Max Brand by The Garden of Eden Read Free Book Online Page B

other reasons are that he's suspected of being a bad actor.
    But the distance is the chief thing that fences people away.
     The straight cut is bad going. The better way around is a slow
     journey. It leads west out of Lukin and down into the valley of
     the Girard River; then along the Girard to its headwaters. Then
     through the mountains again to the only entrance to the valley.
     I'm telling you all this so that you'll know what you may have
     ahead of you. If I'm mum for three months come straight for
     Lukin; go to a telegraph operator named Ruth Manning, and tell
     her that you've come to get track of me. She'll give you the
     names of the best dozen men in Lukin, and you start for the
     valley with the posse.
    Around Lukin they have a sort of foggy fear of the valley, bad
     medicine, they call it.
    I have a hard game ahead of me and I'm going to stack the
     cards. I've got to get into the Garden by a trick and get out
     again the same way. I start this afternoon.
    I've got a horse and a pack mule, and I'm going to try my hand
     at camping out. If I come back it will be on something that
     will carry both the pack and me, I think, and it won't take
     long to make the trip. Our days of being rich for ten days and
     poor for thirty will be over.
    Hold yourself ready; sharp at the end of ninety days, come West
     if I'm still silent.
    As ever,
    BEN.
    Before the mail took that letter eastward, Ben Connor received his final
advice from Jack Townsend. It was under the hotel man's supervision that
he selected his outfit of soft felt hat, flannel shirts, heavy socks,
and Napatan boots; Townsend, too, went with him to pick out the pack
mule and all the elements of the pack, from salt to canned tomatoes.
    As for the horse, Townsend merely stood by to admire while Ben Connor
went through a dozen possibilities and picked a solidly built chestnut
with legs enough for speed in a pinch, and a flexible fetlock—joints
that promised an easy gait.
    "You won't have no trouble," said Townsend, as Connor sat the saddle,
working the stirrups back and forth and frowning at the creaking new
leather. "Wherever you go you'll find gents ready to give you a hand on
your way."
    "Why's that? Don't I look like an old hand at this game?"
    "Not with that complexion; it talks city a mile off. If you'd tell me
where you're bound for—"
    "But I'm not bound anywhere," answered Connor. "I'm out to follow my
nose."
    "With that gun you ought to get some game."
    Connor laid his hand on the butt of the rifle which was slung in a case
under his leg. He had little experience with a gun, but he said
nothing.
    "All trim," continued Townsend, stepping back to look. "Not a flaw in
the mule; no sign of ringbone or spavin, and when a mule ain't got them,
he's got nothin' wrong. Don't treat him too well. When you feel like
pattin' him, cuss him instead. It's mule nature to like a beatin' once
in a while; they spoil without it, like kids. He'll hang back for two
days, but the third day he'll walk all over your hoss; never was a hoss
that could walk with a mule on a long trip. Well, Mr. Connor, I guess
you're all fixed, but I'd like to send a boy along to see you get
started right."
    "Don't worry," smiled Connor. "I've written down all your suggestions."
    "Here's what you want to tie on to special," said the fat man. "Don't
move your camp on Fridays or the thirteenth; if you come nigh a town and
a black cat crosses your trail, you camp right there and don't move on
to that town till the next morning. And wait a minute—if you start out
and find you've left something in camp, make a cross in the trail before
you go back."
    He frowned to collect his thoughts.
    "Well, if you don't do none of them three things, you can't come out far
wrong. S'long, and good luck, Mr. Connor."
    Connor waved his hand, touched the chestnut with his heel and the horse
broke into a trot, while the rope, coming taut, first stretched the neck
of the mule and then tugged him into a dragging amble.