“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
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.”
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.”
