Max Brand (15 page)

"All this for my horses?"

"Send one of the grays—just one, and let me place the wagers. You don't
even have to risk your own money. I've made a slough of it betting on
things that weren't lead pipe cinches like this. I made on Fidgety
Midget at fifty to one. I made on Gosham at eight to one. Nobody told me
how to bet on 'em. I know a horse—that's all! You stay in the Garden; I
take one of the grays; I bring her back in six months with more coin
than she can pack, and we split it fifty-fifty. You furnish the horse. I
furnish the jack. Is it a go?"

A bird stopped above them, whistled and dipped away over the treetops.
David turned his head to follow the trailing song, and Connor realized
with a sick heart that he had failed to sweep his man off his feet.

"Would you have me take charity?" asked David at length.

It seemed to Connor that there was a smile behind this. He himself burst
into a roar of laughter.

"Sure, it sounds like charity. They'll be making you a gift right
enough. There isn't a horse on the turf that has a chance with one of
the grays! But they'll bet their money like fools."

"Would it not be a sin, then?"

"What sin?" asked Connor roughly. "Don't they grab the coin of other
people? Does the bookie ask you how much coin you have and if you can
afford to lose it? No, he's out to get all that he can grab. And we'll
go out and do some grabbing in turn. Oh, they'll squeal when we turn the
screw, but they'll kick through with the jack. No fear, Davie!"

"Whatever sins may be theirs, Benjamin, those sins need not be mine."

Connor was dumb.

"Because they are foolish," said David, "should I take advantage of
their folly? A new man comes into the valley. He sees Jurith, and
notices that she runs well in spite of her years. He says to me: 'This
mare will run faster than your stallion. I have money and this ring
upon my finger which I will risk against one dollar of your money; If
the mare beats Glani I take your dollar. If Glani beats the mare, you
take my purse and my ring; I have no other wealth. It will ruin me, but
I am willing to be ruined if Jurith is not faster than Glani.

"Suppose such foolish man were to come to me, Benjamin, would I not say
to him: 'No, my friend. For I understand better than you, both Jurith
and Glani!' Tell me therefore, Benjamin, that you have tempted me toward
a sin, unknowing."

It made Connor think of the stubbornness of a woman, or of a priest. It
was a quiet assurance which could only be paralleled from a basis of
religion or instinct. He knew the danger of pressing too hard upon this
instinct or blind faith. He swallowed an oath, and answered, remembering
dim lessons out of his childhood:

"Tell me, David, my brother, is there no fire to burn fools? Is there no
rod for the shoulders of the proud? Should not such men be taught?"

"And I say to you, Benjamin," said the master of the Garden: "what wrong
have these fools done to me with their folly?"

Connor felt that he was being swept beyond his depth. The other went on,
changing his voice to gentleness:

"No, no! I have even a kindness for men with such blind faith in their
horses. When Jacob comes to me and says privately in my ear: 'David,
look at Hira. Is she not far nobler and wiser than Ephraim's horse,
Numan?' When he says this to me, do I shake my head and frown and say:
'Risk the clothes on your back and the food you eat to prove what you
say.' No, assuredly I do neither of these things, but I put my hand on
his shoulder and I say: 'He who has faith shall do great things; and a
tender master makes a strong colt.' In this manner I speak to him,
knowing that truth is good, but the whole truth is sometimes a fire that
purifies, perhaps, but it also destroys. So Jacob goes smiling on his
way and gives kind words and fine oats to Hira."

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."

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 love 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.