Riders of the Silences | Page 8

saddle. Now the spurs. So! We are alone and free, with the
winds around us, and all that we have been forgotten behind us."
The eyes opened wide and stared up; without a stir in the great, gaunt
body, he was dead. Pierre reverently drew the eyes shut. There were no
tears in his eyes, but a feeling of hollowness about his heart. He
straightened and looked about him and found that the room was quite
dark.
So in the dimness Pierre fumbled, by force of habit, at his throat, and
found the cross which he wore by a silver chain about his throat. He
held it in a great grip and closed his eyes and prayed. When he opened
his eyes again it was almost deep night in the room, and Pierre had
passed from youth to manhood. Through the gloom nothing stood out
distinctly save the white face of the dead man, and from that Pierre
looked quickly away.
One by one he numbered his obligations to Martin Ryder, and first and
last he remembered the lie which had soothed his father. The money for
that corner plot where the grass grew first in the spring of the
year--where was he to find it? He fumbled in his pocket and found only
a single coin.

He leaned back against the wall and strove to concentrate on the
problem, but his thoughts wandered in spite of himself. Looking
backward, he remembered all things much more clearly than when he
had actually seen them. For instance, he recalled now that as he walked
through the door the two figures which had started up to block his way
had left behind them some playing-cards at the corner table. One of
these cards had slipped from the edge of the board and flickered slowly
to the floor.
With that memory the thoughts of Pierre le Rouge stopped. The picture
of the falling card remained; all else went out in his mind like the
snuffing of the candle. Then, as if he heard a voice directing him
through the utter blackness of the room, he knew what he must do.
All his wealth was the single half-dollar piece in his pocket, and there
was only one way in which that coin could be increased to the sum he
would need to buy that corner plot, where the soul of old Martin Ryder
could sleep long and deep.
From his brothers he would get no help. The least memory of those
sallow, hungry faces convinced him of that.
There remained the gaming table. In the north country he had watched
men sit in a silent circle, smoking, drinking, with the flare of an
oil-lamp against deep, seamed faces, and only the slip and whisper of
card against card.
Cold conscience tapped the shoulder of Pierre, remembering the
lessons of Father Victor, but a moment later his head went up and his
eyes were shining through the dark. After all, the end justified the
means.
A moment later he was laughing softly as a boy in the midst of a prank,
and busily throwing off the robe of serge. Fumbling through the night
he located the shirt and trousers he had seen hanging from a nail on the
wall. Into these he slipped, and then went out under the open sky.
The rest had revived the strength of the tough little cow-pony, and he

drove on at a gallop toward the twinkling lights of Morgantown. There
was a new consciousness about Pierre as if he had changed his whole
nature with his clothes. The sober sense of duty which had kept him in
awe all his life like a lifted finger, was almost gone, and in its place
was a joyous freedom.
For the first time he faintly realized what an existence other than that of
a priest might be. Now for a brief moment he could forget the part of
the subdued novice and become merely a man with nothing about him
to distinguish him from other men, nothing to make heads turn at his
approach and raise whispers as he passed.
It was a game, but he rejoiced in it as a girl does in her first masquerade.
Tomorrow he must be grave and sober-footed and an example to other
men; tonight he could frolic as he pleased.
So Pierre le Rouge tossed back his head and laughed up to the frosty
stars. The loose sleeves and the skirts of the robe no longer entangled
his limbs. He threw up his arms and shouted. A hillside caught the
sound and echoed it back to him with a wonderful clearness, and up
and down the long ravine beat the clatter of the flying hoofs. The whole
world shouted and laughed and rode with him on Morgantown.