The Valley of the Moon Jack London

by Jack London

  That night, when he came home, she proposed, as an emergency

  measure, that she should resume her needlework and help keep the

  pot boiling until the strike was over. But Billy would hear

  nothing of it.

  "It's all right," he assured her repeatedly. "They ain't no call

  for you to work. I'm goin' to get some money before the week is

  out. An' I'll turn it over to you. An' Saturday night we'll go to

  the show--a real show, no movin' pictures. Harvey's nigger

  minstrels is comin' to town. We'll go Saturday night. I'll have

  the money before that, as sure as beans is beans."

  Friday evening he did not come home to supper, which Saxon

  regretted, for Maggie Donahue had returned a pan of potatoes and

  two quarts of flour (borrowed the week before), and it was a

  hearty meal that awaited him. Saxon kept the stove going till

  nine o'clock, when, despite her reluctance, she went to bed. Her

  preference would have been to wait up, but she did not dare,

  knowing full well what the effect would be on him did he come

  home in liquor.

  The clock had just struck one, when she heard the click of the

  gate. Slowly, heavily, ominously, she heard him come up the steps

  and fumble with his key at the door. He entered the bedroom, and

  she heard him sigh as he sat down. She remained quiet, for she

  had learned the hypersensitiveness induced by drink and was

  fastidiously careful not to hurt him even with the knowledge that

  she had lain awake for him. It was not easy. Her hands were

  clenched till the nails dented the palms, and her body was rigid

  in her passionate effort for control. Never had he come home as

  bad as this.

  "Saxon," he called thickly. "Saxon."

  She stired and yawned.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "Won't you strike a light? My fingers is all thumbs."

  Without looking at him, she complied; but so violent was the

  nervous trembling of her hands that the glass chimney tinkled

  against the globe and the match went out.

  "I ain't drunk, Saxon," he said in the darkness, a hint of

  amusement in his thick voice. "I've only had two or three jolts

  . . . of that sort."

  On her second attempt with the lamp she succeeded. When she

  turned to look at him she screamed with fright. Though she had

  heard his voice and knew him to be Billy, for the instant she did

  not recognize him. His face was a face she had never known.

  Swollen, bruised, discolored, every feature had been beaten out

  of all semblance of familiarity. One eye was entirely closed, the

  other showed through a narrow slit of blood-congested flesh. One

  ear seemed to have lost most of its skin. The whole face was a

  swollen pulp. His right jaw, in particular, was twice the size of

  the left. No wonder his speech had been thick, was her thought,

  as she regarded the fearfully cut and swollen lips that still

  bled. She was sickened by the sight, and her heart went out to

  him in a great wave of tenderness. She wanted to put her arms

  around him, and cuddle and soothe him; but her practical judgment

  bade otherwise.

  "You poor, poor boy," she cried. "Tell me what you want me to do

  first. I don't know about such things."

  "If you could help me get my clothes off," he suggested meekly

  and thickly. "I got 'em on before I stiffened up."

  "And then hot water--that will be good," she said, as she began

  gently drawing his coat sleeve over a puffed and helpless hand.

  "I told you they was all thumbs," he grimaced, holding up his

  hand and squinting at it with the fraction of sight remaining to

  him.

  "You sit and wait," she said, "till I start the fire and get the

  hot water going. I won't be a minute. Then I'll finish getting

  your clothes off."

  From the kitchen she could hear him mumbling to himself, and when

  she returned he was repeating over and over:

  "We needed the money, Saxon. We needed the money."

  Drunken he was not, she could see that, and from his babbling she

  knew he was partly delirious.

  "He was a surprise box," he wandered on, while she proceeded to

  undress him; and bit by bit she was able to piece together what

  had happened. "He was an unknown from Chicago. They sprang him on

  me. The secretary of the Acme Club warned me I'd have my hands

  full. An' I'd a-won if I'd been in condition. But fifteen pounds

  off without trainin' ain't condition. Then I'd been drinkin'

  pretty regular, an' I didn't have my wind."

  But Saxon, stripping his undershirt, no longer heard him. As with

  his face, she could not recognize his splendidly muscled back.

  The white sheath of silken skin was torn and bloody. The

  lacerations occurred oftenest in horizontal lines, though there

  were perpendicular lines as well.

  "How did you get all that?" she asked.

  "The ropes. I was up against 'em more times than I like to

  remember. Gee! He certainly gave me mine. But I fooled 'm. He

  couldn't put me out. I lasted the twenty rounds, an' I wanta tell

  you he's got some marks to remember me by. If he ain't got a

  couple of knuckles broke in the left hand I'm a geezer.--Here,

  feel my head here. Swollen, eh? Sure thing. He hit that more

  times than he's wishin' he had right now. But, oh, what a lacin'!

  What a lacin'! I never had anything like it before. The Chicago

  Terror, they call 'm. I take my hat off to 'm. He's some bear.

  But I could a-made 'm take the count if I'd ben in condition an'

  had my wind.--Oh! Ouch! Watch out! It's like a boil!"

  Fumbling at his waistband, Saxon's hand had come in contact with

  a brightly inflamed surface larger than a soup plate.

  "That's from the kidney blows," Billy explained. "He was a

  regular devil at it. 'Most every clench, like clock work, down

  he'd chop one on me. It got so sore I was wincin' . . . until I got

  groggy an' didn't know much of anything. It ain't a knockout

  blow, you know, but it's awful wearin' in a long fight. It takes

  the starch out of you."

  When his knees were bared, Saxon could see the skin across the

  knee-caps was broken and gone.

  "The skin ain't made to stand a heavy fellow like me on the

  knees," he volunteered. "An' the rosin in the canvas cuts like

  Sam Hill."

  The tears were in Saxon's eyes, and she could have cried over the

  manhandled body of her beautiful sick boy.

  As she carried his pants across the room to hang them up, a

  jingle of money came from them. He called her back, and from the

  pocket drew forth a handful of silver.

  "We needed the money, we needed the money," he kept muttering, as

  he vainly tried to count the coins; and Saxon knew that his mind

  was wandering again.

  It cut her to the heart, for she could not but remember the harsh

  thoughts that had threatened her loyalty during the week past.

  After all, Billy, the splendid physical man, was only a boy, her

  boy. And he had faced and endured all this terrible punishment

  for her, for the house and the furniture that were their house

/>   and furniture. He said so, now, when he scarcely knew what he

  said. He said "WE needed the money." She was not so absent from

  his thoughts as she had fancied. Here, down to the naked tie-ribs

  of his soul, when he was half unconscious, the thought of her

  persisted, was uppermost. We needed the money. WE!

  The tears were trickling down her checks as she bent over him,

  and it seemed she had never loved him so much as now.

  "Here; you count," he said, abandoning the effort and handing the

  money to her. ". . . How much do you make it?"

  "Nineteen dollars and thirty-five cents."

  "That's right . . . the loser's end . . . twenty dollars. I had some

  drinks, an' treated a couple of the boys, an' then there was

  carfare. If I'd a-won, I'd a-got a hundred. That's what I fought

  for. It'd a-put us on Easy street for a while. You take it an'

  keep it. It's better 'n nothin'."

  In bed, he could not sleep because of his pain, and hour by hour

  she worked over him, renewing the hot compresses over his

  bruises, soothing the lacerations with witch hazel and cold cream

  and the tenderest of finger tips. And all the while, with broken

  intervals of groaning, he babbled on, living over the fight,

  seeking relief in telling her his trouble, voicing regret at loss

  of the money, and crying out the hurt to his pride. Far worse

  than the sum of his physical hurts was his hurt pride.

  "He couldn't put me out, anyway. He had full swing at me in the

  times when I was too much in to get my hands up. The crowd was

  crazy. I showed 'em some stamina. They was times when he only

  rocked me, for I'd evaporated plenty of his steam for him in the

  openin' rounds. I don't know how many times he dropped me. Things

  was gettin' too dreamy. . . .

  "Sometimes, toward the end, I could see three of him in the ring

  at once, an' I wouldn't know which to hit an' which to duck. . . .

  "But I fooled 'm. When I couldn't see, or feel, an' when my knees

  was shakin an my head goin' like a merry-go-round, I'd fall safe

  into clenches just the same. I bet the referee's arms is tired

  from draggin' us apart. . . .

  "But what a lacin'! What a lacin'! Say, Saxon . . . where are you?

  Oh, there, eh? I guess I was dreamin'. But, say, let this be a

  lesson to you. I broke my word an' went fightin', an' see what I

  got. Look at me, an' take warnin' so you won't make the same

  mistake an' go to makin' an' sellin' fancy work again. . . .

  "But I fooled 'em--everybody. At the beginnin' the bettin' was

  even. By the sixth round the wise gazabos was offerin' two to one

  against me. I was licked from the first drop outa the

  box--anybody could see that; but he couldn't put me down for the

  count. By the tenth round they was offerin' even that I wouldn't

  last the round. At the eleventh they was offerin' I wouldn't last

  the fifteenth. An' I lasted the whole twenty. But some

  punishment, I want to tell you, some punishment.

  "Why, they was four rounds I was in dreamland all the time . . .

  only I kept on my feet an' fought, or took the count to eight an'

  got up, an' stalled an' covered an' whanged away. I don't know

  what I done, except I must a-done like that, because I wasn't

  there. I don't know a thing from the thirteenth, when he sent me

  to the mat on my head, till the eighteenth.

  "Where was I? Oh, yes. I opened my eyes, or one eye, because I

  had only one that would open. An' there I was, in my corner, with

  the towels goin' an' ammonia in my nose an' Bill Murphy with a

  chunk of ice at the back of my neck. An' there, across the ring,

  I could see the Chicago Terror, an' I had to do some thinkin' to

  remember I was fightin' him. It was like I'd been away somewhere

  an' just got back. 'What round's this comin'?' I ask Bill. 'The

  eighteenth,' says he. 'The hell,' I says. 'What's come of all the

  other rounds? The last I was fightin' in was the thirteenth.'

  'You're a wonder,' says Bill. 'You've ben out four rounds, only

  nobody knows it except me. I've ben tryin' to get you to quit all

  the time.' Just then the gong sounds, an' I can see the Terror

  startin' for me. 'Quit,' says Bill, makin' a move to throw in the

  towel. 'Not on your life,' I says. 'Drop it, Bill.' But he went

  on wantin' me to quit. By that time the Terror had come across to

  my corner an' was standin' with his hands down, lookin' at me.

  The referee was lookin', too, an' the house was that quiet,

  lookin', you could hear a pin drop. An' my head was gettin' some

  clearer, but not much.

  "'You can't win,' Bill says.

  "'Watch me,' says I. An' with that I make a rush for the Terror,

  catchin' him unexpected. I'm that groggy I can't stand, but I

  just keep a-goin', wallopin' the Terror clear across the ring to

  his corner, where he slips an' falls, an' I fall on top of 'm.

  Say, that crowd goes crazy.

  "Where was I?--My head's still goin' round I guess. It's buzzin'

  like a swarm of bees."

  "You'd just fallen on top of him in his corner," Saxon prompted.

  "Oh, yes. Well, no sooner are we on our feet--an' I can't

  stand--I rush 'm the same way back across to my corner an' fall

  on 'm. That was luck. We got up, an' I'd a-fallen, only I

  clenched an' held myself up by him. 'I got your goat,' I says to

  him. 'An' now I'm goin' to eat you up.'

  "I hadn't his goat, but I was playin' to get a piece of it, an' I

  got it, rushin' 'm as soon as the referee drags us apart an'

  fetchin' 'm a lucky wallop in the stomach that steadied 'm an'

  made him almighty careful. Too almighty careful. He was afraid to

  chance a mix with me. He thought I had more fight left in me than

  I had. So you see I got that much of his goat anyway.

  "An' he couldn't get me. He didn't get me. An' in the twentieth

  we stood in the middle of the ring an' exchanged wallops even. Of

  course, I'd made a fine showin' for a licked man, but he got the

  decision, which was right. But I fooled 'm. He couldn't get me.

  An' I fooled the gazabos that was bettin' he would on short

  order."

  At last, as dawn came on, Billy slept. He groaned and moaned, his

  face twisting with pain, his body vainly moving and tossing in

  quest of easement.

  So this was prizefighting, Saxon thought. It was much worse than

  she had dreamed. She had had no idea that such damage could be

  wrought with padded gloves. He must never fight again. Street

  rioting was preferable. She was wondering how much of his silk

  had been lost, when he mumbled and opened his eyes.

  "What is it?" she asked, ere it came to her that his eyes were

  unseeing and that he was in delirium.

  "Saxon! . . . Saxon!" he called.

  "Yes, Billy. What is it?"

  His hand fumbled over the bed where ordinarily it would have

  encountered her.

  Again he called her, and she cried her presence loudly in his

  ear. He sighed with relief and muttered brokenly:

  "I had to do it. . . . We needed the money."

  His eyes closed, and he slept more soundly, though his muttering
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  continued. She had heard of congestion of the brain, and was

  frightened. Then she remembered his telling her of the ice Billy

  Murphy had held against his head.

  Throwing a shawl over her head, she ran to the Pile Drivers' Home

  on Seventh street. The barkeeper had just opened, and was

  sweeping out. From the refrigerator he gave her all the ice she

  wished to carry, breaking it into convenient pieces for her. Back

  in the house, she applied the ice to the base of Billy's brain,

  placed hot irons to his feet, and bathed his head with witch

  hazel made cold by resting on the ice.

  He slept in the darkened room until late afternoon, when, to

  Saxon's dismay, he insisted on getting up.

  "Gotta make a showin'," he explained. "They ain't goin' to have

  the laugh on me."

  In torment he was helped by her to dress, and in torment he went

  forth from the house so that his world should have ocular

  evidence that the beating he had received did not keep him in

  bed.

  It was another kind of pride, different from a woman's, and Saxon

  wondered if it were the less admirable for that.

  CHAPTER XIV

  In the days that followed Billy's swellings went down and the

  bruises passed away with surprising rapidity. The quick healing

  of the lacerations attested the healthiness of his blood. Only

  remained the black eyes, unduly conspicuous on a face as blond as

  his. The discoloration was stubborn, persisting half a month, in

  which time happened divers events of importance.

  Otto Frank's trial had been expeditious. Found guilty by a jury

  notable for the business and professional men on it, the death

  sentence was passed upon him and he was removed to San Quentin

  for execution.

  The case of Chester Johnson and the fourteen others had taken

  longer, but within the same week, it, too, was finished. Chester

  Johnson was sentenced to be hanged. Two got life; three, twenty

  years. Only two were acquitted. The remaining seven received

  terms of from two to ten years.

  The effect on Saxon was to throw her into deep depression. Billy

  was made gloomy, but his fighting spirit was not subdued.

  "Always some men killed in battle," he said. "That's to be

  expected. But the way of sentencin' 'em gets me. All found guilty

  was responsible for the killin'; or none was responsible. If all

  was, then they should get the same sentence. They oughta hang

  like Chester Johnson, or else he oughtn't to hang. I'd just like

  to know how the judge makes up his mind. It must be like markin'

  China lottery tickets. He plays hunches. He looks at a guy an'

  waits for a spot or a number to come into his head. How else

  could he give Johnny Black four years an' Cal Hutchins twenty

  years? He played the hunches as they came into his head, an' it

  might just as easy ben the other way around an' Cal Hutchins got

  four years an' Johnny Black twenty.

  "I know both them boys. They hung out with the Tenth an' Kirkham

  gang mostly, though sometimes they ran with my gang. We used to

  go swimmin' after school down to Sandy Beach on the marsh, an' in

  the Transit slip where they said the water was sixty feet deep,

  only it wasn't. An' once, on a Thursday, we dug a lot of clams

  together, an' played hookey Friday to peddle them. An' we used to

  go out on the Rock Wall an' catch pogies an' rock cod. One

  day--the day of the eclipse--Cal caught a perch half as big as a

  door. I never seen such a fish. An' now he's got to wear the

  stripes for twenty years. Lucky he wasn't married. If he don't

  get the consumption he'll be an old man when he comes out. Cal's

  mother wouldn't let 'm go swimmin', an' whenever she suspected

  she always licked his hair with her tongue. If it tasted salty,

  he got a beltin'. But he was onto himself. Comin' home, he'd jump

  somebody's front fence an' hold his head under a faucet."

  "I used to dance with Chester Johnson," Saxon said. "And I knew