THE ORBIT OF THE DWARFS
We slept that night in the front room of Roy's tavern, and it seemed to
me that I had just closed my eyes when I opened them again. Ump was
standing by the side of the bed with a candle. The door was ajar and the
night air blowing the flame, which he was screening with his hand. For a
moment, with sleep thick in my eyes, I did not know who it was in the
blue coat. "Wake up, Quiller," he said, "an' git into your duds."
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"There's devilment hatchin', I'm afraid," he answered. "Wait till I wake
Jud."
He aroused the man from his snoring in the chimney corner, and I got
into my clothes. It was about three o'clock and grey dark. I looked over
the room as I pulled on the roundabout borrowed of Roy. Ump's bed had
not been slept in, and there was about him the warm smell of a horse.
Jud noticed the empty bed. "Ump," he said, "you ain't been asleep at
all."
"I got uneasy about the cattle," answered the hunchback, "an I've been
up there with 'em, an' it was dam' lucky. I was settin' on the Bay Eagle
in a little holler, when somebody come along an' begun to take down the
bars. I lit out for him, an' he run like a whitehead, jumped the fence
on the lower side of the road an' went splashin' through the creek, but
he left some feathers in the bushes when he jumped, an' I got 'em."
He put his hand into the bosom of his coat and drew out a leather cap.
"Christian," I cried, pointing to the seared spots on the leather.
Jud crushed the cap in his fingers. "He's got back," he said. "Was he
ridin' a horse?"
"Footin' it," answered Ump, "an' by himself. That's what makes me leary.
Them others are up to somethin' or they'd a come with him. He's had just
about time to make the trip on Shank's mare by takin' short cuts.
They've put him up to turn out the cattle an' drive 'em back while we
snoozed."
"Maybe they did come with him," said Jud, "an' they're waitin'
somewhere. It would be like 'em to come sneakin' back an' try to drive
the cattle over, an' put 'em in the river in the night, so it would look
like they had got out an' gone away themselves."
Ump's forehead wrinkled like an accordion. "That's fittin' to the size
of 'em," he said, "an' about what they're up to. But old Christian was
surely by himself, an' I don't understand that. If they'd a come with
him, I'd a seen 'em, or a heard the horses."
"I don't believe they came with him," said I.
"Why not?" said Jud.
"Because," I answered, "if they came with him they would have put
Christian on a horse, and they would have stopped here to locate us.
They could tell by looking in the stable. They'd never wait until they
got to the field. They're a foxy set, and there's something back that we
don't know."
"What could they do?" put in Jud. "There's no more ferries."
"But there's a bridge," said I.
Ump, standing stock still in the floor, stumbled like a horse struck
over the knees. Jud bolted out of the house on a dead run. We followed
him to the stable, Ump galloping like a great rabbit.
We flung open the stable door, thrust the bits into the horses' mouths,
and slapped on our saddles. It was murky, but we needed no light for
business like this. We knew every part of the horse as a man knows his
face, and we knew every strap and buckle.
Ump sat on his mare, waiting until we should be ready, kicking his
stirrups with impatience, but his tongue, strangely enough, quiet. He
turned his mare across the road before us when we were in our saddles.
"Jud," he said, "don't go off half-cocked. An' if there's hell raised,
look out for Quiller. I'll stay here an' bring up the cattle as soon as
it's light." Then he pulled his mare out of the way. El Mahdi was on his
hind legs while Ump was speaking. When the Bay Eagle turned out, he came
down with a great jump and began to run.
I bent over and clamped my knees to the horse and let him go. He was
like some engine whose throttle is thrown open. In the first few plunges
he seemed to rock with energy, as though he might be thrown off his legs
by the pent-up driving-power. He and one other horse, the Black Abbot,
started like this when they were mad. And, clinging in the saddle, one
felt for a moment that the horse under him would rise out of the road or
go crashing into the fence.
You will not understand this, my masters, if you have ridden only
trained running horses or light hunters. They go about the business of a
race with eagerness enough, but still as a servant goes about his task.
Imagine, if you please, how a horse would run with you in the night if
he was seventeen hands high and a barbarian!
We passed the tavern in a dozen plunges. I saw the candle which Ump had
flung down, flickering by the horse-block, a little patch of light. Then
the Cardinal's shoe crushed it out.
My coat sleeves cracked like sails. The wind seemed to whistle along my
ribs. The horse's shoulders felt like pistons working under a cloth. I
was a part of that horse. I fitted my body to him. I adjusted myself to
the drive of his legs, to the rise and fall of his shoulders, to the
play of every muscle. I rode when his back rocked, like a sort of loose
hump fastened on it. His mane blew over my face and went streaming back.
My nostrils were filled with the steam from his sweating skin.
Jud rode after the same manner, reducing the area of wind resistance to
the smallest space. One watching the horses pass would have seen no
rider at all. He might have marked a heavy outline as though something
were bound across the saddle or clung flat to it.
You, my masters, who are accustomed to the horse as a slave, cannot know
him as a freeman. That docked thing standing by the curb is a long
bred-out degenerate. In the Hills a horse was born and bred up to be a
freeman. When the time came, he yielded to a sort of human suzerainty,
but he yielded as a cadet of a noble house yields to the discipline of a
commandant, with the spirit in him and as one who condescended.
There were certain traditions which these horses seemed to hold. The Bay
Eagle would never wear harness, nor would any of her blood, to the last
one. The Black Abbot would never carry a woman's saddle, nor would his
father nor his father's father. I have seen them fight like barbarian
kings, great, tawny, desperate savages, bursting the straps and buckles
as Samson burst the withes of the Philistines, fighting to kill,
fighting to tear in pieces and destroy, fighting as a man fights when
his standards are all down and he has lost a kingdom.
The earth was grey, with a few stars above it. The moon had gone over
the mountains to make it day in the mystic city of Zeus, and the sun was
still lagging along the other side of the world.
We thundered by the old weaver's little house squatting by the roadside,
shut up tight like a sleeping eye. Then we swung down into the sandy
strip of bottom leading to the bridge. The river was not a quarter of a
mile away.
I began to pull on the bridle-reins. El Mahdi held the bit clamped in
his teeth. I shifted a rein into each hand and tried to saw the bit
loose, but I could not do it. Then, lying down on the saddle, I wound
the slack of the reins around my wrists, caught out as far as I could,
braced myself against the horn, and jerked with all the strength of my
arms.
I jammed the tree of the saddle up on the horse's withers, but the bit
held in his jaws. I knew then that the horse was running away. The devil
seemed to be in him. He started in a fury, and he had run with a sort of
rocking that ought to have warned me. I twisted my head around to look
for Jud.
He had begun to pull up the Cardinal and had fallen a little behind, but
he understood at once, shook out his reins, and leaned over in his
saddle. The nose of the Cardinal came almost to my knee and hung there.
Jud caught at my bridle, but he could not reach it. I wedged my knees
against the leather pads of the saddle skirts, caught one side of the
bridle-rein with both hands, and tried to throw the horse into the
fence. I felt the leather of the rein stretch.
Then I knew that it was no use to try any further. Even if Jud could
reach my bridle, he would merely tear it off at the bit-rings, and not
stop the horse.
In a dozen seconds we would reach the stone abutment and go over into
the river. I had no doubt that the bridge was down, or, if not, that its
flooring was torn up.
I realised suddenly that it was my turn to go out of the world. I had
seen people going out as though their turn came in a curious order, not
unlike games which children play. But somehow I never thought that my
turn would come. I was not really in that game. I was looking on when my
name was called out.
El Mahdi struck the stone abutment and the bridge loomed. I dropped the
reins and clung to the saddle, expecting the horse to fall with his legs
broken, drive me against the sleepers and crash through.
We went on to the bridge like a rattle of musketry and thundered across.
Horses, resembling women, as I have heard it said, are sometimes
diverted from their purpose by the removal of every jot of opposition.
With the reins on his neck, El Mahdi stopped at the top of the hill and
I climbed down to the ground. My legs felt weak and I held on to the
stirrup leather.
Jud dismounted, seized my bit, and ran his hand over El Mahdi's face. "I
can't make head nor tail of that runnin'," he said. "He ain't scared nor
he ain't mad."
"You couldn't tell with him," I answered.
"There never was a scared horse," responded Jud, "that wasn't nervous,
an' there never was a mad one that wasn't hot. But this feller feels
like a suckin' calf. It must have been devilment, an' he ought to be
whaled."
"It wouldn't do any good," said I; "he'd only fight you and try to kill
you."
"He's a dam' curious whelp," said Jud. "He must a knowed that the bridge
was all right."
"How could he have known?" said I.
"They say," replied Jud, "that horses an' cattle sees things that folks
don't see, an' that they know about what's goin' to happen. It's
powerful curious about the things they do know."
We slipped the reins over the horses' heads and walked back to the
bridge. Jud went on with his talking.
"Now, you can't get a horse on to a dangerous bridge, to save your life,
an' you can't get him on ice that ain't strong enough to hold him, an'
you can't get him to eat anything that'll hurt him, an' you can't get
him lost. An' old Clabe says there's Bible for it that a horse can see
spooks. I tell you, Quiller, El Mahdi knowed about that bridge."
Deep in my youthful bosom I was convinced that El Mahdi knew. But I put
it wholly on the ground that he was a genius.
We crossed the river, led the horses down to the end of the abutment,
and tied them to a fence. Then we went back and examined the bridge as
well as we could in the dark. It stood over the river as the early men
and Dwarfs had built it,--solid as a wall.
Woodford had given the thing up, and the road was open to the north
country.
We sat down on the corner of the abutment near the horses, to wait for
the daylight, Jud wearing old Christian's cap, and I bareheaded. We sat
for a long time, listening to the choke and snarl of the water as it
crowded along under the bridge.
Then we fell to a sort of whispering talk.
"Quiller," he began, "do you believe that story about the Dwarfs
buildin' the bridge?"
"Ump don't," I answered. "Ump says it's a cock-and-bull story, and there
never were any Dwarfs except once in a while a bad job like him."
"You can't take Ump for it," said he. "Ump won't believe anything he
can't put his finger on, if it's swore to on a stack of Bibles. Quiller,
I've seen them holes in the mountains where the Dwarfs lived, with the
marks on the rocks like's on them logs, an' I've seen the rigamajigs
that they cut in the sandstone. They could a built the bridge, if they
took a notion, just by sayin' words."
He was quiet a while, and then he added, "An' I've seen the path where
they used to come down to the river, an' it has places wore in the solid
rock like you'd make with your big toe."
Jud stopped, and I moved up a little closer to him. I could see the
ugly, crooked men crawl out of their caves and come sneaking down from
the mountains to strangle the sleeping and burn the roof. I could see
their twisted bare feet, their huge, slack mouths, and their long hands
that hung below their knees when they walked. And then, on the hill
beyond the Valley River, I heard a sound.
I seized my companion by the arm. "Jud," I said under my breath, "did
you hear that?"
He leaned over me and listened. The sound was a sort of echo.
"They're comin'," he whispered.
"The Dwarfs?" said I.
"Lem Marks," said he.