Riders of the Silences by Max Brand (top 20 books to read .txt) đź“•
"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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She cried with a little burst of rage: “Pierre, you are making a game
of me!”
But seeing that he did not change she altered swiftly and caught his
hand in both of hers. She spoke the name which she always used when
she was greatly moved.
“Ah, Pierre le Rouge, what have I done?”
His silence tempted her on like the smile of the sphinx.
And suddenly she was inside his arms, though how she separated them he
could not tell, and crying: “Pierre, I am unhappy. Help me, Pierre!”
It was true, then, and Wilbur had won his bet. But how could it have
happened? He took the arms that encircled his neck and brought them
slowly down, and watched her curiously. Something was expected of him,
but what it was he could not tell, for women were as strange to him as
the wild sea is strange to the Arab.
He hunted his mind, and then: “One of the boys has angered you, Jack?”
And she said, because she could think of no way to cover the confusion
which came to her after the outbreak: “Yes.”
He dropped her arms and strode a pace or two up and down the room.
“Gandil?”
“N-no!” “You’re lying. It was Gandil.”
And he made straight for the door.
She ran after him and flung herself between him and the door. Clearly,
as if it were a painted picture, she saw him facing Gandil—saw their
hands leap for the guns—saw Gandil pitch face forward on the floor.
“Pierre—for God’s sake!”
Her terror convinced him partially, and the furor went back from his
eyes as a light goes back in a long, dark hall.
“On your honor, Jack, it’s not Gandil?”
“On my honor.”
“But someone has broken you up. And he’s here—he’s one of us, this
man who’s bothered you.”
She could not help but answer: “Yes.”
He scowled down at the floor.
“You would never be able to guess who it is. Give it up. After all—I
can live through it—I guess.”
He took her face between his hands and frowned down into her eyes.
“Tell me his name, Jack, and the dog—”
She said: “Let me go. Take your hands away, Pierre.”
He obeyed her, deeply worried, and she stood up for a moment with a
hand pressed over her eyes, swaying. He had never seen her like this;
he was like a pilot striving to steer his ship through an unfathomable
fog. Following what had become an instinct with him, he raised his
left hand and touched the cross beneath his throat. And inspiration
came to him.
“Whether you want to or not, Jack, we’ll go to this dance tonight.”
Jacqueline’s hand fell away from her eyes. She seemed suddenly glad
again.
“Do you want to take me, Pierre?”
He explained: “Of course. Besides, we have to keep an eye on Wilbur.
This girl with the yellow hair—”
She had altered swiftly again. There was no understanding her or
following her moods this day. He decided to disregard them, as he had
often done before.
“Black Gandil swears that I’m bringing bad luck to the boys at last.
Patterson has disappeared; Wilbur has lost his head about a girl.
We’ve got to save Dick.”
He knew that she was fond of Wilbur, but she showed no enthusiasm now.
“Let him go his own way. He’s big enough to take care of himself.”
“But it’s common talk, Jack, that the end of Wilbur will come through
a woman. It was that that sent him on the long trail, you know. And
this girl with the yellow hair—”
“Why do you harp on her?”
“Harp on her?”
“Every other word—nothing but yellow hair. I’m sick of it. I know the
kind—faded corn color—dyed, probably. Pierre, you are all blind, and
you most of all.”
This being obviously childish, Pierre brushed the consideration of it
from his mind. “And for clothes, Jack?”
They were both dumb. It had been years since she had worn the clothes
of a woman. She had danced with the men of her father’s gang many a
time while someone whistled or played on a mouth-organ, and there was
the time they rode into Beulah Ferry and held up the dance hall, and
Jim Boone and Mansie lined up the crowd with their hands held high
above their heads while the sweating musicians played fast and furious
and Jack and Pierre danced down the center of the hall.
She had danced many a time, but never in the clothes of a woman; so
they stared, mutely puzzled.
A though came first to Jacqueline. She stepped close and murmured her
suggestion in the ear of Pierre. Whatever it was, it made his jaw set
hard and brought grave lines into his face.
She stepped back, asking: “Well?”
“We’ll do it. What a little demon you are, Jack!”
“Then we’ll have to start now. There’s barely time.”
They ran from the room together, and as they passed through the room
below Wilbur called after them: “The dance?”
“Yes.”
“Wait and go with me.”
“We ride in a roundabout way.”
They were through the door as Pierre called back, and a moment later
the hoofs of their horses scattered the gravel down the hillside.
Jacqueline rode a black stallion sired by her father’s mighty Thunder,
who had grown old but still could do the work of three ordinary horses
in carrying the great bulk of his master. The son of Thunder was
little like his sire, but a slender-limbed racer, graceful, nervous,
eager. A clumsy rider would have ruined the horse in a single day’s
hard work among the trails of the mountain-desert, but Jacqueline,
fairly reading the mind of the black, nursed his strength when it was
needed and let him run free and swift when the ground before him
was level.
Now she picked her course dexterously down the hillside with the
cream-colored mare of Pierre following half a length behind.
After the first down-pitch of ground was covered they passed into
difficult terrain, and for half an hour went at a jog trot, winging in
and out among the rocks, climbing steadily up and up through
the hills.
Here the ground opened up again, and they roved on at a free gallop,
the black always half a length in front. Along the ridge of a crest,
an almost level stretch of a mile or more, Jack eased the grip on the
reins, and the black responded with a sudden lengthening of stride and
lowered his head with ears pressed back flat while he fairly flew over
the ground.
Nothing could match that speed. The strong mare fell to the rear,
fighting gamely, but beaten by that effort of the stallion.
Jack swerved in the saddle and looked back, laughing her triumph.
Pierre smiled grimly in response and leaned forward, shifting his
weight more over the withers of Mary. He spoke to her, and one of her
pricking ears fell back as if to listen to his voice. He spoke again
and the other ear fell back, her neck straightened, she gave her whole
heart to her work.
First she held the stallion even, then she began to gain. That was the
meaning of those round, strong hips, and the breadth of the chest. She
needed a half-mile of running to warm her to her work, and now the
black came back to her with every leap.
The thunder of the approaching hoofs warned the girl. One more glance
she cast in apprehension over her shoulder, and then brought her spurs
into play again and again. Still the rush of hoofs behind her grew
louder and louder, and now there was a panting at her side and the
head of cream-colored Mary drew up and past.
She gave up the battle with a little shout of anger and slowed up her
mount with a sharp pull on the reins. It needed only a word from
Pierre and his mare drew down to a hand-gallop, twisting her head a
little toward the black as if she called for some recognition of her
superiority.
“It’s always this way,” cried Jack, and jerked at the reins with a
childish impotence of anger. “I beat you for the first quarter of a
mile and then this fool of a horse—I’m going to give him away.”
“The black,” said Pierre, assuming an air of quiet and superior
knowing which always aggravated her most, “is a good second-rate
cayuse when someone who knows horses is in the saddle. I’d give you
fifty for him on the strength of his looks and keep him for a
decoration.”
She could only glare her speechless rage for a moment. Then she
changed swiftly and threw out her hands in a little gesture of
surrender.
“After all, what difference does it make? Your Mary can beat him in a
long run or a short one, but it’s your horse, Pierre, and that takes
the sting away. If it were anyone else’s I’d—well, I’d shoot either
the horse or the rider. But my partner’s horse is my horse, you know.”
He swerved his mare sharply to the left and took her hand with a
strong grip.
“Jack, of all the men I’ve ever known, I’d rather ride with you, I’d
rather fight for you.”
“Of all the men you ever knew,” she said, “I suppose that I am.”
He did not hear the low voice, for he was looking out over the canyon.
A few moments later they swung out onto the very crest of the range.
On all sides the hills dropped away through the gloom of the evening,
brown nearby, but falling off through a faint blue haze and growing
blue-black with the distance. A sharp wind, chill with the coming of
night, cut at them. Not a hundred feet overhead shot a low-winging
hawk back from his day’s hunting and rising only high enough to clear
the range and then plunge down toward his nest.
Like the hawks they peered down from their point of vantage into the
profound gloom of the valley below. They shaded their eyes and studied
it with a singular interest for long moments, patient, as the hawk.
So these two marauders stared until she raised a hand slowly and then
pointed down. He followed the direction she indicated, and there,
through the haze of the evening, he made out a glimmer of lights.
He said sharply: “I know the place, but we’ll have a devil of a ride
to get there.”
And like the swooping hawk they started down the slope. It was
precipitous in many places, but Pierre kept almost at a gallop, making
the mare take the slopes often crouched back on her haunches with
forefeet braced forward, and sliding many yards at a time.
In between the boulders he darted, twisting here and there, and always
erect and jaunty in the saddle, swaying easily with every movement of
the mare. Not far behind him came the girl. Fine rider that she was,
she could not hope to compete with such matchless horsemanship where
man and horse were only one piece of strong brawn and muscle, one
daring spirit. Many a time the chances seemed too desperate to her,
but she followed blindly where he led, setting her teeth at each
succeeding venture, and coming out safe every time, until they swung
out at last through a screen of brush and onto
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