Max Brand (25 page)

He could not have spoken with a more formal politeness if he had been
asking the other to pass first through the door of a dining-room. The
wonder of McGurk grew and the sweat on his forehead seemed to be
spreading a chill through his entire body. He said: "I see. You
trust all to the cross, eh, Pierre? The little cross under your neck?"

"It's gone," said Pierre le Rouge. "Why should I use it against a
night rider, McGurk? Are you ready?"

And McGurk, not trusting his voice for some strange reason, nodded.
The two folded their arms.

But the white horse which had been pawing the stones only a moment
before was now unusually quiet. The very postures of the men seemed to
turn him to stone, a beautiful, marble statue with the moonlight
glistening on the muscles of his perfect shoulders.

At length he stirred. At once a quiver jerked through the tense bodies
of the waiting men, but the white horse had merely stiffened and
raised his head high. Now, with arched neck and flaunting tail he
neighed loudly, as if he asked a question. How could he know, dumb
brute, that what he asked only death could answer?

And as they waited an itching came at the palm of McGurk's hand. It
was not much, just a tingle of the blood. To ease it, he closed his
fingers and found that his hand was moist with cold perspiration.

He began to wonder if his fingers would be slippery on the butt of the
gun. Then he tried covertly to dry them against his shirt. But he
ceased this again, knowing that he must be of hair-trigger alertness
to watch for the stamp of the white horse.

It occurred to him, also, that he was standing on a loose stone which
might wobble when he pulled his gun, and he cursed himself silently
for his hasty folly. Pierre, doubtless, had noticed that stone, and
therefore he had made the suggestion that they stand where they were.
Otherwise, how could there be that singular calm in the steady eyes
which looked across at him?

Also, how explain the hunger of that stare? Was not he McGurk, and was
not this man whom he had already once shot down? God, what a fool he
had been not to linger an instant longer in that saloon in the old
days and place the final shot in the prostrate body! In all his life
he had made only one such mistake, and now that folly was pursuing
him. And now—

The foot of the white horse lifted—struck the rock. The sound of its
fall was lost in the explosion of two guns, and a ring of metal on
metal. The revolver snapped from the hand of McGurk, whirled in a
flashing circle, and clanged on the rocks at his feet. The bullet of
Pierre had struck the barrel and knocked it cleanly from his hand.

It was luck, only luck, that placed that shot, and his own bullet,
which had started first, had traveled wild, for there stood Pierre le
Rouge, smiling faintly, alert, calm. For the first time in his life
McGurk had missed. He set his teeth and waited for death.

But that steady voice of Pierre said: "To shoot you would be a
pleasure, but there wouldn't be any lasting satisfaction in it. So
there lies your gun at your feet. Well, here lies mine."

He dropped his own weapon to a position corresponding with that of
McGurk's.

"We were both very wild that time. We must do better now. We'll stoop
for our guns, McGurk. The signal? No, we won't wait for the horse to
stamp. The signal will be when you stoop for your gun. You shall have
every advantage, you see? Start for that gun, McGurk, when you're
ready for the end."

The hand of McGurk stretched out and his arm stiffened but it seemed
as though all the muscles of his back had grown stiff. He could not
bend. It was strange. It was both ludicrous and incomprehensible.
Perhaps he had grown stiff with cold in that position.

But he heard the voice of Pierre explaining gently: "You can't move,
my friend. I understand. It's fear that stiffened your back.
It's fear that sends the chill up and down your blood. It's fear that
makes you think back to your murders, one by one. McGurk, you're done
for. You're through. You're ready for the discard. I'm not going to
kill you. I've thought of a finer hell than death, and that is to live
as you shall live. I've beaten you, McGurk, beaten you fairly on the
draw, and I've broken your heart by doing it. The next time you face a
man you'll begin to think—you'll begin to remember how one other man
beat you at the draw. And that wonder, McGurk, will make your hand
freeze to your side, as you've made the hands of other men before me
freeze. D'you understand?"

The lips of McGurk parted. The whisper of his dry panting reached
Pierre, and the devil in him smiled.

"In six weeks, McGurk, you'll be finished. Now get out!"

And pace by pace McGurk drew back, with his face still toward Pierre.

The latter cried: "Wait. Are you going to leave your gun?"

Only the steady retreat continued.

"And go unarmed through the mountains? What will men say when they see
McGurk with an empty holster?"

But the outlaw had passed out of view beyond the corner of one of the
monster boulders. After him went the white horse, slowly, picking his
steps, as if he were treading on dangerous and unknown ground and
would not trust his leader. Pierre was left to the loneliness of
the gorge.

The moonlight only served to make more visible its rocky nakedness,
and like that nakedness was the life of Pierre under his hopeless
inward eye. Over him loomed from either side the gleaming pinnacles of
the Twin Bears, and he remembered many a time when he had looked up
toward them from the crests of lesser mountains—looked up toward them
as a man looks to a great and unattainable ideal. Here he was come
to the crest of all the ranges; here he was come to the height and
limit of his life, and what had he attained? Only a cruel, cold
isolation. It had been a steep ascent; the declivity of the farther
side led him down to a steep and certain ruin and the dark night
below. But he stiffened suddenly and threw his head high as if he
faced his fate; and behind him the cream-colored mare raised her head
with a toss and whinnied softly.

It seemed to him that he had heard something calling, for the sound
was lost against the sweep of wind coming up the gorge. Something
calling there in the night of the mountains as he himself had called
when he rode so wildly in the quest for McGurk. How long ago had
that been?

But it came once more, clear beyond all doubt. He recognized the voice
in spite of the panting which shook it; a wild wail like that of a
heartbroken child, coming closer to him like someone running: "Pierre!
Oh, Pierre!"

And all at once he knew that the moon was broad and bright and fair,
and the heavens clear and shining with gold points of light. Once more
the cry. He raised his arms and waited.

So Mary, running through the wilderness of boulders, was guided
straight and found Pierre, and before the morning came, they were
journeying east side by side, east and down to the cities and a new
life; but Jacqueline, a thousand times quicker of foot and surer
of eye and ear, missed her goal, went past it, and still on and on,
running finally at a steady trot.

Until at last she knew that she had far overstepped her mark and sank
down against one of the rocks to rest and think out what next she must
do. There seemed nothing left. Even the sound of a gun fired she might
not hear, for that sharp call would not travel far against the wind.

It was while she sat there, burying Pierre in her thoughts, a white
shape came glimmering down to her through the moonlight. She was on
her feet at once, alert and gun in hand. It could only be one horse,
only one rider, McGurk coming down from his last killing with the
sneer on his pale lips. Well, he would complete his work this night
and kill her fighting face to face.

A man's death; that was all she craved. She rose; she stepped boldly
out into the center of the trail between the rocks.

There she saw the greatest wonder she had ever looked on. It was
McGurk walking with bare, bowed head, and after him, like a dog after
the master, followed the white horse. She shoved the revolver back
into the holster. This should be a fair fight.

"McGurk!"

Very slowly the head went up and back, and there he stood, not ten
paces from her, with the white moon full on his face. The sneer was
still there; the eyelid fluttered in scornful derision. And the heart
of Jacqueline came thundering in her throat.

But she cried in a strong voice: "McGurk, d'you know me?"

He did not answer.

"You murderer, you night rider! Look again: it's the last of the
Boones!"

The sneer, it seemed to her, grew bitterer, but still the man did
not speak. Then the thought of Pierre, lying dead somewhere among the
rocks, burned across her mind. Her hand leaped for the revolver, and
whipped it out in a blinding flash to cover him, but with her finger
curling on the trigger she checked herself in the nick of time. McGurk
had made no move to protect himself.

A strange feeling came to her that perhaps the man would not war
against women; the case of Mary was almost proof enough of that. But
as she stepped forward, wondering, she looked at the holster at his
side and saw that it was empty. Then she understood.

Understood in a daze that Pierre had met the man and conquered him and
sent him out through the mountains disarmed. The white horse raised
his head and whinnied, and the sound gave a thought to her. She could
not kill this man, unarmed as he was; she could do a more
shameful thing.

"The bluff you ran was a strong one, McGurk," she said bitterly, "and
you had these parts pretty well at a standstill; but Pierre was a bit
too much for you, eh?"

The white face had not altered, and still it did not change, but the
sneer was turned steadily on her.

She cried: "Go on! Go on down the gorge!"

Like an automaton the man stepped forward, and after him paced the
white horse. She stepped between, caught the reins, and swung up to
the saddle, and sat there, controlling between her stirrups the
best-known mount in all the mountain-desert. A thrill of wild
exultation came to her. She cried: "Look back, McGurk! Your gun is
gone, your horse is gone; you're weaker than a woman in the
mountains!"

Yet he went on without turning, not with the hurried step of a coward,
but still as one stunned. Then, sitting quietly in the saddle, she
forgot McGurk and remembered Pierre. He was happy by this time with
the girl of the yellow hair; there was nothing remaining to her from
him except the ominous cross which touched cold against her breast.
That he had abandoned as he had abandoned her.

What, then, was left for her? The horse of an outlaw for her to ride;
the heart of an outlaw in her breast.

She touched the white horse with the spurs and went at a reckless
gallop, weaving back and forth among the boulders down the gorge. For
she was riding away from the past.

The dawn came as she trotted out into a widening valley of the Old
Crow. To maintain even that pace she had to use the spurs continually,
for the white horse was deadly weary, and his head fell more and more.
She decided to make a brief halt, at last, and in order to make a fire
that would take the chill of the cold morning from her, she swung up
to the edge of the woods. There, before she could dismount, she saw a
man turn the shoulder of the slope. She drew the horse back deeper
among the trees and waited.

He came with a halting step, reeling now and again, a big man,
hatless, coatless, apparently at the last verge of exhaustion. Now his
foot apparently struck a small rock, and he pitched to his face. It
required a long struggle before he could regain his feet; and now he
continued his journey at the same gait, only more uncertainly than
ever, close and closer. There was something familiar now about the
fellow's size, and something in the turn of his head. Suddenly she
rode out, crying: "Wilbur!"

He swerved, saw the white horse, threw up his hands high above his
head, and went backward, reeling, with a hoarse scream which
Jacqueline would never forget. She galloped to him and swung to
the ground.

"It's me—Jack. D'you hear?"

He would not lower those arms, and his eyes stared wildly at her. On
his forehead the blood had caked over a cut; his shirt was torn to
rags, and the hair matted over his eyes. She caught his hands and
pulled them down.

"It's not McGurk! Don't you hear me? It's Jack!"

He reached out, like a blind man who has to see by the sense of touch,
and stroked her face.

"Jack!" he whispered at last. "Thank God!"

"What's happened?"

"McGurk—"

A violent palsy shook him, and he could not go on.

"I know—I understand. He took your guns and left you to wander in
this hell! Damn him! I wish—"

She stopped.

"How long since you've eaten?"

"Years!"

"We'll eat—McGurk's food!"

But she had to assist him up the slope to the trees, and there she
left him propped against a trunk, his arms fallen weakly at his sides,
while she built the fire and cooked the food. Afterward she could
hardly eat, watching him devour what she placed before him; and it
thrilled all the woman in her to a strange warmth to take care of the
long-rider. Then, except for the disfigured face and the bloodshot
eyes, he was himself.

"Up there? What happened?"

He pointed up the valley.

"The girl and Pierre. They're together."

"She found him?"

"Yes."

He bowed his head and sighed.

"And the horse, Jack?" He said it with awe.

"I took the horse from McGurk."

"You!"

She nodded. After all, it was not a lie. "You killed McGurk?"

She said coolly: "I let him go the way he let you, Dick. He's on foot
in the mountains without a horse or a gun."