Max Brand Read Free Page B

no vows."
    "And you don't hate me—you hold no grudge against me for the sake of
your mother?"
    Pierre took the heavy hand.
    "Are you not my father? And my mother was happy with you. For her sake
I love you."
    "The good Father Victor. He sent you to me."
    "I came of my own will. He would not have let me go."
    "He—he would have kept my flesh and blood away from me?"
    "Do not reproach him. He would have kept me from a sin."
    "Sin? By God, boy, no matter what I've done, is it sin for my son to
come to me? What sin?"
    "The sin of murder!"
    "Ha!"
    "I have come to find McGurk."

Chapter 4
*
    Like some old father-bear watching his cub flash teeth against a
stalking lynx, half proud and half fearful of such courage, so the
dying cattleman looked at his son. Excitement set a high and dangerous
color in his cheek. "Pierre—brave boy! Look at me. I ain't no
imitation man, even now, but I ain't a ghost of what I was. There
wasn't no man I wouldn't of met fair and square with bare hands or
with a gun. Maybe my hands was big, but they were fast on the draw.
I've lived all my life with iron on the hip, and my six-gun has
seven notches.
    "But McGurk downed me fair and square. There wasn't no murder. I was
out for his hide, and he knew it. I done the provokin', an' he jest
done the finishin', that was all. It hurts me a lot to say it, but
he's a better man than I was. A kid like you, why, he'd jest eat
you, Pierre."
    Pierre le Rouge smiled again. He felt a stern pride to be the son of
this man.
    "So that's settled," went on Martin Ryder, "an' a damned good thing it
is. Son, you didn't come none too soon. I'm goin' out fast. There
ain't enough light left in me so's I can see my own way. Here's all I
ask: When I die touch my eyelids soft an' draw 'em shut—I've seen the
look in a dead man's eyes. Close 'em, and I know I'll go to sleep an'
have good dreams. And down in the middle of Morgantown is the
buryin'-ground. I've ridden past it a thousand times an' watched a
corner plot, where the grass grows quicker than it does anywheres else
in the cemetery. Pierre, I'd die plumb easy if I knew I was goin' to
sleep the rest of time in that place."
    "It shall be done."
    "But that corner plot, it would cost a pile, son. And I've no money. I
gave what I had to them wolf-eyed boys, Bill an' Bert. Money was what
they wanted, an' after I had Irene's son with me, money was the
cheapest way of gettin' rid of 'em."
    "I'll buy the plot."
    "Have you got that much money, lad?"
    "Yes," lied Pierre calmly.
    The bright eyes grew dimmer and then fluttered close. Pierre started
to his feet, thinking that the end had come. But the voice began
again, fainter, slowly.
    "No light left inside of me, but dyin' this way is easy. There ain't
no wind will blow on me after I'm dead, but I'll be blanketed safe
from head to foot in cool, sweet-smellin' sod—the kind that has
tangles of the roots of grass. There ain't no snow will reach to me
where I lie. There ain't no sun will burn down to me. Dyin' like that
is jest—goin' to sleep."
    After that he said nothing for a time, and the late afternoon darkened
slowly through the room.
    As for Pierre, he did not move, and his mind went back. He did not see
the bearded wreck who lay dying before him, but a picture of Irene,
with the sun lighting her copper hair with places of burning gold, and
a handsome young giant beside her. They rode together on some upland
trail at sunset time, sharply framed against the bright sky.
    There was a whisper below him: "Irene!"
    And Pierre looked down to blankly staring eyes. He groaned, and
dropped to his knees.
    "I have come for you," said the whisper, "because the time has come,
Irene. We have to ride out together. We have a long ways to go. Are
you ready?"
    "Yes," said Pierre.
    "Thank God! It's a wonderful night. The stars are asking us out.
Quick! Into your 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