Riders of the Silences Part 21

She whirled and sat on the edge of the bunk, crying: "Pierre!" with a note of fright.

Still he persisted in that silence, his arms folded, the keen blue eyes considering her as if from a great distance.

She explained: "I was afraid--Pierre! Why don't you speak? Tell me, are you angry?"

And she sprang up and made a pace toward him. She had never seemed so little manlike, so wholly womanly. And the hand which stretched toward him, palm up, was a symbol of everything new and strange that he found in her.

He had seen it balled to a small, angry fist, brown and dangerous; he had seen it gripping the b.u.t.t of a revolver, ready for the draw; he had seen it tugging at the reins and holding a racing horse in check with an ease which a man would envy; but never before had he seen it turned palm up, to his knowledge; and now, because he could not speak to her, according to his plan, he studied her thoroughly for the first time.

Slender and marvelously made was that hand. The whole woman was in it, made for beauty, not for use. It was all he could do to keep from exclaiming.

She made a quick step toward him, eager, uncertain: "Pierre, I thought you had left me--that you were gone, and angry."

Something caught on fire in Pierre, but still he would say nothing. He was beginning to feel a cruel pleasure in his victory, but it was not without a deep sense of danger.

She had laid aside her six-gun, but she had not abandoned it. She had laid aside her anger, but she could resume it again as swiftly as she could take up her revolver.

She cried with a little burst of rage: "Pierre, you are making a game of me!"

But seeing that he did not change she altered swiftly and caught his hand in both of hers. She spoke the name which she always used when she was greatly moved.

"Ah, Pierre le Rouge, what have I done?"

His silence tempted her on like the smile of the sphinx.

And suddenly she was inside his arms, though how she separated them he could not tell, and crying: "Pierre, I am unhappy. Help me, Pierre!"

It was true, then, and Wilbur had won his bet. But how could it have happened? He took the arms that encircled his neck and brought them slowly down, and watched her curiously. Something was expected of him, but what it was he could not tell, for women were as strange to him as the wild sea is strange to the Arab.

He hunted his mind, and then: "One of the boys has angered you, Jack?"

And she said, because she could think of no way to cover the confusion which came to her after the outbreak: "Yes."

He dropped her arms and strode a pace or two up and down the room.

"Gandil?"

"N-no!" "You're lying. It was Gandil."

And he made straight for the door.

She ran after him and flung herself between him and the door. Clearly, as if it were a painted picture, she saw him facing Gandil--saw their hands leap for the guns--saw Gandil pitch face forward on the floor.

"Pierre--for G.o.d's sake!"

Her terror convinced him partially, and the furor went back from his eyes as a light goes back in a long, dark hall.

"On your honor, Jack, it's not Gandil?"

"On my honor."

"But someone has broken you up. And he's here--he's one of us, this man who's bothered you."

She could not help but answer: "Yes."

He scowled down at the floor.

"You would never be able to guess who it is. Give it up. After all--I can live through it--I guess."

He took her face between his hands and frowned down into her eyes.

"Tell me his name, Jack, and the dog--"

She said: "Let me go. Take your hands away, Pierre."

He obeyed her, deeply worried, and she stood up for a moment with a hand pressed over her eyes, swaying. He had never seen her like this; he was like a pilot striving to steer his ship through an unfathomable fog. Following what had become an instinct with him, he raised his left hand and touched the cross beneath his throat. And inspiration came to him.

CHAPTER 19

"Whether you want to or not, Jack, we'll go to this dance tonight."

Jacqueline's hand fell away from her eyes. She seemed suddenly glad again.

"Do you want to take me, Pierre?"

He explained: "Of course. Besides, we have to keep an eye on Wilbur.

This girl with the yellow hair--"

She had altered swiftly again. There was no understanding her or following her moods this day. He decided to disregard them, as he had often done before.

"Black Gandil swears that I'm bringing bad luck to the boys at last.

Patterson has disappeared; Wilbur has lost his head about a girl.

We've got to save d.i.c.k."

He knew that she was fond of Wilbur, but she showed no enthusiasm now.

"Let him go his own way. He's big enough to take care of himself."

"But it's common talk, Jack, that the end of Wilbur will come through a woman. It was that that sent him on the long trail, you know. And this girl with the yellow hair--"

"Why do you harp on her?"

"Harp on her?"

"Every other word--nothing but yellow hair. I'm sick of it. I know the kind--faded corn color--dyed, probably. Pierre, you are all blind, and you most of all."

This being obviously childish, Pierre brushed the consideration of it from his mind. "And for clothes, Jack?"