Riders of the Silences Part 24

CHAPTER 21

Jacqueline could never ride a horse in that gown, or even sit sidewise in the saddle without hopelessly crumpling it, so they walked to the schoolhouse. It was a slow progress, for she had to step lightly and carefully for fear of the slippers. He took her bare arm and helped her; he would never have thought of it under ordinary conditions, but since she had put on this gown she was greatly changed to him, no longer the wild, free rider of the mountain-desert, but a defenseless, strangely weak being. Her strength was now something other than the skill to ride hard and shoot straight and quick.

So they came to the schoolhouse and reached the long line of buggies, buckboards, and, most of all, saddled horses. They crowded the horse-shed where the school children stabled their mounts in the winter weather. They were tethered to the posts of the fence; they were grouped about the trees.

It was a prodigious gathering, and a great affair for the mountain-desert. They knew this even before they had set foot within the building.

They stopped here and adjusted their masks carefully. They were made from a strip of black lining which Jack had torn from one of the coats in the trunk which lay far back in the hills.

Those masks had to be tied firmly and well, for some jester might try to pull away that of Pierre, and if his face were seen, it would be death--a slaughter without defense, for he had not been able to conceal his big Colt in these tight-fitting clothes. Even as it was, there was peril from the moment that the lights within should shine on that head of dark-red hair.

As for Jack, there was little fear that she would be recognized. She was strange even to Pierre every time he looked down at her, for she had ceased to be Jack and had become very definitely "Jacqueline." But the masks were on; the scarf adjusted about the throat and bare, shivering shoulders of Jack, and they stood arm in arm before the door out of which streamed the voices and the music.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes."

But she was trembling so, either from fear, or excitement, or both, that he had to take a firm hold on her arm and almost carry her up the steps, shove the door open, and force her in. 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 b.u.t.t of a six-gun, and shout: "Come in." Such was the battery of glances from the men, and the color of Pierre altered, paled.

He knew some of those faces, for those who hunt and are hunted never forget the least gestures of their enemies. There was a mighty temptation to turn back even then, but he set his teeth and forced himself to stand calmly.

The chuckle which replied to this maneuver freed him for the moment.

Suspicion was lulled. Moreover, the red-jeweled hair of Jacqueline and her lighted eyes called all attention almost immediately upon her. She shifted the golden scarf--the white arms and breast flashed in the light--a gasp responded. There would be talk tomorrow; there were whispers even now.

It was not the main hall that they stood in, for this school, having been built by an aspiring community, contained two rooms; this smaller room, used by the little ones of the school, was now converted into a hat-and-cloak room.

Pierre hung up his hat, removed his gloves slowly, nerving himself to endure the sharp glances, and opened the door for Jacqueline.

If she had held back tremulously before, something she had seen in the eyes of those in the first room, something in the whisper and murmur which rose the moment she started to leave, gave her courage. She stepped into the dance-hall like a queen going forth to address devoted subjects. The second ordeal was easier than the first. There were many times more people in that crowded room, but each was intent upon his own pleasure. A wave of warmth and light swept upon them, and a blare of music, and a stir and hum of voices, and here and there the sweet sound of a happy girl's laughter. They raised their heads, these two wild rangers of the mountain-desert, and breathed deep of the fantastic scene.

There was no attempt at beauty in the costumes of the masqueraders.

Here and there some girl achieved a novel and pleasing effect; but on the whole they strove for cheaper and more stirring things in the line of the grotesque.

Here pa.s.sed a youth wearing a beard made from the stiff, red bristles of the tail of a sorrel horse. Another wore a bear's head cunningly stuffed, the grinning teeth flashing over his head and the skin draped over his shoulders. A third disfigured himself by painting after the fashion of an Indian on the warpath, with crimson streaks down his forehead and red and black across his cheeks.

But not more than a third of all the a.s.sembly made any effort to masquerade, beyond the use of the simple black mask across the upper part of the face. The rest of the men and women contented themselves with wearing the very finest clothes they could afford to buy, and there was through the air a scent of the general merchandise store which not even a liberal use of cheap perfume and all the drifts of pale-blue cigarette smoke could quite overcome.

As for the music, it was furnished by two very old men, relics of the days when there were contests in fiddling; a stout fellow of middle age, with cheeks swelled almost to bursting as he thundered out terrific blasts on a slide trombone; a youth who rattled two sticks on an overturned dish-pan in lieu of a drum, and a cornetist of real skill.

There were hard faces in the crowd, most of them, of men who had set their teeth against hard weather and hard men, and fought their way through, not to happiness, but to existence, so that fighting had become their pleasure.

Now they relaxed their eternal vigilance, their eternal suspicion.

Another phase of their nature weakened. Some of them were smiling and laughing for the first time in months, perhaps, of labor and loneliness on the range. With the gates of good-nature opened, a veritable flood of gaiety burst out. It glittered in their eyes, it rose to their lips in a wild laughter. They seemed to be dancing more furiously fast in order to forget the life which they had left, and to which they must return.

These were the conquerors of the bitter nature of the mountain-desert.

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.

And Pierre le Rouge and Jacqueline? They stood aghast for a moment when that crash of noise broke around them; but they came from a life where there was nothing of beauty except the lonely strength of the mountains and the appalling silences of the stars that roll above the desert. Almost at once they caught the overtone of human joyousness, and they turned with smiles to each other, and it was "Pierre?"

"Jack?" Then a nod, and she was in his arms, and they glided into the dance.

CHAPTER 22

When a crowd gathers in the street, there rises a babel of voices, a confused and pointless clamor, no matter what the purpose of the gathering, until some man who can think as well as shout begins to speak. Then the crowd murmurs a moment, and after a few seconds composes itself to listen.

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.

They could not help but dance well, for they had youth and grace and strength, and the glances of applause and envy were like wine to quicken their blood, while above all they caught the overtone of the singing violins, and danced by that alone. The music ended with a long flourish just as they whirled to a stop in a corner of the room. At once an eddy of men started toward them.

"Who shall it be?" smiled Pierre. "With whom do you want to dance?

It's your triumph, Jack."

She was alight and alive with the victory, and her eyes roved over the crowd.

"The big man with the tawny hair."

"But he's making right past us."

"No; he'll turn and come back."

"How do you know?"

For answer she glanced up and laughed, and he realized with a singular sense of loneliness that she knew many things which were beyond his ken. Someone touched his arm, and a voice, many voices, beset him.

"How's the chances for a dance with the girl, partner?"

"This dance is already booked," Pierre answered, and kept his eyes on the tall man with the scarred face and the resolute jaw. He wondered why Jacqueline had chosen such a partner.

At least she had prophesied correctly, for the big man turned toward them just as he seemed about to head for another part of the hall. The crowd gave way before him, not that he shouldered them aside, but they seemed to feel the coming of his shadow before him, and separated as they would have done before the shadow of a falling tree.

In another moment Pierre found himself looking up to the giant. No mask could cover that long, twisting mark of white down his cheek, nor hide the square set of the jaw, nor dim the steady eyes.

And there came to Pierre an exceedingly great uneasiness in his right hand, and a twitching of the fingers low down on his thigh where the familiar holster should have hung. His left hand rose, following the old instinct, and touched beneath his throat where the cold cross lay.

He was saying easily: "This is your dance, isn't it?"

"Right, Bud," answered the big man in a mellow voice as great as his size. "Sorry I can't swap partners with you, but I hunt alone."

An overwhelming desire to get a distance between himself and this huge unknown came to Pierre.

He said: "There goes the music. You're off."

And the other, moving toward Jack, leaned down a little and murmured at the ear of the outlaw: "Thanks, Pierre."