Max Brand

“ There was beauty here, the beauty of strength in the men and a brown loveliness in the girls; just as in the music, the blatancy of the rattling dish-pan and the blaring trombone were more than balanced by the real skill of the violinists, who kept a high, sweet, singing tone through all the clamor.
One could close his ears to the rest of the noise, if he strove to do so, and hear nothing but that harmonious moaning of the strings, steady and clear, like the aspirations of a man divorced from the facts of his weakness and his crudeness in practical life.
And Pierre le Rouge and Jacqueline? ”

“ Up the same course which Jacqueline followed, Mary Brown had fled earlier that night with the triumphant laughter of Jack still ringing in her ears and following her like a remorseless, pointed hand of shame.
There is no power like shame to disarm the spirit. A dog will fight if a man laughs at him; a coward will challenge the devil himself if he is whipped on by scorn; and this proud girl shrank and moaned on the saddle. She had not progressed far enough to hate Pierre. That would come later, but now all her heart had room for was a consuming loathing of herself. ”

“ And they both broke into laughter—laughter that died out before a sound of rushing and of thunder, as a mass slid swiftly past them, snow and mud and sand and rubble. The wind fell away from them, and when Pierre looked up he saw that a great mass of tumbled rock and soil loomed above them.
The landslide had not touched them, by some miracle, but in a moment more it might shake loose again, and all that mass of ton upon ton of stone and loam would overwhelm them. The whole mass quaked and trembled, and the very hillside shuddered beneath them. ”

“ So it was with the noise in the hall when Pierre and Jacqueline began to dance. First there were smiles of derision and envy around them, but after a moment a little hush came where they moved, and then men began to note the smile of the girl and the whiteness of that round throat, and the grace of the bare, tapering arms.
So a whisper went around the room, and there began a craning of necks and an exchange of nods. All that crowd became in a moment no more than the chorus which fills the background of the stage when the principals step out from the wings. ”

“ There was a whisper below him: "Irene!"
And Pierre looked down to blankly staring eyes. He groaned, and dropped to his knees.
"I have come for you," said the whisper, "because the time has come, Irene. We have to ride out together. We have a long ways to go. Are you ready?"
"Yes," said Pierre.
"Thank God! It's a wonderful night. The stars are asking us out. Quick! Into your saddle. Now the spurs. So! We are alone and free, with the winds around us, and all that we have been forgotten behind us. Irene, look up with me!" ”

“ She smiled as she sang, and the smile and music were all for Pierre, he knew. Through the last stanza of the song the rumble of the approaching death grew louder, and as she ended he threw himself beside her and gathered her into protecting arms.
She cried: "Pierre! What is it?"
"I must keep you warm; the snow will eat away your strength."
"No; it's more than that. Tell me, Pierre! You don't trust the power of the cross?"
"Are you afraid?"
"Oh, no; I'm not afraid, Pierre."
"If one life would be enough, I'd give mine a thousand times. Mary, we are to die." ”

“ At length, remembering how that weight of gold came in his pockets, he slipped his left hand into the bosom of his shirt and touched the icy metal of the cross. Almost at once he heard, or thought he heard, a faint, sweet sound of singing.
The heart of Red Pierre stopped. For he knew the visions which came to men perishing with cold; but he grew calmer again in a moment. This touch of cold was nothing compared with whole months of hard exposure which he had endured in the northland. It had not the edge. If it were not for the wind it was scarcely a threat to life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No stop-watch could have caught the differing lengths of time which each required for the draw. The muzzle of Hurley's revolver was not clear of the holster—the gun of Diaz was nearly at the level when Pierre's weapon exploded at his hip. The bullet cut through the wrist of Hurley. Never again would that slender, supple hand fly over the cards, doing things other than they seemed. He made no effort to escape from the next bullet, but stood looking down at his broken wrist; horror for the moment gave him a dignity oddly out of place with his usual appearance. ”

“ Pierre crushed the hand of Jean Paul Victor against his lips and rushed from the room, while the tall priest, staring down at the fingers which had been kissed, pronounced:
"It is better that he should commit murder with his hands than to slay in his evil thoughts."
"Can you resign him like this?"
"I have forged a thunderbolt. Father Gabrielle, you are a prophet. It is too great for my hand. Listen!"
And they heard clearly the sharp clang of a horse's hoofs on the hard-packed snow, loud at first, but fading rapidly away. ”

“ Her work was to keep this relentless lone rider away from Pierre; it was as if she strove to keep the ocean tide away from the shore. They seemed doomed to meet and shock.
All this she pondered as they began the ride up the valley, but as the long journey continued, and the hours and the miles rolled past them, a racking weariness possessed her and numbed her mind. She began to wish desperately for morning, but even morning might not bring an end to the ride. That would be at the will of the outlaw beside her. ”

“ But when it comes to a horse, a man's heart speaks for itself, and if he has sufficient knowledge of the king of beasts he will choose a sympathetic mount. A dainty woman loves a neat-stepping saddle-horse; a philosopher likes a nodding, stumble-footed nag which will jog all day long and care not a whit whether it goes up dale or down.
To know the six wild riders who galloped over the white reaches of the mountain-desert this night, certainly their horses should be studied first and the men secondly, for the one explained the other. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One day's riding would kill you—riding as I ride."
"I'm strong—-very strong, and the love of you, Pierre, will give me more strength. But quickly, for if they knew you, every man in that place would come armed and ready to kill. I know, for I've heard them talk. Tell me, are one-half of all the terrible things they say——"
"They are true, I guess."
"I won't think of them. Whatever you've done, it was not you, but some devil that forced you on. Pierre, I love you more than ever. Will you go East with me, and home? We will lose ourselves in New York. The millions of the crowd will hide us." ”

“ He shuddered and threw a hand up before his eyes.
"Dearest——"
"It's nothing—but the cross—for every good fortune it has brought me, it has brought bad luck to others."
"Hush, Pierre. Put your arms around me. I am all yours—all. You must not think of the trouble or the cross."
He obeyed and drew her close to him, and the warm slender body gave to him and lay close against his; and her head went back, and the curve of her soft lips was close to his. He kissed her, reverently, and then, with passion, the lips, the eyes, the throat, that quivered as if she were singing. ”

“ Tomorrow he must be grave and sober-footed and an example to other men; tonight he could frolic as he pleased.
So Pierre le Rouge tossed back his head and laughed up to the frosty stars. The loose sleeves and the skirts of the robe no longer entangled his limbs. He threw up his arms and shouted. A hillside caught the sound and echoed it back to him with a wonderful clearness, and up and down the long ravine beat the clatter of the flying hoofs. The whole world shouted and laughed and rode with him on Morgantown. ”

“ Certainly if he had sensed the second coming of McGurk, Pierre would not have ridden so jauntily through the hills this day, or whistled so carelessly, or swept the hills with such a complacent, lordly eye. A man of mark cannot bear himself too modestly, and Pierre, from boots to high-peaked, broad-brimmed sombrero, was the last word in elegance for a rider of the mountain-desert. ”

“ The big man snarled with anger, and lunged more eagerly at Pierre.
The two, abandoning their feints, suddenly rushed together, and the swarthy arms of the monster slipped around the white body of Pierre. For a moment they whirled, twisting and struggling.
"Now!" murmured Father Victor; and as if in answer to a command, Pierre slipped down, whipped his hands to a new grip, and the two crashed to the mat, with Pierre above.
"Open your eyes, Father Anthony. The lad is safe. How Goliath grunts!" The boy had not cared to follow his advantage, but rose and danced away, laughing softly. ”

“ A hundred eyes were instantly upon them, practiced, suspicious eyes, accustomed to search into all things and take nothing for granted; eyes of men who, when a rap came at the door, looked to see whether or not the shadow of the stranger fell full in the center of the crack beneath the door. If it fell to one side the man might be an enemy, and therefore they would stand at one side of the room, their hands upon the butt of a six-gun, and shout: "Come in." Such was the battery of glances from the men, and the color of Pierre altered, paled. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It's only a lone wolf that will ever bring down McGurk. Think how he's rounded us up like a herd of cattle and brought us down one by one."
"By getting each man alone and killing him from behind."
"From the front, Jack. No, he's fought square with each one. The wounds of Black Gandil were all in front, and when McGurk and I meet it's going to be face to face."
Her tone changed, softened: "But what of me, Pierre?"
"You have to leave this life. Go down to the city, Jack. Live like a woman; marry some lucky fellow; be happy." ”

“ Passing to the end of the down-grade, they reached a slight upward incline, and the mare, as if she had come to familiar ground, broke into a gallop, a matchless, swinging stride. Swerving to right and to left among the great boulders, like a football player running a broken field, she increased the gallop to a racing pace.
That twisting course would have shaken an ordinary horseman to the toes, but Pierre, swaying easily in the saddle, dropped the reins into the crook of his left arm and rolled a cigarette in spite of the motion and the wind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I've feared you, McGurk!"
He said it with a deep astonishment, as a grown man will speak of the way he feared darkness when he was a child. McGurk moistened his white lips. The white horse pawed the rocks as though impatient to be gone.
"Listen," said Pierre, "your horse grows restive. Suppose we stand here—it's a convenient distance apart, you see, and wait with our arms folded for the next time the white horse paws the rocks, because when I kill you, McGurk, I want you to die knowing that another man was faster on the draw and straighter with his bullets than you are. ”

“ My fine Galahad, if you came within eye-shot of her there'd be a small-sized hell raised."
"No. I'm immune there, you know."
"Nonsense. The beauty of a really lovely woman is like a fine perfume. It strikes right to a man's heart; there's no possibility of resistance. I know. You, Pierre, act like a man already in love or a boy who has never known a woman. Which is it, Pierre?"
The other made a familiar gesture with those who knew him, a touching of his left hand against his throat where the cross lay. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ It was precipitous in many places, but Pierre kept almost at a gallop, making the mare take the slopes often crouched back on her haunches with forefeet braced forward, and sliding many yards at a time.
In between the boulders he darted, twisting here and there, and always erect and jaunty in the saddle, swaying easily with every movement of Mary. Not far behind him came the girl. Fine rider that she was, she could not hope to compete with such matchless horsemanship where man and horse were only one piece of strong brawn and muscle, one daring spirit. ”