The Black Rider

by Max Brand

  “No,” she said, “I shall give poor Taki a better start than SeñorTorreño would give him. By this time the bay stallion has whipped him away toward the mountains faster than any wolf could run! Well, I trust that he rides well and fast and far. He is a strange man, Aunt Anna. Did you see the shadow over those black eyes of his when I showed him that I understood? Not a muscle of his face changed…except once!”

  “Ah, Lucia, he may do some terrible thing if you do not warn the Señor Torreño. I fear that this Taki has come with us for some purpose that is not good…now that he is gone, I begin to be terribly afraid of him. When he was here, well, it was as though the skin of the mountain lion had come to life and the great beast lay crouched in the chapel, watching us with burning eyes. Chills and shudders went through me while Taki was in the room, here!”

  “And through me,” said the girl; but she smiled.

  “What will you do now?”

  “Wait another five minutes.”

  “And then? Tell the señor?”

  Lucia, instead of answering, dropped into a chair and began to study the changing light through the windows. The sky beyond was turning to a deeper blue as the sunset time came nearer. The minutes passed with Aunt Anna turning in her mind all that her niece had actually said and all that she had inferred. She dared not carry what she guessed to an actual conclusion. All that she knew was that her mind was full of confusion and dread of what would come of this unhappy marriage.

  Lucia rose presently.

  “It is time,” she said. “He should be two leagues away by this time. If he is not

  There was a little bronze bell standing on a polished table in the corner of the room. She struck it with the padded mallet which lay beside it, and one of her two attendants appeared at once.

  “Find Taki,” she commanded.

  In two minutes the messenger appeared again.

  “He is here,” she said. “Shall I bring him in?”

  “He is here?” breathed the girl.

  “In the patio.”

  She slipped to the window and looked out. There stood Taki, the ruddy light from the west in his face, his expression as woodenly impassive as ever.

  “Tell him,” she said, “to wait there.”

  The servant bowed and left.

  “Oh, Lucia?” breathed the other.

  “I have told him that I know he is a liar,” said Lucia. “And since he dares to stay…what Torreño does to him is on his own head. But what can his purpose be in remaining? What is in his barbarous mind, Aunt Anna?”

  “God alone can read their thoughts…these solemn Indians!” said Anna d’Arquista. “Perhaps he intends to murder us all while we’re asleep and carry…our scalps…ah! You must send to Señor Torreño at once!”

  “Yet,” murmured the girl, “what a dull place this would be with the wild man gone! What a dull place. Hush! What is that?”

  A thin thread of whistling, carrying a weird strain of music, floated into the room from the court. Anna d’Arquista hurried to the window and saw Taki, the Indian, sitting on a low stone bench with the flute at his lips.

  “Do you hear? Do you hear?” asked Lucia in great excitement.

  “It is beautifully played…yes!”

  “But the words…the words!”

  “What are they?”

  “It is an old Scotch ballad. Listen!”

  She began to sing:

  “Ye highlands and ye lowlands,

  Oh, where hae ye been?

  They hae slain the Earl of Murray

  And they laid him on the green.

  “Now wae be to ye, Huntly,

  And wharefore did ye sae?

  I bade ye bring him wi’you

  And forbade ye him to slay!”

  There the music of the flute stopped.

  “It is his message! It is his message!” breathed the girl.

  “Lucia, what under heaven do you mean? What message in the playing of a flute?”

  “But the words of the old song, Aunt Anna! Don’t you see? He puts himself in my hands!”

  “Lucia, go instantly to Senor Torreno!” “Not for a million pesos!” “Then I.…”

  “Aunt Anna, if you betray him, I shall never forgive you. Never!”

  VII “Guadalmo”

  In the meantime, as the dusk settled, there began through the house a great bustle. Servants ran here and there. Beyond the court, men were seen putting up tents. Everywhere were voices of command, and scurrying feet. It would have been a simple thing for Lucia to call her maids and ask her question of them. But she preferred to go to the window and speak through it to the Indian. He rose and came before her instantly. “Someone has come, Taki. Run and learn who it is.” “It is the Señor Hernandez Guadalmo. He has come to take shelter here with my master.”

  “How could you know all of this, Taki, without leaving this little court?”

  “No man other than Señor Guadalmo would travel with so great a train. Besides, I have heard them speak his name as they ran about.”

  “He is some great man, then, traveling with such a train?”

  “He is a friend of the governor. He has monopolies. He is very rich.”

  “Does he not carry his own tents then?” “Those are his tents they are putting up yonder. But Señor Guadalmo prefers to sleep behind strong walls, señorita!”

  “Why is that? Is he afraid of the night air?”

  Taki smiled a little, a very little—more with his eyes than with his lips.

  “The night air is sometimes very bad. Men go to sleep strong and very well. They are dead when they waken.”

  “Taki! Is there some frightful plague here in California?”

  “Yes, señorita!”

  “What are the symptoms of it?”

  “The instant they are seen, the man is already dead.”

  “You speak of the men. Does it never touch the women?”

  “Rarely, señorita!”

  “This is very strange. What are the symptoms, then?”

  “They are different,” said Taki. “Sometimes the man who was strong and well goes to sleep and is found in the morning with a great cut across his throat. Sometimes there is no outward mark, but his body is swollen

  “Do you mean throat-cutting and poison, Taki?”

  “But the symptom that is usually found,” said Taki, without answering her less obliquely, “is the handle of a knife standing over the man’s breast, with the blade fixed in his heart.”

  She frowned at him seriously. “It is a murderous country, then? Why?”

  “The law is far away.”

  “And this Guadalmo is very much afraid?”

  “Very, señorita!”

  “Is he a coward?”

  “He is a famous fighter…a very brave man. In Spain his name was famous.”

  “Guadalmo, the duelist! Is it he?”

  “It is, señorital”

  “I have heard that he feared nothing…not even God, or the devil.”

  “There was a time when he did not. He would ride alone a thousand miles.”

  “What changed him?”

  “There is one man who follows him. Five times he has tried to get the life of Señor Guadalmo. And five times he has nearly succeeded. Therefore, Señor Guadalmo has surrounded himself with great warriors. They would sooner get out their swords than take off their hats. They had rather fight than eat. These men protect him.”

  “Who is this man who follows Guadalmo?”

  “No one can tell. It is a mystery. Some people say that it is the devil himself who has come for Señor Guadalmo, because no man would dare to face him.”

  “That is nonsense!”

  “There are others who believe that it is merely the brother of a man Señor Guadalmo killed.”

  “Tell me of that.”

  “A hundred long marches to the East, señorita, there are many cities.”

  “The English colonies. I know.”

  “A trader came from them. He
was called John Gidden. He had a ship which he commanded, and he traded here for hides. Señor Guadalmo and he dined together one day, and quarreled over some little thing. But when the wine had died in them, Señor Guadalmo sent for Gidden and told him he was sorry and asked him to come to his house. Señor Gidden came. In the night they quarreled again. They fought, and with swords. Señor Gidden was killed.”

  “If it was fair fight, Taki….”

  “It was fair fight, señorita. This Señor Gidden was one who lived by the sea. He had strong hands and a fearless heart. But the only weapons he knew were a cutlass and a pistol. A rapier was strange to him. However, he fought Señor Guadalmo, the great duelist, with a rapier. Therefore, being a fool, he was killed.”

  “That has an ugly sound, Taki.”

  “If he had not been a fool, he would have fought with a cutlass or with a saber.”

  “Perhaps he was not allowed?”

  Taki made a gesture.

  “As for that, I cannot tell. But he was killed; and afterward a letter came to Señor Guadalmo from the brother of this Señor Gidden, saying that he was coming to find Guadalmo and to kill him. And, after that, five times a masked man has set on Señor Guadalmo, as I have said, and five times Señor Guadalmo’s life has been saved by a miracle. Therefore, he loves strong walls around him when he sleeps at night, and he has come this evening to beg a shelter from Señor Torreño.”

  “This is a strange story, Taki. However, I wish also to tell you that it has given me a thought. You are a fighting man, Taki.”

  “I, señorita! Among the Navajos I was a chief and a warrior. But the poor Indian is a child among the white men. His hand may be strong, but his wits are weak.”

  She chuckled. “However,” she said, “since there is this plague in the land, I feel that I need a guard and, while you are with me, you must be my protector, Taki.”

  “The señorita has commanded,” said Taki, his eye as blank as ever. “I pray to the Great Spirit that my hand may be strong for her.”

  “You speak sadly, Taki.”

  “Ah,” said Taki, “how can the guard of fighting men help us when there are other dangers which fighting men cannot face?”

  “That sounds like a riddle. What dangers, Taki?”

  “I have spoken too much,” said Taki. “I am not the guard who can help the señorita!”

  “What guard should I have, then?”

  “A father confessor,” said the Indian calmly.

  “A priest! And what would he do for me?”

  “He would listen to the troubles which are in your heart, señorita!”

  She had almost invited the blow but, when it came, it shocked her. She stiffened a little and drew back from the window.

  “Your tongue,” she said, “runs faster than your horse!”

  At that he made her a ceremonious bow. Certainly the lessons of the dancing master had not been entirely thrown away upon Taki. As for the girl, she did not pause to wonder over his grace but she turned in anger to her Aunt Anna and saw, from her grave, sad face, that she had overheard everything.

  “I shall go instantly to Señor Torreño,” said the girl, “and tell him what I suspect of Taki.”

  Aunt Anna d’Arquista merely shook her head.

  “I think you will not, Lucia,” she said. “I pray God may rule us for the best!”

  She seemed so close to tears that Lucia dared not speak again, for the moment. She stormed into her room and there she flung herself down on her bed. Her face was burning. And cold little pangs of shame shot through her heart.

  She had thought that she controlled her tragedy so well that not a human being in the world could ever have guessed at it. But here was a wild Indian who had looked through her at a glance and, in a moment, had read all her secrets. She wanted to destroy him utterly. And yet, after a time, she found herself sitting up, musing, and almost smiling.

  “He is a clever rascal,” said the girl to herself. “And if I were in a great need, he could help me!”

  She was called for the night meal after this, and met the guest, Guadalmo. He was a tall, wide-shouldered man of about forty, with a grim face and a gray head that might have been ten years older; but his body was still young and supple—the body of the professional duelist. He bore traces of his encounters—a ragged scar in his right cheek and another which crossed one eye and kept it half closed so that he bore, continually, a quizzical, penetrating expression. He had donned his most magnificent clothes for this occasion. He wore, above all, old-fashioned lace cuffs and a great lace collar worth a fortune in skill and labor. It made an odd setting for his forbidding features.

  He was a courtly man as well as a warrior, however. And he entertained the girl with talk of Paris and the French court, full of little cuts and thrusts of gossip. He was one of those who can speak with an easy familiarity of the great men of the world and seem to bring their presences into the room. Don Carlos listened to him, agape with delight.

  “Tomorrow,” said Don Carlos, “I shall beg five minutes of your time to teach me some clever thrust. I have been shamed by an Indian today, with the foils. I must have some revenge on him!”

  Guadalmo raised his brows. “An Indian,” he said, “who fences?”

  “The skill of a fiend incarnate,” said Torreño, breaking in. “I should give a great deal to see you cross blades with him, señorl”

  Señor Guadalmo smiled.

  “For Indians,” he said, “I keep a whip…and bullets. I advise you, my dear friends, to do the same.”

  Here a door behind Guadalmo swung silently open, but he knew it by the soft sighing of the draft, and leaped violently to his feet, setting all the dishes on the table in a great jangle. He had a pistol in his hand as he whirled, but he saw behind him only an empty threshold, dimly lighted.

  “Señorl Señorl” cried the host. “One would think that you feared the Black Rider even in the midst of my household!”

  “Set a man to watch the door,” asked Guadalmo, reseating himself, but still with a pale face. “I have a profound respect for your household and your management of it, Señor Torreño. But when one has to do with the devil…one needs caution…caution…and again, caution!”

  The effect of that fright was still ghastly in his face, but with an inward struggle he forced a smile to his lips again.

  He took up a glass of white wine in which the imaged light of a candle flame was trembling; and the tremor, the girl noted, was not in the flame of the candle, but in the hand of Guadalmo. She observed and she wondered. And when a breath of air through the open window set the draperies behind her shivering and whispering, she trembled in turn, as though the ghost of the Black Rider were behind her chair!

  VIII “The Black Rider”

  Who is the Black Rider? It was the commanding question in the mind of the girl when she went out into the patio beneath the stars with the others. From the little white tent city around the main house, all the retainers of Don Francisco were waxing merry and raising songs from time to time and, at the end of each day’s work, the followers of the worthy don received due portions of that colorless brandy which the Mexican Indian loves and which burns the brain of the white man like a blue flame. But even their singing was subdued, for Don Francisco hated all loud noise except that of his own strong voice.

  Obviously no questions about the Black Rider could be asked while Señor Guadalmo was himself present; but after an uneasy moment he bade the rest good night and withdrew to his appointed quarters for sleep; so he said. But during an interval which followed, they could hear the stir of men.

  “Guadalmo is filling the house with his guards,” said Torreño. “Look! Even under his window!”

  They saw two stalwarts, each with sword and carbine, take post beneath the windows of Guadalmo’s room. There they remained, huge black specters.

  7 have an idea!” said the girl. “The Black Rider is one of Señor Guadalmo’s men with a grudge against him!”

  Torreño chuckl
ed in the bottom of his thick throat.

  “My dear,” he said, “that is child’s talk. You do not know Guadalmo and his men! He has picked up the neatest set of murderers that ever wore sword and pistol since the beginning of time! There is not a one of them that does not owe his escape from the gallows to his master. They live by him; they would be hung except for him and his influence with the governor. They know it and they would fight for him as for themselves. He is their safety; he is their charm against death! Those two men yonder…I can tell the one by the feather in his hat, the other by the limp in his walk. The tall man used to cut throats in Naples; Guadalmo smuggled him aboard his ship and made off with him. The other was a soldier in the Low Countries, a gambler who made up for his losses on the highway. He fled to Guadalmo also. So they are here. They will watch over him more tenderly than they will watch over their own souls!”

  “But this Black Rider, has he never appeared except to Señor Guadalmo?”

  “Some dozen times,” said Don Carlos. “He knows, it appears, whenever some solitary traveler sets out with a large sum of money. Then the Black Rider appears. Usually he sweeps up from behind on a horse swifter than the wind, it is said. The animal is sheathed in a light caparison of black silk. There is a hood of thin black silk covering the Rider, too. That is how he gets his name. He stops his man, takes his purse, and is gone. Sometimes they were brave and resisted, at the first. A bullet in the leg or through the shoulder always ended the fight. The Black Rider does not kill. He does not have to. He can see in the dark, it seems, and he shoots with such a nice aim that he could kill a bat on the wing at midnight!”

  That was all the explanation she received concerning the Black Rider. After his first few captures, the mere terror of his presence had proved enough to paralyze all resistance. Men were benumbed with fear when he approached.

  At last Lucia stood up to go to her room; and, as she turned, it seemed to her that there was a movement in the far corner of the patio.

  “In the name of heaven, SeñorTorreño!” she breathed.

  The shadow stirred. A man stood upright.

  “Carlos…fool…your pistol!” growled out Torreño.