Riders of the Silences

It came back to her like a threat; it beat at her ears and roused her, that continually diminishing cry:  “McGurk!” It went down the valley, and Mary Brown, and McGurk with her, perhaps, had gone up the gorge, but it would be a matter of a short time before Pierre le Rouge discovered that there was no camp-fire to be sighted in the lower valley and whirled to storm back up the canyon with that battle-cry:  “McGurk!” still on his lips.

And if the two met she knew the result.  Seven strong men had ridden together, fought together, and one by one they had fallen, disappeared like the white smoke of the camp-fire, jerked off into thin air by the wind, until only one remained.

How clearly she could see them all!  Bud Mansie, meager, lean, with a shifting eye; Garry Patterson, of the red, good-natured face; Phil Branch, stolid and short and muscled like a giant; Handsome Dick Wilbur on his racing bay; Black Gandil, with his villainies from the South Seas like an invisible mantle of awe about him; and her father, the stalwart, gray Boone.

All these had gone, and there remained only Pierre le Rouge to follow in the steps of the six who had gone before.

She crawled to the door, feeble in mind and shuddering of body like a runner who has spent his last energy in a long race, and drew it open.  The wind blew up the valley from the Old Crow, but no sound came back to her, no calling from Pierre; and over her rose the black pyramid of the western peak of the Twin Bears like a monstrous nose pointing stiffly toward the stars.

She closed the door, dragged herself back to her feet, and stood with her shoulders leaning against the wall.  Her weakness was not weariness—­it was as if something had been taken from her.  She wondered at herself somewhat vaguely.  Surely she had never been like this before, with the singular coldness about her heart and the feeling of loss, of infinite loss.

What had she lost?  She began to search her mind for an answer.  Then she smiled uncertainly, a wan, small smile.  It was very clear; what she had lost was all interest in life and all hope for the brave tomorrow.  Nothing remained of all those lovely dreams which she had built up by day and night about the figure of Pierre le Rouge.  He was gone, and the bright-colored bubble she had blown vanished at once.

She felt a slight pain at her forehead and then remembered the cross which Pierre had thrown into her face.  Casting that away he had thrown his faintest chance of victory with it; it would be a slaughter, not a battle, and red-handed McGurk would leave one more foe behind him.

But looking down she found the cross and picked up the shining bit of metal; it seemed as if she held the greater part of Pierre le Rouge in her hands.  She raised the cross to her lips.

When she fastened the cross about her throat it was with no exultation, but like one who places over his heart a last memorial of the dead; a consecration, like the red sign or the white which the crusaders wore on the covers of their shields.

Then she took from her breast the spray of autumn leaves.  He had not noticed them, yet perhaps they had helped to make him happy when he came into the cabin that night, so she placed the spray on the table.  Next she unpinned the great rubies from her throat and let her eye linger over them for a moment.  They were chosen stones, a lure and a challenge at once.

The first thought of what she must do came to Jacqueline then, but not in an overwhelming tide—­it was rather a small voice that whispered in her heart.

Last, she took from her bosom the glove of the yellow-haired girl.  Compared with her stanch riding gloves, how small was this!  Yet, when she tried it, it slipped easily on her hand.  This she laid in that little pile, for these were the things which Pierre would wish to find if by some miracle he came back from the battle.  The spray, perhaps, he would not understand; and yet he might.  She pressed both hands to her breast and drew a long breath, for her heart was breaking.  Through her misted eyes she could barely see the shimmer of the cross.

She dropped to her knees, and twisted her hands together in agony.  It was prayer.  There were no words to it, but it was prayer, a wild appeal for aid.

That aid came in the form of a calm that swept on her like the flood of a clear moonlight over a storm-beaten landscape.  The whisper which had come to her before was now a solemn-speaking voice, and she knew what she must do.  She could not keep the two men apart, but she might reach McGurk before and strike him down by stealth, by craft, any way to kill that man as terrible as a devil, as invulnerable as a ghost.

This she might do in the heart of the night, and afterward she might have the courage left to tell the girl the truth and then creep off somewhere and let this steady pain burn its way out of her heart.

Once she had reached a decision, it was characteristic that she moved swiftly.  Also, there was cause for haste, for by this time Pierre must have discovered that there was no one in the lower reaches of the gorge and would be galloping back with all the speed of the cream-colored mare which even McGurk’s white horse could not match.

She ran from the cabin and into the little lean-to behind it where the horses were tethered.  There she swung her saddle with expert hands, whipped up the cinch, and pulled it with the strength of a man, mounted, and was off up the gorge.

For the first few minutes she let the long-limbed black race on at full speed, a breathless course, because the beat of the wind in her face raised her courage, gave her a certain impulse which was almost happiness, just as the martyrs rejoiced and held out their hands to the fire that was to consume them; but after the first burst of headlong galloping, she drew down the speed to a hand-canter, and this in turn to a fast trot, for she dared not risk the far-echoed sound of the clattering hoofs over the rock.

And as she rode she saw at last the winking eye of red which she longed for and dreaded.  She pulled her black to an instant halt and swung from the saddle, tossing the reins over the head of the horse to keep him standing there.

Yet, after she had made half a dozen hurried paces something forced her to turn and look again at the handsome head of the horse.  He stood quite motionless, with his ears pricking after her, and now as she stopped he whinnied softly, hardly louder than the whisper of a man.  So she ran back again and threw the reins over the horn of the saddle; he should be free to wander where he chose through the free mountains, but as for her, she knew very certainly now that she would never mount that saddle again, or control that triumphant steed with the touch of her hands on the reins.  She put her arms around his neck and drew his head down close.

There was a dignity in that parting, for it was the burning of her bridges behind her.  She drew back, the horse followed her a pace, but she raised a silent hand in the night and halted him; a moment later she was lost among the boulders.

It was rather slow work to stalk that camp-fire, for the big boulders cut off the sight of the red eye time and again, and she had to make little, cautious detours before she found it again, but she kept steadily at her work.  Once she stopped, her blood running cold, for she thought that she heard a faint voice blown up the canyon on the wind:  “McGurk!”

For half a minute she stood frozen, listening, but the sound was not repeated, and she went on again with greater haste.  So she came at last in view of a hollow in the side of the gorge.  Here there were a few trees, growing in the cove, and here, she knew, there was a small spring of clear water.  Many a time she had made a cup of her hands and drunk here.

Now she made out the fire clearly, the trees throwing out great spokes of shadow on all sides, spokes of shadows that wavered and shook with the flare of the small fire beyond them.  She dropped to her hands and knees and, parting the dense underbrush, began the last stealthy approach.