The Max Brand Megapack (304 page)

“‘With a hundred and ten up,’ said Benjamin, ‘she would make a fast track talk.’”

“What?” said David.

“I do not know the meaning of his words,” said the old servant, “but I have told them as he said them.”

“He is full of strange terms,” murmured David. “Continue.”

“He went first to one side of Shakra and then to the other. He put his hand into his coat and seemed to think. Presently he stretched out his hand and called her. She came to him slowly.”

“Wonderful!”

“That was my thought,” nodded Zacharias.

“Why do you stop?” cried David.

“Because I am talking around and around, like a running yearling,” said Zacharias ironically. “However, he stood back at length and combed the forelock of Shakra with his fingers. ‘Tell me, Zacharias,’ he said, ‘if this is not the sister of Glani?’”

“He guessed so much? It is strange!”

“Then he looked in her mouth and said that she was four years old.”

“He is wise in horses, indeed.”

“When he turned away Shakra followed him; he went to his room and came out again, carrying the saddle with which he rode Abra. He put this on her back and a rope around her neck. ‘Will the master be angry if I ride her?’ he asked.

“I told him that she was first ridden only three months before to-day, and that she must not be ridden more than fifty miles now in a day.

“He looked a long time at me, then said he would not ride farther than that. Then he went galloping down the road to the south.”

“Good!” said the master, and sent a long whistle from the patio; it was pitched as shrill and small as the scream of a hawk when the hawk itself cannot be seen in the sky.

Zacharias ran into the house, and when he came out again bringing a pad Glani was already in the patio.

David took the pad and cinched it on the back of the stallion.

“And when Shakra began to gallop,” said Zacharias, “Benjamin cried out.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing.”

“Zacharias, men do not cry out without speaking.”

“Nevertheless,” said Zacharias, “it was like the cry of a wolf when they hunt along the cliffs in winter and see the young horses and the cattle in the Garden below them. It was a cry, and there was no spoken word in it.”

The master bit his lip.

“Abraham has been talking folly to you,” he said; and, springing on the back of the stallion, he raced out of the patio and on to the south road with his long, black hair whipping straight out behind his head.

At length the southern wall rose slowly over the trees, and a deep murmur which had begun about them as soon as they left the house, light as the humming of bees, increasing as they went down the valley, now became a great rushing noise. It was like a great wind in sound; one expected the push of a gale, coming out from the trees, but there was only the river which ran straight at the cliff, split solid rock, and shot out of sunlight into a black cavern. Beside this gaping mouth of rock stood Connor with Shakra beside him. Twice the master called, but Connor could not hear.

The tumbling river would have drowned a volley of musketry. Only when David touched his shoulder did Connor turn a gloomy face. They took their horses across the bridge which passed over the river a little distance from the cliff, and rode down the farther side of the valley until the roar sank behind them. A few barriers of trees reduced it to the humming which on windless days was picked up by echoes and reached the house of David with a solemn murmur.

“I thought you would rest,” said David, when they were come to a place of quiet, and the horses cantered lightly over the road with that peculiar stride, at once soft and reaching, which Connor was beginning to see as the chief characteristic of the Eden Gray.

“I have rested more in two minutes on the back of Shakra than I could rest in two hours on my bed.”

It was like disarming a father by praise of his son.

“She has a gentle gait,” smiled David.

“I tell you, man, she’s a knockout!”

“A knockout?”

The gambler added hastily: “Next to Glani the best horse I have seen.”

“You are right. Next to Glani the best in the valley.”

“In the world,” said Connor, and then gave a cry of wonder.

They had come through an avenue of the eucalyptus trees, and now they reached an open meadow, beyond which aspens trembled and flashed silver under a shock from the wind. Half the meadow was black, half green; for one of the old men was plowing. He turned a rich furrow behind him, and the blackbirds followed in chattering swarms in their hunt for worms. The plow team was a span of slender-limbed Eden Grays. They walked lightly with plow, shaking their heads at the blackbirds, and sometimes they touched noses in that cheery, dumb conversation of horses. The plow turned down the field with the sod curling swiftly behind. The blackbirds followed. There were soldier-wings among them making flashes of red, and all the swarm scolded.

“David,” said Connor when he could speak, “you might as well harness lightning to your plow. Why in the name of God, man, don’t you get mules for this work?”

The master looked to the ground, for he was angered.

“It is not against His will that I work them at the plow,” he answered. “He has not warned me against it.”

“Who hasn’t?”

“Our Father whose name you spoke. Look! They are not unhappy, Jurith and Rajima, of the blood of Aliriz.”

He whistled, whereat the off mare tossed her head and whinnied.

“By Heaven, she knows you at this distance!” gasped Connor.

“Which is only to say that she is not a fool. Did I not sit with her three days and three nights when she was first foaled? That was twenty-five years ago; I was a child then.”

Connor, staring after the high, proud head of Jurith, sighed. The horses started on at a walk which was the least excellent gait in the Eden Grays. Their high croups and comparatively low withers, their long hindlegs and the shorter forelegs, gave them a waddling motion with the hind quarters apparently huddling the forehand along.

Indeed, they seemed designed in every particular for the gallop alone. But Glani was an exception. Just as in size he appeared a freak among the others, so in his gaits all things were perfectly proportioned. Connor, with a deep, quiet delight, watched the big stallion stepping freely. Shakra had to break into a soft trot now and then to catch up.

“Let us walk,” said David. “The run is for when a man feels with the hawk in the sky; the gallop is for idle pleasure; the trot is an ugly gait, for distance only; but a walk is the gait when two men speak together. In this manner Matthew and I went up and down the valley roads. Alas, it is five years since I have walked my horse! Is it not, Glani, my king? And now, Benjamin, tell me your trouble.”

“There is no trouble,” said Connor.

But David smiled, saying: “We are brothers in Glani, Benjamin. To us alone he has given his head. Therefore speak freely.”

“Look back,” said Connor, feeling that the crisis had come and that he must now put his fortune to the touch.

David turned on the stallion. “What do you see?”

“I see old Elijah. He drives the two mares, and the furrow follows them—the blackbirds also.”

“Do you see nothing else?”

“I see the green meadow and the sky with a cloud in it; I see the river yonder and the aspens flash as the wind strikes them.”

“And do you hear nothing?”

“I hear the falling of the Jordan and the cry of the birds. Also, Elijah has just spoken to Rajima. Ah, she is lazy for a daughter of Aliriz!”

“Do you wish to know what I see and hear, David?”

“If it is your pleasure, brother.”

“I see a blue sky like this, with the wind and the clouds in it and all that stuff—”

“All of what?”

“And I see also,” continued Connor, resolving to watch his tongue, “thousands of people, acres of men and women.”

David was breathless with interest. He had a way of opening his eyes and his mind like a child.

“We are among them; they jostle us; we can scarcely breathe. There is a green lawn below us; we cannot see the green, it is so thickly covered with men. They have pulled out their wallets and they have money in their hands.”

“What is it?” muttered David. “For my thoughts swim in those waves of faces.”

“I see,” went on Connor, “a great oval road fenced on each side, with colored posts at intervals. I see horses in a line, dancing up and down, turning about—”

“Ah, horses!”

“Kicking at each other.”

“So? Are there such bad manners among them?”

“But what each man is trembling for, and what each man has risked his money upon, is this question: Which of all those is the fastest horse? Think! The horses which fret in that line are the finest money can buy. Their blood lines are longer than the blood lines of kings. They are all fine muscles and hair-trigger nerves. They are poised for the start. And now—”

“Benjamin, is there such love of horses over the mountains? Listen! Fifty thousand men and women breathe with those racers.”

“I know.” There was a glint in the eyes of David. “When two horses match their speed—”

“Some men have wagered all their money. They have borrowed, they have stolen, to get what they bet. But there are two men only who bet on one of the horses. You, David, and I!”

“Ha? But money is hard to come by.”

“We ask them the odds,” continued Connor. “For one dollar we shall take a hundred if our horse wins—odds of a hundred to one! And we wager. We wager the value of all we have. We wager the value of the Garden of Eden itself!”

“It is madness, Benjamin!”

“Look closer! See them at the post. There’s the Admiral. There’s Fidgety—that tall chestnut. There’s Glorious Polly—the little bay. The greatest stake horses in the country. The race of the year. But the horse we bet on, David, is a horse which none of the rest in that crowd knows. It is a horse whose pedigree is not published. It is a small horse, not more than fourteen-three. It stands perfectly still in the midst of that crowd of nervous racers. On its back is an old man.”

“But can the horse win? And who is the old man?”

“On the other horses are boys who have starved until they are wisps with only hands for the reins of a horse and knees to keep on his back. They have stirrups so short that they seem to be floating above the racers. But on the back of the horse on which we are betting there is only an old, old man, sitting heavily.”

“His name! His name!” David cried.

“Elijah! And the horse is Jurith!”

“No, no! Withdraw the bets! She is old.”

“They are off! The gray mare is not trained for the start. She is left standing far behind.”

“Ah!” David groaned.

“Fifty thousand people laughing at the old gray mare left at the post!”

“I see it! I hear it!”

“She’s too short in front; too high behind. She’s a joke horse. And see the picture horses! Down the back stretch! The fifty thousand have forgotten the gray, even to laugh at her. The pack drives into the home stretch. There’s a straight road to the finish. They straighten out. They get their feet. They’re off for the wire!”

The voice of Connor had risen to a shrill cry. “But look! Look! There’s a streak of gray coming around the turn. It’s the mare! It’s old Jurith!”

“Jurith!”

“No awkwardness now! She spreads herself out and the posts disappear beside her. She stretches down low and the rest come back to her. Fine horses; they run well. But Jurith is a racing machine. She’s on the hip of the pack! Look at the old man all the thousand were laughing at. He sits easily in the saddle. He has no whip. His reins are loose. And then he uses the posts ahead of him. He leans over and speaks one word in the ear of the gray mare.

“By the Lord, she was walking before; she was cantering! Now she runs! Now she runs! And the fifty thousand are dumb, white. A solid wall of faces covered with white-wash! D’you see? They’re sick! And then all at once they know they’re seeing a miracle. They have been standing up ever since the horses entered the home-stretch. Now they climb on one another’s shoulders. They forget all about thousands—the hundreds of thousands of dollars which they are going to lose. They only know that they are seeing a great horse. And they love that new, great horse. They scream as they see her come. Women break into tears as the old man shoots past the grand stand. Men shriek and hug each other. They dance.

“The gray streak shoots on. She is past the others. She is rushing for the finish wire as no horse ever ran before. She is away. One length, two lengths, six lengths of daylight show between her and the rest. She gallops past the finish posts with Elijah looking back at the others!

“She has won! You have won, David. I have won. We are rich. Happy. The world’s before us. David, do you see?”

“Is it possible? But no, Benjamin, not Jurith. Some other, perhaps, Shakra—Glani—”

“No, we would take Jurith—twenty-five years old!”

Connor’s last words trailed off into hysterical laughter.

CHAPTER SEVENTE
EN

David was still flushed with the excitement of the tale, and he was perplexed and troubled when Connor’s strange, high laughter brought to an abrupt end the picture they had both lived in.

The gambler saw the frown on David’s brow, and with an effort he made himself suddenly grave, though he was still pale and shaking.

“David, this is the reason Jurith can win. Somewhere in the past there was a freak gray horse. There are other kinds of freaks; oranges had seeds in ’em; all at once up pops a tree that has seedless fruit. People plant shoots from it. There you have the naval orange, all out of one tree. It’s the same way with that gray horse. It was a freak; had a high croup and muscles as stretchy as India-rubber, and strong—like the difference between the muscles of a mule and the muscles of most horses. That’s what that first horse was. He was bred and the get came into this valley. They kept improving—and the result is Glani! The Eden Gray, David, is the finest horse in the world because it’s a
different
and a better horse!”

The master paused for some time, and Connor knew he was deep in thought. Finally he spoke: