by Max Brand
It flashed upon the mind of Soapy that, after all, it would have been far more discreet in him if he had obeyed the instructions of Mike and had remained in charge of the horses — waiting for a crisis in the evening’s affairs. Now — who could tell what might happen?
These thoughts raced through his mind and then were gone. There remained before him only the knowledge that he had chosen pleasure first. So Soapy turned to the joyful duty, forgetting consequences and Mike Jarvin.
Already there was a babel of voices from curious questioners around the ring as Soapy chased his flying foe back and forth.
“Who knows the Negro? Who is he?”
“Soapy. Old Mike Jarvin’s trained man-killer.”
“Jarvin’s?”
“Yes.”
“The devil!”
“That’s what he is.”
“Where’s Jarvin now?”
“I dunno.”
“Stop betting, boys. If this Negro belongs to Jarvin, it means that the fight will go the way that he wants it to go.”
“Stop betting? I’ve stuck up a hundred and fifty already.”
“A hundred and fifty? You lucky dog, I’ve backed the mulatto for twelve hundred. We’ll kill Jarvin and the coon, too, if he don’t polish off Canuck.”
To all of this chatter Soapy was deaf. He had fixed his mind too ardently upon the work that was before him. He starred a swing — and he saw Canuck, unhit, drop to one knee — it would be a foul to strike him now, and Soapy strove to check his blow. It landed only softly on the side of Canuck’s head — but instantly he collapsed along the floor of the ring.
Beside the ropes sprang up a frantic figure, and a clarion voice rang in the ears of the referee: “Foul, Mister Referee! Foul! Foul!”
“Curse the foul!” shouted a tall cattleman near the ring. “Is Canuck quitting? I’m gonna see fair play here! Get up, you skunk!”
The eye of Canuck, rolling to the side, saw the flash of a long-barreled revolver. It brought him scrambling to his feet, and yet there he stood, staggering as though badly hurt by the last punch.
“Look here, boy,” the referee was saying, shaking his finger in the face of Soapy, “one more trick like that, and you’re done, you understand? Now you go in and finish this fight fair... and polish him off if you can. Don’t you get foolish and excited... even if Mike Jarvin has told you which side he’s bet on.”
The referee knew that name, then? But Soapy, staring at him, hardly knew what had been said. His eyes were glaring over the shoulder of the official and at the unsteady figure of the other fighter.
When he was loosed, he charged like a maddened bull. He missed Canuck with a first punch. But the second, a roundabout left, grazed the forehead of Canuck and flung him flat on his back with a resounding smack of his shoulders against the canvas.
The screech of the crowd pronounced this the final stroke. But Soapy prayed that his foe might rise to be struck Once more — a little — only a little more solidly.
That prayer was to be answered. Canuck was drawing slowly together, bunching himself, raising his knees.
“Five!” counted the referee, and Canuck drew into a close bunch.
Poor Canuck rolled over and strove to push himself up on hands and knees. But his whole body trembled — not with pain or weakness, but with fear. He dreaded that waiting hand of destruction that the mulatto had poised in the air.
“Seven!”
And now the sharp voice of the manager yelled across the ring: “Are you crazy, Canuck? Is this the end of you and your big money?”
“Eight!”
He rose suddenly to his feet and, in a nervous frenzy, drove both hands rapidly into the face of Soapy. But he could not beat back that machinelike brute. And in despair he resolved upon the last and the lowest expedient of the prize fighter, he hit low and foul.
The mulatto, with a snarl, dropped into a deep crouch.
The referee cried: “Are you hurt, Soapy? D’you claim a foul?”
“Claim a foul? No... I’ll kill him!” cried Soapy, and he leaped at Canuck.
The hoarse screech of the crowd was like the very voice of Soapy himself as he flung himself at the other.
Canuck’s last cunning deserted him. He struck out blindly, his blows recoiling from the padded body of the mulatto.
Then two great hands seized big Canuck. Through the masking canvas of the gloves he could feel the bony fingers grip his flesh. He strove to struggle free, for there was a paralyzing power in the hands of the other. Where his clutch closed, it turned the body of Canuck numb.
Gathered into the grip of Soapy, Canuck found the breath crushed from his body. He thrust feebly back at the yeIlow face of Soapy.
And here was the referee, screeching: “I’ll disqualify you, Soapy! You hear me, you wild fool? I’ll disqualify you... and the crowd’ll kill you if you foul him. Let him go, Soapy!”
He might as well have spoken to a dumb beast. Soapy raised his dreadful right hand, poised it, and struck. The shining body of Canuck turned limp and senseless.
Then in both his giant hands Soapy lifted his enemy and hurled him, face downward, upon the floor. He saw the head of the senseless man rebound from that terrible shock. And he leaned to pick up Canuck and repeat the dose.
A meager shadow of danger stepped before him and his purpose. It was the referee, shouting: “You’re done, Soapy! You’ve lost this fight on a foul, you fool. Either a fool or a crook. Now keep back from him, or I’ll shoot your head off!” And in his hand, to back up the threat, there was a glittering Colt.
So Soapy drew back, panting with murderous desire, his great hands twitching. He heard a thunder of an angry sea of voices. And a hundred hands were brandished at him.
“Kill the crooked Negro. He threw the fight for Jarvin!”
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE BRAIN OF Soapy cleared a little as he heard that murderous shout. When he looked down to the utterly flaccid form of the defeated boxer, he knew that there was some reason for the anger of the mob. He had been a little rough. And now he most sincerely hoped that he had not killed the man. However, he had wit enough to know that, for the moment, the chief concern was not the condition of Canuck, but the loss of the sundry bets that had been placed so liberally upon Soapy when once his fighting prowess was beginning to be revealed.
They had wagered much money, and now they saw the rich odds, which they had been about to collect, snatched from their hands by the reckless fury of this yellow fighting man. They wanted to make trouble; they were most sincerely bent upon making it.
Here and there a scattering of voices shouted something in the favor of the mulatto. A doctor near the ringside had leaped in and clapped his ear to the heart of the fallen boxer. Then he had leaped up, shouting that Canuck was not seriously injured — only stunned. And there were others — chiefly those who wanted to collect the bets that they had placed upon Canuck — who called to the crowd that Soapy must have a fair deal.
But the others were deaf. They proceeded from shouts and cursing and fist shaking to more vigorous efforts. Presently a dozen hands reached for Soapy. But he turned himself about, and their hands slipped from his perspiring body.
There was no handier person than the referee — and there was hardly anyone for whom Soapy had so great a grudge. He picked that touchy little gentleman up by the ankles and flung him in the face of that wave of angry cattlemen.
Half a dozen went crashing to the floor. A revolver exploded. “He’s coming, shooting!” yelled someone, and instantly the entire crowd was thrown into the greatest confusion.
But Soapy, his fighting temper roused, did the very best thing that he could have attempted. Instead of running away from this attack, he turned and ran straight through it. He had knocked a hole through the head of the attacking wave. Now he leaped into that hole found the ropes, and catapulted himself through the air at the heads of those beneath.
An ever-ready gun exploded, sending a bullet whistling near his b
ody. But those in the distance foolishly attributed that bullet to a gun in the hand of the mulatto. And there was a fresh wail of fear, rage, and nervousness.
Soapy, like a hard-flung projectile, crashed through the crowd and found the ground. He recoiled from it and waded ahead. In the confusion before him, he was hardly seen before he was striking. Yonder in the ring he had been at a disadvantage. He had had to attend a dancing lesson, with a man close by to make sure that all his steps were according to law and custom. But this was far different. Here were men wedged so closely together that they could not escape. And Soapy smote with a tireless zeal. His very elbows, as he drew back those ponderous arms, brushed against bystanders and toppled them backward. He cut through that mass like red-hot iron through butter, followed and surrounded by a stream of oaths.
The confusion grew worse and worse. Here, there, and again, guns exploded in that overarmed mob, and with every explosion there was a fresh shout that the Negro was killing mad. That confusion caused a great horde to rush toward the gates and through them as fast as they could push away from the danger point. All could not escape at once. More backs than faces were turned toward Soapy, however, and perhaps he would have been quickly away to freedom, across the fence, had it not been for a most unlucky accident.
Yonder in that crowd were a dozen woodsmen who, in their time, had worked in Canadian lumber. Moreover, everyone of them had seen some of the earlier battles of Canuck, and all looked upon him with an immense pride, as a sort of shining glory brought forth out of the shadowy glooms of the Northern forest. He helped them to respect themselves a little more. He was like money in the pocket or a drink under the belt.
So they had come to this prize fight, not to see a battle, but to see big Canuck win again. They placed a few dollars apiece on the strength of what Canuck would do to that rough fellow, Bud. Afterward they watched Canuck step lightly forth and smite big Bud into nothingness, exactly as they had desired. They saw a fresh victim brought forth to the slaughter, and they settled back in their places, chuckling and nodding and talking with a good deal of unnecessary warmth about their days in the Northern woods with Canuck.
And then they were forced to grow silent. All was not going quite so well with Canuck. He was striking his blows at a creature of rubber from whom all punishment slipped away. They stood amazed, a mute and stricken row of beholders, while Canuck was felled. Finally, in the concluding round, they saw him taken as in the embrace of a bear. They saw the dreadful right hand of Soapy raised and they saw it fall. They saw their fellow woodsman raised like a helpless child and dashed violently against the floor.
While other people yelled and shrieked with excitement, they said not a word, merely drew instinctively together and stood shoulder to shoulder. They had come from the land where war is war, and they would not flinch from the consequences of it. Their favorite, their pride, and their chief had fallen. The luster was stolen away from the Canadian timberland, but, nevertheless, they were determined that they should stay and see what this thing would come to in the end.
Something should be done. They hardly knew what. In a deep silence they stood their ground while the crowd pushed for the narrow gate. They did not have to shoulder and fight that crowd away, either, but from before their stern faces and their wide and lofty shoulders the turmoil of men divided at once, washing about them like water around a strong rock.
In the meantime, it happened that, the progress of Soapy was taken in a line that led directly toward them, and the tallest of the Canadians noted this fact with a little flare of inspiration.
“Boys,” he said, “you might notice that there seems to be a need for somebody to stop Soapy... if that’s his name. Now, suppose that we hold him and see what he’s wanted for.”
Grim, glad faces looked back to him from either side and thanked him in silence for this suggestion.
The next moment a lurching, low, vast-shouldered form appeared before them, brushing through the last skirts of the crowd. He saw the group of lumbermen and lurched for them.
Two of them went down, one crushed by the hammer fist of Soapy, and the other involved in the fall of his friend. But Soapy, leaping into the breach, found hands like iron vises closing on him — and more hands were vindictively reaching.
He tore himself away, and half of his clothes came off in rags under their clutches. Attacking them again, left and right, he downed them, made a staggering path through them, and lurched away toward the fence once more.
Two of that stalwart company were down and would not rise again in a hurry, but the others had tasted vengeance, and they wheeled like a hunting pack and rushed after the fugitive.
It was well for Soapy that he possessed speed of foot along with his other virtues, but it takes a rare engine to give wings to 250 low-built pounds. Soapy began to fail in that race. They were drawing up on him fast when, luckily, he saw that the fence was just before him. He leaped for it, drawing his heels up just clear of their reaching hands. A gun flashed in the grip of one of the group, but a comrade struck it down.
“We’ll tear him to bits, but we’ll do it with our hands!”
They swarmed across that fence and rushed into the mounting dust cloud that masked the roadway. They could see Soapy just ahead of them, jogging along, with the crowd giving ready way to him upon either hand. After him they went in a compact charge. It seemed to Soapy almost like the charge of horses. He turned around his head with an owlish ease and regarded them with a fierce eye.
He recognized that group. Anyone who had seen them together before was not likely to forget, and now he knew that a grave danger was come upon him. However, he was still confident. He had beaten a fine prize fighter on this night, and then he had cut his way through a whole hostile crowd. Why, then, should he fear this single group?
So argued Soapy. When he turned about to strike down the leader of that flying wedge, he beat that man down and out of sight, to be sure, but the others came rushing in like a moving wall of stone. He was battered before them and carried back to the side of the street. He fought like a lion. Again and again those mighty fists of his brought down a foe. But still they drove him. His foot slipped, and he was down in a cloud of dust.
The first who dropped upon him declared afterward that it was like dropping upon a crouched tiger. He was fairly twisted into a knot the instant that he came within the grip of the fallen mulatto. But there were still others in that formidable group. And they caught Soapy with many hands. Legs and body and head and terrible, twisting arms, like two great pythons, were grappled — and he was ground back into the dust.
Some fifteen hundredweight of brawny muscle had been cast upon Soapy, and therefore it was no wonder that he struggled more or less in vain. But fight he would and did until the last gasp, although there was dust in his eyes and a cloud of it stifling his lungs — and this vast burden of hands tearing at him.
Then across his blurred vision something like a great sword flashed. He heard howls and yells. Hands released their grips. He twisted to his knees.
“Get up, Soapy, and come with me,” said the voice of Peter Hale.
CHAPTER XXXIV
SOAPY LOOKED UP, and above him he saw the cripple standing, braced upon his ruined legs and upon one crutch that was propped under his armpit. The other crutch, rimmed with strong steel as it was, had become a formidable flail in the ample grasp of Peter. With it he had beaten some of the grain of discretion from the chaff of the lumbermen’s fury. Still, as he flourished the long crutch about his head, the crowd drew farther back, like a ripple spreading from a stone cast into the pool. And like the running ripple, so the awe and the wonder rushed through the mind of Soapy.
He himself was a man of might and a man without fear, and yet this power of numbers had overcome him, at the last. How dreadful a fate might have been in store for him he dared not even guess, yet here was the crippled white man who had ventured forth and with a single stroke had scattered the assailants, releasing Soapy from the
vast peril.
It was not mere power of heart and hand. Of course, it was much more. It was the touch of the magic hand, the enchanter’s way of solving a difficulty. The old belief in those occult powers of Peter rushed back upon the brain of Soapy. He feared those powers as much as ever, but now, in the place of naked dread alone, there was an added something of love.
In a heat of doglike devotion, he could have thrown himself in the dust and embraced the knees of his rescuer. For Peter had been exalted from hell to heaven. He was no longer an evil genius. He was both divine and good. So thought Soapy, but he found a more useful way of showing a bit of his devotion. Behind his idol a crouched monster of a man lurched out to take Peter from the rear, dodging under the dreadful sweep of the crutch.
Of course, he could have warned Peter, but words were ever slower than deeds to the mulatto. He leaped from his crouched position. The other man flung up his arms to guard the threatened blow, and vain was that guard. Home crashed the mighty fist of Soapy, and the other lay motionless in the dust.
From the upper regions of calm and mercy he heard the voice of Peter Hale: “Turn the poor fellow over, Soapy. He might choke in the dust.”
Soapy obeyed, trembling with wonder. How clear it was to him, now, that this man was a veritable god. Certainly he was the master preordained for Soapy’s guidance through this world. With wisdom, with gentleness and charity, with a dreadful might, also, he ruled and reigned. And the heart of the mulatto confessed his power in every way. He followed at the back of the cripple, to guard him from any attack from the rear.
But there was no danger of this — for there had been quite enough fighting to satisfy even the crowd this evening. There had been enough bloodshed and broken ribs and noses. And here and there one could hear a groaning or a snarling from the rear.
Peter and Soapy were left to go slowly on toward the hotel.