Max Brand (12 page)

"The girl with the yellow hair."

"Then go ahead and see her. I won't keep you. You don't mind if I go
on sleeping? Sit down and be at home."

With this she calmly turned her back again and seemed thoroughly
disposed to carry out her word.

Red Pierre flushed a little, watching her, and he spoke his anger
outright: "You're acting like a sulky kid, Jack, not like a man."

It was a habit of his to forget that she was a woman. Without turning
her head she answered: "Do you want to know why?"

"You're like a cat showing your claws. Go on! Tell me what the reason
is."

"Because I get tired of you."

In all his life he had never been so scorned. He did not see the
covert grin of Wilbur in the background. He blurted: "Tired?"

"Awfully. You don't mind me being frank, do you, Pierre?"

He could only stammer: "Sometimes I wish to God you
were
a man,
Jack!"

"You don't often remember that I'm a woman."

"Do you mean that I'm rude or rough with you, Jacqueline?" Still the
silence, but Wilbur was grinning broader than ever. "Answer me!"

She started up and faced him, her face convulsed with rage.

"What do you want me to say? Yes, you are rude—I hate you and your
lot. Go away from me; I don't want you; I hate you all."

And she would have said more, but furious sobs swelled her throat and
she could not speak, but dropped, face down, on the bunk and gripped
the blankets in each hardset hand. Over her Pierre leaned, utterly
bewildered, found nothing that he could say, and then turned and
strode, frowning, from the room. Wilbur hastened after him and caught
him just as the door was closing.

"Come back," he pleaded. "This is the best game I've ever seen. Come
back, Pierre! You've made a wonderful start."

Pierre le Rouge shook off the detaining hand and glared up at Wilbur.

"Don't try irony, Dick. I feel like murder. Think of it! All this time
she's been hating me; and now it's making her weep; think of
it—Jack—weeping!"

"Why, you're a child, Pierre. She's in love with you."

"With me?"

"With Red Pierre."

"You can't make a joke out of Jack with me. You ought to know that."

"Pierre, I'd as soon make a joke out of a wildcat."

"Grinning still? Wilbur, I'm taking more from you than I would from
any man on the ranges."

"I know you are, and that's why I'm stringing this out because I'm
going to have a laugh—ha, ha, ha!—the rest of my life—ha, ha, ha,
ha!—whenever I think of this!"

The burst of merriment left him speechless, and Pierre, glowering,
his right hand twitching dangerously close to that holster at his hip.
He sobered, and said: "Go in and talk to her and prove that
I'm right."

"Ask Jack if she loves me? Why, I'd as soon ask any man the same
question."

The big long-rider was instantly curious.

"Has she never appealed to you as a woman, Pierre?"

"How could she? I've watched her ride; I've watched her use her gun;
I've slept rolled in the same blankets with her, back to back; I've
walked and talked and traveled with her as if she were my
kid brother."

Wilbur nodded, as if the miracle were being slowly unfolded before his
eyes.

"And you've never noticed anything different about her? Never watched
a little lift and grace in her walk that no man could ever have; never
seen her color change just because you, Pierre, came near or went far
away from her?"

"Because of me?" asked the bewildered Pierre.

"You fool, you! Why, lad, I've been kept amused by you two for a whole
evening, watching her play for your attention, saving her best smiles
for you, keeping her best attitudes for you, and letting all the
richness of her voice go out for—a block—a stone. Gad, the thing
still doesn't seem possible! Pierre, one instant of that girl would
give romance to a man's whole life."

"This girl? This Jack of ours?"

"He hasn't seen it! Why, if I hadn't seen years ago that she had tied
her hands and turned her heart over to you, I'd have been begging her
for a smile, a shadow of a hope."

"If I didn't know you, Dick, I'd say that you were partly drunk and
partly a fool."

"Here's a hundred—a cold hundred that I'm right. I'll make it a
thousand, if you dare."

"Dare what?"

"Ask her to marry you." "Marry—me?"

"Damn it all—well, then—whatever you like. But I say that if you go
back into that room and sit still and merely look at her, she'll be in
your arms within five minutes."

"I hate to take charity, but a bet is a bet. That hundred is in my
pocket already. It's a go!"

They shook hands.

"But what will be your proof, Dick, whether I win or lose?"

"Your face, blockhead, when you come out of the room."

Upon this Pierre pondered a moment, and then turned toward the door.
He set his hand on the knob, faltered, and finally set his teeth and
entered the room.

She lay as he had left her, except that her face was now pillowed in
her arms, and the long sobs kept her body quivering. Curiosity swept
over Pierre, looking down at her, but chiefly a puzzled grief such as
a man feels when a friend is in trouble. He came closer and laid a
hand on her shoulder.

"Jack!"

She turned far enough to strike his hand away and instantly resumed
her former position, though the sobs were softer. This childish anger
irritated him. He was about to storm out of the room when the thought
of the hundred dollars stopped him. The bet had been made, and it
seemed unsportsmanlike to leave without some effort.

The effort which he finally made was that suggested by Wilbur. He
folded his arms and stood silent, waiting, and ready to judge the time
as nearly as he could until the five minutes should have elapsed. He
was so busy computing the minutes that it was with a start that he
noticed some time later that the weeping had ceased. She lay quiet.
Her hand was dabbing furtively at her face for a purpose which Pierre
could not surmise.

At last a broken voice murmured: "Pierre!"

He would not speak, but something in the voice made his anger go.
After a little it came, and louder this time: "Pierre?"

He did not stir.

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 butt 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 God'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.

"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 Dick."

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?"

They were both dumb. It had been years since she had worn the clothes
of a woman. She had danced with the men of her father's gang many a
time while someone whistled or played on a mouth-organ, and there was
the time they rode into Beulah Ferry and held up the dance hall, and
Jim Boone and Mansie lined up the crowd with their hands held high
above their heads while the sweating musicians played fast and furious
and Jack and Pierre danced down the center of the hall.

She had danced many a time, but never in the clothes of a woman; so
they stared, mutely puzzled.

A thought came first to Jacqueline. She stepped close and murmured her
suggestion in the ear of Pierre. Whatever it was, it made his jaw set
hard and brought grave lines into his face.

She stepped back, asking: "Well?"

"We'll do it. What a little demon you are, Jack!"

"Then we'll have to start now. There's barely time."

They ran from the room together, and as they passed through the room
below Wilbur called after them: "The dance?"

"Yes."

"Wait and go with me."

"We ride in a roundabout way."

They were through the door as Pierre called back, and a moment later
the hoofs of their horses scattered the gravel down the hillside.
Jacqueline rode a black stallion sired by her father's mighty Thunder,
who had grown old but still could do the work of three ordinary horses
in carrying the great bulk of his master. The son of Thunder was
little like his sire, but a slender-limbed racer, graceful, nervous,
eager. A clumsy rider would have ruined the horse in a single day's
hard work among the trails of the mountain-desert, but Jacqueline,
fairly reading the mind of the black, nursed his strength when it was
needed and let him run free and swift when the ground before him
was level.

Now she picked her course dexterously down the hillside with the
cream-colored mare of Pierre following half a length behind.

After the first down-pitch of ground was covered they passed into
difficult terrain, and for half an hour went at a jog trot, winging in
and out among the rocks, climbing steadily up and up through
the hills.

Here the ground opened up again, and they roved on at a free gallop,
the black always half a length in front. Along the ridge of a crest,
an almost level stretch of a mile or more, Jack eased the grip on the
reins, and the black responded with a sudden lengthening of stride and
lowered his head with ears pressed back flat while he fairly flew over
the ground.