Riders of the Silences | Page 6

bluer than heaven looking up to me, and
her hair, that was copper with gold lights in it, ran down across the
white of her shoulder, and even past her side and around you, Pierre,
till it seemed like you was lying in a red river. She being about all in,
she got hold of my hand and looked up to me with them blue eyes I
been talking about, and said 'Dad,' and went out. And I damned near
followed her.
"I buried Irene on the side of the mountain under a big, rough rock, and

I didn't carve nothing on the rock. Then I took you, Pierre, and I knew I
wasn't no sort of a man to raise up the son of Irene; so I brought you to
Father Victor on a winter night and left you in his arms. That was after
I'd done my best to raise you and you was just about old enough to
chatter a bit. There wasn't nothing else to do. My wife, she went pretty
near crazy when I brought you home. And she'd of killed you, Pierre, if
I hadn't took you away.
"You see, I was married before I met Irene. So there ain't no alibi for
me. I just acted the hound. But me being so close to hell now, I look
back to that time, and somehow I see no wrong in it still.
"And if I done wrong then, I've got my share of hell-fire for it. Here I
lie, with my boys, Bill and Bert, sitting around in the corner of the
room waiting for me to go out. They ain't men, Pierre. They're wolves
in the skins of men. They're the right sons of their mother. When I go
out they'll grab the coin I've saved up, and leave me to lie here and rot,
maybe.
"Lad, it's a fearful thing to die without having no one around that cares,
and to know that even after I've gone out I'm going to lie here and have
my dead eyes looking up at the ceiling. So I'm writing to you, Pierre,
part to tell you what you ought to know; part because I got a sort of
crazy idea that maybe you could get down here to me before I go out.
"You don't owe me nothing but hard words, Pierre; but if you don't try
to come to me, the ghost of your mother will follow you all your life,
lad, and you'll be seeing her blue eyes and the red-gold of her hair in
the dark of the night as I see it now. Me, I'm a hard man, but it breaks
my heart, that ghost of Irene. So here I'll lie, waiting for you, Pierre,
and lingering out the days with whisky, and fighting the wolf eyes of
them there sons of mine. If I weaken--If they find they can look me
square in the eye--they'll finish me quick, and make off with the coin.
Pierre, come quick.
"MARTIN RYDER."
The hand of Pierre dropped slowly to his side, and the letter fluttered

with a crisp rustling to the floor.
CHAPTER III
THE LAUNCHING OF THE BOLT
Then came a voice that startled the two priests, for it seemed that a
fourth man had entered the room, so changed was it from the musical
voice of Pierre.
"Father Victor, the roan is a strong horse. May I take him?"
"Pierre!" and the priest reached out his bony hands.
But the boy did not seem to notice or to understand.
"It is a long journey, and I will need a strong horse. It must be eight
hundred miles to that town."
"Pierre, what claim has he upon you? What debt have you to repay?"
And Pierre le Rouge answered: "He loved my mother."
He raised his face a little higher and smiled upon them.
"It is a beautiful name, is it not--Irene?"
There was no voice from Jean Paul Victor, so he turned to Father
Anthony.
"It is a charming name, Pierre."
"I would give my revolver with the pearl handle, and my skates, and
the engraven knife of old Canole just for one glimpse of her."
"You are going?"
The boy asked in astonishment: "Would you not have me go, Father?"

And Jean Paul Victor could not meet the sorrowful blue eyes.
He bowed his head and answered: "My child, I would have you go. But
promise with your hand in mine that you will come back to me when
your father is buried."
The lean fingers caught the extended hand of Pierre and froze about it.
"But first I have a second duty in the southland."
"A second?"
"You taught me to shoot and to use a knife. Once you said: 'An eye