by Max Brand
CHAPTER XXVI
A GAME OF SUPPOSE
Dick Wilbur, telling Mary how Pierre had cut himself adrift, did noteven pretend to sorrow, and she listened to him with her eyes fixedsteadily on his own. As a matter of fact, she had shown neither hopenor excitement from the moment he came back to her and started to tellhis message. But if she showed neither hope nor excitement forherself, surely she gave Dick still fewer grounds for any optimisticforesights.
So he finished gloomily: "And as far as I can make out, Pierre isright. There's some rotten bad luck that follows him. It may not bethe cross--I don't suppose you believe in superstition like that, MissBrown?"
She said: "It saved my life."
"The cross?"
"Yes."
"Then Pierre--you mean--you met before the dance--you mean--"
He was stammering so that he couldn't finish his thoughts, and shebroke in: "If he will not come to me, then I must go to him."
"Follow Pierre le Rouge?" queried Wilbur. "Miss Brown, you're anoptimist. But that's because you've never seen him ride. I considerit a good day's work to start out with him and keep within sight tillnight, but as for following and overtaking him--ha, ha, ha, ha!"
He laughed heartily at the thought.
And she smiled a little sadly, answering: "But I have the mostboundless patience in the world. He may gallop all the way, but I willwalk, and keep on walking, and reach him in the end. I am not verystrong, but--"
Her hands moved out as though testing their power, gripping at the air.
"Where will you go to hunt for him?"
"I don't know. But every evening, when I look out at the sunset hills,with the purple along the valleys, I think that he must be out theresomewhere, going toward the highest ranges. If I were up in thatcountry I know that I could find him."
"Never in a thousand years."
"Why?"
"Because he's on the trail--"
"On the trail?"
"Of McGurk."
She started.
"What is this man McGurk? I hear of him on all sides. If one of themen rides a bucking horse successfully, some one is sure to say: 'Whotaught you what you know, Bud--McGurk?' And then the rest laugh. Theother day a man was pointed out to me as an expert shot. 'Not as fastas McGurk,' it was said, 'but he shoots just as straight.' Finally Iasked some one about McGurk. The only answer I received was: 'I hopeyou never find out what he is.' Tell me, what is McGurk?"
Wilbur considered the question gravely.
He said at last: "McGurk is--hell!"
He expanded his statement: "Think of a man who can ride anything thatwalks on four feet, who never misses with either a rifle or a revolver,who doesn't know the meaning of fear, and then imagine that man livingby himself and fighting the rest of the world like a lone wolf. That'sMcGurk. He's never had a companion; he's never trusted any man.Perhaps that's why they say about him the same thing that they sayabout me."
"What's that?"
"You will smile when you hear. They say that McGurk will lose out inthe end on account of some woman."
"And they say that of you?"
"They say right of me. I know it myself. Look at me now? What righthave I here? If I'm found I'm the meat of the first man who sights me,but here I stay, and wait and watch for your smiles--like a love-sickboy. By Jove, you must despise me, Mary!"
"I don't try to understand you Westerners," she answered, "and that'swhy I have never questioned you before. Tell me, why is it that youcome so stealthily to see me and run away as soon as any one elseappears?"
He said with wonder: "Haven't you guessed?"
"I don't dare guess."
"But you have, and your guess was right. There's a price on my head.By right, I should be out there on the ranges with Pierre le Rouge andMcGurk. There's the only safe place; but I saw you and I came down outof the wilds and can't go back. I'll stay, I suppose, till I run myhead into a halter."
She was too much moved to speak for a moment, and then: "You come to mein spite of that? Dick, whatever you have done, I know that it's onlychance which made you go wrong, just as it made Pierre. I wish--"
The dimness of her eyes encouraged him with a great hope. He stolecloser to her.
He repeated: "You wish--"
"That you could be satisfied with a mere friendship. I could give youthat, Dick, with all my heart."
He stepped back and smiled somewhat grimly on her.
She went on: "And this McGurk--what do you mean when you say thatPierre is on his trail?"
"Hunting him with a gun."
She grew paler and trembled, but her voice remained steady. It wasalways that way; at the very moment when he expected her to quail, someinner strength bore her up and baffled him.
"But in all those miles of mountains they may never meet?"
"They can't stay apart any more than iron can stay away from a magnet.Listen: half a dozen years ago McGurk had the reputation of bearing acharmed life. He had been in a hundred fights and he was never touchedwith either a knife or a bullet. Then he crossed Pierre le Rouge whenPierre was only a youngster just come onto the range. He put twobullets through Pierre, but the boy shot him from the floor and woundedhim for the first time. The charm of McGurk was broken.
"For half a dozen years McGurk was gone; there was never a whisperabout him. Then he came back and went on the trail of Pierre. He haskilled the friends of Pierre one by one; Pierre himself is the next inorder--Pierre or myself. And when those two meet there will be thegreatest fight that was ever staged in the mountain-desert."
She stood straight, staring past Wilbur with hungry eyes.
"I knew he needed me. I have to save him, Dick. You see that? I haveto bring him down from the mountains and keep him safe from McGurk.McGurk! somehow the sound means what 'devil' used to mean to me."
"You've never traveled alone, and yet you'd go up there and braveeverything that comes for the sake of Pierre? What has he done todeserve it, Mary?"
"What have I done, Dick, to deserve the care you have for me?"
He stared gloomily on her.
"When do you start?"
"To-night."
"Your friends won't let you go."
"I'll steal away and leave a note behind me."
"And you'll go alone?"
She caught at a hope.
"Unless you'll go with me, Dick?"
"I? Take you--to Pierre?"
She did not speak to urge him, but in the silence her beauty pleadedfor her.
He said: "Mary, how lovely you are. If I go I will have you for a fewdays--for a week at most, all to myself."
She shook her head. From the window behind her the sunset light flaredin her hair, flooding it with red-gold against which her skin wasmarvelously delicate and white, and the eyes of the deepest blue.
"All the time that we are gone, you will never say things like this,Dick?"
"I suppose not. I should be near you, but terribly far away from yourthoughts all the while. Still, you will be near. You will be verybeautiful, Mary, riding up the trail through the pines, with all thescents of the evergreens blowing about you, and I--well, I must go backto a second childhood and play a game of suppose--"
"A game of what?"
"Of supposing that you are really mine, Mary, and riding out into thewilderness for my sake."
She stepped a little closer, peering into his face.
"No matter what you suppose, I'm sure you'll leave that part of itmerely a game, Dick!"
He laughed suddenly, though the sound broke off as short and sharp asit began.
"Haven't I played a game all my life with the fair ladies? And have Ianything to show for it except laughter? I'll go with you, Mary, ifyou'll let me."
"Dick, you've a heart of gold! What shall I take?"
"I'll make the pack up, and I'll be back here an hour after dark andwhistle. Like this--"
And he gave the call of Boone's gang.
He hesitated, then: "All the time we're on the trail you must be farfrom me, and at the end of it will be Pierre le Rouge--and happinessfor you. Before we start, Mary, I'd like to--"
It seemed that she read his mind, for she slipped suddenly inside hisarms, kissed him, and was gone from the room. He stood a moment with ahand raised to his face.
"After all," he muttered, "that's enough to die for, and--" He threwup his long arms in a gesture of infinite resignation.
"The will of God be done!" said Wilbur, and laughed again.