Max Brand (8 page)

"I have never seen it before," muttered Jacob. "To see it, one would say
he was a son of Julanda."

"It is my teaching and not the blood of Julanda that gives my horses
manners," corrected Ephraim. "However, if I might look in the hand of
the stranger—"

"There is nothing in it," answered Connor, smiling, and he held out both
empty palms. "All horses are like this with me."

"Is it true?" they murmured together.

"Yes; I don't know why. But you were going to bring Joseph."

"Ah," said Ephraim, shaking his head. "I had almost forgotten. Hurry,
Jacob; but if you will take my advice in the matter you will teach your
colts fewer tricks and more sound sense."

The other grunted, and putting his hand on the withers of Abra, he
leaped to the back with the lightness of a strong youth. A motion of his
hand sent the gray into a gallop that shot them through the gate into
darkness.

That faint and rhythmic chiming which Connor had heard from the mountain
when he first saw the valley now came again through the gate, more
clearly. There was something familiar about the sound—yet Connor could
not place it.

"Did you mark?" said Ephraim, shaking his head. "Did you see the colt
shy at the white rock as he ran? In my household that could never
happen; and yet Jacob does well enough, for the blood of Harith is as
stubborn as old oak and wild as a wolf. But your gift, sir"—and here he
turned with much respect toward Connor—"is a great one. I have never
seen Harith's sons come to a man as Abra came to you."

He was surprised to see the stranger staring toward the gate as if he
watched a ghost.

"He did not gallop," said Connor presently, and his voice faltered. "He
flowed. He poured himself through the air."

He swept a hand across his forehead and with great effort calmed the
muscles of his face.

"Are there more horses like that in the valley?"

Ephraim hesitated, for there was such a glittering hunger in the eyes of
this stranger that it abashed him. Vanity, however, brushed scruple
away.

"More like Abra in the valley? So!"

He seemed to hunt for superlatives with which to overwhelm his
questioner.

"The worst in my household is Tabari, the daughter of Numan, and she was
foaled lame in the left foreleg. But if ten like Abra were placed in
one corral and Tabari in the other, a wise man would give the ten and
take the one and render thanks that such good fortune had come his way."

"Is it possible?" exclaimed Connor in that same, small, choked voice.

"I speak calmly," said Ephraim gravely. He added with some hesitation:
"But if I must tell the whole truth, I shall admit that my household is
not like the household of the blood of Rustir. Just as she was the queen
of horses, so those of her blood are above other horses as the master is
above me. Yet, if ten like Tabari were placed in one corral and the
stallion Glani were placed in another, I suppose that a wise man would
give the ten for the one."

He added with a sigh: "But I should not have such wisdom."

Connor smiled.

"And at that rate it would require a hundred like Abra to buy Glani?" he
asked.

"A thousand," said the old man instantly, "and then the full price would
not be paid. I have already asked the master to cross him with Hira. He
will answer me soon; one touch of Glani's blood will lift the strain in
my household. My colts are good mettle—but the fire, the soul of
Glani!"

He bowed his head.

"Ah, they are coming, Jacob and Joseph."

His keen ear heard a sound which was not audible to Connor for several
moments; then two gray horses swept into the circle of the firelight,
and from the mare which led Abra by several yards, a huge Negro
dismounted.

"If you are Joseph," the gambler said, "I suppose Jacob has already told
you about me. My name is Connor. I've been hunting up the Girard River,
struck across the mountains yonder, and here I've brought up with a lame
mule and a lamer horse. The point is that I want to rest up in your
valley until my animals can go on. Is it possible?"

While he spoke the giant watched him with eyes which squinted in their
intensity, but when he ended Joseph answered not a word. Connor
remembered now what he had heard of the deaf mute who alone went back
and forth from the Garden of Eden, and his heart fell. It was talking to
a face of stone.

In the meantime Joseph continued to examine the stranger. From head to
foot the little, bright eyes moved, leisurely, and Connor grew hot as he
endured it. When the survey was completed to his own satisfaction,
Joseph went first to the mule and next to the horse, lifting their feet
one by one, then running his hands over their legs. After this he turned
to Jacob and his great fingers glided through the characters of the
language of the mute, bunching, knotting, darting out in a fluid
swiftness.

"Joseph says," translated Ephraim, "that your horse is lame, but that he
can climb the hills if you go on foot; the mule is not lame at all, but
is pretending, because he is tired."

An oath rose up in the throat of Connor, but he checked it against his
teeth and smiled at Joseph. The big man hissed through his teeth and his
mare sprang to his side. She was not more than fourteen two, and
slenderly made compared with Abra, yet she had borne the great bulk of
Joseph with ease before, and now she was apparently ready to carry him
again. He dropped his hand upon her withers, and facing Connor, swept
his arm out in a broad gesture of dismissal. Vaguely the gambler noticed
this, but his real interest centered on the form of the mare. He was
seeing her not with that unwieldy bulk crushing her back, but with a
fly-weight jockey mounted on a racing pad riding her past the grand
stand. He was hearing the odds which the bookies offered; he was
watching those odds drop by leaps and bounds as he hammered away at
them, betting in lumps of hundreds and five hundreds, staking his
fortune on his first "sure thing." Even as she stood passive, tossing
her nose, he knew her speed, and it took his breath. Abra himself would
walk away from ordinary company, but this gray mare—slowly Connor
looked back to the face of Joseph and saw that the giant was waiting to
see his command obeyed. For the first time he noted the cartridge belt
strung across the fellow's gaunt middle and the holster in which pulled
the weight of a forty-five. In case of doubt, here was a cogent reason
to hurry a loiterer. To persuade the giant would never have been easy,
but to persuade him through an interpreter made the affair impossible.
Struggling for a loophole of escape, he absentmindedly unsnapped from
his watch chain the little ivory talisman, the ape head, and commenced
to finger it. It had been his constant companion for years and in a
measure he connected his luck with it.

"My friend," said Connor to Ephraim, "you see my position? But if I
can't do better is there any objection to my using this fire of yours
for cooking? The fire, at least, is outside the valley."

Even this question Ephraim apparently did not feel qualified to answer.
He turned first to the gigantic mute and conversed with him at some
length; his own fluent signals were answered by single movements on the
part of Joseph, and Connor recognized the signs of dissent.

"I have told him everything," said Ephraim, turning again to Connor and
shaking his head in sympathy. "And how Abra came to you, but though the
horse trusted you, Joseph does not wish you to stay. I am sorry."

Connor looked through the gate into the darkness of the Garden of Eden;
at the entrance to his promised land he was to be turned back. In his
despair he opened his palm and looked down absently at the little
grinning ape head of ivory. Even while he was deep in thought he felt
the silence which settled over the three men, and when he looked up he
saw the glittering eyes of Joseph fixed upon the trinket. That instant
new hope came to Connor; he closed his hand over the ape head, and
turning to Ephraim he said:

"Very well. If there's nothing else for me to do, I'll take the chance
of getting through the mountains with my lame nags."

As he spoke he threw the reins over the neck of the chestnut; but before
he could put his foot in the stirrup Joseph was beside him and touched
his shoulder.

"Wait!" said he, and the gambler paused with astonishment. The mask of
the mute which he had hitherto kept on his face now fell from it.

"Let me see," the giant was saying, and held out his hand for the ivory
image.

The pulse of Connor doubled its beat—but with his fingers still closed
he said:

"The ivory head is an old companion of mine and has brought me a great
deal of luck."

The torchlight changed in the eyes of Joseph as the sun glints and
glimmers on watered silk.

"I would not hurt it," he said, and made a gingerly motion to show how
light and deft his fingers could be.

"Very well," said Connor, "but I rarely let it out of my hand."

He stepped closer to the firelight and exposed the little carving again.
It was a curious bit of work, with every detail nicely executed;
pinpoint emeralds were inset for eyes, the lips grinned back from tiny
fangs of gold, and the swelling neck suggested the powerful ape body of
the model. In the firelight the teeth and eyes flashed.

Joseph grinned in sympathy. Ephraim and Jacob also had drawn close, and
the white man saw in the three faces one expression: they had become
children before a master, and when Connor placed the trinket in the
great paw of Joseph the other two flashed at him glances of envy. As for
the big man, he was transformed.

"Speak truth," he said suddenly. "Why do you wish to enter the Garden?"

"I've already told you, I think," said Connor. "It's to rest up until
the horse and mule are well again."

The glance of the huge man, which had hitherto wandered from the trinket
to Connor's face, now steadied brightly upon the latter.

"There must be another reason."

Connor felt himself pressed to the wall.

"Look at the thing you have in your hand, Joseph. You are asking
yourself: 'What is it? Who made it? See how the firelight glitters on
it—perhaps there is life in it!'"

"Ah!" sighed the three in one breath.

"Perhaps there is power in it. I have used it well and it has brought me
a great deal of good luck. But you would like to know all those things,
Joseph. Now look at the gate to the Garden!"

He waved to the lofty and dark cleft before them.

"It is like a face to me. People live behind it. Who are they? Who is
the master? What does he do? What is his power? That is another reason
why I wish to go in; and why should you fear me? I am alone; I am
unarmed."

It seemed that Joseph learned more from Connor's expression than from
his words.

"The law is the will of David."

The Garden became to Connor as the forbidden room to Bluebeard's wife;
it tempted him as a high cliff tempts the climber toward a fall. He
mustered a calm air and voice.

"That is a matter I can arrange with your master. He may have laws to
keep out thieves, but certainly he has nothing against honest men."

Joseph shrugged his big shoulders, but Ephraim answered: "The will of
David never changes. I am no longer young, but since I have been old
enough to remember, I have never seen a man either come into the valley
or leave it except Joseph."

The solemnity of the old man staggered Connor. He felt his resolution to
enter at any cost waver, and then Abra, the young stallion, came to his
side and looked in his face.

It was the decisive touch. The life which the devotee would risk for his
God, or the patriot for his country, the gambler was willing to venture
for the sake of a "sure thing."

"Let us exchange gifts," said Connor; "I give you the ivory head. It may
bring you good luck. You give me the right to enter the valley and I
accept any good or evil that comes to me."

The huge fingers of Joseph curled softly over the image.

"Beware of the law!" cried Ephraim. "And the hand of the master!"

The giant shrank, but he looked at Ephraim with sullen defiance.

"Come," he said to Connor. "This is on your own head."

"It is a long ride to the house of David," said Jacob. "Your horse is
footsore; take Abra."

But Ephraim broke in: "If you care for speed and wise feet beneath you,
Tabari herself is there."

He whistled as Jacob had done before, but with another grace-note at the
end.

"Those of my household answer when they are called," continued the old
man proudly. "Listen!"

A soft whinny out of the darkness, and Tabari galloped into the
firelight, and stopped at the side of her master motionless.

"Choose," said Ephraim.

He smiled at Jacob, who in return was darkly silent.

The mare tugged at the heartstrings of Connor, but he answered, slipping
carefully into the formal language which apparently was approved most in
the valley.

"She is worthy of a king, but Abra was offered to me first. But will he
carry a saddle?"

"He will carry anything but a whip," said Jacob, casting a glance of
triumph at Ephraim. "You will see!" He was already busy at the knot
under the flap of Connor's saddle, and presently he slipped the saddle
from the back of the chestnut. "Come!" he called.

Abra came, but he came like a fighter into the ring, dancing, ready for
trouble.

"Fool!" shouted Jacob, stamping. "Fool, and grandson of a fool, stand!"

The ears of Abra flicked back along his neck and he trembled as the
saddle was swung over him. Under its impact he crouched and shuddered,
but the outbreak of bucking for which Connor waited did not come. The
jerk on the cinch brought a snort from him, but that was all.