Before Adam

by Jack London

  CHAPTER IX

  Red-Eye was an atavism. He was the great discordant element in ourhorde. He was more primitive than any of us. He did not belong with us,yet we were still so primitive ourselves that we were incapable of acooperative effort strong enough to kill him or cast him out. Rude aswas our social organization, he was, nevertheless, too rude to live init. He tended always to destroy the horde by his unsocial acts. He wasreally a reversion to an earlier type, and his place was with the TreePeople rather than with us who were in the process of becoming men.

  He was a monster of cruelty, which is saying a great deal in that day.He beat his wives--not that he ever had more than one wife at a time,but that he was married many times. It was impossible for any woman tolive with him, and yet they did live with him, out of compulsion. Therewas no gainsaying him.

  No man was strong enough to stand against him.

  Often do I have visions of the quiet hour before the twilight. Fromdrinking-place and carrot patch and berry swamp the Folk are troopinginto the open space before the caves. They dare linger no later thanthis, for the dreadful darkness is approaching, in which the world isgiven over to the carnage of the hunting animals, while the fore-runnersof man hide tremblingly in their holes.

  There yet remain to us a few minutes before we climb to our caves. Weare tired from the play of the day, and the sounds we make are subdued.Even the cubs, still greedy for fun and antics, play with restraint. Thewind from the sea has died down, and the shadows are lengthening withthe last of the sun's descent. And then, suddenly, from Red-Eye's cave,breaks a wild screaming and the sound of blows. He is beating his wife.

  At first an awed silence comes upon us. But as the blows and screamscontinue we break out into an insane gibbering of helpless rage. It isplain that the men resent Red-Eye's actions, but they are too afraidof him. The blows cease, and a low groaning dies away, while we chatteramong ourselves and the sad twilight creeps upon us.

  We, to whom most happenings were jokes, never laughed during Red-Eye'swife-beatings. We knew too well the tragedy of them. On more than onemorning, at the base of the cliff, did we find the body of his latestwife. He had tossed her there, after she had died, from his cave-mouth.He never buried his dead. The task of carrying away the bodies, thatelse would have polluted our abiding-place, he left to the horde. Weusually flung them into the river below the last drinking-place.

  Not alone did Red-Eye murder his wives, but he also murdered for hiswives, in order to get them. When he wanted a new wife and selected thewife of another man, he promptly killed that man. Two of these murdersI saw myself. The whole horde knew, but could do nothing. We had not yetdeveloped any government, to speak of, inside the horde. We had certaincustoms and visited our wrath upon the unlucky ones who violated thosecustoms. Thus, for example, the individual who defiled a drinking-placewould be attacked by every onlooker, while one who deliberately gavea false alarm was the recipient of much rough usage at our hands. ButRed-Eye walked rough-shod over all our customs, and we so feared himthat we were incapable of the collective action necessary to punish him.

  It was during the sixth winter in our cave that Lop-Ear and I discoveredthat we were really growing up. From the first it had been a squeezeto get in through the entrance-crevice. This had had its advantages,however. It had prevented the larger Folk from taking our cave awayfrom us. And it was a most desirable cave, the highest on the bluff, thesafest, and in winter the smallest and warmest.

  To show the stage of the mental development of the Folk, I may statethat it would have been a simple thing for some of them to have drivenus out and enlarged the crevice-opening. But they never thought ofit. Lop-Ear and I did not think of it either until our increasing sizecompelled us to make an enlargement. This occurred when summer was wellalong and we were fat with better forage. We worked at the crevice inspells, when the fancy struck us.

  At first we dug the crumbling rocks away with our fingers, until ournails got sore, when I accidentally stumbled upon the idea of using apiece of wood on the rock. This worked well. Also it worked woe.One morning early, we had scratched out of the wall quite a heap offragments. I gave the heap a shove over the lip of the entrance. Thenext moment there came up from below a howl of rage. There was no needto look. We knew the voice only too well. The rubbish had descended uponRed-Eye.

  We crouched down in the cave in consternation. A minute later he was atthe entrance, peering in at us with his inflamed eyes and raging like ademon. But he was too large. He could not get in to us. Suddenly he wentaway. This was suspicious. By all we knew of Folk nature he should haveremained and had out his rage. I crept to the entrance and peeped down.I could see him just beginning to mount the bluff again. In one hand hecarried a long stick. Before I could divine his plan, he was back at theentrance and savagely jabbing the stick in at us.

  His thrusts were prodigious. They could have disembowelled us. We shrankback against the side-walls, where we were almost out of range. But byindustrious poking he got us now and again--cruel, scraping jabs withthe end of the stick that raked off the hide and hair. When we screamedwith the hurt, he roared his satisfaction and jabbed the harder.

  I began to grow angry. I had a temper of my own in those days, andpretty considerable courage, too, albeit it was largely the courage ofthe cornered rat. I caught hold of the stick with my hands, but such washis strength that he jerked me into the crevice. He reached for me withhis long arm, and his nails tore my flesh as I leaped back from theclutch and gained the comparative safety of the side-wall.

  He began poking again, and caught me a painful blow on the shoulder.Beyond shivering with fright and yelling when he was hit, Lop-Ear didnothing. I looked for a stick with which to jab back, but found onlythe end of a branch, an inch through and a foot long. I threw this atRed-Eye. It did no damage, though he howled with a sudden increase ofrage at my daring to strike back. He began jabbing furiously. I found afragment of rock and threw it at him, striking him on the chest.

  This emboldened me, and, besides, I was now as angry as he, and had lostall fear. I ripped fragment of rock from the wall. The piece must haveweighed two or three pounds. With my strength I slammed it full intoRed-Eye's face. It nearly finished him. He staggered backward, droppinghis stick, and almost fell off the cliff.

  He was a ferocious sight. His face was covered with blood, and he wassnarling and gnashing his fangs like a wild boar. He wiped the bloodfrom his eyes, caught sight of me, and roared with fury. His stick wasgone, so he began ripping out chunks of crumbling rock and throwing themin at me. This supplied me with ammunition. I gave him as good as hesent, and better; for he presented a good target, while he caught onlyglimpses of me as I snuggled against the side-wall.

  Suddenly he disappeared again. From the lip of the cave I saw himdescending. All the horde had gathered outside and in awed silence waslooking on. As he descended, the more timid ones scurried for theircaves. I could see old Marrow-Bone tottering along as fast as he could.Red-Eye sprang out from the wall and finished the last twenty feetthrough the air. He landed alongside a mother who was just beginningthe ascent. She screamed with fear, and the two-year-old child that wasclinging to her released its grip and rolled at Red-Eye's feet. Both heand the mother reached for it, and he got it. The next moment the fraillittle body had whirled through the air and shattered against the wall.The mother ran to it, caught it up in her arms, and crouched over itcrying.

  Red-Eye started over to pick up the stick. Old Marrow-Bone had totteredinto his way. Red-Eye's great hand shot out and clutched the old manby the back of the neck. I looked to see his neck broken. His body wentlimp as he surrendered himself to his fate. Red-Eye hesitated a moment,and Marrow-Bone, shivering terribly, bowed his head and covered his facewith his crossed arms. Then Red-Eye slammed him face-downward to theground. Old Marrow-Bone did not struggle. He lay there crying with thefear of death. I saw the Hairless One, out in the open space, beatinghis chest and bristling, but afraid to come forward. And then, inobedience to some whim
of his erratic spirit, Red-Eye let the old manalone and passed on and recovered the stick.

  He returned to the wall and began to climb up. Lop-Ear, who wasshivering and peeping alongside of me, scrambled back into the cave. Itwas plain that Red-Eye was bent upon murder. I was desperate and angryand fairly cool. Running back and forth along the neighboring ledges, Igathered a heap of rocks at the cave-entrance. Red-Eye was now severalyards beneath me, concealed for the moment by an out-jut of the cliff.As he climbed, his head came into view, and I banged a rock down. Itmissed, striking the wall and shattering; but the flying dust and gritfilled his eyes and he drew back out of view.

  A chuckling and chattering arose from the horde, that played the part ofaudience. At last there was one of the Folk who dared to face Red-Eye.As their approval and acclamation arose on the air, Red-Eye snarled downat them, and on the instant they were subdued to silence. Encouragedby this evidence of his power, he thrust his head into view, and byscowling and snarling and gnashing his fangs tried to intimidate me.He scowled horribly, contracting the scalp strongly over the brows andbringing the hair down from the top of the head until each hair stoodapart and pointed straight forward.

  The sight chilled me, but I mastered my fear, and, with a stone poisedin my hand, threatened him back. He still tried to advance. I drove thestone down at him and made a sheer miss. The next shot was a success.The stone struck him on the neck. He slipped back out of sight, but ashe disappeared I could see him clutching for a grip on the wall withone hand, and with the other clutching at his throat. The stick fellclattering to the ground.

  I could not see him any more, though I could hear him choking andstrangling and coughing. The audience kept a death-like silence. Icrouched on the lip of the entrance and waited. The strangling andcoughing died down, and I could hear him now and again clearing histhroat. A little later he began to climb down. He went very quietly,pausing every moment or so to stretch his neck or to feel it with hishand.

  At the sight of him descending, the whole horde, with wild screams andyells, stampeded for the woods. Old Marrow-Bone, hobbling and tottering,followed behind. Red-Eye took no notice of the flight. When he reachedthe ground he skirted the base of the bluff and climbed up and into hisown cave. He did not look around once.

  I stared at Lop-Ear, and he stared back. We understood each other.Immediately, and with great caution and quietness, we began climbing upthe cliff. When we reached the top we looked back. The abiding-place wasdeserted, Red-Eye remained in his cave, and the horde had disappeared inthe depths of the forest.

  We turned and ran. We dashed across the open spaces and down the slopesunmindful of possible snakes in the grass, until we reached the woods.Up into the trees we went, and on and on, swinging our arboreal flightuntil we had put miles between us and the caves. And then, and not tillthen, in the security of a great fork, we paused, looked at each other,and began to laugh. We held on to each other, arms and legs, our eyesstreaming tears, our sides aching, and laughed and laughed and laughed.