Riders of the Silences by Max Brand (the dot read aloud txt) 📖

CHAPTER 20

In the heart of that valley two roads crossed. Many a year before a

man with some imagination and illimitable faith was moved by the

crossing of those roads to build a general merchandise store.

 

Time justified his faith, in a small way, and now McGuire’s store was

famed for leagues and leagues about, for he dared to take chances with

all manner of novelties, and the curious, when their pocketbooks were

full, went to McGuire’s to find inspiration.

 

Business was dull this night, however; there was not a single patron

at the bar, and the store itself was empty, so he went to put out the

big gasoline lamp which hung from the ceiling in the center of the

room, and was on the ladder, reaching high above his head, when a

singular chill caught him in the center of his plump back and radiated

from that spot in all directions, freezing his blood. He swallowed the

lump in his throat and with his arms still stretched toward the lamp

he turned his head and glanced behind.

 

Two men stood watching him from a position just inside the door. How

they had come there he could never guess, for the floor creaked at the

lightest step. Nevertheless, these phantoms had appeared silently, and

now they must be dealt with. He turned on the ladder to face them, and

still he kept the arms automatically above his head while he descended

to the floor. However, on a closer examination, these two did not

seem particularly formidable. They were both quite young, one with

dark-red hair and a somewhat overbright eye; the other was hardly more

than a boy, very slender, delicately made, the sort of handsome young

scoundrel whom women cannot resist.

 

Having made these observations, McGuire ventured to lower his arms by

jerks; nothing happened; he was safe. So he vented his feelings by

scowling on the strangers.

 

“Well,” he snapped, “what’s up? Too late for business. I’m closin’

up.”

 

The two quite disregarded him. Their eyes were wandering calmly about

the place, and now they rested on the pride of McGuire’s store. The

figure of a man in evening clothes, complete from shoes to gloves and

silk hat, stood beside a girl of wax loveliness. She wore a low-cut

gown of dark green, and over her shoulders was draped a scarf of dull

gold. Above, a sign said: “You only get married once; why don’t you do

it up right?”

 

“That,” said the taller stranger, “ought to do very nicely for us,

eh?”

 

And the younger replied in a curiously light, pleasant voice: “Just

what we want. But how’ll I get away with all that fluffy stuff, eh?”

 

The elder explained: “We’re going to a bit of a dance and we’ll take

those evening clothes.”

 

The heart of McGuire beat faster and his little eyes took in the

strangers again from head to foot.

 

“They ain’t for sale,” he said. “They’s just samples. But right over

here—”

 

“This isn’t a question of selling,” said the redheaded man. “We’ve

come to accept a little donation, McGuire.”

 

The storekeeper grew purple and white in patches. Still there was no

show of violence, no display of guns; he moved his hand toward his own

weapon, and still the strangers merely smiled quietly on him. He

decided that he had misunderstood, and went on: “Over here I got a

line of goods that you’ll like. Just step up and—”

 

The younger man, frowning now, replied: “We don’t want to see any more

of your junk. The clothes on the models suit us all right. Slip ‘em

off, McGuire.”

 

“But—” began McGuire and then stopped.

 

His first suspicion returned with redoubled force; above all, that

head of dark red hair made him thoughtful. He finished hoarsely: “What

the hell’s this?”

 

“Why,” smiled the taller man, “you’ve never done much in the interests

of charity, and now’s a good time for you to start. Hurry up, McGuire;

we’re late already!”

 

There was a snarl from the storekeeper, and he went for his gun, but

something in the peculiarly steady eyes of the two made him stop with

his fingers frozen hard around the butt.

 

He whispered: “You’re Red Pierre?”

 

“The clothes,” repeated Pierre sternly, “on the jump, McGuire.”

 

And with a jump McGuire obeyed. His hands trembled so that he could

hardly remove the scarf from the shoulders of the model, but afterward

fear made his fingers supple, as he did up the clothes in two bundles.

 

Jacqueline took one of them and Pierre the other under his left arm;

with his right hand he drew out some yellow coins.

 

“I didn’t buy these clothes because I didn’t have the time to dicker

with you, McGuire. I’ve heard you talk prices before, you know. But

here’s what the clothes are worth to us.”

 

And into the quaking hands of McGuire he poured a chinking stream of

gold pieces.

 

Relief, amazement, and a very wholesome fear struggled in the face of

McGuire as he saw himself threefold overpaid. At that little

yellow heap he remained staring, unheeding the sound of the

retreating outlaws.

 

“It ain’t possible,” he said at last, “thieves have begun to pay.”

 

His eyes sought the ceiling.

 

“So that’s Red Pierre?” said McGuire.

 

As for Pierre and Jacqueline, they were instantly safe in the black

heart of the mountains. Many a mile of hard riding lay before them,

however, and there was no road, not even a trail that they could

follow. They had never even seen the Crittenden schoolhouse; they knew

its location only by vague descriptions.

 

But they had ridden a thousand times in places far more bewildering

and less known to them. Like all true denizens of the mountain-desert,

they had a sense of direction as uncanny as that of an Eskimo. Now

they struck off confidently through the dark and trailed up and down

through the mountains until they reached a hollow in the center of

which shone a group of dim lights. It was the schoolhouse near the

Barnes place, the scene of the dance.

 

So they turned back behind the hills and in the covert of a group of

cottonwoods they kindled two more little fires, shading them on three

sides with rocks and leaving them open for the sake of light on

the fourth.

 

They worked busily for a time, without a word spoken by either of

them. The only sound was the rustling of Jacqueline’s stolen silks and

the purling of a small stream of water near them, some meager spring.

 

But presently: “P-P-Pierre, I’m f-freezing.”

 

He himself was numbed by the chill air and paused in the task of

thrusting a leg into the trousers, which persisted in tangling and

twisting under his foot.

 

“So’m I. It’s c-c-cold as the d-d-d-devil.”

 

“And these—th-things—aren’t any thicker than spider webs.” “Wait.

I’ll build you a great big fire.”

 

And he scooped up a number of dead twigs.

 

There was an interlude of more silk rustling, then: “P-P-Pierre.”

 

“Well?”

 

“I wish I had a m-m-m-mirror.”

 

“Jack, are you vain?”

 

A cry of delight answered him. He threw caution to the winds and

advanced on her. He found her kneeling above a pool of water fed by

the soft sliding little stream from the spring. With one hand she held

a burning branch by way of a torch, and with the other she patted her

hair into shape and finally thrust the comb into the glittering,

heavy coils.

 

She started, as if she felt his presence.

 

“P-P-Pierre!”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Look!”

 

She stood with the torch high overhead, and he saw a beauty so

glorious that he closed his eyes involuntarily and still he saw the

vision in the dull-green gown, with the scarf of old gold about her

dazzling white shoulders. And there were two lights, the barbaric red

of the jewels in her hair, and the black shimmer of her eyes. He drew

back a step more. It was a picture to be looked at from a distance.

 

She ran to him with a cry of dismay: “Pierre, what’s wrong with me?”

 

His arms went round her of their own accord. It was the only place

they could go. And all this beauty was held in the circle of his will.

 

“It isn’t that, but you’re so wonderful, Jack, so glorious, that I

hardly know you. You’re like a different person.”

 

He felt the warm body trembling, and the thought that it was not

entirely from the cold set his heart beating like a trip-hammer. What

he felt was so strange to him that he stepped back in a vague alarm,

and then laughed. She stood with an expectant smile.

 

“Jack, how am I to risk you in the arms of all the strangers in that

dance?

 

“It’s late. Listen!”

 

She cupped a hand at her ear and leaned to listen. Up from the hollow

below them came a faint strain of music, a very light sound that was

drowned a moment later by the solemn rushing of the wind through the

great trees above them.

 

They looked up of one accord.

 

“Pierre, what was that?”

 

“Nothing; the wind in the branches, that’s all.”

 

“It was a hushing sound. It was like—it was like a warning, almost.”

 

But he was already turning away, and she followed him hastily.