Riders of the Silences - Max Brand (best ereader for manga TXT) 📗

good days are over. They’ll never rest

till one of ‘em is dead, and then the rest will take sides and we’ll

have gunplays at night. Seven years, and then to break up!”

 

Dick Wilbur, as usual, was the pacifier. He strode across the room,

and the sharp sound of his heels on the creaking floor broke the

tension. He said softly to Pierre: “You’ve raised hell enough. Now

let’s go and get Jack down here to undo what you’ve just finished.

Besides, you’ve got to ask her for that dance, eh?”

 

The glance of Pierre still lingered on Gandil as he turned and

followed Wilbur up the complaining stairs to the one habitable room in

the second story of the house. It was set aside for the use of

Jacqueline.

 

At the door Wilbur said: “Shrug your shoulders back; you look as if

you were going to jump at something. And wipe the wolf look off your

face. After all, Jack’s a girl, not a gunfighter.”

 

Then he knocked and opened the door.

 

She lay face down on her bunk, her head turned from them toward the

wall. Slender and supple and strong, it was still only the size of her

boots and her hands that would make one look at her twice and then

guess that this was a woman, for she was dressed, from trousers even

to the bright bandanna knotted around her throat, like any prosperous

range rider.

 

Now, to be sure, the thick coils of black hair told her sex, but when

the broad-brimmed sombrero was pulled well down on her head, when the

cartridge-belt and the six-gun were slung about her waist, and most of

all when she spurred her mount recklessly across the hills no one

could have suspected that this was not some graceful boy born and bred

in the mountain-desert, willful as a young mountain lion, and as

dangerous.

 

“Sleepy?” called Wilbur.

 

She waited a moment and then queried with exaggerated impudence:

“Well?”

 

Ennui unspeakable was in that drawling monotone.

 

“Brace up; I’ve got news for you. And I’ve brought Pierre along to

tell you about it.”

 

“Oh!”

 

And she sat bolt upright with shining eyes. Instantly she remembered

to yawn again, but her glance smiled on them above her hand.

 

She apologized. “Awfully sleepy, Dick.”

 

But he was not deceived. He said: “There’s a dance down near the

Barnes place, and Pierre wants you to go with him.”

 

“Pierre! A dance?”

 

He explained: “Dick’s lost his head over a girl with yellow hair, and

he wants me to go down and see her. He thought you might want to go

along.” Her face changed like the moon when a cloud blows across it.

She answered with another slow, insolent yawn: “Thanks! I’m staying

home tonight.”

 

Wilbur glared his rage covertly at Pierre, but the latter was blandly

unconscious that he had made any faux pas.

 

He said carelessly: “Too bad. It might be interesting. Jack?”

 

At his voice she looked up—a sharp and graceful toss of her head.

 

“What?”

 

“The girl with the yellow hair.”

 

“Then go ahead and see her. I won’t keep you. You don’t mind if I go

on sleeping? Sit down and be at home.”

 

With this she calmly turned her back again and seemed thoroughly

disposed to carry out her word.

 

Red Pierre flushed a little, watching her, and he spoke his anger

outright: “You’re acting like a sulky kid, Jack, not like a man.”

 

It was a habit of his to forget that she was a woman. Without turning

her head she answered: “Do you want to know why?”

 

“You’re like a cat showing your claws. Go on! Tell me what the reason

is.”

 

“Because I get tired of you.”

 

In all his life he had never been so scorned. He did not see the

covert grin of Wilbur in the background. He blurted: “Tired?”

 

“Awfully. You don’t mind me being frank, do you, Pierre?”

 

He could only stammer: “Sometimes I wish to God you were a man,

Jack!”

 

“You don’t often remember that I’m a woman.”

 

“Do you mean that I’m rude or rough with you, Jacqueline?” Still the

silence, but Wilbur was grinning broader than ever. “Answer me!”

 

She started up and faced him, her face convulsed with rage.

 

“What do you want me to say? Yes, you are rude—I hate you and your

lot. Go away from me; I don’t want you; I hate you all.”

 

And she would have said more, but furious sobs swelled her throat and

she could not speak, but dropped, face down, on the bunk and gripped

the blankets in each hardset hand. Over her Pierre leaned, utterly

bewildered, found nothing that he could say, and then turned and

strode, frowning, from the room. Wilbur hastened after him and caught

him just as the door was closing.

 

“Come back,” he pleaded. “This is the best game I’ve ever seen. Come

back, Pierre! You’ve made a wonderful start.”

 

Pierre le Rouge shook off the detaining hand and glared up at Wilbur.

 

“Don’t try irony, Dick. I feel like murder. Think of it! All this time

she’s been hating me; and now it’s making her weep; think of

it—Jack—weeping!”

 

“Why, you’re a child, Pierre. She’s in love with you.”

 

“With me?”

 

“With Red Pierre.”

 

“You can’t make a joke out of Jack with me. You ought to know that.”

 

“Pierre, I’d as soon make a joke out of a wildcat.”

 

“Grinning still? Wilbur, I’m taking more from you than I would from

any man on the ranges.”

 

“I know you are, and that’s why I’m stringing this out because I’m

going to have a laugh—ha, ha, ha!—the rest of my life—ha, ha, ha,

ha!—whenever I think of this!”

 

The burst of merriment left him speechless, and Pierre, glowering,

his right hand twitching dangerously close to that holster at his hip.

He sobered, and said: “Go in and talk to her and prove that

I’m right.”

 

“Ask Jack if she loves me? Why, I’d as soon ask any man the same

question.”

 

The big long-rider was instantly curious.

 

“Has she never appealed to you as a woman, Pierre?”

 

“How could she? I’ve watched her ride; I’ve watched her use her gun;

I’ve slept rolled in the same blankets with her, back to back; I’ve

walked and talked and traveled with her as if she were my

kid brother.”

 

Wilbur nodded, as if the miracle were being slowly unfolded before his

eyes.

 

“And you’ve never noticed anything different about her? Never watched

a little lift and grace in her walk that no man could ever have; never

seen her color change just because you, Pierre, came near or went far

away from her?”

 

“Because of me?” asked the bewildered Pierre.

 

“You fool, you! Why, lad, I’ve been kept amused by you two for a whole

evening, watching her play for your attention, saving her best smiles

for you, keeping her best attitudes for you, and letting all the

richness of her voice go out for—a block—a stone. Gad, the thing

still doesn’t seem possible! Pierre, one instant of that girl would

give romance to a man’s whole life.”

 

“This girl? This Jack of ours?”

 

“He hasn’t seen it! Why, if I hadn’t seen years ago that she had tied

her hands and turned her heart over to you, I’d have been begging her

for a smile, a shadow of a hope.”

 

“If I didn’t know you, Dick, I’d say that you were partly drunk and

partly a fool.”

 

“Here’s a hundred—a cold hundred that I’m right. I’ll make it a

thousand, if you dare.”

 

“Dare what?”

 

“Ask her to marry you.” “Marry—me?”

 

“Damn it all—well, then—whatever you like. But I say that if you go

back into that room and sit still and merely look at her, she’ll be in

your arms within five minutes.”

 

“I hate to take charity, but a bet is a bet. That hundred is in my

pocket already. It’s a go!”

 

They shook hands.

 

“But what will be your proof, Dick, whether I win or lose?”

 

“Your face, blockhead, when you come out of the room.”

 

Upon this Pierre pondered a moment, and then turned toward the door.

He set his hand on the knob, faltered, and finally set his teeth and

entered the room.