Riders of the Silences by Max Brand (top 20 books to read .txt) 📕

explain his unusual

conduct.

 

“Ma’am, suppose you had a well plumb full of nitroglycerin in your

back yard; suppose there was a forest fire comin’ your way from all

sides; would you like to have people talk about nitroglycerin and that

forest fire meeting? Even the talk would give you chills. That’s the

way it is with Pierre and McGurk. When they meet there’s going to be a

fight that’ll stop the hearts of the people that have to look on.”

 

Mary smiled to cover her excitement.

 

“But are they coming your way?”

 

The question seemed to infuriate young Jack, who cried: “Ain’t that a

fool way of talkin’? Lady, they’re coming everyone’s way. You never

know where they’ll start from or where they’ll land. If there’s a

thunder-cloud all over the sky, do you know where the lightning’s

going to strike?”

 

“Excuse me,” said Mary, but she was still eager with curiosity, “but I

should think that a youngster like you wouldn’t have anything to fear

from even those desperadoes.”

 

“Youngster, eh?” snarled the boy, whose wrath seemed implacable. “I

can make my draw and start my gun as fast as any man—except them two,

maybe”—he lowered his voice somewhat even to name them—“Pierre—McGurk!”

 

“It seems hopeless to find out anything about McGurk,” said Mary, “but

at least you can tell me safely about Red Pierre.”

 

“Interested in him, eh?” said the boy dryly.

 

“Well, he’s a rather romantic figure, don’t you think?” “Romantic?

Lady, about a month ago I was talking with a lady that was a widow

because of Red Pierre. She didn’t think him none too romantic.”

 

“Red Pierre had killed the woman’s husband?” repeated Mary, with pale

lips.

 

“Yep. He was one of the gang that took a chance with Pierre and got

bumped off. Had three bullets in him and dropped without getting his

gun out of the leather. Pierre sure does a nice, artistic job. He

serves you a murder with all the trimmings. If I wanted to die nice

and polite without making a mess, I don’t know who I’d rather go to

than Red Pierre.”

 

“A murderer!” whispered Mary, with bowed head.

 

The boy opened his lips to speak, but changed his mind and sat

regarding the girl with a somewhat sinister smile.

 

“But might it not be,” said Mary, “that he killed one man in

self-defense and then his destiny drove him, and bad luck forced him

into one bad position after another? There have been histories as

strange as that, you know.”

 

Jack laughed again, but most of the music was gone from the sound, and

it was simply a low, ominous purr.

 

“Sure,” he said. “You can take a bear-cub and keep him tame till he

gets the taste of blood, but after that you got to keep him muzzled,

you know. Pierre needs a muzzle, but there ain’t enough gunfighters on

the range to put one on him.”

 

Something like pride crept into the boy’s voice while he spoke, and he

ended with a ringing tone. Then, feeling the curious, judicial eyes of

Mary upon him, he abruptly changed the subject.

 

“You say Dick Wilbur is dead?”

 

“I don’t know. I think he is.”

 

“But he started out with you. You ought to know.”

 

“It was like this: We had camped on the edge of the trees coming up

the Old Crow Valley, and Dick went off with the can to get water at

the river. He was gone a long time, and when I went out to look for

him I found the can at the margin of the river half filled with sand,

and beside it there was the impression of the body of a big man. That

was all I found, and Dick never came back.”

 

They were both silent for a moment.

 

“Could he have fallen into the river?”

 

“Sure. He was probably helped in. Did you look for the footprints?”

 

“I didn’t think of that.”

 

Jack was speechless with scorn.

 

“Sat down and cried, eh?”

 

“I was dazed; I couldn’t think. But he couldn’t have been killed by

some other man. There was no shot fired; I should have heard it.”

 

Jack moistened his lips.

 

“Lady, a knife don’t make much sound either going or coming out—not

much more sound than a whisper, but that whisper means a lot. I got an

idea that Dick heard it. Then the river covered him up.”

 

He stopped short and stared at Mary with squinted eyes.

 

“D’you mean to tell me that you had the nerve to come all the way up

the Old Crow by yourself?”

 

“Every inch of the way.”

 

Jack leaned forward, sneering, savage.

 

“Then I suppose you put the hitch that’s on that pack outside?”

 

“No.”

 

Jack was dumbfounded.

 

“Then you admit—”

 

“That first night when I went to sleep I felt as if there were

something near me. When I woke up there was a bright fire burning in

front of me and the pack had been lashed and placed on one of the

horses. At first I thought that it was Dick, who had come back. But

Dick didn’t appear all day. The next night—” “Wait!” said Jack.

“This is gettin’ sort of creepy. If you was the drinking kind I’d say

you’d been hitting up the red-eye.”

 

“The next evening,” continued Mary steadily, “I came about dark on a

campfire with a bed of twigs near it. I stayed by the fire, but no

one appeared. Once I thought I heard a horse whinny far away, and once

I thought that I saw a streak of white disappear over the top of

a hill.”

 

The boy sprang up, shuddering with panic.

 

“You saw what?”

 

“Nothing. I thought for a minute that it was a bit of something white,

but it was gone all at once.”

 

“White—vanished at once—went into the dark as fast as a horse can

gallop?”

 

“Something like that. Do you think it was someone?”

 

For answer the boy whipped out his revolver, examined it, and spun the

cylinder with shaking hands. Then he said through set teeth: “So you

come up here trailin’ him after you, eh?”

 

“Who?”

 

“McGurk!”

 

The name came like a rifle shot and Mary rose in turn and shrank back

toward the wall, for there was murder in the lighted black eyes which

stared after her and crumbling fear in her own heart at the thought of

McGurk hovering near—of the peril that impended for Pierre. Of the

nights in the valley of the Crow she refused to let herself think.

Cold beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead.

 

“You fool—you fool! Damn your pretty pink-and-white face—you’ve done

for us all! Get out!”

 

Mary moved readily enough toward the door, her teeth chattering with

terror in the face of this fury.

 

Jack continued wildly: “Done for us all; got us all as good as under

the sod. I wish you was in—Get out quick, or I’ll forget—you’re a

woman!” He broke into hysterical laughter, which stopped short and

finished in a heartbroken whisper: “Pierre!”