Riders of the Silences Part 7

CHAPTER 8

The girl tossed up her arms in a silent greeting, and Pierre caught the small cold hands and saw that she was only a child of twelve or fourteen trapped by the wild storm sweeping over them. He crouched lower still, and when he did so the strength of the wind against his face decreased wonderfully, for the sharp angle of the hill's declivity protected them. Seeing him kneel there, she cried out with a little wail: "Help me--the tree--help me!" And, bursting into a pa.s.sion of sobbing, she tugged her hands from his and covered her face.

Pierre placed his shoulder under the trunk and lifted till the muscles of his back snapped and cracked. He could not budge the weight; he could not even send a tremor through the ma.s.s of wood. He dropped back beside her with a groan. He felt her eyes upon him; she had ceased her sobs, and looked steadily into his face.

It would have been easy for him to meet that look on the morning of this day, but after that night's work in Morgantown he had to brace his nerve to withstand it.

She said: "You can't budge the tree?"

"Yes--in a minute; I will try again."

"You'll only hurt yourself for nothing. I saw how you strained at it."

The greatest miracle he had ever seen was her calm. Her eyes were wide and sorrowful indeed, but she was almost smiling up to him.

After a while he was able to say, in a faint voice: "Are you very cold?"

She answered: "I'm not afraid. But if you stay longer with me, you may freeze. The snow and even the tree help to keep me almost warm; but you will freeze. Go for help; hurry, and if you can, send it back to me."

He thought of the long miles back to Morgantown; no human being could walk that distance against this wind; not even a strong horse could make its way through the storm. If he went on with the wind, how long would it be before he reached a house? Before him, over range after range of hills, he saw no single sign of a building. If he reached some such place it would be the same story as the trip to Morgantown; men simply could not beat a way against that wind.

Then a cold hand touched him, and he looked up to find her eyes grave and wide once more, and her lips half smiling, as if she strove to deceive him.

"There's no chance of bringing help?"

He merely stared hungrily at her, and the loveliest thing he had ever seen was the play of golden hair beside her cheek. Her smile went out.

She withdrew her hand, but she repeated: "I'm not afraid. I'll simply grow numb and then fall asleep. But you go on and save yourself."

Seeing him shake his head, she caught his hands again.

"I'll be unhappy. You'll make me so unhappy if you stay. Please go."

He raised the small hand and pressed it to his lips.

She said: "You are crying!"

"No, no!"

"There! I see the tears s.h.i.+ning on my hand. What is your name?"

"Pierre."

"Pierre? I like that name. Pierre, to make me happy, will you go? Your face is all white and touched with a shadow of blue. It is the cold.

Oh, won't you go?" Then she pleaded, finding him obdurate: "If you won't go for me, then go for your father."

He raised his head with a sudden laughter, and, raising it, the wind beat into his face fiercely and the particles of snow whipped his skin.

"Dear Pierre, then for your mother?"

He bowed his head.

"Not for all the people who love you and wait for you now by some warm fire--some cozy fire, all yellow and bright?"

He took her hands and with them covered his eyes. "Listen: I have no father; I have no mother."

"Pierre! Oh, Pierre, I'm sorry!"

"And for the rest of 'em, I've killed a man. The whole world hates me; the whole world's hunting me."

The small hands tugged away. He dared not raise his bowed head for fear of her eyes. And then the hands came back to him and touched his face.

She was saying tremulously: "Then he deserved to be killed. There must be men like that--almost. And I--like you still, Pierre."

"Really?"

"I almost think I like you more--because you could kill a man--and then stay here for me."

"If you were a grown-up girl, do you know what I'd say?"

"Please tell me."

"That I could love you."

"Pierre--"

"Yes."

"My name is Mary Brown."

He repeated several times: "Mary."

"And if I were a grown-up girl, do you know what I would answer?"

"I don't dare guess it."

"That I could love you, Pierre, if you were a grown-up man."

"But I am."

"Not a really one."

And they both broke into laughter--laughter that died out before a sound of rus.h.i.+ng and of thunder, as a ma.s.s slid swiftly past them, snow and mud and sand and rubble. The wind fell away from them, and when Pierre looked up he saw that a great ma.s.s of tumbled rock and soil loomed above them.

The landslide had not touched them, by some miracle, but in a moment more it might shake loose again, and all that ma.s.s of ton upon ton of stone and loam would overwhelm them. The whole ma.s.s quaked and trembled, and the very hillside shuddered beneath them.

She looked up and saw the coming ruin; but her cry was for him, not herself.