Riders of the Silences | Page 7

for
an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' Father Victor, my father was killed by
another man."
"Pierre, dear lad, swear to me here on this cross that you will not raise
your hands against the murderer. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.'"
"He must have an instrument for his wrath. He shall work through me
in this."
"Pierre, you blaspheme."
"'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.'"
"It was a demon in me that quoted that in your hearing, and not
myself."
"The horse, Father Victor--may I have the roan?"
"Pierre, I command you--"
The light in the blue eyes was as cold and steady as that in the starved
eyes of Jean Paul Victor.
"Hush!" he said calmly. "For the sake of the love that I bear for you, do
not command me."

"Pierre, I have prayed God for you night and morning, and for the sake
of those prayers which are dearer than gold in heaven, stay with me!"
"Dear Father Victor, you also hope for hands that love you to close
your eyes at the end."
And the stern priest dropped his head. He said at last: "I have nothing
saving one great and terrible treasure which I see was predestined to
you. It is the cross of Father Meilan. You have worn it before. You
shall wear it hereafter as your own."
He took from his own neck a silver cross suspended by a slender silver
chain, and the boy, with startled eyes, dropped to his knees and
received the gift.
"It has brought good to all who possessed it, but for every good thing
that it works for you it will work evil on some other. Great is its
blessing and great is its burden. I, alas, know; but you also have heard
of its history. Do you accept it, Pierre?"
"Dear Father, with all my heart."
The colorless hands touched the dark-red hair, and the prophet eyes of
the priest went up.
"God pardon the sins you shall commit."
Pierre crushed the hand of Jean Paul Victor against his lips and rushed
from the room, while the tall priest, staring down at the fingers which
had been kissed, pronounced:
"It is better that he should commit murder with his hands than to slay in
his evil thoughts."
"Can you resign him like this?"
"I have forged a thunderbolt. Father Gabrielle, you are a prophet. It is
too great for my hand. Listen!"

And they heard clearly the sharp clang of a horse's hoofs on the
hard-packed snow, loud at first, but fading rapidly away. The wind,
increasing suddenly, shook the house furiously about them.
It was a north wind, and traveled south before the rider of the strong
roan. Over a thousand miles of plain and hills it passed, and down into
the cattle country of the mountain-desert which the Rockies hem on
one side and the tall Sierras on the other.
It was a trail to try even the endurance of Pierre and the strong roan, but
the boy clung to it doggedly. On a trail that led down from the edges of
the northern mountain the roan crashed to the ground in a plunging fall,
hitting heavily on his knees. He was dead before the boy had freed his
feet from the stirrups.
Pierre threw the saddle over his shoulder and walked eight miles to the
nearest ranchhouse, where he spent practically the last cent of his
money on another horse, and drove on south once more.
There was little hope in him as day after day slipped past. Only the
ghost of a chance remained that Martin Ryder could fight away death
for another fortnight; yet Pierre had seen many a man from the
mountain-desert stave off the end through weeks and weeks of the
bitterest suffering. His father must be a man of the same hard durable
metal, and upon that Pierre staked all his hopes.
And always he carried the picture of the dying man alone with his two
wolf-eyed sons who waited for his eyes to weaken. Whenever he
thought of that he touched his horse with the spurs and rode fiercely for
a time. They were his flesh and blood, the man, and even the two
wolf-eyed sons.
So he came at last to a gap in the hills and looked down on
Morgantown in the hollow, twoscore unpainted houses sprawling along
a single street. The snow was everywhere white and pure, and the town
was like a stain on the landscape with wisps of smoke rising and
trailing across the hilltops.

Down to the edge of the town he rode, left his cow-pony standing with
hanging head outside a saloon, strode through the swinging doors, and
asked of the bartender the way to