3stalwarts

by Unknown

  The knees of both men held; there was no sign of a knockdown. It came to the crowd that the first man down would be the man licked.

  The fight went on. The hot sun shining under the high cloud made a bright carpet of the square of grass on which the shadows of the men fought as they did, following each other here and there and hitting heavily. As the warmth increased, the people caught the hot smell of sweat when the fighters came in close to them; and a pair of bluebottle flies flew round their heads investigating.

  The whole of Dan’s chest and belly began to darken; but there was no mark to see on the bully, beyond his swollen eyes. He guarded them now like precious things. Dan’s breathing had shortened. His hands were slower to meet a blow. Both men used their fists as though there were weights tied to them… .

  The morning pared their shadows on the grass to little men. But the slow fight went on, the harsh breathing, the long thud of blows.

  Even Solomon had fallen silent.

  The roar of the water was forgotten; the passing of the day; the sun and the clouds. All the world came in upon the little square of bright green grass, on two sides the small figures of the boaters, on the others the forgotten chaos of the water.

  The men fought with the persistence of the two flies buzzing.

  All the world came in upon them in the hush, on the fighters, on the crowd, on the straight brown-haired figure of Molly Larkins.

  More boats tied up, a long line either way, and the canawlers crossed the meadow to look on; but the silence remained, and the harsh breathing of the two men marked the time… .

  “God!” cried Solomon. “It can’t last no longer.”

  The two stood still again, facing each other, their hands hanging like lead balls.

  Painfully they raised them. Old Ben, clutching his staff, his chin resting on his wrists, watched them with sombre eyes. The fat woman let the tears run into the corners of her mouth. There was a misery in the eyes of many people.

  The bearded man’s face was a mass of blood and raw flesh from which his beard grew. It had no shape, it flecked drops when he shook it. The nose was a lump over the hair raised on his swollen mouth, and one eye showed as a slit. He kept spitting, trying to stir the hair that cut into his mouth, and he made a blubbering sound when he did so that suggested the color of his face to the people on the outskirts of the crowd. Yet he came on, peering out of the corner of his partly open eye.

  The younger man could scarcely lift his hands; his body was livid, in places the skin had broken; and his chest heaved and heaved, and yet he seemed to get no air. But his face had almost no mark, and his blue eyes were as calm as those of a farmer who harrows his meadow.

  “It can’t last no longer,” said Solomon, and he found the fat woman’s hand awkwardly trying to get into his.

  Without a sound Klore rushed, his head down.

  “He’s going to butt!” someone shouted. “He can butt in a door.”

  Dan tried to dodge, was slow, turned his body slightly and took the glancing blow of Klore’s head on one hip. They both went down. They struggled up together, and the movement seemed quick and light to the stiff watchers.

  Dan had his back to the lip of the falls. He backed away slowly. All sense of direction had gone from both men. There was only one space in the world, and that lay between them.

  Shrill cries rose warning Dan; but it was too late. He could not dodge to either side. And with a harsh, half-swallowed roar Klore rushed again, butting with his head. His short legs bowed; he leaped with a fumbling ungainliness; his hands swung.

  The crowd saw Dan rigid, outlined against the sky, with the roar of water behind him. They saw his hand come up, gnarl to a fist, come down on the back of the black head— a heavy blow.

  They heard no sound. They saw Dan standing with his hands at his sides. They saw Klore lying on the ground, his legs twitching, his shoulders still. They said nothing. It was the end.

  Dan stood looking at the black head at his feet, the raw face hidden on the grass, looking down. He wavered a little on his feet, but he stood looking down. Then he felt someone beside him. Molly, slipping his shirt round his shoulders. She lifted his arm over her shoulder; and she looked down at Klore. Then he heard the fat woman sobbing and saying, “Dan, Dan, Dan,” over and over. And Solomon had his hand. Then the Jew. But the others, like Dan, still stood looking down at Klore.

  Then, all at once they heard a voice over their heads, and glancing up they saw the minister on the boulder, hands stretched upward, his timid eyes lost in the sky:—

  “Praised be the Lord!”

  A murmur grew among them; it swelled and swelled; it ended in a shout. They went back to their boats slowly, by twos and threes, and Ben began locking them through.

  Gentleman Joe Calash

  Brown and squat upon the water, the old Sarsey Sal worked down through the locks of the gorge. The other downstream boats had gone ahead, the Nancy last of all, the fat woman waving her arm to Molly from the stern.

  They had put Dan to bed in the cabin; he was sleeping there now; and Fortune walked behind the team. Solomon had relieved him of the stakes he had held on the fight— at the last minute, for Fortune had made himself as inconspicuous as possible.

  Molly steered. Where they had a mile stretch ahead of them, she called Fortune on board, for the big team could be trusted to hold their steady pace. He sat down on the cabin, folding his hands round his knees, and looked at her with his keen black eyes.

  “It was a great fight,” he said after a while.

  “Yeanh,” but a shiver passed up her back and she set her teeth.

  The ripple cuddled on the old bow and ran along the sides gently, and the team went steadily, faithfully on the towpath.

  “I didn’t think Jotham Klore had that much grit,” Fortune said after a while.

  “He’s got a lot,” Molly said quickly. “I’d thought Dan would do a quicker job.”

  The shiver ran up her back again. Both she and the ex-preacher saw the battered face in their mind’s eye, and the squat legs bent, and the heavy hands raised as Klore kept heading in.

  She brushed the hair back from her forehead and let her hand rest there. The same tired, white look that had been on her face all the while Dan was fighting still lay in her eyes.

  Far ahead a horn wailed for a lock.

  “Did Dan tell you he’d got a job offered him on a farm at Lyons Falls?”

  “No,” said Fortune.

  “It’s a fine job,” she went on; “only they want a single man.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he’d take it double. Mr. Butterfield’s going to let him know about it when he gets to Rome.”

  “It’s the kind of a job he wants. It’s what he wants to do.”

  “That’s right.”

  Her voice was tired.

  “He ain’t no boater. He won’t stay long on the canal, no matter what.”

  The ex-preacher glanced at her with a worried, affectionate look.

  “No,” he said, in a little while.

  “All he wants to do is farm— clean out a stable— watch his wife do chores.”

  “Maybe he don’t look at it that way, Molly.”

  The sudden flush went down again.

  “I know, Fortune. I hadn’t ought to’ve said it. And he ought to take it.”

  “It would be a good thing,” Fortune agreed. “Suppose you did marry him, Molly?”

  “Suppose I did marry him,” she repeated, turning her fine frank eyes to his. “Suppose I did. Supposing I could love him like I did. Would I help him any? Wouldn’t it come around how I’d lived? Them are fine folk he’s going to— they’d be notional having a canal cook living on their place, whatever she was then.”

  “They wouldn’t have to find out,” he suggested.

  “There’s people would know inside of a week. A man can keep secrets about himself and nobody mind particular. But a woman hasn’t any show in a small town.”

 
He nodded angrily.

  “It wouldn’t be right by Dan,” she said. “And I can’t love him like I did. I’d get tired and I wouldn’t be happy. Then he wouldn’t either. Even if he got his own farm, people would talk about me. It ain’t as if I was even middling old.”

  “No,” he said. “You’re too pretty.”

  “He’s a good boy. He’s close with money. That ain’t his fault— it’s into him to be. But I couldn’t stand it. I’ve got my wages now, so I don’t mind. Alone on a farm, all the year …”

  Fortune stared at her sympathetically.

  “He’s a good boy. He’s done a great thing,” she said proudly.

  “Yeanh. He’s licked Klore.”

  “Yeanh. He was afraid of him, and he licked him.” Then she said, with almost a wail in her voice, “If he’d been licked, maybe it would’ve been easier for me.”

  The old man clucked his tongue on his teeth. For all she looked so pretty, she could not live with a strong man unless he made a slave of her. While she had thought of Dan as weak, and seen him afraid, she could love him. She must rule or be ruled.

  “Molly,” he said suddenly, “you ain’t going back to Klore?”

  She caught her lower lip with her teeth.

  “No. I can’t now, after being with Dan. I did love Dan, Fortune. I loved him hard. I couldn’t go back.”

  He understood. She could not let a beaten man override her.

  “What’ll you do, then?”

  “I don’t know, yet. I’ll go back to Lucy Cashdollar’s a while, maybe. I don’t want a job, but I could stay with her. Maybe if I could get a boat I’d go boating for myself. Mrs. Quackenbush does that.”

  He grinned suddenly.

  “Want a driver?”

  She smiled.

  “Shucks. You? You’d be running off all the while to play pinochle.” Her face sobered. “Anyway, it ain’t possible.”

  “When’ll you quit?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Dan ought to have a free hand when he gets into Rome. He hadn’t ought to stay on the canal.”

  “How is he?”

  “Sleeping,” she said. “It don’t seem possible. But there ain’t a single mark onto his face. You’d hardly know …”

  She shivered, as poplar leaves shiver, at a touch.

  On the next bend, Fortune jumped ashore. The black turned his bald nose round and gave the old man a glance.

  “It don’t seem right,” Fortune said to the rumps of the horses. “Each one thought he was fighting for her. And neither one won.”

  Down the old Sarsey Sal sank in the walls of the locks. It grew colder. An old man sat on the dock at Han Yerry’s fishing for sunfish.

  “Frost tonight,” he prophesied to Fortune.

  Dan came stiffly on deck. His eyes fell first on the plank road where it ran into the gorge. There was a rope stretched across it, and two men sat under a tree, holding shotguns over their knees.

  “What’s up?” he asked the old man.

  Without removing his eyes from his float, the fisherman gummed snuff.

  “They swore in twelve men here in this town,” he said. “They’ve closed all the roads. It’s said Calash is headed this way. All them that hain’t swore in is out watching for him. There’s a reward onto him— two thousand dollars, dead or alive.” He rolled the sum over his tongue.

  The Sarsey Sal pushed on into a green twilight. -The cold bit sharper. Twice they saw men posted near the towpath, their eyes roaming, as men watch for a fox.

  Dan said little, standing beside Molly. Once again the chase for Calash was coming toward him on the edge of night.

  “I wonder if they’ll get him,” Molly said.

  He did not answer. Perhaps this time they would; but he did not think so. Always he had seen the man come, and go again; and he had never seen his face. Men were out after him, but they had never seen him. None of them had any record of the man’s past; but they feared him and discussed him angrily among themselves and waited by the roads to kill him.

  “I’d like to see him,” Dan said.

  He had a superstitious foreboding. The man had come into his sight always at the moment of some happening to Dan— when he first came on the canal; when he first saw Molly; when Samson Weaver died, to leave him the boat; and again before his fight with Jotham Klore.

  “I’d like to look at him,” he said again.

  Under the flap of his shirt pocket, he carried the little diamond horse, and now he felt of it with his hand.

  In a wide piece of water they tied up the old boat and brought the team aboard. Dan put light blankets on them. Fortune lit the night lantern and hung it out.

  Their supper was very quiet. Dan moved awkwardly, his muscles aching. But his eyes, as he followed Molly’s movements between the table and the stove, were steadily calm. Now and then a smile played over his mouth.

  After supper Fortune went out. He said that he would walk on to the Delta House— it was but a mile down— and find a pinochle game. “My luck ought to be smart after to-day,” he said. “I’ll strip Davis dry. You can pick me off the towpath in the morning.” He smiled at them, sitting at the table, with the lamplight on them. His face looked older and friendly to both of them. “So long,” he said.

  Dan dozed in his chair, his weariness still on him, while Molly cleared the supper things. She glanced at him from time to time and gave him a tender smile. Then she interrupted her work to get him his pipe, filling and lighting it for him. He puffed at the tight-wadded load for a while; but his lungs were still sore, and the effort of making the pipe draw was too hard on them. So he grinned and put it down… .

  The striking of the clock made him open his eyes at the little prancing horse. “When it strikes I think he’s crossed a bridge maybe.” That was what Samson Weaver had said.

  Molly was standing at his side. She stood very straight.

  “Don’t you think you’d ought to go to bed, Dan?”

  He smiled at her.

  “I guess that’s right.”

  Then they both started. A horse was trotting swiftly along the towpath. They glanced at each other, seeing the same thing in each other’s eyes.

  She put her hand under his arm, helping him to get up.

  “I’m going up, Molly.”

  She brought him his hat and sweater without speaking.

  On deck they found a white moon shining. The smell of frost was on the air. It was very still. The light of the night lantern made a faint light on the old boards of the deck.

  On the towpath stood a grey horse, dark with sweat, breathing in deep steady pants. But his head was up. The rider dismounted slowly.

  “Henderson’s pretty close after me,” he said in a dry voice. “Can you put up this horse and hide us till he goes by?”

  Dan felt Molly take his arm.

  “No,” she whispered.

  He thought of the roads and the men watching.

  “Yeanh.”

  The gang was still out. He saw Gentleman Joe stagger when he tried to walk.

  “I’ll take the brown horse out,” he said. “You can take him into the pasture back of them bushes. I’ll blanket your horse alongside of my black.”

  Calash tried to take down the bars of the pasture.

  “I can’t do it,” he said. “One of them got my arm.”

  They noticed then that his left arm was tied up with two handkerchiefs.

  “You do it,” Dan said to Molly.

  He took the grey in and put the blanket on over his saddle. In the far corner a man would have to look twice to see it. The horse was as tall as the brown and his grey legs might be mistaken for white stockings. The brown came out good-humoredly and went into the pasture with the fugitive.

  It was still in the cabin again. Dan and Molly sat opposite each other before the stove without speaking. The clock ticked quickly.

  After a minute or two their ears caught the murmur of running horses on the towpath. It grew swiftly, and beats made out a rhythm
. Then the jingle of bits, the scrape of shoes, and the long hard breathing. Men spoke.

  “Sarsey Sal,” one read.

  “Harrow’s boat. Jeepers! He’s the man beat Klore. I’d like to look at him.”

  Feet pounded on the deck. Henderson came in, fat, puffing slightly, a dead cigar tilted in the corner of his mouth. His red cheeks were smooth as ever, but there was a hot light in his brown eyes. As he pushed the pot hat back on his head, they could see that his mind was only on business.

  “Seen Calash come this way?”

  “Yeanh,” said Dan. “He come on the towpath five minutes ago.”

  “That right?” Henderson jerked his question at Molly.

  She nodded.

  “Did he come aboard?”

  “No,” said Dan.

  “Better look,” Henderson grunted to the men peering curiously through the door. Dan saw the long pale moustaches of one of the deputies, and a stir of air brought him a smell of violets.

  “How many horses?”

  “Four,” said Dan. “One a heavy team.”

  “Take the lantern,” said Henderson.

  The deputy was gone a minute.

  “All right,” he said when he came back.

  “Come on,” said Henderson. In a minute they were gone.

  When Molly and Dan came out on deck again, Gentleman Joe was leading the brown horse out of the pasture. Dan brought the grey off the boat and took his own horse aboard. By the time he had the stable hatch closed down, Gentleman Joe was mounted.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I owe you a lot.”

  He sat staring up the towpath, a tired man. His coat hung limp against his horse’s flanks, the brim of his hat slouched, and the words came past his lips with a drag, as if each one hurt him.

  “Where’re you going now?” Dan asked him.

  “I guess I’ll keep on back of them and try to slip through when they turn back at the Kill.”

  “Everybody’s turned out there. I seen ‘em when we come down.”

  “Maybe I can break through.”

  “There’s a couple of men along the towpath waiting with shotguns.”