Riders of the Silences Page 12

  CHAPTER XII

  THE BURIAL

  The annals of the mountain desert have never been written and can neverbe written. They are merely a vast mass of fact and tradition andimagining which floats from tongue to tongue from the Rockies to theSierra Nevadas. A man may be a fact all his life and die only a localcelebrity. Then again, he may strike sparks from that imaginationwhich runs riot by camp-fires and at the bars of the crossroads saloons.

  In that case he becomes immortal. It is not that lies are told abouthim or impossible feats ascribed to him, but every detail about him isseized upon and passed on with a most scrupulous and loving care.

  In due time he will become a tradition. That is, he will be knownfamiliarly at widely separated parts of the range, places which he hasnever visited. It has happened to a few of the famous characters ofthe mountain desert that they became traditions before their deaths.It happened to McGurk, of course. It also happened to Red Pierre.

  Oddly enough, the tradition of Red Pierre did not begin with his ridefrom the school of Father Victor to Morgantown, distant many days ofdifficult and dangerous travel. Neither did tradition seize on the gunfight that crippled Hurley and "put out" wizard Diaz. These thingswere unquestionably known to many, but they did not strike the popularimagination. What set men first on fire was the way Pierre le Rougeburied his father "at the point of the gun" in Morgantown.

  That day Boone's men galloped out of the higher mountains down thetrail toward Morgantown. They stole a wagon out of a ranch stable onthe way and tied two lariats to the tongue. So they towed it, boundingand rattling, over the rough trail to the house where Martin Ryder laydead.

  His body was placed in state in the body of the wagon, pillowed witheverything in the line of cloth which the house could furnish. Thusequipped they went on at a more moderate pace toward Morgantown.

  What followed it is useless to repeat here. Tradition rehearsed everydetail of that day's work, and the purpose of this narrative is only togive the details of some of the events which tradition does not know,at least in their entirety.

  They started at one end of Morgantown's street. Pierre guarded thewagon in the center of the street and kept the people under cover ofhis rifle. The rest of Boone's men cleaned out the houses as they wentand sent the occupants piling out to swell the crowd.

  And so they rolled the crowd out of town and to the cemetery, where"volunteers" dug the grave of Martin Ryder wide and deep, and Pierrepaid for the corner plot three times over in gold.

  Then a coffin--improvised hastily for the occasion out of apacking-box--was lowered reverently, also by "volunteer" mourners, andbefore the first sod fell on the dead, Pierre borrowed a long blackcloak from one of the women and wrapped himself in it, in lieu of therobe of the priest, and raised over his head the crucifix of FatherVictor that brought good luck, and intoned a service in the purestCiceronian Latin, surely, that ever regaled the ears of Morgantown'select.

  The moment he raised that cross the bull throat of Jim Boone bellowed acommand, the poised guns of the gang enforced it, and all the crowddropped to their knees, leaving the six outlaws scattered about theedges of the mob like sheep dogs around a folding flock, while in thecenter stood Pierre with white, upturned face and the raised cross.

  So Martin Ryder was buried with "trimmings," and the gang rode back,laughing and shouting, through the town and up into the safety of themountains. Election day was fast approaching and therefore the rivalcandidates for sheriff hastily organized posses and made the usualfutile pursuit.

  In fact, before the pursuit was well under way, Boone and his men satat their supper table in the cabin. The seventh chair was filled; allwere present except Jack, who sulked in her room. Pierre went to herdoor and knocked. He carried under his arm a package which he hadsecured in the General Merchandise Store of Morgantown.

  "We're all waiting for you at the table," he explained.

  "Just keep on waiting," said the husky voice of Jacqueline.

  "If I leave the table will you come out?"

  She stammered: "Ye--n-no!"

  "Yes or no?"

  "No, no, no!"

  And he heard the stamp of her foot and smiled a little.

  "I've brought you a present."

  "I hate your presents!"

  "It's a thing you've wanted for a long time, Jacqueline."

  Only a stubborn silence.

  "I'm putting your door a little ajar."

  "If you dare to come in I'll--"

  "And I'm leaving the package right here at the entrance. I'm so sorry,Jacqueline, that you hate me."

  And then he walked off down the hall--cunning Pierre--before she couldsend her answer like an arrow after him. At the table he arranged aneighth plate and drew up a chair before it.

  "If that's for Jack," remarked Dick Wilbur, "you're wasting your time.I know her and I know her type. She'll never come out to the tableto-night--nor to-morrow, either. I know!"

  In fact, he knew a good deal too much about girls and women also, didWilbur, and that was why he rode the long trails of the mountain-desertwith Boone and his men. Far south and east in the Bahamas a greatmansion stood vacant because he was gone, and the dust lay thick on thecarpets and powdered the curtains and tapestries with a common gray.

  He had built it and furnished it for a woman he loved, and afterwardfor her sake he had killed a man and fled from a posse and escaped inthe steerage of a west-bound ship. Still the law followed him, and hekept on west and west until he reached the mountain-desert which thinksnothing of swallowing men and their reputations.

  There he was safe, but some day he would see some woman smile, catchthe glimmer of some eye, and throw safety away to ride after her.

  It was a weakness, but what made a tragic figure of handsome DickWilbur was that he knew his weakness and sat still and let fate walk upand overtake him.

  Yet Pierre le Rouge answered this man of sorrowful wisdom: "In my partof the country men say: 'If you would speak of women let money talk foryou.'"

  And he placed a gold piece on the table.

  "She will come out to the supper table."

  "She will not," smiled Wilbur, and covered the coin. "Will you takeodds?"

  "No charity. Who else will bet?"

  "I," said Jim Boone instantly. "You figure her for an ordinary sulkykid."

  Pierre smiled upon him.

  "There's a cut in my shirt where her knife passed through; and that'sthe reason that I'll bet on her now."

  The whole table covered his coin, with laughter.

  "We've kept one part of your bargain, Pierre. We've seen your fatherburied in the corner plot. Now, what's the second part?"

  "I don't know you well enough to ask you that," said Pierre.

  They plied him with suggestions.

  "To rob the Berwin Bank?"

  "Stick up a train?"

  "No. That's nothing."

  "Round up the sheriffs from here to the end of the mountains?"

  "Too easy."

  "Roll all those together," said Pierre, "and you'll begin to get anidea of what I'll ask."

  Then a low voice called from the black throat of the hall "Pierre!"

  The others were silent, but Pierre winked at them, and made greatflourish with knife and fork against his plate as if to cover the soundof Jacqueline's voice.

  "Pierre!" she called again. "I've come to thank you."

  He jumped up and turned toward the hall.

  "Do you like it?"

  "It's a wonder!"

  "Then we're friends?"

  "If you want to be."

  "There's nothing I want more. Then you'll come out and have supperwith us, Jack?"

  "Pierre--"

  "Yes?"

  "I'm ashamed. I've been acting like a silly kid."

  "But we're waiting for you."

  There was a little pause, and then Jim Boone struck his fist on thetable and cursed, for she stepped from the darkness into the flaringligh
t of the room.