Max Brand Read Free Page A

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 the house of Martin Ryder.
    The bartender stopped in his labor of rubbing down the surface of his
bar and stared at the black-serge robe of the stranger, with curiosity
rather than criticism, for women, madmen, and clergymen have the
right-of-way in the mountain-desert.
    He said: "Well, I'll be damned!—askin' your pardon. So old Mart Ryder
has come down to this, eh? Partner, you're sure going to have a rough
ride getting Mart to heaven. Better send a posse along with him,
because some first-class angels are going to get considerable riled
when they sight him coming. Ha, ha, ha! Sure I'll show you the way.
Take the northwest road out of town and go five miles till you see a
broken-backed shack lyin' over to the right. That's Mart
Ryder's place."
    Out to the broken-backed shack rode Pierre le Rouge, Pierre the Red,
as everyone in the north country knew him. His second horse, staunch
cow-pony that it was, stumbled on with sagging knees and hanging head,
but Pierre rode upright, at ease, for his mind was untired.
    Broken-backed indeed was the house before which he dismounted. The
roof sagged from end to end, and the stove pipe chimney leaned at a
drunken angle. Nature itself was withered beside that house; before
the door stood a great cottonwood, gashed and scarred by lightning,
with the limbs almost entirely stripped away from one side. Under this
broken monster Pierre stepped and through the door. Two growls like
the snarls of watch-dogs greeted him, and two tall, unshaven men
barred his way. Behind them, from the bed in the corner, a feeble
voice called: "Who's there?"
    "In the name of God," said the boy gravely, for he saw a hollow-eyed
specter staring toward him from the bed in the corner, "let me pass! I
am his son!"
    It was not that which made them give back, but a shrill, faint cry of
triumph from the sick man toward which they turned. Pierre slipped
past them and stood above Martin Ryder. He was wasted beyond
belief—only the monster hand showed what he had been.
    "Son?" he queried with yearning and uncertainty.
    "Pierre, your son."
    And he slipped to his knees beside the bed. The heavy hand fell upon
his hair and stroked it.
    "There ain't no ways of doubting it. It's red silk, like the hair of
Irene. Seein' you, boy, it ain't so hard to die. Look up! So! Pierre,
my son! Are you scared of me, boy?"
    "I'm not afraid."
    "Not with them eyes you ain't. Now that you're here, pay the coyotes
and let 'em go off to gnaw the bones."
    He dragged out a small canvas bag from beneath the blankets and
gestured toward the two lurkers in the corner.
    "Take it, and be damned to you!"
    A dirty, yellow hand seized the bag; there was a chortle of
exultation, and the two scurried out of the room.
    "Three weeks they've watched an' waited for me to go out, Pierre.
Three weeks they've waited an' sneaked up to my bed an' sneaked away
agin, seein' my eyes open."
    Looking into their fierce fever brightness, Pierre understood why they
had quailed. For the man, though wrecked beyond hope of living, was
terrible still. The thick, gray stubble on his face could not hide
altogether the hard lines of mouth and jaw, and on the wasted arm the
hand was grotesquely huge. It was horror that widened the eyes of
Pierre as he looked at Martin Ryder; it was a grim happiness that made
his lips almost smile.
    "You've taken holy orders, lad?"
    "No."
    "But the black dress?"
    "I'm only a novice. I've sworn