Riders of the Silences by Max Brand (top 20 books to read .txt) 📕
"And if I done wrong then, I've got my share of hell-fire for it. Here I lie, with my boys, Bill and Bert, sitting around in the corner of the room waiting for me to go out. They ain't men, Pierre. They're wolves in the skins of men. They're the right sons of their mother. When I go out they'll grab the coin I've saved up, and leave me to lie here and rot, maybe.
"Lad, it's a fearful thing to die without having no one around that cares, and to know that even after I've gone out I'm going to lie here and have my dead eyes looking up at the ceiling. So I'm writing to you, Pierre, part to tell you what you ought to know; part because I got a sort of crazy idea that maybe you could get down here to me before I go out.
"You don't owe me nothing but hard words, Pierre; but if you don't try to come to me, the ghost of your mother will follow you all your life, lad, and you'll be seeing her blue eyes and the red-gold of her hair in the dark of the night as I see it now. Me, I
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till one of ‘em is dead, and then the rest will take sides and we’ll
have gunplays at night. Seven years, and then to break up!”
Dick Wilbur, as usual, was the pacifier. He strode across the room,
and the sharp sound of his heels on the creaking floor broke the
tension. He said softly to Pierre: “You’ve raised hell enough. Now
let’s go and get Jack down here to undo what you’ve just finished.
Besides, you’ve got to ask her for that dance, eh?”
The glance of Pierre still lingered on Gandil as he turned and
followed Wilbur up the complaining stairs to the one habitable room in
the second story of the house. It was set aside for the use of
Jacqueline.
At the door Wilbur said: “Shrug your shoulders back; you look as if
you were going to jump at something. And wipe the wolf look off your
face. After all, Jack’s a girl, not a gunfighter.”
Then he knocked and opened the door.
She lay face down on her bunk, her head turned from them toward the
wall. Slender and supple and strong, it was still only the size of her
boots and her hands that would make one look at her twice and then
guess that this was a woman, for she was dressed, from trousers even
to the bright bandanna knotted around her throat, like any prosperous
range rider.
Now, to be sure, the thick coils of black hair told her sex, but when
the broad-brimmed sombrero was pulled well down on her head, when the
cartridge-belt and the six-gun were slung about her waist, and most of
all when she spurred her mount recklessly across the hills no one
could have suspected that this was not some graceful boy born and bred
in the mountain-desert, willful as a young mountain lion, and as
dangerous.
“Sleepy?” called Wilbur.
She waited a moment and then queried with exaggerated impudence:
“Well?”
Ennui unspeakable was in that drawling monotone.
“Brace up; I’ve got news for you. And I’ve brought Pierre along to
tell you about it.”
“Oh!”
And she sat bolt upright with shining eyes. Instantly she remembered
to yawn again, but her glance smiled on them above her hand.
She apologized. “Awfully sleepy, Dick.”
But he was not deceived. He said: “There’s a dance down near the
Barnes place, and Pierre wants you to go with him.”
“Pierre! A dance?”
He explained: “Dick’s lost his head over a girl with yellow hair, and
he wants me to go down and see her. He thought you might want to go
along.” Her face changed like the moon when a cloud blows across it.
She answered with another slow, insolent yawn: “Thanks! I’m staying
home tonight.”
Wilbur glared his rage covertly at Pierre, but the latter was blandly
unconscious that he had made any faux pas.
He said carelessly: “Too bad. It might be interesting. Jack?”
At his voice she looked up—a sharp and graceful toss of her head.
“What?”
“The girl with the yellow hair.”
“Then go ahead and see her. I won’t keep you. You don’t mind if I go
on sleeping? Sit down and be at home.”
With this she calmly turned her back again and seemed thoroughly
disposed to carry out her word.
Red Pierre flushed a little, watching her, and he spoke his anger
outright: “You’re acting like a sulky kid, Jack, not like a man.”
It was a habit of his to forget that she was a woman. Without turning
her head she answered: “Do you want to know why?”
“You’re like a cat showing your claws. Go on! Tell me what the reason
is.”
“Because I get tired of you.”
In all his life he had never been so scorned. He did not see the
covert grin of Wilbur in the background. He blurted: “Tired?”
“Awfully. You don’t mind me being frank, do you, Pierre?”
He could only stammer: “Sometimes I wish to God you were a man,
Jack!”
“You don’t often remember that I’m a woman.”
“Do you mean that I’m rude or rough with you, Jacqueline?” Still the
silence, but Wilbur was grinning broader than ever. “Answer me!”
She started up and faced him, her face convulsed with rage.
“What do you want me to say? Yes, you are rude—I hate you and your
lot. Go away from me; I don’t want you; I hate you all.”
And she would have said more, but furious sobs swelled her throat and
she could not speak, but dropped, face down, on the bunk and gripped
the blankets in each hardset hand. Over her Pierre leaned, utterly
bewildered, found nothing that he could say, and then turned and
strode, frowning, from the room. Wilbur hastened after him and caught
him just as the door was closing.
“Come back,” he pleaded. “This is the best game I’ve ever seen. Come
back, Pierre! You’ve made a wonderful start.”
Pierre le Rouge shook off the detaining hand and glared up at Wilbur.
“Don’t try irony, Dick. I feel like murder. Think of it! All this time
she’s been hating me; and now it’s making her weep; think of
it—Jack—weeping!”
“Why, you’re a child, Pierre. She’s in love with you.”
“With me?”
“With Red Pierre.”
“You can’t make a joke out of Jack with me. You ought to know that.”
“Pierre, I’d as soon make a joke out of a wildcat.”
“Grinning still? Wilbur, I’m taking more from you than I would from
any man on the ranges.”
“I know you are, and that’s why I’m stringing this out because I’m
going to have a laugh—ha, ha, ha!—the rest of my life—ha, ha, ha,
ha!—whenever I think of this!”
The burst of merriment left him speechless, and Pierre, glowering,
his right hand twitching dangerously close to that holster at his hip.
He sobered, and said: “Go in and talk to her and prove that
I’m right.”
“Ask Jack if she loves me? Why, I’d as soon ask any man the same
question.”
The big long-rider was instantly curious.
“Has she never appealed to you as a woman, Pierre?”
“How could she? I’ve watched her ride; I’ve watched her use her gun;
I’ve slept rolled in the same blankets with her, back to back; I’ve
walked and talked and traveled with her as if she were my
kid brother.”
Wilbur nodded, as if the miracle were being slowly unfolded before his
eyes.
“And you’ve never noticed anything different about her? Never watched
a little lift and grace in her walk that no man could ever have; never
seen her color change just because you, Pierre, came near or went far
away from her?”
“Because of me?” asked the bewildered Pierre.
“You fool, you! Why, lad, I’ve been kept amused by you two for a whole
evening, watching her play for your attention, saving her best smiles
for you, keeping her best attitudes for you, and letting all the
richness of her voice go out for—a block—a stone. Gad, the thing
still doesn’t seem possible! Pierre, one instant of that girl would
give romance to a man’s whole life.”
“This girl? This Jack of ours?”
“He hasn’t seen it! Why, if I hadn’t seen years ago that she had tied
her hands and turned her heart over to you, I’d have been begging her
for a smile, a shadow of a hope.”
“If I didn’t know you, Dick, I’d say that you were partly drunk and
partly a fool.”
“Here’s a hundred—a cold hundred that I’m right. I’ll make it a
thousand, if you dare.”
“Dare what?”
“Ask her to marry you.” “Marry—me?”
“Damn it all—well, then—whatever you like. But I say that if you go
back into that room and sit still and merely look at her, she’ll be in
your arms within five minutes.”
“I hate to take charity, but a bet is a bet. That hundred is in my
pocket already. It’s a go!”
They shook hands.
“But what will be your proof, Dick, whether I win or lose?”
“Your face, blockhead, when you come out of the room.”
Upon this Pierre pondered a moment, and then turned toward the door.
He set his hand on the knob, faltered, and finally set his teeth and
entered the room.
She lay as he had left her, except that her face was now pillowed in
her arms, and the long sobs kept her body quivering. Curiosity swept
over Pierre, looking down at her, but chiefly a puzzled grief such as
a man feels when a friend is in trouble. He came closer and laid a
hand on her shoulder.
“Jack!”
She turned far enough to strike his hand away and instantly resumed
her former position, though the sobs were softer. This childish anger
irritated him. He was about to storm out of the room when the thought
of the hundred dollars stopped him. The bet had been made, and it
seemed unsportsmanlike to leave without some effort.
The effort which he finally made was that suggested by Wilbur. He
folded his arms and stood silent, waiting, and ready to judge the time
as nearly as he could until the five minutes should have elapsed. He
was so busy computing the minutes that it was with a start that he
noticed some time later that the weeping had ceased. She lay quiet.
Her hand was dabbing furtively at her face for a purpose which Pierre
could not surmise.
At last a broken voice murmured: “Pierre!”
He would not speak, but something in the voice made his anger go.
After a little it came, and louder this time: “Pierre?”
He did not stir.
She whirled and sat on the edge of the bunk, crying: “Pierre!” with a
note of fright.
Still he persisted in that silence, his arms folded, the keen blue
eyes considering her as if from a great distance.
She explained: “I was afraid—Pierre! Why don’t you speak? Tell me,
are you angry?”
And she sprang up and made a pace toward him. She had never seemed so
little manlike, so wholly womanly. And the hand which stretched toward
him, palm up, was a symbol of everything new and strange that he
found in her.
He had seen it balled to a small, angry fist, brown and dangerous; he
had seen it gripping the butt of a revolver, ready for the draw; he
had seen it tugging at the reins and holding a racing horse in check
with an ease which a man would envy; but never before had he seen it
turned palm up, to his knowledge; and now, because he could not speak
to her, according to his plan, he studied her thoroughly for the
first time.
Slender and marvelously made was that hand. The whole woman was in
it, made for beauty, not for use. It was all he could do to keep from
exclaiming.
She made a quick step toward him, eager, uncertain: “Pierre, I thought
you had left me—that you were gone, and angry.”
Something caught on fire in Pierre, but still he would say nothing. He
was beginning to feel a cruel pleasure in his victory, but it was not
without a deep sense of danger.
She had laid aside her six-gun, but she had not abandoned it. She had
laid aside her anger, but she could resume it again as swiftly as she
could take
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