Max Brand (6 page)

He saw by the slight widening of her eyes that a hundred dollars was a
good deal of money to her; and she flushed as she answered:

"I got down a bet with Jud Alison; it was only five dollars, but I had
odds of ten to one. Fifty dollars looks pretty big to me," she added,
and he liked her frankness.

"But does everybody know about these grays?"

"Not so many. They only come from one outfit, you see. Dad knew horses,
and he told me an Eden Gray was worth any man's money. Poor Dad!"

Connor watched her eyes turn dark and dull, but he tossed sympathy aside
and stepped forward in the business.

"I've been interested since I saw that little streak of gray shoot over
the finish. Eighteen years old. Did you know that?"

"Really? Well, Dad said an Eden Gray was good to twenty-five."

"What else did he say?"

"He didn't know a great deal about them, after all, but he said that now
and then a deaf and dumb Negro comes. He's a regular giant. Whenever he
meets a man he gets off the horse and puts a paper into the hand of the
other. On the paper it says: Fifty dollars in gold coin! Always that."

It was like a fairy tale to Connor.

"Jude Harper of Collinsville met him once. He had only ten dollars in
gold, but he had three hundred in paper. He offered the whole three
hundred and ten to the deaf-mute but he only shook his head."

"How often does he come out of the valley?"

"Once a year—once in two years—nobody knows how often. Of course it
doesn't take him long to find a man who'll buy a horse like one of the
grays for fifty dollars. The minute the horse is sold he turns around
and starts walking back. Pete Ricks tried to follow him. He turned back
on Pete, jumped on him from behind a rock, and jerked him off his horse.
Then he got him by the hair and bent his head back. Pete says he
expected to have his neck broken—he was like a child in the arms of
that giant. But it seemed that the mute was only telling him in
deaf-and-dumb talk that he mustn't follow. After he'd frightened the
life out of Pete the big mute went away again, and Pete came home as
fast as his horse could carry him."

Connor swallowed. "Where do they get the name Eden Gray?"

"I don't know. Dad said that three things were true about every gray.
It's always a gelding; it's always one price, and it always has a flaw.
I looked the one over that ran to-day and couldn't see anything wrong,
though."

"Cow-hocked," said Connor, breathing hard. "Go on!"

"Dad made up his mind that the reason they didn't sell more horses was
because the owner only sold to weed out his stock."

"Wait," said Connor, tapping on the table to make his point. "Do I
gather that the only Eden Grays that are sold are the poorest of the
lot?"

"That was Dad's idea."

"Go on," said Connor.

"You're excited?"

But he answered quickly: "Well, one of those grays beat me out of a
hundred dollars. I can't help being interested."

He detached his watch-charm from its catch and began to finger it
carelessly; it was the head of an ape carved in ivory yellowed with age.

The girl watched, fascinated, but she made no mention of it, for the jaw
of the gambler was set in a hard line, and she felt, subconsciously, a
widening distance between them.

"Does the deaf-mute own the horses?" he was asking.

"I suppose so."

"This sounds like a regular catechism, doesn't it?"

"I don't mind. Come to think of it, everything about the grays is queer.
Well, I've never seen this man, but do you know what I think? That he
lives off there in the mountains by himself because he's a sort of
religious fanatic."

"Religion? Crazy, maybe."

"Maybe."

"What's his religion?"

"I don't know," said the girl coldly. "After you jerk lightning for a
while, you aren't interested much in religion."

He nodded, not quite sure of her position, but now her face darkened and
she went on, gathering interest in the subject.

"Oh, I've heard 'em rave about the God that made the earth and the stars
and all that stuff; the mountains, too. I've heard 'em die asking for
mercy and praising God. That's the way Dad went. It was drink that got
him. But I'm for facts only. Far as I can see, when people come up
against a thing they can't understand they just close their eyes and
say, God! And when they're due to die, sometimes they're afraid and they
say, God—because they think they're going out like a snuffed lantern
and never will be lighted again."

The gambler sat with his chin buried in his palm, and from beneath a
heavy frown he studied the girl.

"I don't hold malice more than the next one," said the girl, "but I saw
Dad; and I've been sick of religion ever since. Besides, how do you
explain the rotten things that happen in the world? Look at yesterday!
The King of the Sea goes down with all on board. Were they all crooks?
Were they all ready to die? They can tell me about God, but I say, 'Give
me the proofs!'"

She looked at Connor defiantly. "There's just one thing I believe in,"
she said, "that's luck!"

He did not stir, but still studied her, and she flushed under the
scrutiny.

"Not that I've had enough luck to make me fond of it. I've been stuck up
here on the edge of the world all my life. And how I've wanted to get
away! How I've wanted it! I've begged for a chance—to cut out the work.
If it doesn't make callouses on a girl's hands it will make them on her
heart. I've been waiting all my life for a chance, and the chance has
never come." Something flared in her.

"Sometimes I think," she whispered, "that I can't stand it! That I'd do
anything! Anything—just to get away."

She stopped, and as her passion ebbed she was afraid she had said too
much.

"Shake," he said, stretching his hand across the table, "I'm with you.
Luck! That's all there is running things!"

His fingers closed hard over hers and she winced, for he had forgotten
to remove the ivory image from his hand, and the ape-head cut into her
flesh.

That evening Ruth sent a boy over to the hotel with a telegram for
Connor. It announced that Trickster, at six to one, came home a winner
in the Murray. But Connor had time for only a grunt and a nod; he was
too busy composing a letter to Harry Slocum, which read as follows:

DEAR HARRY:

I'm about to put my head in the lion's mouth; and in case you
don't hear from me again, say within three months, this is to
ask you to look for my bones. I'm starting out to nail a
thousand-to-one shot. Working a hunch for the biggest clean-up
we ever made. I'm going into the mountains to find a deaf mute
Negro who raises the finest horses I've ever seen. Do you get
that? No white man has gone into that valley; at least, no one
has come out talking. But I'm going to bring something with me.
If I don't come out it'll be because I've been knocked on the
head inside the valley. I'm not telling any one around here
where I'm bound, but I've made inquiries, and this is what I
gather: No one is interested in the mute's valley simply
because it's so far away. The mute doesn't bother them and they
won't bother him. That's the main reason for letting him alone.
The other reasons are that he's suspected of being a bad actor.

But the distance is the chief thing that fences people away.
The straight cut is bad going. The better way around is a slow
journey. It leads west out of Lukin and down into the valley of
the Girard River; then along the Girard to its headwaters. Then
through the mountains again to the only entrance to the valley.
I'm telling you all this so that you'll know what you may have
ahead of you. If I'm mum for three months come straight for
Lukin; go to a telegraph operator named Ruth Manning, and tell
her that you've come to get track of me. She'll give you the
names of the best dozen men in Lukin, and you start for the
valley with the posse.

Around Lukin they have a sort of foggy fear of the valley, bad
medicine, they call it.

I have a hard game ahead of me and I'm going to stack the
cards. I've got to get into the Garden by a trick and get out
again the same way. I start this afternoon.

I've got a horse and a pack mule, and I'm going to try my hand
at camping out. If I come back it will be on something that
will carry both the pack and me, I think, and it won't take
long to make the trip. Our days of being rich for ten days and
poor for thirty will be over.

Hold yourself ready; sharp at the end of ninety days, come West
if I'm still silent.

As ever,

BEN.

Before the mail took that letter eastward, Ben Connor received his final
advice from Jack Townsend. It was under the hotel man's supervision that
he selected his outfit of soft felt hat, flannel shirts, heavy socks,
and Napatan boots; Townsend, too, went with him to pick out the pack
mule and all the elements of the pack, from salt to canned tomatoes.

As for the horse, Townsend merely stood by to admire while Ben Connor
went through a dozen possibilities and picked a solidly built chestnut
with legs enough for speed in a pinch, and a flexible fetlock—joints
that promised an easy gait.

"You won't have no trouble," said Townsend, as Connor sat the saddle,
working the stirrups back and forth and frowning at the creaking new
leather. "Wherever you go you'll find gents ready to give you a hand on
your way."

"Why's that? Don't I look like an old hand at this game?"

"Not with that complexion; it talks city a mile off. If you'd tell me
where you're bound for—"

"But I'm not bound anywhere," answered Connor. "I'm out to follow my
nose."

"With that gun you ought to get some game."

Connor laid his hand on the butt of the rifle which was slung in a case
under his leg. He had little experience with a gun, but he said
nothing.

"All trim," continued Townsend, stepping back to look. "Not a flaw in
the mule; no sign of ringbone or spavin, and when a mule ain't got them,
he's got nothin' wrong. Don't treat him too well. When you feel like
pattin' him, cuss him instead. It's mule nature to like a beatin' once
in a while; they spoil without it, like kids. He'll hang back for two
days, but the third day he'll walk all over your hoss; never was a hoss
that could walk with a mule on a long trip. Well, Mr. Connor, I guess
you're all fixed, but I'd like to send a boy along to see you get
started right."

"Don't worry," smiled Connor. "I've written down all your suggestions."

"Here's what you want to tie on to special," said the fat man. "Don't
move your camp on Fridays or the thirteenth; if you come nigh a town and
a black cat crosses your trail, you camp right there and don't move on
to that town till the next morning. And wait a minute—if you start out
and find you've left something in camp, make a cross in the trail before
you go back."

He frowned to collect his thoughts.

"Well, if you don't do none of them three things, you can't come out far
wrong. S'long, and good luck, Mr. Connor."

Connor waved his hand, touched the chestnut with his heel and the horse
broke into a trot, while the rope, coming taut, first stretched the neck
of the mule and then tugged him into a dragging amble. In this manner
Connor went out of Lukin. He smiled to himself, as he thought
confidently of the far different fashion in which he would return.

The first day gave Connor a raw nose, a sunburned neck and wrists, and
his supper was charred bacon and tasteless coffee; but the next morning
he came out of the choppy mountains and went down a long, easy slope
into the valley of the Girard. There was always water here, and fine
grass for the horse and mule, with a cool wind off the snows coming down
the ravine. By the third day he was broken into the routine of his work
and knew the most vulnerable spot on the ribs of the mule, and had a pet
name for the chestnut. Thereafter the camping trip was pleasant enough.
It took him longer than he had expected, for he would not press the
horse as the pitch of the ravine grew steeper; later he saw his wisdom
in keeping the chestnut fresh for the final burst, for when he reached
the head-spring of the Girard, he faced a confusion of difficult, naked
mountains. He was daunted but determined, and the next morning he filled
his canteens and struck into the last stage of his journey.

Luck gave him cool weather, with high moving clouds, which curtained the
sun during the middle of the day, but even then it was hard work. He had
not the vestige of a trail to follow; the mountain sides were bare rock.
A scattering of shrubs and dwarfed trees found rooting in crevices, but
on the whole Connor was journeying through a sea of stone, and
sometimes, when the sun glinted on smooth surface, the reflection
blinded him. By noon the chestnut was hobbling, and before nightfall
even the mule showed signs of distress. And though Connor traveled now
by compass, he was haunted by a continual fear that he might have
mistaken his way, or that the directions he had picked up at Lukin might
be entirely wrong. Evening was already coming over the mountains when he
rounded a slope of black rock and found below him a picture that tallied
in every detail with all he had heard of the valley.

The first look was like a glance into a deep well of stone with a flash
of water in the bottom; afterward he sat on a boulder and arranged the
details of that big vista. Nothing led up to the Garden from any
direction; it was a freak of nature. Some convulsion of the earth, when
these mountains were first rising, perhaps, had split the rocks, or as
the surface strata rolled up, they parted over the central lift and left
this ragged fissure. Through the valley ran a river, but water could
never have cut those saw-tooth cliffs; and Connor noted this strange
thing: that the valley came to abrupt ends both north and south. By the
slant sunlight, and at that distance—for he judged the place to be some
ten or fifteen miles in length—it seemed as if the cliff fronts to the
north and south were as solid and lofty as a portion of the sides; yet
this could not be unless the river actually disappeared under the face
of the wall. Still, he could not make out details from the distance,
only the main outline of the place, the sheen of growing things, whether
trees or grass, and the glitter of the river which swelled toward the
center of the valley into a lake. He could discover only one natural
entrance; in the nearest cliff wall appeared a deep, narrow cleft, which
ran to the very floor of the valley, and the only approach was through a
difficult ravine. The sore-footed chestnut had caught the flash of
green, and now he pricked his ears and whinnied as if he saw home.
Connor started down the rocks toward the entrance, leading the horse,
while the mule trailed wearily behind. As he turned, the wind blew to
him out of the valley a faint rhythmical chiming. When he paused to
listen the sound disappeared.