Riders of the Silences

The girl tossed up her arms in a silent greeting, and Pierre caught the small cold hands and saw that she was only a child of twelve or fourteen trapped by the wild storm sweeping over them.  He crouched lower still, and when he did so the strength of the wind against his face decreased wonderfully, for the sharp angle of the hill’s declivity protected them.  Seeing him kneel there, she cried out with a little wail:  “Help me—­the tree—­help me!” And, bursting into a passion of sobbing, she tugged her hands from his and covered her face.

Pierre placed his shoulder under the trunk and lifted till the muscles of his back snapped and cracked.  He could not budge the weight; he could not even send a tremor through the mass of wood.  He dropped back beside her with a groan.  He felt her eyes upon him; she had ceased her sobs, and looked steadily into his face.

It would have been easy for him to meet that look on the morning of this day, but after that night’s work in Morgantown he had to brace his nerve to withstand it.

She said:  “You can’t budge the tree?”

“Yes—­in a minute; I will try again.”

“You’ll only hurt yourself for nothing.  I saw how you strained at it.”

The greatest miracle he had ever seen was her calm.  Her eyes were wide and sorrowful indeed, but she was almost smiling up to him.

After a while he was able to say, in a faint voice:  “Are you very cold?”

She answered:  “I’m not afraid.  But if you stay longer with me, you may freeze.  The snow and even the tree help to keep me almost warm; but you will freeze.  Go for help; hurry, and if you can, send it back to me.”

He thought of the long miles back to Morgantown; no human being could walk that distance against this wind; not even a strong horse could make its way through the storm.  If he went on with the wind, how long would it be before he reached a house?  Before him, over range after range of hills, he saw no single sign of a building.  If he reached some such place it would be the same story as the trip to Morgantown; men simply could not beat a way against that wind.

Then a cold hand touched him, and he looked up to find her eyes grave and wide once more, and her lips half smiling, as if she strove to deceive him.

“There’s no chance of bringing help?”

He merely stared hungrily at her, and the loveliest thing he had ever seen was the play of golden hair beside her cheek.  Her smile went out.  She withdrew her hand, but she repeated:  “I’m not afraid.  I’ll simply grow numb and then fall asleep.  But you go on and save yourself.”

Seeing him shake his head, she caught his hands again.

“I’ll be unhappy.  You’ll make me so unhappy if you stay.  Please go.”

He raised the small hand and pressed it to his lips.

She said:  “You are crying!”

“No, no!”

“There!  I see the tears shining on my hand.  What is your name?”

“Pierre.”

“Pierre?  I like that name.  Pierre, to make me happy, will you go?  Your face is all white and touched with a shadow of blue.  It is the cold.  Oh, won’t you go?” Then she pleaded, finding him obdurate:  “If you won’t go for me, then go for your father.”

He raised his head with a sudden laughter, and, raising it, the wind beat into his face fiercely and the particles of snow whipped his skin.

“Dear Pierre, then for your mother?”

He bowed his head.

“Not for all the people who love you and wait for you now by some warm fire—­some cozy fire, all yellow and bright?”

He took her hands and with them covered his eyes.  “Listen:  I have no father; I have no mother.”

“Pierre!  Oh, Pierre, I’m sorry!”

“And for the rest of ’em, I’ve killed a man.  The whole world hates me; the whole world’s hunting me.”

The small hands tugged away.  He dared not raise his bowed head for fear of her eyes.  And then the hands came back to him and touched his face.

She was saying tremulously:  “Then he deserved to be killed.  There must be men like that—­almost.  And I—­like you still, Pierre.”

“Really?”

“I almost think I like you more—­because you could kill a man—­and then stay here for me.”

“If you were a grown-up girl, do you know what I’d say?”

“Please tell me.”

“That I could love you.”

“Pierre—­”

“Yes.”

“My name is Mary Brown.”

He repeated several times:  “Mary.”

“And if I were a grown-up girl, do you know what I would answer?”

“I don’t dare guess it.”

“That I could love you, Pierre, if you were a grown-up man.”

“But I am.”

“Not a really one.”

And they both broke into laughter—­laughter that died out before a sound of rushing and of thunder, as a mass slid swiftly past them, snow and mud and sand and rubble.  The wind fell away from them, and when Pierre looked up he saw that a great mass of tumbled rock and soil loomed above them.

The landslide had not touched them, by some miracle, but in a moment more it might shake loose again, and all that mass of ton upon ton of stone and loam would overwhelm them.  The whole mass quaked and trembled, and the very hillside shuddered beneath them.

She looked up and saw the coming ruin; but her cry was for him, not herself.

“Run, Pierre—­you can save yourself.”

With that terror threatening him from above, he rose and started to run down the hill.  A moan of woe followed him, and he stopped and turned back, and fought his way through the wind until he was beside her once more.

She was weeping.

“Pierre—­I couldn’t help calling out for you; but now I’m strong again, and I won’t have you stay.  The whole mountain is shaking and falling toward us.  Go now, Pierre, and I’ll never make a sound to bring you back.”

He said:  “Hush!  I’ve something here which will keep us both safe. 
Look!”

He tore from the chain the little metal cross, and held it high overhead, glimmering in the pallid light.  She forgot her fear in wonder.

“I gambled with only one coin to lose, and I came out tonight with hundreds and hundreds of dollars because I had the cross.  It is a charm against all danger and against all bad fortune.  It has never failed me.”

Over them the piled mass slid closer.  The forehead of Pierre gleamed with sweat, but a strong purpose made him talk on.  At least he could take all the foreboding of death from the child, and when the end came it would be swift and wipe them both out at one stroke.  She clung to him, eager to believe.

“I’ve closed my eyes so that I can believe.”

“It has never failed me.  It saved me when I fought two men.  One of them I crippled and the other died.  You see, the power of the cross is as great as that.  Do you doubt it now, Mary?”

“Do you believe in it so much—­really—­Pierre?”

Each time there was a little lowering of her voice, a little pause and caress in the tone as she uttered his name, and nothing in all his life had stirred Red Pierre so deeply with happiness and sorrow.

“Do you believe, Pierre?” she repeated.

He looked up and saw the shuddering mass of the landslide creeping upon them inch by inch.  In another moment it would loose itself with a rush and cover them.

“I believe,” he said.

“If you should live, and I should die—­”

“I would throw the cross away.”

“No, you would keep it; and every time you touched it you would think of me, Pierre, would you not?”

“When you reach out to me like that, you take my heart between your hands.”

“And I feel grown up and sad and happy both together.  After we’ve been together on such a night, how can we ever be apart again?”

The mass of the landslide toppled right above them.  She did not seem to see.

“I’m so happy, Pierre.  I was never so happy.”

And he said, with his eyes on the approaching ruin:  “It was your singing that brought me to you.  Will you sing again?”

“I sang because I knew that when I sang the sound would carry farther through the wind than if I called for help.  What shall I sing for you now, Pierre?”

“What you sang when I came to you.”

And the light, sweet voice rose easily through the sweep of the wind.  She smiled as she sang, and the smile and music were all for Pierre, he knew.  Through the last stanza of the song the rumble of the approaching death grew louder, and as she ended he threw himself beside her and gathered her into protecting arms.

She cried:  “Pierre!  What is it?”

“I must keep you warm; the snow will eat away your strength.”

“No; it’s more than that.  Tell me, Pierre!  You don’t trust the power of the cross?”

“Are you afraid?”

“Oh, no; I’m not afraid, Pierre.”

“If one life would be enough, I’d give mine a thousand times.  Mary, we are to die.”

An arm slipped around his neck—­a cold hand pressed against his cheek.

“Pierre.”

“Yes.”

The thunder broke above them with a mighty roaring.

“You have no fear.”

“Mary, if I had died alone I would have dropped down to hell under my sins; but, with your arm around me, you’ll take me with you.  Hold me close.”

“With all my heart, Pierre.  See—­I’m not afraid.  It is like going to sleep.  What wonderful dreams we’ll have!”

And then the black mass of the landslide swept upon them.