"Give dad your word to come back and he"ll let you go. He says you"re the kind that will keep your word. You see, he found you with a cross in your hand."
And Jack"s lips curled again.
It was all absurd, too impossible to be real. The only real things were the body of yellow-haired Mary Brown, under the tumbled rocks and dirt of the landslide, and the body of Martin Ryder waiting to be placed in that corner plot where the gra.s.s grew quicker than all other gra.s.s in the spring of the year.
However, having fallen among madmen, he must use cunning to get away before the outlaw and his men came back from wherever they had gone.
Otherwise there would be more bloodshed, more play of guns and hum of lead.
"Tell me of Hal," he said, and dropped his elbows on his knees as if he accepted his fate.
"Don"t know you well enough to talk of Hal."
"I"m sorry."
The boy made a little gesture of apology.
"I guess that was a mean thing to say. Sure I"ll tell you about Hal--if I can."
"Tell me anything you can," said Pierre gently, "because I"ve got to try to be like him, haven"t I?"
"You could try till rattlers got tame, but it"d take ten like you to make one like Hal. He was dad"s own son--he was my brother."
The sob came openly now, and the tears were a mist in the boy"s eyes.
"What"s your name?"
"Pierre."
"Pierre? I suppose I got to learn it."
"I suppose so." And he edged farther forward so that he was sitting only on the edge of the bunk.
"Please do." And he gathered his feet under him, ready for a spring forward and a grip at the boy"s threatening rifle.
Jack had canted his head a little to one side. "Did you ever see a horse that was gentle and yet had never been ridden, or his spirit broke, Pierre--"
Here Pierre made his leap swift as some bobcat of the northern woods; his hand whipped out as lightning fast as the striking paw of the lynx, and the gun was jerked from the hands of Jack. Not before the boy clutched at it with a cry of horror, but the force of the pull sent him lurching to the floor and broke his grip.
He was up in an instant, however, and a knife of ugly length glittered in his hand as he sprang at Pierre.
Pierre tossed aside the rifle and met the attack barehanded. He caught the knife-bearing hand at the wrist and under his grip the hand loosened its hold and the steel tinkled on the floor. His other arm caught the body of Jack in a mighty vise.
There was a brief and futile struggle, and a hissing of breath in the silence till the hat tumbled from the head of Jack and down over the shoulders streamed a torrent of silken black hair.
Pierre stepped back. This was the meaning, then, of the strangely small feet and hands and the low music of the voice. It was the body of a girl that he had held.
CHAPTER 11
It was not fear nor shame that made the eyes of Jacqueline so wide as she stared past Pierre toward the door. He glanced across his shoulder, and blocking the entrance to the room, literally filling the doorway, was the bulk of Jim Boone.
"Seems as if I was sort of steppin" in on a little family party," he said. "I"m sure glad you two got acquainted so quick. Jack, how did you and--What the h.e.l.l"s your name, lad?"
"He tricked me, dad, or he would never have got the gun away from me.
This--this Pierre--this beast--he got me to talk of Hal. Then he stole--"
"The point," said Jim Boone coldly, "is that he _got_ the gun. Run along, Jack. You ain"t so growed up as I was thinkin". Or hold on--maybe you"re _more_ grown up. Which is it? Are you turnin" into a woman, Jack?"
She whirled on Pierre in a white fury.
"You see? You see what you"ve done? He"ll never trust me again--never!
Pierre, I hate you. I"ll always hate you. And if Hal were here--"
A storm of sobs and tears cut her short, and she disappeared through the door. Boone and Pierre stood regarding each other critically.
Pierre spoke first: "You"re not as big as I expected."
"I"m plenty big; but you"re older than I thought."
"Too old for what you want of me. The girl told me what that was."
"Not too old to be made what I want."
And his hands pa.s.sed through a significant gesture of molding the empty air. The boy met his eye dauntlessly.
"I suppose," he said, "that I"ve a pretty small chance of getting away."
"Just about none, Pierre. Come here."
Pierre stepped closer and looked down the hall into another room.
There, about a table, sat the five grimmest riders of the mountain-desert that he had ever seen. They were such men as one could judge at a glance, and Pierre made that instinctive motion for his six-gun. "The girl," Jim Boone was saying, "kept you pretty busy tryin" to make a break, and if she could do anything maybe you"d have a pile of trouble with one of them guardin" you. But if I"d had a good look at you, lad, I"d never have let Jack take the job of guardin" you."
"Thanks," answered Pierre dryly.
"You got reason; I can see that. Here"s the point, Pierre. I know young men because I can remember pretty close what I was at your age.
I wasn"t any ladies" lap dog, at that, but time and older men molded me the way I"m going to mold you. Understand?"
Pierre was nerved for many things, but the last word made him stir. It roused in him a red-tinged desire to get through the forest of black beard at the throat of Boone and dim the glitter of those keen eyes.
It brought him also another thought.
Two great tasks lay before him: the burial of his father and the avenging of him on McGurk. As to the one, he knew it would be childish madness for him to attempt to bury his father in Morgantown with only his single hand to hold back the powers of the law or the friends of the notorious Diaz and crippled Hurley.
And for the other, it was even more vain to imagine that through his own unaided power he could strike down a figure of such almost legendary terror as McGurk. The bondage of the gang might be a terrible thing through the future, but the present need blinded him to what might come.
He said: "Suppose I stop raising questions or making a fight, but give you my hand and call myself a member--"