Max Brand (18 page)

"His absence is cheaply bought at the price of one mare," continued the
old servant soothingly.

"One mare of Rustir's blood! What is the sin for which the Lord would
punish me with the loss of Shakra? And I miss her as I would miss a
human face. But Benjamin will return with her. He did not ask for the
horse."

"He knew you would offer."

"He will not return?"

"Never!"

"Then I shall go to find him."

"It is forbidden."

Abraham sat down, cross-legged, and watched with impish self-content
while David strode back and forth in the patio. A far-off neighing
brought him to a halt, and he raised his hand for silence. The neighing
was repeated, more clearly, and David laughed for joy.

"A horse coming from the pasture to the paddock," said Abraham, shifting
uneasily.

The day was old and the patio was filled with a clear, soft light,
preceding evening.

"It is Shakra! Shakra, Abraham!"

Abraham rose.

"A yearling. It is too high for the voice of a grown mare."

"The distance makes it shrill. Abraham, Abraham, cannot I find her voice
among ten all neighing at once?"

"Then beware of Benjamin, for he has returned to take not one but all."

But David smiled at the skinny hand which was raised in warning.

"Say no more," he said solemnly. "I am already to blame for hearkening
to words against my brother Benjamin."

"You yourself had said that he tempted you."

Because David could find no ready retort he grew angry.

"Also, think of this. Your eyes and your ears are grown dull, Abraham,
and perhaps your mind is misted also."

He had gone to the entrance into the patio and paused there to wait with
a lifted head. Abraham followed and attempted to speak again, but the
last cruel speech had crushed him. He went out on the terrace, and
looking back saw that David had not a glance for him; so Abraham went
feebly on.

"I have become as a false prophet," he murmured, "and I am no more
regarded."

His life had long been in its evening, and now, at a step, the darkness
of old age fell about him. From the margin of the lake he looked up and
saw Connor ride to the patio.

David, at the entrance, clasped the hand of his guest while he was still
on the horse and helped him to the ground.

"This," he said solemnly, "is a joyful day in my house."

"What's the big news?" inquired the gambler, and added: "Why so happy?"

"Is it not the day of your return? Isaac! Zacharias!"

They came running as he clapped his hands.

"Set out the oldest wine, and there is a haunch of the deer that was
killed at the gate. Go! And now, Benjamin, did Shakra carry you well and
swiftly?"

"Better than I was ever carried before."

"Then she deserves well of me. Come hither, Shakra, and stand behind me.
Truly, Benjamin, my brother, my thoughts have ridden ten times across
the mountains and back, wishing for your return!"

Connor was sufficiently keen to know that a main reason for the warmth
of his reception was that he had been doubted while he was away, and
while they supped in the patio he was even able to guess who had raised
the suspicion against him. Word was brought that Abraham lay in his bed
seriously ill, but David Eden showed no trace of sympathy.

"Which is the greater crime?" he asked Benjamin a little later. "To
poison the food a man eats or the thoughts in his mind?"

"Surely," said the crafty gambler, "the mind is of more importance than
the stomach."

Luckily David bore the main burden of conversation that evening, for the
brain of Connor was surcharged with impatient waiting. His great plan,
he shrewdly guessed, would give him everything or else ruin him in the
Garden of Eden, and the suspense was like an eating pain. Luckily the
crisis came on the very next day.

Jacob galloped into the patio, and flung himself from the back of Abra.

David and Connor rose from their chairs under the arcade where they had
been watching Joseph setting great stones in place around the border of
the fountain pool. The master of the Garden went forward in some anger
at this unceremonious interruption. But Jacob came as one whose news is
so important that it overrides all need of conventional approach.

"A woman," he panted. "A woman at the gate of the Garden!"

"Why are you here?" said David sternly.

"A woman—"

"Man, woman, child, or beast, the law is the same. They shall not enter
the Garden of Eden. Why are you here?"

"And she rides the gray gelding, the son of Yoruba!"

At that moment the white trembling lips of Connor might have told the
master much, but he was too angered to take heed of his guest.

"That which has once left the Garden is no longer part of it. For us,
the gray gelding does not exist. Why are you here?"

"Because she would not leave the gate. She says that she will see you."

"She is a fool. And because she was so confident, you were weak enough
to believe her?"

"I told her that you would not come; that you could not come!"

"You have told her that it is impossible for me to speak with her?" said
David, while Connor gradually regained control of himself, summoning all
his strength for the crisis.

"I told her all that, but she said nevertheless she would see you."

"For what reason?"

"Because she has money with which to buy another horse like her gelding,
which is old."

"Go back and tell her that there is no money price on the heads of my
horses. Go! When Ephraim is at the gate there are no such journeyings to
me."

"Ephraim is here," said Jacob stoutly, "and he spoke much with her.
Nevertheless she said that you would see her."

"For what reason?"

"She said: 'Because.'"

"Because of what?"

"That word was her only answer: 'Because.'"

"This is strange," murmured David, turning to Connor. "Is that one word
a reason?

"Go back again," commanded David grimly. "Go back and tell this woman
that I shall not come, and that if she comes again she will be driven
away by force. And take heed, Jacob, that you do not come to me again on
such an errand. The law is fixed. It is as immovable as the rocks in the
mountains. You know all this. Be careful hereafter that you remember. Be
gone!"

The ruin of his plan in its very inception threatened Ben Connor. If he
could once bring David to see the girl he trusted in her beauty and her
cleverness to effect the rest. But how lead him to the gate? Moreover,
he was angered and his frown boded no good for Jacob. The old servant
was turning away, and the gambler hunted his mind desperately for an
expedient. Persuasion would never budge this stubborn fellow so used to
command. There remained the opposite of persuasion. He determined on an
indirect appeal to the pride of the master.

"You are wise, David," he said solemnly. "You are very wise. These
creatures are dangerous, and men of sense shun them. Tell your servants
to drive her away with blows of a stick so that she will never return."

"No, Jacob," said the master, and the servant returned to hear the
command. "Not with sticks. But with words, for flesh of women is tender.
This is hard counsel, Benjamin!"

He regarded the gambler with great surprise.

"Their flesh may be tender, but their spirits are strong," said Connor.
The opening he had made was small. At least he had the interest of
David, and through that entering wedge he determined to drive with all
his might.

"And dangerous," he added gravely.

"Dangerous?" said the master. He raised his head. "Dangerous?"

As if a jackal had dared to howl in the hearing of the lion.

"Ah, David, if you saw her you would understand why I warn you!"

"It would be curious. In what wise does her danger strike?"

"That I cannot say. They have a thousand ways."

The master turned irresolutely toward Jacob.

"You could not send her away with words?"

"David, for one of my words she has ten that flow with pleasant sound
like water from a spring, and with little meaning, except that she will
not go."

"You are a fool!"

"So I felt when I listened to her."

"There is an old saying, David, my brother," said Connor, "that there is
more danger in one pleasant woman than in ten angry men. Drive her from
the gate with stones!"

"I fear that you hate women, Benjamin."

"They were the source of evil."

"For which penance was done."

"The penance followed the sin."

"God, who made the mountains, the river and this garden and man, He made
woman also. She cannot be all evil. I shall go."

"Then, remember that I have warned you. God, who made man and woman,
made fire also."

"And is not fire a blessing?"

He smiled at his triumph and this contest of words.

"You shall go with me, Benjamin."

"I? Never!"

"In what is the danger?"

"If you find none, there is none. For my part I have nothing to do with
women."

But David was already whistling to Glani.

"One woman can be no more terrible than one man," he declared to
Benjamin. "And I have made Joseph, who is great of body, bend like a
blade of grass in the wind."

"Farewell," said Connor, his voice trembling with joy. "Farewell, and
God keep you!"

"Farewell, Benjamin, my brother, and have no fear."

Connor followed him with his eyes, half-triumphant, half-fearful. What
would happen at the gate? He would have given much to see even from a
distance the duel between the master and the woman.

At the gate of the patio David turned and waved his hand.

"I shall conquer!"

And then he was gone.

Connor stared down at the grass with a cynical smile until he felt
another gaze upon him, and he became aware of the little beast—eyes of
Joseph glittering. The giant had paused in his work with the stones.

"What are you thinking of, Joseph?" asked the gambler.

Joseph made an indescribable gesture of hate and fear.

"Of the whip!" he said. "I also opened the gate of the Garden. On whose
back will the whip fall this time?"

Near the end of the eucalyptus avenue, and close to the gate, David
dismounted and made Jacob do likewise.

"We may come on them by surprise and listen," he said. "A soft step has
won great causes."

They went forward cautiously, interchanging sharp glances as though they
were stalking some dangerous beast, and so they came within earshot of
the gate and sheltered from view of it by the edge of the cliff. David
paused and cautioned his companion with a mutely raised hand.

"He lived through the winter," Ephraim was saying. "I took him into my
room and cherished him by the warmth of my fire and with rubbing, so
that when spring came, and gentler weather, he was still alive—a great
leggy colt with a backbone that almost lifted through the skin. Only
high bright eyes comforted me and told me that my work was a good work."

David and Jacob interchanged nods of wonder, for Ephraim was telling to
this woman the dearest secret of his life.

It was how he had saved the weakling colt, Jumis, and raised him to a
beautiful, strong stallion, only to have him die suddenly in the height
of his promise. Certainly Ephraim was nearly won over by the woman; it
threw David on guard.

"Go back to Abra," he whispered. "Ride on to the gate and tell her
boldly to be gone. I shall wait here, and in time of need I shall help
you. Make haste. Ephraim grows like wet clay under her fingers. Ah, how
wise is Benjamin!"

Jacob obeyed. He stole away and presently shot past at the full gallop
of Abra. The stallion came to a sliding halt, and Jacob spoke from his
back, which was a grave discourtesy in the Garden of Eden.

"The master will not see you," he said. "The sun is still high. Return
by the way you have come; you get no more from the Garden than its water
and its air. He does not sell horses."

For the first time she spoke, and at the sound of her voice David Eden
stepped out from the rock; he remembered himself in time and shrank back
to shelter.

"He sold this horse."

"It was the will of the men before David that these things should be
done, but the Lord knows the mind of David and that his heart bleeds for
every gelding that leaves the Garden. See what you have done to him! The
marks of the whip and the spur are on his sides. Woe to you if David
should see them!"

She cried out at that in such a way that David almost felt she had been
struck.

"It was the work of a drunken fool, and not mine."

"Then God have mercy on that man, for if the master should see him,
David would have no mercy. I warn you: David is one with a fierce eye
and a strong hand. Be gone before he comes and sees the scars on the
gray horse."

"Then he is coming?"

"She is quick," thought David, as an embarrassed pause ensued. "Truly,
Benjamin was right, and there is danger in these creatures."

"He has many horses," the girl went on, "and I have only this one.
Besides, I would pay well for another."

"What price?"

"He should not have asked," muttered David.

"Everything that I have," she was answering, and the low thrill of her
voice went through and through the master of the Garden. "I could buy
other horses with this money, but not another like my gray. He is more
than a horse. He is a companion to me. He understands me when I talk,
and I understand him. You see how he stands with his head down? He is
not tired, but hungry. When he neighs in a certain way from the corral I
know that he is lonely. You see that he comes to me now? That is because
he knows I am talking about him, for we are friends. But he is old and
he will die, and what shall I do then? It will be like a death in my
house!"