The Max Brand Megapack (315 page)

Next came the mother, walking, as though she was quite confident that no harm could come to her colt in this home of all good things, but with her fine head held high and her eyes luminous with concern, a little anxious because the youngster had been out of sight for a moment.

And behind them strode David with Elijah at his side.

Ruth could never have recognized Elijah as the statuesque figure which had confronted David on the previous day. He was now bowing and scraping like some withered old man, striving to make a good impression on a creditor to whom a great sum was owing. She remembered then what David had told her earlier in the day about the judging of Timeh, the daughter of Juri. This, then, was the crisis, and here was Elijah striving to conciliate the grim judge. The old man kept up a running fire of talk while David walked slowly around the colt. Ruth wondered why the master of the Garden did not cry out with pleasure at sight of the beautiful creature. Connor had drawn her back a little.

“You see that six months’ mare?” he said softly, with a tremor in his voice. “I’d pay ten thousand flat for her the way she stands. Ten thousand—more if it were asked!”

“But David doesn’t seem very pleased.”

“Bah! He’s bursting with pleasure. But he won’t let on because he doesn’t want to flatter old Elijah.”

“If he doesn’t pass the colt do you know what happens?”

“What?”

“They kill it!”

“I’d a lot rather see them kill a man!” snarled Connor. “But they won’t touch
that
colt!”

“I don’t know. Look at poor Elijah!”

David, stopping in his circular walk, now stood with his arms folded, gazing intently at Timeh. Elijah was a picture of concern. The whites of his eyes flashed as his glances rolled swiftly from the colt to the master. Once or twice he tried to speak, but seemed too nervous to give voice.

At length: “A true daughter of Juri, O David. And was there ever a more honest mare than Juri? The same head, mark you, deep from the eye to the angle of the jaw. And under the head—come hither, Timeh!”

Timeh flaunted her heels at the sun and then came with short, mincing steps.

“At six months,” boasted Elijah, “she knows my voice as well as her mother. Stay, Juri!”

The inquisitive mare had followed Timeh, but now, reassured, she dropped her head and began cropping the turf of the patio. Still, from the play of her ears, it was evident that Timeh was not out of the mother’s thoughts for an instant.

“Look you, David!” said Elijah. He raised the head of Timeh by putting his hand beneath her chin.

“I can put my whole hand between the angles of her jaw! And see how her ears flick back and forth, like the twitching ears of a cat! Ha, is not that a sign?”

He allowed the head to fall again, but he caught it under his arms and faced David in this manner, throwing out his hand in appeal. Still David spoke not a word.

With a gesture he made Elijah move to one side. Then he stepped to Timeh. She was uneasy at his coming, but under the first touch of his hand Timeh became as still as rock and looked at her mother in a scared and helpless fashion. It seemed that Juri understood a great crisis was at hand; for now she advanced resolutely and with her dainty muzzle she followed with sniffs the hand of David as it moved over the little colt. He seemed to be seeing with his finger-tips alone, kneading under the skin in search of vital information. Along the muscles those dexterous fingers ran, and down about the heavy bones of the joints, where they lingered long, seeming to read a story in every crevice.

Never once did he speak, but Ruth felt that she could read words in the brightening, calm, and sudden shadows across his face.

Elijah accompanied the examination with a running-fire of comment.

“There is quality in those hoofs, for you! None of your gray-blue stuff like the hoofs of Tabari, say, but black as night and dense as rock. Aye, David, you may well let your hand linger down that neck. She will step freely, this Timeh of mine, and stride as far as a mountain-lion can leap! Withers high enough. That gives a place for the ligaments to take hold. A good long back, but not too long to carry a weight. She will not be one of your gaunt-bellied horses, either; she will have wind and a bottom for running. She will gallop on the third day of the journey as freely as on the first. And she will carry her tail well out, always, with that big, strong dock.”

He paused a moment, for David was moving his hands over the hindlegs and lingering long at the hocks. And the face of Elijah grew convulsed with anxiety.

“Is there anything wrong with those legs?” murmured Ruth to Connor.

“Not a thing that I see. Maybe the stifles are too straight. I think they might angle out a bit more. But that’s nothing serious. Besides, it may be the way Timeh is standing. What’s the matter?”

She was clinging to his arm, white-faced.

“If that colt has to die I—I’ll want to kill David Eden!”

“Hush, Ruth! And don’t let him see your face!”

David moved back from Timeh and again folded his arms.

“The body of the horse is one thing,” ran on Elijah uneasily, “and the spirit is another. Have you not told us, David, that a curious colt makes a wise horse? That is Timeh! Where will you guess that I found her when I went to bring her to you even now? She had climbed up the face of the cliff, far up a crevice where a man would not dare to go. I dared not even cry out to her for fear she would fall if she turned her head. To have climbed so high was almost impossible, but how would she come down when there was no room for her to turn?

“I was dizzy and sick with grief. But Timeh saw me, and down she came, without turning. She lifted her hoofs and put them down as a cat lifts and puts down wet paws. And in a moment she was safe on the meadow and frisking around me. Juri had been so worried that she made Timeh stop running and nosed her all over to make sure that she was unhurt by that climb. But tell me: will not a colt that risks its life to climb for a tuft of grass, run till its heart breaks for the master in later years?”

For the first time David spoke.

“Is she so wise a colt?” he said.

“Wise?” cried Elijah, his eye shining with joy at the opening which he had made. “I talk to her as I talk to a man. She is as full of tricks as a dog. Look, now!”

He leaned over and pretended to pick at the grass, whereat Timeh stole up behind him and drew out a handkerchief from his hip pocket. Off she raced and came back in a flashing circle to face Elijah with the cloth fluttering in her teeth.

“So!” cried Elijah, taking the handkerchief again and looking eagerly at the master of the Garden. “Was there ever a colt like my Timeh?”

“The back legs,” said David slowly.

Elijah had been preparing himself to speak again, with a smile. He was arrested in the midst of a gesture and his face altered like a man at the banquet at the news of a death.

“The hind legs, David,” he echoed hollowly. “But what of them? They are a small part of the whole! And they are not wrong. They are not very wrong, oh my master!”

“The hocks are sprung in and turned a little.”

“A very little. Only the eye of David could see it and know that it is wrong!”

“A small flaw makes the stone break. At a rotten knot-hole the great tree snaps in the storm. And a small sin may undermine a good man. The hind legs are wrong, Elijah.”

“To be sure. In a colt. Many things seem wrong in a colt, but in the grown horse they disappear!”

“This fault will not disappear. It is the set of the joint and that can never be changed. It can only grow worse.”

Elijah, staring straight ahead, was searching his brain, but that brain was numbed by the calamity which had befallen him. He could only stroke the lovely head of the little colt and pray for help.

“Yesterday,” he said at length in a trembling voice, “Elijah, as a fool, spoke words which angered his master. Back on my head I call them now. David, do not judge Timeh with a wrathful heart.

“Let the sins of Elijah fall on the head of Elijah, but let Timeh go unpunished for my faults.”

“You grow old, Elijah, and you forget. The judgment of David is never colored by his own likes and dislikes, his own wishes and prejudice. He sees the right, and therefore his judgments are true.”

“Aye, David, but truth is not merciful, and blessed above all things is mercy. When you see Timeh, think of Elijah. How he has watched over the colt, and loved it, and played with it, and taught it, by the hours, the proper manners for a colt and a mare of the Garden of Eden.”

“That is true. It is a well-mannered colt.”

Elijah caught at a new straw of hope.

“Also, in the field, if two colts race home for water and Timeh is one, she reaches the water first—always. She comes to me like a child. In the morning she slips out of the paddock, and coming to my window, she puts in her head and calls me with a whinny as soft as the voice of a man. Then I arise and go out to her and to Juri.”

Ruth was weeping openly, her hand closed hard on the arm of Connor; and she felt the muscles along that arm contract. She almost loved the gambler for his rage at the inexorable David.

“Consider Juri, also,” said Elijah. “Seven times—I numbered them on my fingers and remembered—seven times when the horses were brought before you in the morning, you have called to Juri and mounted her for the morning ride—that was before Glani was raised to his full strength. And always the master has said:

“‘Stout-hearted Juri! She pours out her strength for her rider as a generous host pours out his wine!’”

David frowned, but plainly he was touched.

“Juri!” he called, and when the noble mare came to him, he laid his hand on her mane.

“Who has spoken of Juri? Surely I am not judging her this day. It was Matthew who judged her when she was a foal of six months.”

“And it was Matthew,” added Elijah hastily, “who loved her above all horses!”

“Ah!” muttered David, deeply moved.

“Consider the heart of Juri,” went on Elijah, timidly following this new thread of argument. “When the mares neigh and the colts come running, there will be none to gallop to her side. When she goes out in the morning there will be no daughter to gallop around and around her, tossing her head and her heels. And when she comes home at night there will be no tired foal leaning against her side for weariness.”

“Peace, Elijah! You speak against the law.”

In spite of himself, the glance of Elijah turned slowly and sullenly until it rested upon Ruth Manning. David followed the direction of that look and he understood. There stood the living evidence that he had broken the law of the Garden at least once. He flushed darkly.

“The colt’s gone,” said Connor in a savagely-controlled murmur to the girl. “That devil has made up his mind. His pride is up now!”

Elijah, too, seemed to realize that he had thrown away his last chance.

He could only stretch out his hands with the tears streaming down his wrinkled face and repeat in his broken voice: “Mercy, David, mercy for Timeh and Juri and Elijah!”

But the face of David was iron.

“Look at Juri,” he commanded. “She is flawless, strong, sound of hoof and heart and limb. And that is because her sire and her mother before her were well seen to. No narrow forehead has ever been allowed to come into the breed of the Eden Grays. I have heard Paul condemn a colt because the very ears were too long and flabby and the carriage of the horse dull. The weak and the faulty have been gelded and sent from the Garden or else killed. And therefore Juri to-day is stout and noble, and Glani has a spirit of fire. It is not easy to do. But if I find a sin in my own nature, do I not tear it out at a price of pain? And shall I spare a colt when I do not spare myself? A law is a law and a fault is a fault. Timeh must die!”

The extended arms of Elijah fell. Connor felt Ruth surge forward from beside him, but he checked her strongly.

“No use!” he said. “You could change a very devil more easily than you can change David now! He’s too proud to change his mind.”

“Oh,” sobbed the girl softly, “I hate him! I hate him!”

“Let Timeh live until the morning,” said David in the same calm voice. “Let Juri be spared this night of grief and uneasiness. If it is done in the morning she will be less anxious until the dark comes, and by that time the edge of her sorrow shall be dulled.”

“Whose hand,” asked Elijah faintly—“whose hand must strike the blow?”

“Yesterday,” said David, “you spoke to me a great deal of the laws of the Garden and their breaking. Do you not know that law which says that he from whose household the faulty mare foal has come must destroy it? You know that law. Then let it not be said that Elijah, who so loves the law, has shirked his lawful burden!”

At this final blow poor Elijah lifted his face.

“Lord God!” he said, “give me strength. It is more than I can bear!”

“Go!” commanded the master of the Garden.

Elijah turned slowly away. As if to show the way, Timeh galloped before him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

David watched them go, and while his back was turned a fierce, soft dialogue passed between Ruth Manning and Ben Connor.

“Are you a man?” she asked him, through her set teeth. “Are you going to let that beautiful little thing die?”

“I’d rather see the cold-hearted fool die in place of Timeh. But what can we do? Nothing. Just smile in his face.”

“I hate him!” she exclaimed.

“If you hate him, then use him. Will you?”

“If I can make him follow me, tease him to come, make him think I love him, I’ll do it. I’d do anything to torture him.”

“I told you he was a savage.”

“You were right, Ben. A fiend—not a man! Oh, thank Heavens that I see through him.”

Anger gave her color and banished her tears. And when David turned he found what seemed a picture of pleasure. It was infinitely grateful to him. If he had searched and studied for the words he could not have found anything to embitter her more than his first speech.

“And what do you think of the justice of David?” he asked, coming to them.

She could not speak; luckily Connor stepped in and filled the gap of awkward silence.