Читать книгу Gold - White Stewart Edward - Страница 2

We had many sorts of men in our club, but nearly all young. One, in especial, early attracted my attention, and held it through all the changing vicissitudes of our many meetings. I say attracted me, though fascinated would be perhaps the better word, for after the first evening of his attendance I used deliberately so to place myself that I could watch him.

He came always in a rather worn military cape, which on entering the door he promptly threw back in such a manner as to display the red lining. This seemed an appropriate envelopment of his flaming, buoyant personality. He walked with his chin up and his back straight, and trod directly on and over the ends of his toes so that he seemed fairly to spring with vigour. His body was very erect and tall and pliant, bending easily to every change of balance. If I were never to have seen his face at all I should have placed him as one of the laughing spirits of the world. His head was rather small, round, well poised, with soft close-set ringlets all over it like a cap, in the fashion of some marble gods I have seen. He had very regular, handsome features, with a clear, biscuit-brown complexion, and a close-clipped, stubby, light moustache. All these things were interesting and attractive, though no more so than are the vigour and beauty of any perfect animal. But the quality of his eyes placed him, at least to me, in a class apart. They were sober, clear eyes, that looked out gray and contemplative on the world about them; so that one got the instant impression of a soul behind them that weighed and judged. Indeed they were not laughing eyes at all, and rather negatived the impression made by the man’s general bearing. But somewhere down in them something flickered like a strong burning candle in a brisk wind. Occasionally it was almost out; then again it blazed up clear, so that one thought to see it plainly through the steady brooding look. It always fascinated the beholder, for it was mysterious. Whether it came and went, grew and shrank, following delicately the moods or reflections of the spirit within, or whether it was a purely fortuitous effect of light and refraction, no man was ever able to say. And some men later made some very bad guesses. I myself think it was the devil of genius–a devil behind the steady control of a clear brain. His name, I soon discovered, was Talbot Ward.

At this period I was starting in as an assistant bookkeeper to a large exporting firm. They were enterprising people, and already they were laying plans to capture some of the California trade. The office talk I heard concerning the purchase of ships, the consignment of arms, the engagement of captains and of crews further inflamed my imagination. I received the vast sum of nine dollars per week. As I was quite alone in the world, and possessed no other resources, the saving of the five hundred dollars agreed upon as the least sum with which it was possible to get to California was fairly out of all question.

One evening, after the meeting, to my great surprise, Ward fell into step with me. We had up to that moment never exchanged a word.

“In New York long?” he demanded.

“About six months,” I told him.

“Farm bred, of course?” he remarked. “Where?”

“Ashbury in Vermont,” I replied, without the slightest feeling that he was intrusive.

He stopped short in the street and looked me up and down reflectively, but without comment.

“I’ve been watching you at these fool meetings,” said he, falling into step again.

In spite of myself I experienced a glow of gratification at having been the object of his interest.

“Fool meetings?” I echoed inquiringly.

“Suppose, by a miracle, all that lot could agree, and could start for California to-morrow, in a body–that’s what they are organized for, I believe,” he countered–“would you go with them?”

“Why not?”

“Martin is why not; and Fowler is why not; and that little Smith runt, and six or eight others. They are weak sisters. If you are going into a thing, go into it with the strong men. I wouldn’t go with that crowd to a snake fight if it was twelve miles away. Where do you live?”

“West Ninth Street.”

“That’s not far. Have you a good big room?”

“I have a very small hall bedroom,” I replied wonderingly; “a number of us have the whole of the top floor.”

Somehow, I must repeat, this unexplained intrusion of a total stranger into my private affairs did not offend.

“Then you must have a big sitting-room. How many of you?”

“Four.”

“Can you lick all the others?”

I stopped to laugh. By some shrewd guess he had hit on our chief difficulty as a community. We were all four country boys with a good deal of residuary energy and high spirits; and we were not popular with the tenants underneath.

“You see I’m pretty big─” I reminded him.

“Yes, I see you are. That’s why I’m with you. Do you think you can lick me?”

I stopped short again, in surprise.

“What in blazes─” I began.

He laughed, and the devils in his eyes danced right out to the surface of them.

“I asked you a plain question,” he said, “and I’d like the favour of a plain answer. Do you think you can lick me as well as your rural friends?”

“I can,” said I shortly.

He ran his arm through mine eagerly.

“Come on!” he cried, “on to West Ninth!”

We found two of my roommates smoking and talking before the tiny open fire. Talbot Ward, full of the business in hand, rushed directly at the matter once the introductions were over.

Our arrangements were very simple; the chairs were few and pushed back easily, and we had an old set of gloves.

“Which is it to be?” I asked my guest, “boxing or wrestling?”

“I said you couldn’t lick me,” he replied. “Boxing is a game with rules; it isn’t fighting at all.”

“You want to bite and gouge and scratch, then?” said I, greatly amused.

“I do not; they would not be fair; a fight’s a fight; but a man can be decent with it all. We’ll put on the gloves, and we’ll hit and wrestle both–in fact, we’ll fight.”

He began rapidly to strip.

“Would you expect to get off your clothes in a real fight?” I asked him a little sardonically.

“If I expected to fight, yes!” said he. “Why not? Didn’t the Greek and Roman and Hebrew and Hun and every other good old fighter ‘strip for the fray’ when he got a chance? Of course! Take off your shirt, man!”

I began also to strip for this strange contest whose rules seemed to be made up from a judicious selection of general principles by Talbot Ward.

My opponent’s body was as beautiful as his head. The smooth white skin covered long muscles that rippled beneath it with every slightest motion. The chest was deep, the waist and hips narrow, the shoulders well rounded. In contrast my own big prominent muscles, trained by heavy farm work of my early youth, seemed to move slowly, to knot sluggishly though powerfully. Nevertheless I judged at a glance that my strength could not but prove greater than his. In a boxing match his lithe quickness might win–provided he had the skill to direct it. But in a genuine fight, within the circumscribed and hampering dimensions of our little room, I thought my own rather unusual power must crush him. The only unknown quantity was the spirit or gameness of us two. I had no great doubt of my own determination in that respect–I had been on too many log-drives to fear personal encounter. And certainly Talbot Ward seemed to show nothing but eager interest.

“You don’t show up for what you are in your clothes,” said he. “This is going to be more fun than I had thought.”

My roommates perched on the table and the mantelpiece out of the way. I asked the length of the rounds.

“Rounds!” echoed Talbot Ward with a flash of teeth beneath his little moustache. “Did you ever hear of rounds in a real fight?”

With the words he sprang forward and hit me twice. The blows started at the very toe of his foot; and they shook me as no blows, even with the bare fist, have ever shaken me before or since. Completely dazed, I struck back, but encountered only the empty air. Four or five times, from somewhere, these pile-driver fists descended upon me. Being now prepared, to some extent, I raised my elbows and managed to defend my neck and jaws. The attack was immediately transferred to my body, but I stiffened my muscles thankfully and took the punishment. My river and farm work had so hardened me there that I believe I could have taken the kick of a mule without damage were I expecting it.

The respite enabled my brain to clear. I recovered slowly from the effect of those first two vicious blows. I saw Ward, his eyes narrowed calculatingly, his body swinging forward like a whalebone spring, delivering his attack with nice accuracy. A slow anger glowed through me. He had begun without the least warning: had caught me absolutely unaware. I hit back.

He was so intent on his own assault, so certain of the blinding effect of his first attack, that I hit him. I saw his head snap back, and the blood come from his lips. The blows were weak, for I was still dazed; but they served, together with the slow burn of my anger, greatly to steady me. We were once more on equal terms.

For perhaps two minutes I tried to exchange with him. He was in and out like lightning; he landed on me hard almost every time; he escaped nine out of ten of my return counters. Decidedly I was getting the worst of this; though my heavier body took punishment better than his lighter and more nervous frame. Then suddenly it occurred to me that I was playing his game for him. As long as he could keep away from me, he was at an advantage. My best chance was to close.

From that moment I took the aggressive, and was in consequence the more punished. My rushes to close in were skilfully eluded; and they generally laid me wide open. My head was singing, and my sight uncertain; though I was in no real distress. Ward danced away and slipped around tense as a panther.

Then, by a very simple ruse, I got hold of him. I feinted at rushing him, stopped and hit instead, and then, following closely the blow, managed to seize his arm. For ten seconds he jerked and twisted and struggled to release himself. Then suddenly he gave that up, dove forward, and caught me in a grapevine.

He was a fairly skilful wrestler, and very strong. It was as though he were made of whalebone springs. But never yet have I met a man of my weight who possessed the same solid strength; and Ward would tip the scales at considerably less. I broke his hold, and went after him.

He was as lively as an exceedingly slippery fish. Time after time he all but wriggled from my grasp; and time after time he broke my hold by sheer agility. His exertions must have been to him something terrible, for they required every ounce of his strength at the greatest speed. I could, of course, take it much easier, and every instant I expected to feel him weaken beneath my hands; but apparently he was as vigorous as ever. He was in excellent training. At last, however, I managed to jerk him whirling past me, to throw his feet from under him, and to drop him beneath me. As he fell he twisted, and by a sheer fluke I caught his wrist.

Thus through no great skill of my own the fortunes of war had given me a hammerlock on him. Most people know what that is. Any one else can find out by placing his forearm across the small of his back and then getting somebody else to press upward on the forearm. The Greek statue of “The Wrestlers” illustrates it. As the pressure increases, so does the pain. When the pain becomes intense enough, the wrestler rolls over and the contest is won. Some people can stand it longer than others; but all sooner or later must give up. In fact, skilled wrestlers, knowing that otherwise the inevitable end is a broken arm, save themselves much tribulation by immediately conceding the bout once this deadly hold is gained.

I began to force Talbot Ward’s hand slowly up his back.

Very gently, an inch at a time, I pressed. He said nothing. Once he attempted to slip sidewise; but finding me of course fully prepared for that, he instantly ceased struggling. After I had pushed the hand to the hurting point, I stopped.

“Well?” said I.

He said nothing.

Now I was young, and none too well disciplined, heated by contest, and very angry at having been so unexpectedly attacked at the beginning. I was quite willing to hurt him a little. Slowly and steadily, and, I am ashamed to say, with considerable satisfaction, I pressed the arm upward. The pain must have been intense. I could feel the man’s body quiver between my knees, and saw the sweat break out afresh. Still he made no sign, but dug his forehead into the floor. “I can stand this as long as you can,” said I to myself grimly.

But at last I reached the point where I knew that another inch, another pound, would break the bone.

“Do you give up?” I demanded.

“No!” he gasped explosively.

“I’ll break your arm!” I snarled at him.

He made no reply.

The blood was running into my eyes from a small scrape on my forehead. It was nothing, but it annoyed me. I was bruised and heated and mad. Every bit of antagonism in me was aroused. As far as I was concerned, it was a very real fight.

“All right,” I growled, “I’ll keep you there then, damn you!”

Holding the arm in the same position, I settled myself. The pain to the poor chap must have been something fearful, for every muscle and tendon was stretched to the cracking point. His breath came and went in sharp hisses; but he gave no other sign. My heat cooled, though, as I look back on it, far too slowly. Suddenly I arose and flung him from me. He rolled over on his back, and lay, his eyes half closed, breathing deeply. We must have been a sweet sight, we two young barbarians–myself marked and swollen and bloody, he with one eye puffed, and pale as death. My roommates, absolutely fascinated, did not stir.

The tableau lasted only the fraction of a minute, after all. Then abruptly Talbot Ward sat up. He grinned up at me with his characteristic momentary flash of teeth.

“I told you you couldn’t lick me,” said he.

I stared at him in astonishment.

“Licked? Why, I had you cold!”

“You had not.”

“I’d have broken your arm, if I had gone any farther.”

“Well, why didn’t you?”

I stared into his eyes blankly.

“Would you have done it?” I asked, in a sudden flash of illumination.

“Why, of course,” said he, with a faint contempt, as he arose.

“Why did you hit me at first, as you did? You gave me no warning whatever.”

“Do you get any warning in a real fight?”

I could not controvert this; and yet uneasily, vaguely, I felt there must be a fallacy somewhere. I had been told and not told, what should, or should not, be done, in an affair that apparently could have no rules, and yet had distinctions as to fair and unfair, some of which were explained and some left as obvious. I felt somewhat confused. But often in my later experience with Talbot Ward I felt just that way, so in retrospect it does not strike me so forcibly as it did at that time.

“But you’re a wonder! a perfect wonder!” Ward was saying.

Then we all became aware of a knocking and a rattling at the door. It must have been going on for some time.

“If you don’t open, I’ll get the police! I promise you, I’ll get the police!” the voice of our landlady was saying.

We looked at each other aghast.

“I suppose we must have been making a little noise,” conceded Talbot Ward. Noise! It must have sounded as though the house were coming down. Our ordinary little boxing matches were nothing to it.

Ward threw his military cape around his shoulders, and sank back into a seat beneath the window. I put on an overcoat. One of the boys let her in.

She was thoroughly angry, and she gave us all notice to go. She had done that same every Saturday night for a year; but we had always wheedled her out of it. This time, however, she seemed to mean business. I suppose we had made a good deal of a riot. When the fact became evident, I, of course, shouldered the whole responsibility. Thereupon she turned on me. Unexpectedly Talbot Ward spoke up from the obscurity of his corner. His clear voice was incisive, but so courteous with the cold finality of the high-bred aristocrat, that Mrs. Simpkins was cut short in the middle of a sentence.

“I beg you, calm yourself, madam,” said he; “it is not worth heating yourself over: for the annoyance, such as it is, will soon be removed. Mr. Munroe and myself are shortly departing together for California.”