Max Brand (25 page)

"But why did you leave?" asked Ruth tenderly.

Zacharias slowly drew his eyes away from the mists of the past and
became aware of the girl's face once more.

"Because my soul was burning in sin. It was burning and burning!"

"But wouldn't you like to go back?"

The head of Zacharias fell and he knitted his fingers.

"Coming to the Garden of Eden was like coming into heaven. There's no
way of getting out again without breaking the law. The Garden is just
like heaven!"

Connor spoke for the first time.

"Or hell!" he exclaimed.

It caused Ruth Manning to cry out at him softly; Zacharias was mute.

"Why did you say that?" said the girl, growing angry.

"Because I hate to see a bad bargain," said the gambler. "And it looks
to me as if our friend here paid pretty high for anything he gets out of
the Garden."

He turned sharply to Zacharias.

"How long have you been working here?"

"Sixty years. Long years!"

"And what have you out of it? What clothes?"

"Enough to wear."

"What food?"

"Enough to eat."

"A house of your own?"

"No."

"Land of your own?"

"No."

"Sixty years and not a penny saved! That's what I call a sharp bargain!
What else have you gained?"

"A good bright hope of heaven."

"But are you sure, Zacharias? Are you sure? Isn't it possible that all
these five masters of yours may have been mistaken?"

Zacharias could only stare in his horror. Finally he turned away and
went silently across the patio.

"Ben," cried the girl softly, "why did you do it? Aside from torturing
the poor man, what if this comes to David's ear?"

Connor snapped his finger. His manner was that of one who knows that he
has taken a foolish risk and wishes to brazen the matter out.

"It'll never come to the ear of David! Why? Because he'd wring the neck
of the old chap if he even guessed that he'd been talking about leaving
the valley. And in the meantime I cut away the ground beneath David's
feet. He has not standing room, pretty soon. Nothing left to him, by
Jove, but his own conceit, and he has tons of that! Well, let him use it
and get fat on it!"

She wondered why Connor had come to actually hate the master of the
Garden. Sure David of Eden had never harmed the gambler. She remembered
something that she had heard long before: that the hatred always lies on
the side of injurer and not of the injured.

They heard David's voice, at this point, approaching, and in another
moment a small cavalcade entered the patio.

First, a white flash beneath the shadow of the arched way, came a colt
at full run, stopping short with four sprawling, braced feet at the
sight of the strangers. It was not fear so much as surprise, for now it
pricked its ears and advanced a dainty step or two. Ruth cried out with
delight at the fawn-like beauty of the delicate creature. The Eden Gray
was almost white in the little colt, and with its four dark stockings it
seemed, when it ran, to be stepping on thin air. That impression was
helped by the comparatively great length of the legs.

Next came the mother, walking, as though she was quite confident that no
harm could come to her colt in this home of all good things, but with
her fine head held high and her eyes luminous with concern, a little
anxious because the youngster had been out of sight for a moment.

And behind them strode David with Elijah at his side.

Ruth could never have recognized Elijah as the statuesque figure which
had confronted David on the previous day. He was now bowing and scraping
like some withered old man, striving to make a good impression on a
creditor to whom a great sum was owing. She remembered then what David
had told her earlier in the day about the judging of Timeh, the daughter
of Juri. This, then, was the crisis, and here was Elijah striving to
conciliate the grim judge. The old man kept up a running fire of talk
while David walked slowly around the colt. Ruth wondered why the master
of the Garden did not cry out with pleasure at sight of the beautiful
creature. Connor had drawn her back a little.

"You see that six months' mare?" he said softly, with a tremor in his
voice. "I'd pay ten thousand flat for her the way she stands. Ten
thousand—more if it were asked!"

"But David doesn't seem very pleased."

"Bah! He's bursting with pleasure. But he won't let on because he
doesn't want to flatter old Elijah."

"If he doesn't pass the colt do you know what happens?"

"What?"

"They kill it!"

"I'd a lot rather see them kill a man!" snarled Connor. "But they won't
touch
that
colt!"

"I don't know. Look at poor Elijah!"

David, stopping in his circular walk, now stood with his arms folded,
gazing intently at Timeh. Elijah was a picture of concern. The whites of
his eyes flashed as his glances rolled swiftly from the colt to the
master. Once or twice he tried to speak, but seemed too nervous to give
voice.

At length: "A true daughter of Juri, O David. And was there ever a more
honest mare than Juri? The same head, mark you, deep from the eye to the
angle of the jaw. And under the head—come hither, Timeh!"

Timeh flaunted her heels at the sun and then came with short, mincing
steps.

"At six months," boasted Elijah, "she knows my voice as well as her
mother. Stay, Juri!"

The inquisitive mare had followed Timeh, but now, reassured, she dropped
her head and began cropping the turf of the patio. Still, from the play
of her ears, it was evident that Timeh was not out of the mother's
thoughts for an instant.

"Look you, David!" said Elijah. He raised the head of Timeh by putting
his hand beneath her chin.

"I can put my whole hand between the angles of her jaw! And see how her
ears flick back and forth, like the twitching ears of a cat! Ha, is not
that a sign?"

He allowed the head to fall again, but he caught it under his arms and
faced David in this manner, throwing out his hand in appeal. Still David
spoke not a word.

With a gesture he made Elijah move to one side. Then he stepped to
Timeh. She was uneasy at his coming, but under the first touch of his
hand Timeh became as still as rock and looked at her mother in a scared
and helpless fashion. It seemed that Juri understood a great crisis was
at hand; for now she advanced resolutely and with her dainty muzzle she
followed with sniffs the hand of David as it moved over the little colt.
He seemed to be seeing with his finger-tips alone, kneading under the
skin in search of vital information. Along the muscles those dexterous
fingers ran, and down about the heavy bones of the joints, where they
lingered long, seeming to read a story in every crevice.

Never once did he speak, but Ruth felt that she could read words in the
brightening, calm, and sudden shadows across his face.

Elijah accompanied the examination with a running-fire of comment.

"There is quality in those hoofs, for you! None of your gray-blue stuff
like the hoofs of Tabari, say, but black as night and dense as rock.
Aye, David, you may well let your hand linger down that neck. She will
step freely, this Timeh of mine, and stride as far as a mountain-lion
can leap! Withers high enough. That gives a place for the ligaments to
take hold. A good long back, but not too long to carry a weight. She
will not be one of your gaunt-bellied horses, either; she will have wind
and a bottom for running. She will gallop on the third day of the
journey as freely as on the first. And she will carry her tail well out,
always, with that big, strong dock."

He paused a moment, for David was moving his hands over the hindlegs and
lingering long at the hocks. And the face of Elijah grew convulsed with
anxiety.

"Is there anything wrong with those legs?" murmured Ruth to Connor.

"Not a thing that I see. Maybe the stifles are too straight. I think
they might angle out a bit more. But that's nothing serious. Besides, it
may be the way Timeh is standing. What's the matter?"

She was clinging to his arm, white-faced.

"If that colt has to die I—I'll want to kill David Eden!"

"Hush, Ruth! And don't let him see your face!"

David moved back from Timeh and again folded his arms.

"The body of the horse is one thing," ran on Elijah uneasily, "and the
spirit is another. Have you not told us, David, that a curious colt
makes a wise horse? That is Timeh! Where will you guess that I found her
when I went to bring her to you even now? She had climbed up the face of
the cliff, far up a crevice where a man would not dare to go. I dared
not even cry out to her for fear she would fall if she turned her head.
To have climbed so high was almost impossible, but how would she come
down when there was no room for her to turn?

"I was dizzy and sick with grief. But Timeh saw me, and down she came,
without turning. She lifted her hoofs and put them down as a cat lifts
and puts down wet paws. And in a moment she was safe on the meadow and
frisking around me. Juri had been so worried that she made Timeh stop
running and nosed her all over to make sure that she was unhurt by that
climb. But tell me: will not a colt that risks its life to climb for a
tuft of grass, run till its heart breaks for the master in later years?"

For the first time David spoke.

"Is she so wise a colt?" he said.

"Wise?" cried Elijah, his eye shining with joy at the opening which he
had made. "I talk to her as I talk to a man. She is as full of tricks as
a dog. Look, now!"

He leaned over and pretended to pick at the grass, whereat Timeh stole
up behind him and drew out a handkerchief from his hip pocket. Off she
raced and came back in a flashing circle to face Elijah with the cloth
fluttering in her teeth.

"So!" cried Elijah, taking the handkerchief again and looking eagerly at
the master of the Garden. "Was there ever a colt like my Timeh?"

"The back legs," said David slowly.

Elijah had been preparing himself to speak again, with a smile. He was
arrested in the midst of a gesture and his face altered like a man at
the banquet at the news of a death.

"The hind legs, David," he echoed hollowly. "But what of them? They are
a small part of the whole! And they are not wrong. They are not very
wrong, oh my master!"

"The hocks are sprung in and turned a little."

"A very little. Only the eye of David could see it and know that it is
wrong!"

"A small flaw makes the stone break. At a rotten knot-hole the great
tree snaps in the storm. And a small sin may undermine a good man. The
hind legs are wrong, Elijah."

"To be sure. In a colt. Many things seem wrong in a colt, but in the
grown horse they disappear!"

"This fault will not disappear. It is the set of the joint and that can
never be changed. It can only grow worse."

Elijah, staring straight ahead, was searching his brain, but that brain
was numbed by the calamity which had befallen him. He could only stroke
the lovely head of the little colt and pray for help.

"Yesterday," he said at length in a trembling voice, "Elijah, as a fool,
spoke words which angered his master. Back on my head I call them now.
David, do not judge Timeh with a wrathful heart.

"Let the sins of Elijah fall on the head of Elijah, but let Timeh go
unpunished for my faults."

"You grow old, Elijah, and you forget. The judgment of David is never
colored by his own likes and dislikes, his own wishes and prejudice. He
sees the right, and therefore his judgments are true."

"Aye, David, but truth is not merciful, and blessed above all things is
mercy. When you see Timeh, think of Elijah. How he has watched over the
colt, and loved it, and played with it, and taught it, by the hours, the
proper manners for a colt and a mare of the Garden of Eden."

"That is true. It is a well-mannered colt."

Elijah caught at a new straw of hope.

"Also, in the field, if two colts race home for water and Timeh is one,
she reaches the water first—always. She comes to me like a child. In
the morning she slips out of the paddock, and coming to my window, she
puts in her head and calls me with a whinny as soft as the voice of a
man. Then I arise and go out to her and to Juri."

Ruth was weeping openly, her hand closed hard on the arm of Connor; and
she felt the muscles along that arm contract. She almost loved the
gambler for his rage at the inexorable David.

"Consider Juri, also," said Elijah. "Seven times—I numbered them on my
fingers and remembered—seven times when the horses were brought before
you in the morning, you have called to Juri and mounted her for the
morning ride—that was before Glani was raised to his full strength. And
always the master has said:

"'Stout-hearted Juri! She pours out her strength for her rider as a
generous host pours out his wine!'"

David frowned, but plainly he was touched.

"Juri!" he called, and when the noble mare came to him, he laid his hand
on her mane.

"Who has spoken of Juri? Surely I am not judging her this day. It was
Matthew who judged her when she was a foal of six months."

"And it was Matthew," added Elijah hastily, "who loved her above all
horses!"

"Ah!" muttered David, deeply moved.

"Consider the heart of Juri," went on Elijah, timidly following this new
thread of argument. "When the mares neigh and the colts come running,
there will be none to gallop to her side. When she goes out in the
morning there will be no daughter to gallop around and around her,
tossing her head and her heels. And when she comes home at night there
will be no tired foal leaning against her side for weariness."

"Peace, Elijah! You speak against the law."

In spite of himself, the glance of Elijah turned slowly and sullenly
until it rested upon Ruth Manning. David followed the direction of that
look and he understood. There stood the living evidence that he had
broken the law of the Garden at least once. He flushed darkly.