by Brand, Max
"Threats are for children, and yearlings; but a grown horse is above them."
"The spirit of Harith has returned in Abra," said Jacob gloomily. "From that month of April when he was foaled he has been a trial and a burden; yes, if even a cloud blows over the moon he comes to my window and calls me. There was never such a horse since Harith. However, he shall make amends. Abra!"
The stallion stepped nearer and halted, alert.
"Go to him, fool. Go to the stranger and give him your head. Quick!"
The gray horse turned, hesitated, and then came straight to Connor, very slowly; there he bowed his head and dropped his muzzle on the knee of the white man, but all the while his eyes flared at the strange face in terror. Jacob turned a proud smile upon Ephraim, and the latter nodded.
"It is a good colt," he admitted. "His heart is right, and in time he may grow to some worth."
Once more Connor fumbled in his pocket.
"Steady," he said, looking squarely into the great, bright eyes.
"Steady, boy."
He put his hand under the nose of the stallion.
"It's a new smell, but little different."
Abra snorted softly, but though he shook he dared not move. The gambler, with a side glance, saw the two men watching intently.
"Ah," said Connor, "you have pulled against a headstall here, eh?"
He touched an old scar on the cheek of the horse, and Abra closed his eyes, but opened them again when he discovered that no harm was done to him by the tips of those gentle fingers.
"You may let him have his head again," said Connor. "He will not leave me now until he is ordered."
"So?" exclaimed Jacob. "We shall see! Enough Abra!"
The gray tossed up his head at that word, but after he had taken one step he returned and touched the back of the white man's hand, snuffed at his shoulder and at his hat and then stood with pricking ears. A soft exclamation came in unison from Jacob and Ephraim.
"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.
Chapter NINE
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 obe
yed. 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."
Chapter TEN
"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.
"We may not put iron in his mouth," said Jacob, as Connor came up with the bridle, "but a touch on this will turn him or stop him, as you wish."
As he spoke he picked up a small rope, which he knotted around the neck of Abra close to the ears, and handed the end to Connor.
"Look!" he said to the horse, pointing to Connor. "This is your master to-night. Bear him as you would bear me, Abra, without leaping or stumbling, smoothly, as son of Khalissa should do. And hark," he added in the ear of the young stallion; "if the mare of Joseph outruns you, you are no horse
of my household, but a mongrel, a bloodless knave."
Joseph was already trotting through the gate and growing dim beyond, so Connor put his foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. He landed as upon springs, all the lithe body of the stallion giving under the shock; and Connor felt a quivering power beneath him like the vibration of a racing motor. Abra's eyes glinted as he threw his head high to take stock of the new master.
"Go," commanded Jacob; "and remember your speed, for the honor of him who trained you!"
The last words were whipped away from the ear of Connor and trailed into a murmur behind him, for without a preliminary step Abra sprang from a stand into a full gallop. That forward lurch swayed Connor far back; he lost touch with his stirrups, but, clinging desperately with his knees, he was presently able to right himself. There was hard gravel beneath them, but the gait was as soft as if Abra ran in deep sand without labor; there was no more wrench and shock than the ghost of a man riding a ghost of a horse.
A column of black shot by on either hand; Connor was through the gate to the Garden of Eden and rushing down the slope beyond. He knew this dimly, but chiefly he was aware only of the whipping of the wind.
Something Ephraim had said came into his memory: "If there were ten like Abra in one corral, and one like Tabari in another, a wise man--" But, no doubt, Ephraim had jested.
For, glancing up, he saw the tops of tall trees rushing past him against the sky, and for the first time he knew the speed of that gallop. In his exultation he threw up his hand, and his shout rang before him and behind. That taught him a lesson he would never forget when he sat the saddle on an Eden Gray; for Abra lurched into a run with a suddenness that swayed Connor against the cantle again.
He steadied himself quickly and called to Abra; the first word cut down that racing gait to the long, free stride, but the brief rush had taken the breath of the rider, and now he looked about him.
He had been in California years before, and now he recognized the peculiar, clean perfume of the trees which lined the road; they were the eucalyptus, and they fenced the way with a gigantic hedge several rows deep. It was a winding road that they followed, dipping over a rolling ground and swinging leisurely from side to side to avoid high places, so that the vista of the trees was continually in motion, twisting back and forth; or when he looked straight up he saw the slender tree-points brushing past the stars. So he galloped into a long, straight stretch with a pale gleam of water beyond it; and between he saw Joseph.
