by Lee Falk
"Little punk, you afraid to fight?" he shouted. Two crewmen, at the railing in the background, heard this, and started toward them. Guran also moved toward the chief steward but Kit held his arm.
"I do not wish to fight you," said Kit quietly. "But I am not afraid." The steward had worked himself into a rage. The top of Guran's head barely reached the steward's chest. But the angry man lashed at him with his big fist, knocking him against the railing. Kit's reaction was almost instantaneous, "like a jungle cat" one of the crew reported later. He leaped at the steward. A quick karate chop dropped the big man to the deck, and Kit was upon him, his strong hands at the steward's throat. The steward's anger suddenly drained, replaced by fear. For the face above him was deadly and grim, and the hands were choking the life out of him. He struggled and tried to roll over, but he was helpless.
The two crewmen reached them, and tried to pull Kit off the man. They couldn't move him. The steward's eyes were popping, his face was red as Kit pounded his head against the deck. The cries of the crewmen brought others, and it took a half dozen of them to drag the boy from the steward. "Like holding a wild cat," they said. They fell to their knees and swayed with the struggling boy. Guran darted among them and whispered to Kit. He relaxed. The steward lay curled on the deck, whimpering, blood on his face. "Another minute and the kid woulda killed him," they reported later on.
Kit stood relaxed, calm now.
"I am sorry," he said. "He hit Guran. He had no right. I lost my temper. That is bad."
"You might have killed him," said a crewman, kneeling by the whimpering steward.
"Of course," said Kit quietly.
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They all stared at him.
"You wanted to kill him?"
"No," said Kit. "But when one fights, one fights to kill. Or one does not fight."
Examination revealed that the steward had no bones broken. The captain received the full story from the crewmen who saw it all, and he placed the steward in the brig. Then he brooded about his strange passenger, Kit Walker. Word of the battle spread rapidly among the passengers and the crew. A few of the men tried to congratulate him, but they were worried and a little fearful of this pleasant young boy. He had beaten a grown man and, it was said, almost killed him. Would have if half the crew hadn't dragged him off. When -he and Guran walked on the deck, or entered the dining salon, they were watched in silence. The captain brought Kit and Guran to his cabin.
"I know the man started the fight and got what he deserved, but I'm told you tried to kill him. Could you, with your bare hands?" asked the captain.
"Perhaps," said Kit.
"Would you?"
"Not now. It is over," said Kit. -
"Would you then, if they hadn't stopped you?" persisted the captain.
"Yes," said Kit. "When a man fights with you, he tries to kill you. You must kill him to save your life."
The captain considered the serious boy and the grave face of Guran who listened without understanding a word.
He realized, without exactly knowing why or where, that these two were from another world, the jungle.
"In our world, Kit," he said, "men sometimes fight in anger to settle an argument or a grudge. It is a stupid way to settle anything, but they sometimes do. And usually it is enough to beat the other man, to win, to settle the argument. But not to kill. Do you understand?"
"I hear you," said Kit. It would take time for him to understand.
CHAPTER 8
AUNT BESSIE AND UNCLE EPHRAIM
Mr. and Mrs. Ephraim Carruthers traveled a thousand miles from their home in Clarksville, Missouri on the banks of the Mississippi River to the port of New York to meet their nephew Kit from the exotic land of Bangalla. A few of their friends from Clarksville were also in New York at the time on business trips, and joined them at the wharf. Bessie Carruthers, though stout, had some of the beauty of her younger sister, Kit's mother. Bessie was a fluttering, talkative warmhearted person, president of the Clarksville Garden Club and active in local literary circles. Her husband, Ephraim was a successful businessman with a lumberyard.
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As they awaited the arrival of the ship, Bessie was a bit vague about Kit and his parents, because she really didn't know much about them. The father was a rich planter, she believed, and young Kit was arriving with his personal valet. This impressed their friends. No one had a personal valet in Clarksville.
As the ship passed the Statue of Liberty, Kit and Guran were crowded at the railings with the other passengers. The boys mistook the statue for a religious idol, and Guran thought the skyline of skyscrapers was a mountain range. When they reached the docks, Guran dashed back to their cabin, and was reluctant to leave. He had seen the crowds of people waiting, and seen how they dressed. He was ashamed to go ashore wearing only Kit's shirt over his loincloth. But Kit was impatient to go ashore.
"It's hot out there," he said. "All you need is the loincloth." They had arrived during one of Manhattan's summer hot spells. Guran refused. He wanted a jacket and trousers like Kit's. This was a dilemma, since Kit had only one suit. He solved it impatiently by giving the suit to Guran. It was several sizes too large for the pygmy, but Guran looked at himself proudly in the mirror, obviously delighted. A steward knocked on the door. He announced that they had been cleared through customs and he would take them to a party waiting for them ashore. Grabbing Guran's hand, Kit dashed excitedly onto the deck. The steward stared at the odd pair, but he had learned not to question the unusual boy.
And while awaiting Kit, Aunt Bessie had become more eloquent about her nephew's family, to impress her neighbors from Clarksville. "The father-his name is Walker- owns thousands of acres out there. In the highest society world travelers, a dozen servants, entertain crowned heads of Europe and on and on. The friends were impressed and waited expectantly. The steward came to the group.
"Mrs. Carruthers? Your nephew is coming now."
Kit and Guran raced down the gangplank. Hundreds of heads turned to look at them in amazement.
Kit, lean and bronzed from the sun, wearing only a loincloth. Little Guran, an oversize suit hanging on him like a sack, the sleeves falling far below his hands, the trousers covering his feet. The Carruthers party stared. Was this the wealthy nephew and his personal valet? Aunt Bessie was speechless. But their meeting was interrupted by a small truck that rumbled across the dock toward them, blowing its horn. Instantly, both Kit and Guran raced up a nearby telephone pole. Neither had ever seen an automobile or heard an auto horn. Their instant reaction, learned in the jungle and done almost without thinking, was the same given to any large land animal that suddenly rushed out of the bush. Climb a tree, fast. You don't stop to investigate whether it's a rhino, hippo, elephant or water buffalo charging at you. Move-climb a tree-then investigate.
The crowd on the dock, not knowing why, cheered, and laughed. The friends from Clarksville looked at each other, mystified. Aunt Bessie was stunned. But Uncle Ephraim, a hardheaded practical man, was neither mystified nor stunned. "A savage," he muttered. "Is this what your sister sent us?" Aunt Bessie glared at him. Her mind cleared. If Ephraim disapproved of anything, that meant she was for it. She strode determinedly to the telephone post, her big flower hat bobbing on her head, and looked up.
"Come down. That truck won't hurt you. I am your Aunt Bessie." Kit flushed. After the first moment up the pole, he had known what it was from his schoolbooks. An auto. He dropped twenty feet to the dock, landing on all fours like a cat. The watching crowd gasped. Kit looked at the uncertain, smiling face before him, and he saw something of his mother there. He embraced her.
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"Hello, Aunt Bessie. I am Kit." A figure plopped to the dock next to him. "And this is Guran. He's my friend."
CHAPTER 9
THE NEW HOME
The Carruthers home was a large white frame house surrounded by a green lawn, flower bushes, big trees and a white picket fence. It was on a shaded quie
t street with other houses with lawns and picket fences. The Carruthers were not wealthy, but they were what is known as "comfortable," and they moved in the leading society of Clarksville, Missouri, a city of 50,000 people sprawled on the banks of the wide lazy brown Mississippi River.
Kit had a large airy room on the second floor. The Carruthers had a small room for Guran in the basement next to the furnace. Kit insisted firmly that Guran share his room on the second floor, annoying Uncle Ephraim. To keep the peace, Aunt Bessie prevailed, and Guran moved in with Kit. It was difficult enough for the Carruthers to adjust to their unusual nephew. As for Guran-he would have been a rarity in any town or village in Bangalla-but in the Carruthers' white-frame house, he was a phenomenon: a wild pygmy from the Deep Woods, an expert in the preparation and use of deadly poisons, who spoke only his own language which sounded like grunts and coughs to the people of Clarksville.
Though Guran had learned to read and write with Kit in the Deep Woods during those classes with beautiful mother, he had little practice in conversation and was too shy to try. Then there was the matter of the beds. A second cot was put in Kit's room, and Aunt Bessie was surprised and pleased to find them made up each morning after Kit left for school. After a few days, she was amazed to learn that they didn't use the beds. They put extra blankets on the floor and slept on them.
"Why on the floor, for heaven's sake?" she asked.
Kit explained that Guran was used to sleeping on a straw mat on the ground, and that in the Skull Cave he slept on an animal skin on the rock floor. He had always done this, and found beds with mattresses too soft and uncomfortable. Uncle Ephraim found this outrageous. "Sleep on the floor?"
he said. "They're animals. They should sleep in the stable." But then, almost everything about Kit irritated Uncle Ephraim. As for Guran, he refused to discuss "the little savage" or to have him at their dinner table. So Kit also refused to eat dinner with his Aunt and Uncle, and ate in the kitchen with Guran.
It was a difficult time for everyone in the Carruthers house, and Kit wondered about his parents'
wisdom in sending him there. He knew the Carruthers were good people, but their way of life was so different from the Deep Woods. Perhaps, he thought hopefully, things would get better.
Aunt Bessie had bought a modest wardrobe for both Kit and Guran in New York, accompanied by Uncle Ephraim who protested every purchase as being "too high." Uncle Ephraim was prudent about money. Some called him tight. But Kit still found city clothes uncomfortable, and shorts and a T-shirt were as far as he would go, while Guran followed suit.
They had reached Clarksville at the end of the summer, in time for the new school term. Though all of the town had heard about the new arrivals, the Carruthers did not introduce them or take them to such places as their church or country club. This was due to Kit's insistence that Guran accompany him everywhere, and no one of Guran's color had ever entered either the church or the country club.
So Kit was denied the blessings of the church and the pleasures of the country club, for the time being. Kit, for all his surface calm, was nervous and uncertain. This was all new and he was only twelve. Guran had been his companion since he could crawl. He had a protective feeling about this shy little man, who was completely lost in this strange world. The Carruthers had reserved a place 54
for Kit in a local private boys' school, Clark Academy. This was a day school, where Kit would attend classes and return home each day to eat and sleep. Guran went with him the first few days until they had surveyed the place, then both agreed it was best for Guran to wait at home.
Clark Academy covered the primary and secondary school years. He was put through a series of tests to determine his grade, and was placed with other boys of his own age. Thanks to his mother's instructions, he was well-prepared in the academic subjects. His knowledge of languages amazed teachers and students alike.
Some of his other knowledge amazed them as well. History, for example. During his first week of the seventh grade history class, conducted by Mr. Hackley, Clark's football coach, the subject of Alexander the Great came up for discussion.
"What can anyone tell us about Alexander?" he asked.
A bright boy wearing glasses raised his hand.
"Sir, he conquered the whole world. And he cried because there were no more worlds to conquer," he said.
"Correct. Anyone else?" asked Mr. Hackley. At Clark, the boys were required to address all their teachers as 'sir.' Kit raised his hand, memories of lessons in the Skull Cave coming back to him. The class looked curiously at the new boy. This was the first time he had spoken.
"Alexander was not Great. He was a gang lord and he led his mobsters to kill and loot weaker people."
Mr. Hackley and the boys stared at him. Then the boys looked at Mr. Hackley who grinned.
"What an amazing interpretation. Where did you hear that?" he said. "And don't forget your 'sir.'"
"My father told me."
"Sir," said Mr. Hackley.
"Sir," said Kit.
Mr. Hackley laughed, and the boys joined him.
"What else did your father tell you," said Hackley.
"He said . . ."
"Sir," said Mr. Hackley.
"Sir, he said that Alexander the Great was the same as Attila the Hun, only it depended on who wrote about them."
"Attila the Hun," roared Mr. Hackley with great relish. "Oh, that's marvelous. And where did your father learn all these original facts?"
All the boys were grinning and snickering. It was like the time he had been in the woods with a few pygmy boys, and had by mistake picked a bouquet of leaves for his mother that were poisonous and
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caused a severe rash. He flushed, and faced the sarcastic faces.
"He said it because he knows what is true, and he does not lie," he said firmly.
"Sir," said Mr. Hackley.
"Sir," said Kit.
The boys waited expectantly for more funny comments from Mr. Hackley. But he was a kindly man, not given to baiting his pupils, and he saw that the new boy was tense. He explained that there were many versions of history, and that some might agree with Kit's father, but that in this class he would attempt to teach the more orthodox versions. Kit remained on his feet during this. Something was bothering him.
"Mr. Hackley . . ." he began.
"Sir," said Mr. Hackley.
"Are you a knight? Is that why they call you sir?"
"A knight?" said Mr. Hackley.
"Like the Knights of the Round Table?"
The roar of laughter was interrupted by the bell, ending the class. The boys fled out, still laughing.
Knights of the Round Table! Word about it got around, and it was a joke among the faculty and students for some time. That new boy was an odd one.
Kit was not the first foreign student to enter Clark. There had been a few others from Mexico, Canada, South America, and an occasional European boy. But word of his exotic background and behavior had spread. Where was Bangalla? And the sight of Guran added to the boys' interest. Kit was bigger and heavier than most of the boys in his group, but he was a boy, after all, and he had to go through the usual schoolyard trials. This school had its bully, a hulking lad in an upper grade who delighted in roughing up the younger boys. Jackson-that was his name-was also the football team's fullback, wrestling star, and weight lifter. Jackson went after Kit the first day Guran stayed at home.
He backed him into a corner of the yard and sneered in his face.
"Afraid to come to school all by your itsy-bitsy self without your black boy?" he said.
The boys crowded around, waiting for Kit to get it, a ritual many of them had gone through with Jackson.
"He's not a boy. He's a man," said Kit evenly. He recognized the menace here. Jackson reminded him of the chief steward on the ship.
"What are you stupid, some kind of half-breed from the Congo?" continued Jackson, also using four-letter s
wear words which were meaningless to Kit.
