Max Brand (22 page)

"Jack—perhaps I've done something wrong—"

He stammered again: "I didn't dream I was hurting you—"

Then light broke upon him.

He said: "It's because you don't want to be treated like a silly girl;
eh, Jack?"

But to complete his astonishment she moaned: "N-n-no! It's b-b-because
you—you n-n-never
do
t-treat me like a g-g-girl, P-P-Pierre!"

He groaned heartily: "Well, I'll be damned!"

And because he was thoughtful he strode away, staring at the floor. It
was then that he saw it, small and crumpled on the floor. He picked it
up—a glove of the softest leather. He carried it back to Jacqueline.

"What's this?"

"Wh-wh-what?"

"This glove I found on the floor?"

The sobs decreased at once—broke out more violently—and then she
sprang up from the bunk.

"Pierre, I've acted a regular chump. Are you out with me?"

"Not a bit, old-timer. But about this glove?"

"Oh, that's one of mine."

She took it and slipped it into the bosom of her shirt—the calm blue
eye of Pierre noted.

He said: "We'll eat and forget the rest of this, if you want, Jack."

"And you ain't mad at me, Pierre?"

"Not a bit."

There was just a trace of coldness in his tone, and she knew perfectly
why it was there, but she chose to ascribe it to another cause.

She explained: "You see, a woman is just about nine tenths fool,
Pierre, and has to bust out like that once in a while."

"Oh!" said Pierre, and his eyes wandered past her as though he found
food for thought on the wall.

She ventured cautiously, after seeing that he was eating with
appetite: "How does the pin look?"

"Why, fine."

And the silence began again.

She dared not question him in that mood, so she ventured again: "The
old boy shooting left-handed—didn't he even fan the wind near you?"

"That was another bit of carelessness," said Pierre, but his smile
held little of life. "He might have known that if he
had
shot
close—by accident—I might have turned around and shot him dead—on
purpose. But when a man stops thinking for a minute, he's apt to go on
for a long time making a fool of himself."

"Right," she said, brightening as she felt the crisis pass away, "and
that reminds me of a story about—"

"By the way, Jack, I'll wager there's a more interesting story than
that you could tell me."

"What?"

"About how that glove happened to be on the floor."

"Why, partner, it's just a glove of my own."

"Didn't know you wore gloves with a leather as soft as that."

"No? Well, that story I was speaking about runs something like this—"

And she told him a gay narrative, throwing all her spirit into it, for
she was an admirable mimic. He met her spirit more than half-way,
laughing gaily; and so they reached the end of the story and the end
of the meal at the same time. She cleared away the pans with a few
motions and tossed them clattering into a corner. Neat housekeeping
was not numbered among the many virtues of Jacqueline. "Now," said
Pierre, leaning back against the wall, "we'll hear about that glove."

"Damn the glove!" broke from her.

"Steady, pal!"

"Pierre, are you going to nag me about a little thing like that?"

"Why, Jack, you're red and white in patches. I'm interested."

He sat up.

"I'm more than interested. The story, Jack."

"Well, I suppose I have to tell you. I did a fool thing today. Took a
little gallop down the trail, and on my way back I met a girl sitting
in her saddle with her face in her hands, crying her heart out. Poor
kid! She'd come up in a hunting party and got separated from the rest.

"So I got sympathetic—"

"About the first time on record that you've been sympathetic with
another girl, eh?"

"Shut up, Pierre! And I brought her in here—right into your cabin,
without thinking what I was doing, and gave her a cup of coffee. Of
course it was a pretty greenhorn trick, but I guess no harm will come
of it. The girl thinks it's a prospector's cabin—which it was once.
She went on her way, happy, because I told her of the right trail to
get back with her gang. That's all there is to it. Are you mad at me
for letting anyone come into this place?"

"Mad?" He smiled. "No, I think that's one of the best lies you ever
told me, Jack."

Their eyes met, hers very wide, and his keen and steady. Then she
gripped at the butt of her gun, an habitual trick when she was very
angry, and cried: "Do I have to sit here and let you call me—that?
Pierre, pull a few more tricks like that and I'll call for a new
deal. Get me?"

She rose, whirled, and threw herself sullenly on her bunk. "Come
back," said Pierre. "You're more scared than angry. Why are you
afraid, Jack?"

"It's a lie—I'm not afraid!"

"Let me see that glove again."

"You've seen it once—that's enough."

He whistled carelessly, rolling a cigarette. After he lighted it he
said: "Ready to talk yet, partner?"

She maintained an obstinate silence, but that sharp eye saw that she
was trembling. He set his teeth and then drew several long puffs on
his cigarette.

"I'm going to count to ten, pal, and when I finish you're going to
tell me everything straight. In the meantime don't stay there thinking
up a new lie. I know you too well, and if you try the same thing on
me again—"

"Well?" she snarled, all the tiger coming back in her voice.

"You'll talk, all right. Here goes the count: One—two—three—four—"

As he counted, leaving a long drag of two or three seconds between
numbers, there was not a change in the figure of the girl. She still
lay with her back turned on him, and the only expressive part that
showed was her hand. First it lay limp against her hip, but as the
monotonous count proceeded it gathered to a fist.

"Five—six—seven—"

It seemed that he had been counting for hours, his will against her
will, the man in him against the woman in her, and during the pauses
between the sound of his voice the very air grew charged with waiting.
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.
Her hand had gathered to a hard-balled fist.

"Eight—nine—"

She sprang up, screaming: "No, no, Pierre!" And threw out her arms to
him.

"Ten."

She whispered: "It was the girl with yellow hair—Mary Brown."

It was as if she had said: "Good morning!" in the calmest of voices.
There was no answer in him, neither word nor expression, and out of
ten sharp-eyed men, nine would have passed him by without noting the
difference; but the girl knew him as the monk knows his prayers or the
Arab his horse, and a solemn, deep despair came over her. She felt
like the drowning, when the water closes over their heads for the
last time.

He puffed twice again at the cigarette and then flicked the butt into
the fire. When he spoke it was only to say: "Did she stay long?"

But his eyes avoided her. She moved a little so as to read his face,
but when he turned again and answered her stare she winced. "Not very
long, Pierre."

"Ah," he said. "I see! It was because she didn't dream that this was
the place I lived in."

It was the sort of heartless, torturing questioning which was once the
crudest weapon of the inquisition. With all her heart she fought to
raise her voice above the whisper whose very sound accused her, but
could not. She was condemned to that voice as the man bound in
nightmare is condemned to walk slowly, slowly, though the terrible
danger is racing toward him, and the safety which he must reach lies
only a dozen steps, a dozen mortal steps away.

She said in that voice: "No; of course she didn't dream it."

"And you, Jack, had her interests at heart—her best interests, poor
girl, and didn't tell her?"

Her hands went out to him in mute appeal.

"Please, Pierre—don't!"

"Is something troubling you, Jack?"

"You are breaking my heart."

"Why, by no means! Let's sit here calmly and chat about the girl with
the yellow hair. To begin with—she's rather pleasant to look at,
don't you think?"

"I suppose she is."

"Hm! Rather poor taste not to be sure of it. Well, let it go. You've
always had rather queer taste in women, Jack; but, of course, being a
long-rider, you haven't seen much of them. At least her name is
delightful—Mary Brown! You've no idea how often I've repeated it
aloud to myself—Mary Brown!"

"I hate her!"

"You two didn't have a very agreeable time of it? By the way, she must
have left in rather a hurry to forget her glove, eh?"

"Yes, she ran—like a coward."

"Ah?" "Like a trembling coward. How can you care for a white-faced
little fool like that? Is she your match? Is she your mate?"

He considered a moment, as though to make sure that he did not
exaggerate.

"I love her, Jack, as men love water when they've ridden all day over
hot sand without a drop on their lips—you know when the tongue gets
thick and the mouth fills with cotton—and then you see clear, bright
water, and taste it?

"She is like that to me. She feeds every sense; and when I look in her
eyes, Jack, I feel like the starved man on the desert, as I was
saying, drinking that priceless water. You knew something of the way I
feel, Jack. Isn't it a little odd that you didn't keep her here?"

She had stood literally shuddering during this speech, and now she
burst out, far beyond all control: "Because she loathes you; because
she hates herself for ever having loved you; because she despises
herself for having ridden up here after you. Does that fill your cup
of water, Pierre, eh?"

His forehead was shining with sweat, but he set his teeth, and, after
a moment, he was able to say in the same hard, calm voice: "I suppose
there was no real reason for her change. She can be persuaded back to
me in a moment. In that case just tell me where she has gone and I'll
ride after her."

He made as if to rise, but she cried in a panic, and yet with a wild
exultation: "No, she's done with you forever, and the more you make
love to her now the more she'll hate you. Because she knows that when
you kissed her before—when you kissed her—you were living with
a woman."

"I—living with a woman?"

Her voice had risen out of the whisper for the outbreak. Now it sank
back into it.

"Yes—with me!" "With you? I see. Naturally it must have gone hard
with her—Mary! And she wouldn't see reason even when you explained
that you and I are like brothers?"

He leaned a little toward her and just a shade of emotion came in his
voice.

"When you carefully explained, Jack, with all the eloquence you could
command, that you and I have ridden and fought and camped together
like brothers for six years? And how I gave you your first gun? And
how I've stayed between you and danger a thousand times? And how I've
never treated you otherwise than as a man? And how I've given you the
love of a blood-brother to take the place of the brother who died? And
how I've kept you in a clean and pure respect such as a man can only
give once in his life—and then only to his dearest friend? She
wouldn't listen—even when you talked to her like this?"

"For God's sake—Pierre!"

"Ah, but you talked well enough to pave the way for me. You talked so
eloquently that with a little more persuasion from me she will know
and understand. Come, I must be gone after her. Which way did she
ride—up or down the valley?"

"You could talk to her forever and she'd never listen. Pierre, I told
her that I was—your woman—that you'd told me of your scenes with
her—and that we'd laughed at them together."

She covered her eyes and crouched, waiting for the wrath that would
fall on her, but he only smiled bitterly on the bowed head, saying:
"Why have I waited so long to hear you say what I knew already? I
suppose because I wouldn't believe until I heard the whole abominable
truth from your own lips. Jack, why did you do it?"

"Won't you see? Because I've loved you always, Pierre!"

"Love—you—your tiger-heart? No, but you were like a cruel, selfish
child. You were jealous because you didn't want the toy taken away. I
knew it. I knew that even if I rode after her it would be hopeless.
Oh, God, how terribly you've hurt me, partner!"

It wrung a little moan from her. He said after a moment: "It's only
the ghost of a chance, but I'll have to take it. Tell me which way she
rode? No? Then I'll try to find her."

She leaped between him and the door, flinging her shoulders against it
with a crash and standing with outspread arms to bar the way.

"You must not go!"

He turned his head somewhat.

"Don't stand in front of me, Jack. You know I'll do what I say, and
just now it's a bit hard for me to face you."

"Pierre, I feel as if there were a hand squeezing my heart small, and
small, and small. Pierre, I'd die for you!"

"I know you would. I know you would, partner. It was only a mistake,
and you acted the way any coldhearted boy would act if—if someone
were to try to steal his horse, for instance. But just now it's hard
for me to look at you and be calm."

"Don't try to be! Swear at me—curse—rave—beat me; I'd be glad of
the blows, Pierre. I'd hold out my arms to 'em. But don't go out
that door!"

"Why?"

"Because—if you found her—she's not alone."

"Say that slowly. I don't understand. She's not alone?"