Riders of the Silences

CHAPTER 35

Up the same course which Jacqueline followed, Mary Brown had fled earlier that night with the triumphant laughter of Jack still ringing in her ears and following her like a remorseless, pointed hand of shame.

There is no power like shame to disarm the spirit. A dog will fight if a man laughs at him; a coward will challenge the devil himself if he is whipped on by scorn; and this proud girl shrank and moaned on the saddle. She had not progressed far enough to hate Pierre. That would come later, but now all her heart had room for was a consuming loathing of herself.

Some of that torture went into the spurs with which she punished the side of the bay, and the tall horse responded with a high-tossed head and a burst of whirlwind speed. The result was finally a stumble over a loose rock that almost flung Mary over the pommel of the saddle and forced her to draw rein.

Having slowed the pace she became aware that she was very tired from the trip of the day, and utterly exhausted by the wild scene with Jacqueline, so that she began to look about for a place where she could stop for even an hour or so and rest her aching body.

Thought of McGurk sent her hand trembling to her holster. Still she knew she must have little to fear from him. He had been kind to her. Why had this scourge of the mountain-desert spared her? Was it to track down Pierre?

It was at this time that she heard the purl and whisper of running water, a sound dear to the hearts of all travelers. She veered to the left and found the little grove of trees with a thick shrubbery growing between, fed by the water of that diminutive brook. She dismounted and tethered the horses.

By this time she had seen enough of camping out to know how to make herself fairly comfortable, and she set about it methodically, eagerly. It was something to occupy her mind and keep out a little of that burning sense of shame. One picture it could not obliterate, and that was the scene of Jacqueline and Pierre le Rouge laughing together over the love affair with the silly girl of the yellow hair.

That was the meaning, then, of those silences that had come between them? He had been thinking, remembering, careful lest he should forget a single scruple of the whole ludicrous affair. She shuddered, remembering how she had fairly flung herself into his arms.

On that she brooded, after starting the little fire. It was not that she was cold, but the fire, at least, in the heart of the black night, was a friend incapable of human treachery. She had not been there long when the tall bay, Wilbur's horse, stiffened, raised his head, arched his tail, and then whinnied.

She started to her feet, stirred by a thousand fears, and heard, far away, an answering neigh. At once all thought of shame and of Pierre le Rouge vanished from her mind, for she remembered the man who had followed her up the valley of the Old Crow. Perhaps he was coming now out of the night; perhaps she would even see him.

And the excitement grew in her pulse by pulse, as the excitement grows in a man waiting for a friend at a station; he sees first the faint smoke like a cloud on the skyline, and then a black speck beneath the smoke, and next the engine draws up on him with a humming of the rails which grows at length to a thunder.

The heart of Mary Brown beat faster, though she could not see, but only felt the coming of the stranger.

The only sign she saw was in the horses, which showed an increasing uneasiness. Her own mare now shared the restlessness of the tall bay, and the two were footing it nervously here and there, tugging at the tethers, and tossing up their heads, with many a start, as if they feared and sought to flee from some approaching catastrophe—some vast and preternatural change—some forest fire which came galloping faster than even their fleet limbs could carry them.

Yet all beyond the pale of her camp-fire's light was silence, utter and complete silence. It seemed as if a muscular energy went into the intensity of her listening, but not a sound reached her except a faint whispering of the wind in the dark trees above her.

But at last she knew that the thing was upon her. The horses ceased their prancing and stared in a fixed direction through the thicket of shrubbery; the very wind grew hushed above her; she could feel the new presence as one feels the silence when a door closes and shuts away the sound of the street below.

It came on her with a shock, thrilling, terrible, yet not altogether unpleasant. She rose, her hands clenched at her sides and her eyes abnormally wide as they stared in the same direction as the eyes of the two horses held. Yet for all her preparation she nearly fainted when a voice sounded directly behind her, a pleasantly modulated voice: “Look this way. I am here, in front of the fire.”

She turned about and the two horses, quivering, whirled toward that sound.

She stepped back, back until the embers of the fire lay between her and that side of the little clearing. In spite of herself the exclamation escaped her—“McGurk!”

The voice spoke again: “Do not be afraid. You are safe, absolutely.”

“What are you?” “Your friend.”

“Is it you who followed me up the valley?”

“Yes.”

“Come into the light. I must see you.” A faint laughter reached her from the dark.

“I cannot let you do that. If that had been possible I should have come to you before.”

“But I feel—I feel almost as if you are a ghost and no man of flesh and blood.”

“It is better for you to feel that way about it,” said the voice solemnly, “than to know me.”

“At least, tell me why you have followed me, why you have cared for me.”

“You will hate me if I tell you, and fear me.”

“No, whatever you are, trust me. Tell me at least what came to Dick Wilbur?”

“That's easy enough. I met him at the river, a little by surprise, and caught him before he could even shout. Then I took his guns and let him go.”

“But he didn't come back to me?”

“No. He knew that I would be there. I might have finished him without giving him a chance to speak, girl, but I'd seen him with you and I was curious. So I found out where you were going and why, and let Wilbur go. I came back and looked at you and found you asleep.”

She grew cold at the thought of him leaning over her.

“I watched you a long time, and I suppose I'll remember you always as I saw you then. You were very beautiful with the shadow of your lashes against your cheek—almost as beautiful as you are now as you stand over there, fearing and loathing me. I dared not let you see me, but I decided to take care of you—for a while.”

“And now?”

“I have come to say farewell to you.”

“Let me see you once before you go.”

“No! You see, I fear you even more than you fear me.” “Then I'll follow you.”

“It would be useless—utterly useless. There are ways of becoming invisible in the mountains. But before I go, tell me one thing: Have you left the cabin to search for Pierre le Rouge in another place?”

“No. I do not search for him.”

There was an instant of pause. Then the voice said sharply: “Did Wilbur lie to me?”

“No. I started up the valley to find him.”

“But you've given him up?”

“I hate him—I hate him as much as I loathe myself for ever condescending to follow him.”

She heard a quick breath drawn in the dark, and then a murmur: “I am free, then, to hunt him down!”

“Why?”

“Listen: I had given him up for your sake; I gave him up when I stood beside you that first night and watched you trembling with the cold in your sleep. It was a weak thing for me to do, but since I saw you, Mary, I am not as strong as I once was.”

“Now you go back on his trail? It is death for Pierre?”

“You say you hate him?”

“Ah, but as deeply as that?” she questioned herself.

“It may not be death for Pierre. I have ridden the ranges many years and met them all in time, but never one like him. Listen: six years ago I met him first and then he wounded me—the first time any man has touched me. And afterward I was afraid, Mary, for the first time in my life, for the charm was broken. For six years I could not return, but now I am at his heels. Six are gone; he will be the last to go.”

“What are you?” she cried. “Some bloodhound reincarnated?”

He said: “That is the mildest name I have ever been called.”