by Max Brand
Connor turned the flank of this argument.
“These men are blind. You say that your horses can run a mile in such and such a time, and they shrug their shoulders and answer that they have heard such chatter before — from trainers and stable boys. But you put your horse on a race track and prove what you say, and they pay for knowledge. Once they see the truth they come to value your horses. You open a stud and your breed is crossed with theirs. The blood of Rustir, passing through the blood of Glani, goes among the best horses of the world. A hundred years from now there will be no good horse in the world, of which men do not ask: ‘Is the blood of Glani in him? Is he of the line of the Eden Grays?’ Consider that, David!”
He found the master of the Garden frowning. He pressed home the point with renewed vigor.
“If you live in this valley, David, what will men know of you?”
“Have you come to take me out of the Garden of Eden?”
“I have come to make your influence pass over the mountains while you stay here. A hundred years from now who will know David of the Garden of Eden? Of the men who used to live here, who remains? Not one! Where do they live now? Inside your head, inside your head, David, and no other place!”
“They live with God,” said David hoarsely.
“But here on earth they don’t live at all except in your mind. And when you die, they die with you. But if you let me do what I say, a thousand years from to-day, people will be saying: ‘There was a man named David, and he had these gray horses, which were the finest in the world, and he gave their blood to the world.’ They’ll pick up every detail of your life, and they’ll trace back the horses—”
“Do I live for the sake of a horse?” cried David, in a voice unnaturally high.
“No, but because of your horses the world will ask what sort of a man you are. People will follow your example. They’ll build a hundred Gardens of Eden. Every one of those valleys will be full of the memories of David and the men who went before him. Then, David, you’ll never die!”
It was the highest flight to which Connor’s eloquence ever attained. The results were alarming. David spoke, without facing his companion, thoughtfully.
“Benjamin, I have been warned. By sin the gate to the Garden was opened, and perhaps sin has entered in you. For why did the first men withdraw to this valley, led by John, save to live apart, perfect lives? And you, Benjamin, wish to undo all that they accomplished.”
“Only the horses,” said the gambler. “Who spoke of taking you out of the Garden?”
Still David would not look at him.
“God grant me His light,” said the master sadly. “You have stirred and troubled me. If the horses go, my mind goes with them. Benjamin, you have tempted me. Yet another thing is in my mind. When Matthew came to die he took me beside him and said:
“‘David, it is not well that you should lead a lonely life. Man is made to live, and not to die. Take to yourself a woman, when I am gone, wed her, and have children, so that the spirit of John and Matthew and Luke and Paul shall not die. And do this in your youth, before five years have passed you by.’
“So spoke Matthew, and this is the fifth year. And perhaps the Lord works in you to draw me out, that I may find this woman. Or perhaps it is only a spirit of evil that speaks in you. How shall I judge? For my mind whirls!”
As if to flee from his thoughts, the master of the Garden called on Glani, and the stallion broke into a full gallop. Shakra followed at a pace that took the breath of Connor, but instantly she began to fall behind; before they had reached the lake Glani was out of sight across the bridge.
Full of alarm — full of hope also — Connor reached the house. In the patio he found Zacharias standing with folded arms before a door.
“I must find David at once,” he told Zacharias. “Where has he gone?”
“Up,” said the servant, and pointed solemnly above him.
“Nonsense!” He added impatiently: “Where shall I find him, Zacharias?”
But again Zacharias waved to the blue sky.
“His body is in this room, but his mind is with Him above the world.”
There was something in this that made Connor uneasy as he had never been before.
“You may go into any room save the Room of Silence,” continued Zacharias, “but into this room only David and the four before him have been. This is the holy place.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GLANI WAITED IN the patio for the reappearance of the master, and as Connor paced with short, nervous steps on the grass at every turn he caught the flash of the sun on the stallion. Above his selfish greed he had one honest desire: he would have paid with blood to see the great horse face the barrier. That, however was beyond the reach of his ambition, and therefore the beauty of Glani was always a hopeless torment.
The quiet in the patio oddly increased his excitement. It was one of those bright, still days when the wind stirs only in soft breaths, bringing a sense of the open sky. Sometimes the breeze picked up a handful of drops from the fountain and showered it with a cool rustling on the grass. Sometimes it flared the tail of Glani; sometimes the shadow of the great eucalyptus which stood west of the house quivered on the turf.
Connor found himself looking minutely at trivial things, and in the meantime David Eden in his room was deciding the fate of the American turf. Even Glani seemed to know, for his glance never stirred from the door through which the master had disappeared. What a horse the big fellow was! He thought of the stallion in the paddock at the track. He heard the thousands swarm and the murmur which comes deep out of a man’s throat when he sees a great horse.
The palms of Connor were wet with sweat. He kept rubbing them dry on the hips of his trousers. Rehearsing his talk with David, he saw a thousand flaws, and a thousand openings which he had missed. Then all thought stopped; David had come out into the patio.
He came straight to Connor, smiling, and he said:
“The words were a temptation, but the mind that conceived them was not the mind of a tempter.”
Ineffable assurance and good will shone in his face, and Connor cursed him silently.
“I, leaving the valley, might be lost in the torrent. And neither the world nor I should profit. But if I stay here, at least one soul is saved to God.”
“Your own?” muttered Connor. But he managed to smile above his rage. “And after you,” he concluded, “what of the horses, David?”
“My sons shall have them.”
“And if you have no sons?”
“Before my death I shall kill all of the horses. They are not meant for other men than the sons of David.”
The gambler drew off his hat and raised his face to the sky, asking mutely if Heaven would permit this crime.
“Yet,” said David, “I forgive you.”
“You forgive me?” echoed Connor through his teeth.
“Yes, for the fire of the temptation has burned out. Let us forget the world beyond the mountains.”
“What is your proof that you are right in staying here?”
“The voice of God.”
“You have spoken to Him, perhaps?”
The irony passed harmless by the raised head of David.
“I have spoken to Him,” he asserted calmly.
“I see,” nodded the gambler. “You keep Him in that room, no doubt?”
“It is true. His spirit is in the Room of Silence.”
“You’ve seen His face?”
A numbness fell on the mind of Connor as he saw his hopes destroyed by the demon of bigotry.
“Only His voice has come to me,” said David.
“It speaks to you?”
“Yes.”
Connor stared in actual alarm, for this was insanity.
“The four,” said David, “spoke to Him always in that room. He is there. And when Matthew died he gave me this assurance — that while the walls of this house stood together God would not desert me or fail to come to me in that room until I l
ove another thing more than I love God.”
“And how, David, do you hear the voice? For while you were there I was in the patio, close by, and yet I heard no whisper of a sound from the room.”
“I shall tell you. When I entered the Room of Silence just now your words had set me on fire. My mind was hot with desire of power over other men. I forgot the palace you built for me with your promises. And then I knew that it had been a temptation to sin from which the voice was freeing me.
“Could a human voice have spoken more clearly than that voice spoke to my heart? Anxiously I called before my eyes the image of Benjamin to ask for His judgment, but your face remained an unclouded vision and was not dimmed by the will of the Lord as He dims creatures of evil in the Room of Silence. Thereby I knew that you are indeed my brother.”
The brain of Connor groped slowly in the rear of these words. He was too stunned by disappointment to think clearly, but vaguely he made out that David had dismissed the argument and was now asking him to come for a walk by the lake.
“The lake’s well enough,” he answered, “but it occurs to me that I’ve got to get on with my journey.”
“You must leave me?”
There was such real anxiety in his voice that Connor softened a little.
“I’ve got a lot to do,” he explained. “I only stopped over to rest my nags, in the first place. Then this other idea came along, but since the voice has rapped it there’s nothing for me to do but to get on my way again.”
“It is a long trip?”
“Long enough.”
“The Garden of Eden is a lonely place.”
“You’ll have the voice to cheer you up.”
“The voice is an awful thing. There is no companionship in it. This thought comes to me. Leave the mule and the horse. Take Shakra. She will carry you swiftly and safely over the mountains and bring you back again. And I shall be happy to know that she is with you while you are away. Then go, brother, if you must, and return in haste.”
It was the opening of the gates of heaven to Connor at the very moment when he had surrendered the last hope. He heard David call the servants, heard an order to bring Shakra saddled at once. The canteen was being filled for the journey. Into the incredulous mind of the gambler the truth filtered by degrees, as candlelight probes a room full of treasure, flashing ever and anon into new corners filled with undiscovered riches.
Shakra was his to ride over the mountains. And why stop there? There was no mark on her, and his brand would make her his. She would be safe in an Eastern racing stable before they even dreamed of pursuit. And when her victories on the track had built his fortune he could return her, and raise a breed of peerless horses. A theft? Yes, but so was the stealing of the fire from heaven for the use of mankind.
He would have been glad to leave the Garden of Eden at once, but that was not in David’s scheme of things. To him a departure into the world beyond the mountains was as a voyage into an uncharted sea. His dignity kept him from asking questions, but it was obvious that he was painfully anxious to learn the necessity of Connor’s going.
That night in the patio he held forth at length of the things they would do together when the gambler returned. “The Garden is a book,” he explained. “And I must teach you to turn the pages and read in them.”
There was little sleep for Connor that night. He lay awake, turning over the possibilities of a last minute failure, and when he finally dropped into a deep, aching slumber it was to be awakened almost at once by the voice of David calling in the patio. He wakened and found it was the pink of the dawn.
“Shakra waits at the gate of the patio. Start early, Benjamin, and thereby you will return soon.”
It brought Connor to his feet with a leap. As if he required urging! Through the hasty breakfast he could not retain his joyous laughter until he saw David growing thoughtful. But that breakfast was over, and David’s kind solicitations, at length. Shakra was brought to him; his feet were settled into the stirrups, and the dream changed to a sense of the glorious reality. She was his — Shakra!
“A journey of happiness for your sake and a speed for mine, Benjamin.”
Connor looked down for the last time into the face of the master of the Garden, half wild and half calm — the face of a savage with the mind of a man behind it. “If he should take my trail!” he thought with horror.
“Good-by!” he called aloud, and in a burst of joy and sudden compunction, “God bless you, David!”
“He has blessed me already, for He has given to me a friend.”
A touch of the rope — for no Eden Gray would endure a bit — whirled Shakra and sent her down the terraces like the wind. The avenue of the eucalyptus trees poured behind them, and out of this, with astonishing suddenness, they reached the gate.
The fire already burned, for the night was hardly past, and Joseph squatted with the thin smoke blowing across his face unheeded. He was grinning with savage hatred and muttering.
Connor knew what profound curse was being called down upon his head, but he had only a careless glance for Joseph. His eye up yonder where the full morning shone on the mountains, his mind was out in the world, at the race track, seeing in prospect beautiful Shakra fleeing away from the finest of the thoroughbreds. And he saw the face of Ruth, as her eyes would light at the sight of Shakra. He could have burst into song.
Connor looking forward, high-headed, threw up his arm with a low shout, and Shakra burst into full gallop down the ravine.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WHEN RUTH MANNING read the note through for the first time she raised her glance to the bearer. The boy was so sun-blackened that the paler skin of the eyelids made his eyes seem supremely large. He was now poised accurately on one foot, rubbing his calloused heel up and down his shin, while he drank in the particulars of the telegraph office. He could hardly be a party to a deception. She looked over the note again, and read:
DEAR MISS MANNING:
I am a couple of miles out of Lukin, in a place to which the bearer of this note will bring you. I am sure you will come, for I am in trouble, out of which you can very easily help me. It is a matter which I cannot confide to any other person in Lukin. I am impatiently expecting you.
BEN CONNOR.
She crumpled the note in her hand thoughtfully, but, on the verge of dropping it in the waste basket, she smoothed it again, and for the third time went over the contents. Then she rose abruptly and confided her place to the lad who idled at the counter.
“The wire’s dead,” she told him. “Besides, I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
And she rode off a moment later with the boy. He had a blanket-pad without stirrups, and he kept prodding the sliding elbows of the horse with his bare toes while he chattered at Ruth, for the drum of the sounder had fascinated him and he wanted it explained. She listened to him with a smile of inattention, for she was thinking busily of Connor. Those thoughts made her look down to the dust that puffed up from the feet of the horses and became a light mist behind them; then, raising her head, she saw the blue ravines of the farther mountains and the sun haze about the crests. Connor had always been to her as the ship is to a traveler; the glamour of strange places was about him.
Presently they left the trail, and passing about a hillside, came to an old shack whose unpainted wood had blackened with time.
“There he is,” said the boy, and waving his hand to her, turned his pony on the back trail at a gallop.
Connor called to her from the shack and came to meet her, but she had dismounted before he could reach the stirrup. He kept her hand in his for a moment as he greeted her. It surprised him to find how glad he was to see her. He told her so frankly.
“After the mountains and all that,” he said cheerfully, “it’s like meeting an old chum again to see you. How have things been going?”
This direct friendliness in a young man was something new to the girl. The youths who came in to the dances at Lukin were an embarrassed lot who kept a
sulky distance, as though they made it a matter of pride to show they were able to resist the attraction of a pretty girl. But if she gave them the least encouragement, the merest shadow of a friendly smile, they were at once all eagerness. They would flock around her, sending savage glances to one another, and simpering foolishly at her. They had stock conversation of politeness; they forced out prodigious compliments to an accompaniment of much writhing. Social conversation was a torture to them, and the girl knew it.
Not that she despised them. She understood perfectly well that most of them were fine fellows and strong men. But their talents had been cultivated in roping two-year-olds and bulldogging yearlings. They could encounter the rush of a mad bull far more easily than they could withstand a verbal quip. With the familiarity of years, she knew, they lost both their sullenness and their starched politeness. They became kindly, gentle men with infinite patience, infinite devotion to their “womenfolk.” Homelier girls in Lukin had an easier time with them. But in the presence of Ruth Manning, who was a more or less celebrated beauty, they were a hopeless lot. In short, she had all her life been in an amphibious position, of the mountain desert and yet not of the mountain desert. On the one hand she despised the “slick dudes” who now and again drifted into Lukin with marvelous neckties and curiously patterned clothes; on the other hand, something in her revolted at the thought of becoming one of the “womenfolk.”
As a matter of fact, there are two things which every young girl should have. The first is the presence of a mother, which is the oldest of truisms; the second is the friendship of at least one man of nearly her own age. Ruth had neither. That is the crying hurt of Western life. The men are too busy to bother with women until the need for a wife and a home and children, and all the physical destiny of a man, overwhelms them. When they reach this point there is no selection. The first girl they meet they make love to.
And most of this Ruth understood. She wanted to make some of those lumbering, fearless, strong-handed, gentle-souled men her friends. But she dared not make the approaches. The first kind word or the first winning smile brought forth a volley of tremendous compliments, close on the heels of which followed the heavy artillery of a proposal of marriage. No wonder that she was rejoiced beyond words to meet this frank friendliness in Ben Connor. And what a joy to be able to speak back freely, without putting a guard over eyes and voice!