The Max Brand Megapack (107 page)

“The silent man tied up that hand and sympathized with the rich chap; then he took that satchel and divided the paper money into two bundles. One was twice the size of the other, and the silent man took the smaller one. There was only twelve thousand dollars in it. Also, he took the ruby brooch for a friend—and as a sort of keepsake, you know. And he delivered a short lecture to the rich man on the subject of carelessness and rode away. The rich man picked up his gun with his left hand and opened fire, but he’d never learned to shoot very well with that hand, so the silent man came through safe.”

“That’s a bully story,” said Jack. “Who was the silent man?”

“I think you’ve seen him a few times, at that.”

She concealed another smile, and said in the most businesslike manner: “Chow-time, Pierre,” and set out the pans on the table.

“By the way,” he said easily, “I’ve got a little present for you, Jack.”

And he took out a gold pin flaming with three great rubies.

CHAPTER XXXIII

A COUNT TO TEN

She merely stared, like
a child which may either burst into tears or laughter, no one can prophesy which.

He explained, rather worried: “You see, you are a girl, Jack, and I remembered that you were pleased about those clothes that you wore to the dance in Crittenden Schoolhouse, and so when I saw that pin I—well—”

“Oh, Pierre!” said a stifled voice, “Oh, Pierre!”

“By Jove, Jack, aren’t angry, are you? See, when you put it at the throat it doesn’t look half bad!”

And to try it, he pinned it on her shirt. She caught both his hands, kissed them again and again, and then buried her face against them as she sobbed. If the heavens had opened and a cloudburst crashed on the roof of the house, he would have been less astounded.

“What is it?” he cried. “Damn it all—Jack—you see—I meant—”

But she tore herself away and flung herself face down on the bunk, sobbing more bitterly than ever. He followed, awestricken—terrified.

He touched her shoulder, but she shrank away and seemed more distressed than ever. It was not the crying of a weak woman: these were heart-rending sounds, like the sobbing of a man who has never before known tears.

“Jack—perhaps I’ve done something wrong—”

He stammered again: “I didn’t dream I was hurting you—”

Then light broke upon him.

He said: “It’s because you don’t want to be treated like a silly girl; eh, Jack?”

But to complete his astonishment she moaned: “N-n-no! It’s b-b-because you—you n-n-never
do
t-treat me like a g-g-girl, P-P-Pierre!”

He groaned heartily: “Well, I’ll be damned!”

And because he was thoughtful he strode away, staring at the floor. It was then that he saw it, small and crumpled on the floor. He picked it up—a glove of the softest leather. He carried it back to Jacqueline.

“What’s this?”

“Wh-wh-what?”

“This glove I found on the floor?”

The sobs decreased at once—broke out more violently—and then she sprang up from the bunk, face suffused, and eyes timidly seeking his with upward glances.

“Pierre, I’ve acted a regular chump. Are you out with me?”

“Not a bit, old-timer. But about this glove?”

“Oh, that’s one of mine.”

She took it and slipped it into the bosom of her shirt—the calm blue eye of Pierre noted.

He said: “We’ll eat and forget the rest of this, if you want, Jack.”

“And you ain’t mad at me, Pierre?”

“Not a bit.”

There was just a trace of coldness in his tone, and she knew perfectly why it was there, but she chose to ascribe it to another cause.

She explained: “You see, a woman is just about nine-tenths fool, Pierre, and has to bust out like that once in a while.”

“Oh!” said Pierre, and his eyes wandered past her as though he found food for thought on the wall.

She ventured cautiously, after seeing that he was eating with appetite: “How does the pin look?”

“Why, fine.”

And the silence began again.

She dared not question him in that mood, so she ventured again: “The old boy shooting left-handed—didn’t he even fan the wind near you?”

“That was another bit of carelessness,” said Pierre, but his smile held little of life. “He might have known that if he
had
shot close—by accident—I might have turned around and shot him dead—on purpose. But when a man stops thinking for a minute, he’s apt to go on for a long time making a fool of himself.”

“Right,” she said, brightening as she felt the crisis pass away, “and that reminds me of a story about—”

“By the way, Jack, I’ll wager there’s a more interesting story than that you could tell me.”

“What?”

“About how that glove happened to be on the floor.”

“Why, partner, it’s just a glove of my own.”

“Didn’t know you wore gloves with a leather as soft as that.”

“No? Well, that story I was speaking about runs something like this—”

And she told him a gay narrative, throwing all her spirit into it, for she was an admirable mimic. He met her spirit more than half-way, laughing gaily; and so they reached the end of the story and the end of the meal at the same time. She cleared away the pans with a few motions and tossed them clattering into a corner. Neat housekeeping was not numbered among the many virtues of Jacqueline.

“Now,” said Pierre, leaning back against the wall, “we’ll hear about that glove.”

“Damn the glove!” broke from her.

“Steady, pal!”

“Pierre, are you going to nag me about a little thing like that?”

“Why, Jack, you’re red and white in patches. I’m interested.”

He sat up.

“I’m more than interested. The story, Jack.”

“Well, I suppose I have to tell you. I did a fool thing to-day. Took a little gallop down the trail, and on my way back I met a girl sitting in her saddle with her face in her hands, crying her heart out. Poor kid! She’d come up in a hunting party and got separated from the rest.

“So I got sympathetic—”

“About the first time on record that you’ve been sympathetic with another girl, eh?”

“Shut up, Pierre! And I brought her in here—right into your cabin, without thinking what I was doing, and gave her a cup of coffee. Of course it was a pretty greenhorn trick, but I guess no harm will come of it. The girl thinks it’s a prospector’s cabin—which it was once. She went on her way, happy, because I told her of the right trail to get back with her gang. That’s all there is to it. Are you mad at me for letting any one come into this place?”

“Mad?” he smiled. “No, I think that’s one of the best lies you ever told me, Jack.”

Their eyes met, hers very wide, and his keen and steady. The she gripped at the butt of her gun, an habitual trick when she was very angry, and cried:

“Do I have to sit here and let you call me—that? Pierre, pull a few more tricks like that and I’ll call for a new deal. Get me?”

She rose, whirled, and threw herself sullenly on her bunk.

“Come back,” said Pierre. “You’re more scared than angry. Why are you afraid, Jack?”

“It’s a lie—I’m not afraid!”

“Let me see that glove again.”

“You’ve seen it once—that’s enough.”

He whistled carelessly, rolling a cigarette. After he lighted it he said: “Ready to talk yet, partner?”

She maintained an obstinate silence, but that sharp eye saw that she was trembling. He set his teeth and then drew several long puffs on his cigarette.

“I’m going to count to ten, pal, and when I finish you’re going to tell me everything straight. In the mean time don’t stay there thinking up a new lie. I know you too well, and if you try the same thing on me again—”

“Well?” she snarled, all the tiger coming back in her voice.

“You’ll talk, all right. Here goes the count: One—two—three—four—”

As he counted, leaving a long drag of two or three seconds between numbers, there was not a change in the figure of the girl. She still lay with her back turned on him, and the only expressive part that showed was her hand. First it lay limp against her hip, but as the monotonous count proceeded it gathered to a fist.

“Five—six—seven—”

It seemed that he had been counting for hours, his will against her will, the man in him against the woman in her, and during the pauses between the sound of his voice the very air grew charged with waiting. To the girl the wait for every count was like the wait of the doomed traitor when he stands facing the firing-squad, watching the glimmer of light go down the aimed rifles.

For she knew the face of the man who sat there counting; she knew how the firelight flared in the dark-red of his hair and made it seem like another fire beneath which the blue of the eyes was strangely cold and keen. Her hand had gathered to a hard-balled fist.

“Eight—nine—”

She sprang up, screaming: “No, no, Pierre!”

And threw out her arms to him.

“Ten.”

She whispered: “It was the girl with yellow hair—Mary Brown.”

CHAPTER XXXIV

TIGER-HEART

It was as if she had said: “Good morning!” in the calmest of voice
s. There was no answer in him, neither word nor expression, and out of ten sharp-eyed men, nine would have passed him by without noting the difference; but the girl knew him as the monk knows his prayers or the Arab his horse, and a solemn, deep despair came over her. She felt like the drowning, when the water closes over their heads for the last time.

He puffed twice again at the cigarette and then flicked the butt into the fire. When he spoke it was only to say: “Did she stay long?”

But his eyes avoided her. She moved a little so as to read his face, but when he turned again and answered her stare she winced.

“Not very long, Pierre.”

“Ah,” he said, “I see! It was because she didn’t dream that this was the place I lived in.”

It was the sort of heartless, torturing questioning which was once the crudest weapon of the inquisition. With all her heart she fought to raise her voice above the whisper whose very sound accused her, but could not. She was condemned to that voice as the man bound in nightmare is condemned to walk slowly, slowly, though the terrible danger is racing toward him, and the safety which he must reach lies only a dozen steps, a dozen mortal steps away.

She said in that voice: “No; of course she didn’t dream it.”

“And you, Jack, had her interests at heart—her best interests, poor girl, and didn’t tell her?”

Her hands went out to him in mute appeal.

“Please, Pierre—don’t!”

“Is something troubling you, Jack?”

“You are breaking my heart.”

“Why, by no means! Let’s sit here calmly and chat about the girl with the yellow hair. To begin with—she’s rather pleasant to look at, don’t you think?”

“I suppose she is.”

“H-m! rather poor taste not to be sure of it. Well, let it go. You’ve always had rather queer taste in women, Jack; but, of course, being a long-rider, you haven’t seen much of them. At least her name is delightful—Mary Brown! You’ve no idea how often I’ve repeated it aloud to myself and relished the sound—Mary Brown!”

“I hate her!”

“You two didn’t have a very agreeable time of it? By the way, she must have left in rather a hurry to forget her glove, eh?”

“Yes, she ran—like a coward.”

“Ah?”

“Like a trembling coward. How can you care for a white-faced little fool like that? Is she your match? Is she your mate?”

He considered a moment, as though to make sure that he did not exaggerate.

“I love her, Jack, as men love water when they’ve ridden all day over hot sand without a drop on their lips—you know when the tongue gets thick and the mouth fills with cotton—and then you see clear, bright water, and taste it.”

“She is like that to me. She feeds every sense; and when I look in her eyes, Jack, I feel like the starved man on the desert, as I was saying, drinking that priceless water. You knew something of the way I feel, Jack. Isn’t it a little odd that you didn’t keep her here?”

She had stood literally shuddering during this speech, and now she burst out, far beyond all control: “Because she loathes you; because she hates herself for ever having loved you; because she despises herself for having ridden up here after you. Does that fill your cup of water, Pierre, eh?”

His forehead was shining with sweat, but he set his teeth, and, after a moment, he was able to say in the same hard, calm voice: “I suppose there was no real reason for her change. She can be persuaded back to me in a moment. In that case just tell me where she has gone and I’ll ride after her.”

He made as if to rise, but she cried in a panic, and yet with a wild exultation: “No, she’s done with you forever, and the more you make love to her now the more she’ll hate you. Because she knows that when you kissed her before—when you kissed her—you were living with a woman.”

“I—living with a woman?”

Her voice had risen out of the whisper for the outbreak. Now it sank back into it.

“Yes—with me!”

“With you? I see. Naturally it must have gone hard with her—Mary! And she wouldn’t see reason even when you explained that you and I are like brothers?”

He leaned a little toward her and just a shade of emotion came in his voice.

“When you carefully explained, Jack, with all the eloquence you could command, that you and I have ridden and fought and camped together like brothers for six years? And how I gave you your first gun? And how I’ve stayed between you and danger a thousand times? And how I’ve never treated you otherwise than as a man? And how I’ve given you the love of a blood-brother to take the place of the brother who died? And how I’ve kept you in a clean and pure respect such as a man can only give once in his life—and then only to his dearest friend? She wouldn’t listen—even when you talked to her like this?”

“For God’s sake—Pierre!”

“Ah, but you talked well enough to pave the way for me. You talked so eloquently that with a little more persuasion from me she will know and understand. Come, I must be gone after her. Which way did she ride—up or down the valley?”

“You could talk to her forever and she’d never listen. Pierre, I told her that I was—your woman—that you’d told me of your scenes with her—and that we’d laughed at them together.”