. But

as she stepped forward, wondering, she looked at the holster at his

side and saw that it was empty. Then she understood.

 

Understood in a daze that Pierre had met the man and conquered him and

sent him out through the mountains disarmed. The white horse raised

his head and whinnied, and the sound gave a thought to her. She could

not kill this man, unarmed as he was; she could do a more

shameful thing.

 

“The bluff you ran was a strong one, McGurk,” she said bitterly, “and

you had these parts pretty well at a standstill; but Pierre was a bit

too much for you, eh?”

 

The white face had not altered, and still it did not change, but the

sneer was turned steadily on her.

 

She cried: “Go on! Go on down the gorge!”

 

Like an automaton the man stepped forward, and after him paced the

white horse. She stepped between, caught the reins, and swung up to

the saddle, and sat there, controlling between her stirrups the

best-known mount in all the mountain-desert. A thrill of wild

exultation came to her. She cried: “Look back, McGurk! Your gun is

gone, your horse is gone; you’re weaker than a woman in the

mountains!”

 

Yet he went on without turning, not with the hurried step of a coward,

but still as one stunned. Then, sitting quietly in the saddle, she

forgot McGurk and remembered Pierre. He was happy by this time with

the girl of the yellow hair; there was nothing remaining to her from

him except the ominous cross which touched cold against her breast.

That he had abandoned as he had abandoned her.

 

What, then, was left for her? The horse of an outlaw for her to ride;

the heart of an outlaw in her breast.

 

She touched the white horse with the spurs and went at a reckless

gallop, weaving back and forth among the boulders down the forge. For

she was riding away from the past.

 

The dawn came as she trotted out into a widening valley of the Old

Crow. To maintain even that pace she had to use the spurs continually,

for the white horse was deadly weary, and his head fell more and more.

She decided to make a brief halt, at last, and in order to make a fire

that would take the chill of the cold morning from her, she swung up

to the edge of the woods. There, before she could dismount, she saw a

man turn the shoulder of the slope. She drew the horse back deeper

among the trees and waited.

 

He came with a halting step, reeling now and again, a big man,

hatless, coatless, apparently at the last verge of exhaustion. Now his

foot apparently struck a small rock, and he pitched to his face. It

required a long struggle before he could regain his feet; and now he

continued his journey at the same gait, only more uncertainly than

ever, close and closer. There was something familiar now about the

fellow’s size, and something in the turn of his head. Suddenly she

rode out, crying: “Wilbur!”

 

He swerved, saw the white horse, threw up his hands high above his

head, and went backward, reeling, with a hoarse scream which

Jacqueline would never forget. She galloped to him and swung to

the ground.

 

“It’s me—Jack. D’you hear?”

 

He would not lower those arms, and his eyes stared wildly at her. On

his forehead the blood had caked over a cut; his shirt was torn to

rags, and the hair matted over his eyes. She caught his hands and

pulled them down.

 

“It’s not McGurk! Don’t you hear me? It’s Jack!”

 

He reached out, like a blind man who has to see by the sense of touch,

and stroked her face.

 

“Jack!” he whispered at last. “Thank God!”

 

“What’s happened?”

 

“McGurk—”

 

A violent palsy shook him, and he could not go on.

 

“I know—I understand. He took your guns and left you to wander in

this hell! Damn him! I wish—”

 

She stopped.

 

“How long since you’ve eaten?”

 

“Years!”

 

“We’ll eat—McGurk’s food!”

 

But she had to assist him up the slope to the trees, and there she

left him propped against a trunk, his arms fallen weakly at his sides,

while she built the fire and cooked the food. Afterward she could

hardly eat, watching him devour what she placed before him; and it

thrilled all the woman in her to a strange warmth to take care of the

long-rider. Then, except for the disfigured face and the bloodshot

eyes, he was himself.

 

“Up there? What happened?”

 

He pointed up the valley.

 

“The girl and Pierre. They’re together.”

 

“She found him?”

 

“Yes.”

 

He bowed his head and sighed.

 

“And the horse, Jack?” He said it with awe.

 

“I took the horse from McGurk.”

 

“You!”

 

She nodded. After all, it was not a lie. “You killed McGurk?”

 

She said coolly: “I let him go the way he let you, Dick. He’s on foot

in the mountains without a horse or a gun.”

 

“It isn’t possible!”

 

“There’s the horse for proof.”

 

He looked at her as if she were something more than human.

 

“Our Jack—did this?”

 

“We’ve got to start on. Can you walk, Dick?”

 

“A thousand miles now.”

 

Yet he staggered when he tried to rise, and she made him climb up to

the saddle. The white horse walked on, and she kept her place close at

the stirrup of the rider. He would have stopped and dismounted for her

a hundred times, but she made him keep his place.

 

“What’s ahead of us, Jack? We’re the last of the gang?”

 

“The last of Boone’s gang. We are.”

 

“The old life over again?”

 

“What else?”

 

“Yes; what else?”

 

“Are you afraid, Dick?”

 

“Not with you for a pal. Seven was too many; with two we can rule the

range.”

 

“Partners, Dick?”

 

How could he tell that her voice was gone so gentle because she was

seeing in her mind’s eye another face than his? He leaned toward her.

 

“Why not something more than partners, after a while, Jack?”

 

She smiled strangely up to him.

 

“Because of this, Dick.”

 

And fumbling at her throat, she showed him the glittering metal of the

cross.

 

“The cross goes on, but what of you, Jack?” A long silence fell

between them. Words died in the making.

 

The great weight pressing down on that slender throat was like the

iron hand of a giant, but slowly, one by one, the sounds marshalled

themselves:

 

“…God knows…” It was the passing of Judgment. “God knows…not I.”