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

hot in the face, pocketed his

winnings and belted on the gun. It hung low on his thigh, just in easy

gripping distance of his hand, and he fingered the butt with a smile.

 

“The kid’s feelin’ most a man,” remarked a sarcastic voice. “Say, kid,

why don’t you try your luck with Mac Hurley? He’s almost through with

poor old Cochrane.”

 

Following the direction of the pointing finger, Pierre saw one of

those mute tragedies of the gambling hall. Cochrane, an old cattleman

whose carefully trimmed, pointed white beard and slender, tapering

fingers set him apart from the others in the room, was rather far gone

with liquor. He was still stiffly erect in his chair, and would be

till the very moment consciousness left him, but his eyes were misty,

and when he spoke his lips moved slowly, as though numbed by cold.

 

Beside him stood a tall, black bottle with a little whisky glass to

flank it. He made his bets with apparent carelessness, but with a real

and deepening gloom. Once or twice he glanced up sharply as though

reckoning his losses, though it seemed to Pierre le Rouge almost like

an appeal.

 

And what appeal could affect Mac Hurley? There was no color in the

man, either body or soul. No emotion could show in those pale, small

eyes or change the color of the flabby cheeks. If his hands had been

cut off, he might have seemed some sodden victim of a drug habit, but

the hands saved him.

 

They seemed to belong to another body—beautiful, swift, and strong,

and grafted by some foul mischance onto this rotten hulk. Very white

they were, and long, with a nervous uneasiness in every motion,

continually hovering around the cards with little touches which were

almost caresses.

 

“It ain’t a game,” said the man who had first pointed out the group to

Pierre, “it’s just a slaughter. Cochrane’s too far gone to see

straight. Look at that deal now! A kid could see that he’s crooking

the cards!”

 

It was blackjack, and Hurley, as usual, was dealing. He dealt with one

hand, flipping the cards out with a snap of the wrist, the fingers

working rapidly over the pack. Now and then he glanced over to the

crowd, as if to enjoy their admiration of his skill. He was showing it

now, not so much by the deftness of his cheating as by the openness

with which he exposed his tricks.

 

As the stranger remarked to Pierre, a child could have discovered that

the cards were being dealt at will from the top and the bottom of the

pack, but the gambler was enjoying himself by keeping his game just

open enough to be apparent to every other man in the room—just covert

enough to deceive the drink-misted brain of Cochrane. And the pale,

swinish eyes twinkled as they stared across the dull sorrow of the old

man. There was an ominous sound from Pierre: “Do you let a thing like

that happen in this country?” he asked fiercely.

 

The other turned to him with a sneer.

 

“Let it happen? Who’ll stop him? Say, partner, you ain’t meanin’ to

say that you don’t know who Hurley is?”

 

“I don’t need telling. I can see.”

 

“What you can’t see means a lot more than what you can. I’ve been in

the same room when Hurley worked his gun once. It wasn’t any killin’,

but it was the prettiest bit of cheatin’ I ever seen. But even if

Hurley wasn’t enough, what about Carl Diaz?”

 

He glared his triumph at Pierre, but the latter was too puzzled to

quail, and too stirred by the pale, gloomy face of Cochrane to turn

toward the other.

 

“What of Diaz?”

 

“Look here, boy. You’re a kid, all right, but you ain’t that young.

D’you mean to say that you ain’t heard of Carlos Diaz?”

 

It came back to Pierre then, for even into the snowbound seclusion of

the north country the shadow of the name of Diaz had gone. He could

not remember just what they were, but he seemed to recollect grim

tales through which that name figured.

 

The other went on: “But if you ain’t ever seen him before, look him

over now. They’s some says he’s faster on the draw than Bob McGurk,

but, of course, that’s stretchin’ him out a size too much. What’s the

matter, kid; you’ve met McGurk?”

 

“No, but I’m going to.”

 

“Might even be carried to him, eh—feet first?”

 

Pierre turned and laid a hand on the shoulder of the other.

 

“Don’t talk like that,” he said gently. “I don’t like it.”

 

The other reached up to snatch the hand from his shoulder, but he

stayed his arm.

 

He said after an uncomfortable moment of that silent staring: “Well,

partner, there ain’t a hell of a lot to get sore over, is there? You

don’t figure you’re a mate for McGurk, do you?”

 

He seemed oddly relieved when the eyes of Pierre moved away from him

and returned to the figure of Carlos Diaz. The Mexican was a perfect

model for a painting of a melodramatic villain. He had waxed and

twirled the end of his black mustache so that it thrust out a little

spur on either side of his long face. His habitual expression was a

scowl; his habitual position was with a cigarette in the fingers of

his left hand, and his right hand resting on his hip. He sat in a

chair directly behind that of Hurley, and Pierre’s new-found

acquaintance explained: “He’s the bodyguard for Hurley. Maybe there’s

some who could down Hurley in a straight gunfight; maybe there’s one

or two like McGurk that could down Diaz—damn his yellow hide—but

there ain’t no one can buck the two of ‘em. It ain’t in reason. So

they play the game together. Hurley works the cards and Diaz covers up

the retreat. Can’t beat that, can you?”

 

Pierre le Rouge slipped his left hand once more inside his shirt until

the fingers touched the cross.

 

“Nevertheless, that game has to stop.”

 

“Who’ll—say, kid, are you stringin’ me, or are you drunk? Look me in

the eye!”