It was curious, he thought, how natural these warlike gifts seemed, and this strangely different scene, from his surroundings even a year ago. He now sat by an open fire in the open air surrounded by darkness with two deadly weapons and a pair of binoculars. These were not the sort of things anyone would have gifted him with before, except perhaps the binoculars, and even these were far more powerful and expensive than any pair even his closest friend might have given him in that earlier time.
“Feel the edge,” said Nick, directing Jeebee’s attention back to the knife. “No, use the ball of your thumb, very lightly, and just stroke it over the edge, away from you.”
Jeebee did so. The edge had been feathered to a razor sharpness.
“You want to keep it like that,” said Nick. “You’ll probably never use it, but just in case. Meanwhile, go right on carrying that other knife you’ve got hanging at your belt, and use that for any ordinary need you’ve got. Except for practicing with it—and I’ll show you how to practice before you leave tomorrow—this new knife of yours, you’ll hope it’ll never leave its sheath. I’ll tell you about that, too, tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Nick. Thank you all,” Jeebee said, looking around at them. “I don’t know how to thank you. But Nick—”
He turned back to the little man.
“Where did you get this?”
“I traded for it quite a time back,” Nick said. “It wasn’t in the shape you see it now when I got it. It had been made as part of a collection set. It’s supposed to be a pretty fair replica of the knife Jim Bowie gave his name to, but near as I could ever find out, nobody knows exactly what the ‘original’ Bowie knife really looked like. For that matter he probably had half a dozen knives like this of different sizes and each one made some different from the others.
“Anyway, it was a collection piece, but it had been used for everything under the sun, including to chop kindling. It’ll do that, too, but I don’t want you to use it for that. I’ve put a fighting edge on it, instead of the chisel edge it had when I got it. So it may look sturdy as hell, but don’t cut branches with it, don’t sharpen sticks with it, and above all don’t drop it on anything hard. I’ve got a sharpening stone for you to take along with it, and I’ll teach you how to use it. With some practice you’ll be able to touch up the edge, but if you nick it or have to rebevel it, you’ll spend half a lifetime looking for a stone that’s long enough to do the job.”
“Believe me,” said Jeebee sincerely, “I’ll take good care of it.”
“You don’t know anything about using a knife, do you?” Nick stared across the table at him.
Jeebee shook his head.
“Good,” said Nick, “better that way. If you don’t know how, you’re not as likely to try to use it and get yourself killed.” Jeebee stared at him.
“What’re you giving it to me for, then?” he asked.
“Tell you tomorrow. Well—one thing I will tell you today. If you ever do have to use it, remember just one thing only. Forget everything else. Just remember to let the weight and the edge work for you. Go up through the belly. Aim for the balls—excuse me, Merry, the crotch—and you’ve got your best chance of ending in the belly. You got that?”
Jeebee nodded.
“What you really want to do is go up under the breastbone. If you go in deep enough there, you’ll hit the heart; or you’ll cut a main artery. The blade’s long enough, but you want to be up underneath the ribs. You’ve got to be good—and lucky—to go between the ribs. Never try that. I’ll show you in the morning.”
CHAPTER 17
Shortly after dawn—and before breakfast, since Nick had said that Jeebee would learn faster on an empty stomach—and even if he didn’t learn faster, be lighter on his feet—the two men stood outside the wagon parallel with and facing each other. They stood about five feet apart, Jeebee just having finished some target practice with the little handgun Paul had given him. As Paul had predicted, it threw high and to the left, but it pointed naturally, and by the end of the session Jeebee was grouping his shots with satisfying consistency.
“Stick it down into your boot,” said Paul, after.
“You’ll just have to do a lot of practicing and get used to it,” he said. “Do a lot of dry firing, but always have it loaded with empty cartridge casings when you do. Saves wear on the firing pin. If it didn’t have a shroud, I’d probably suggest that you let the hammer rest on an empty chamber, but with only five rounds you’ll probably want all the firepower it’s got to offer. Now, reload it and put it down in your boot—no, in the boot with the bowie strapped outside it.”
Wondering a little, Jeebee obeyed. He was now wearing calf-high horseman boots that had been given him and that came up within about four inches of his knee. The sheath holding the big knife was strapped to the outside of the boot.
“Now, maybe you’re beginning to understand?” said Nick. “You reach down and everybody’s going to think you’re going for that big knife when you’re really going for the pistol in your boot. You might even be lucky, with somebody holding another gun on you, and a second person tries to take the bowie from you—because it’s so big and it attracts so much attention—but never thinks to look inside the boot for a holdout gun.”
Jeebee nodded.
“All right,” Nick said to him, “now, you can untie those thongs holding the bowie handle to your leg, pull the knife out, and let me see how you stand with it.”
Jeebee untied the thongs, pulled the knife, and stood up with it, feeling a little foolish with the huge weapon in his hand.
Nick looked at him and nodded. “Just as I thought,” he said, “you don’t even know how to stand, do you?”
“No,” Jeebee answered.
“All right,” said Nick, “we’ll start at the very beginning, then. To begin with, remember this big knife is there mainly for camouflage. Your real weapon is that little revolver down in your boot. But it just might happen that for some reason a revolver won’t do it for you, or isn’t there, or something like that. So you have to use a knife. If that’s the case, here are the rules.”
A knife considerably smaller than Jeebee’s suddenly appeared in Nick’s hand.
“The first rule of knife fighting,” said Nick, “is—don’t. If you think there’s any possibility of somebody pulling a knife on you, get out of there—wherever there is. Best way to avoid something like that is to make sure it doesn’t start in the first place.
“The second rule is,” he went on, “if you see someone standing the way I’m standing, run. Or get out any way you can if you haven’t already. That’s because the man you’ll be looking at knows something about how to use his blade. Look at how I’m standing.”
Jeebee looked. Nick was standing full face on to him with his feet almost parallel. The left foot was a little behind the right and the stance had the feet slightly spread. Nick’s left arm that was not carrying a knife was bent at the elbow up and out in front of him, and almost mimicking its position was his right arm and fist that held the knife, blade up and with the point forward toward Jeebee.
“Now,” said Nick, “if there’s no way you can get away from someone who stands like this or this”—Nick suddenly reversed his grip and held it like an icepick with the blade lying along his wrist—“and is forcing a fight on you, the only advantage you’re likely to have is the length of your knife. Most good knife fighters like the quickness of a short blade, but a long blade gives you reach. Make it work for you. Stand back and make him come to you. Don’t wait for a vital spot; attack whatever part of his body comes into range. If you cut his knife hand, the fight’s half-won, but if he’s standing like I am, chances are he’ll try to draw your attack or tangle up your knife with his empty hand. You can limit his options by circling to his right—that is, the side that’s holding the knife. But if his empty hand gets too close, cut it. Do whatever you have to do to keep him away from you. If a man with a small knife gets in close, range is on his side. He could cut
you three, maybe four or five times before you could get that big bowie moving. So use the pommel. It’s not just for decoration and balance. It’s a weapon. Hit him in the face, the temple, even his knife hand.
“If you cut him up enough, he’ll slow down. Cuts kill, but they don’t kill quickly. That’s why a knife has a point. So remember what I told you last night. Go for the belly—but aim low and angle up. If you go straight in and he scoots his hips back, you’ll either miss or catch his breastbone on the upsweep. If you aim low, you’ll be under the breastbone—which is where you want to be. If he’s wearing a lot of clothes, try to go in at a point where the clothes button together, because thick cloth, and especially, thick layers of cloth, can stop a knife blade better than you ever dreamed. So if someone comes at you with a jacket or belt or even a shirt wrapped around his left arm, don’t count on being able to cut it.
“All right. Then there’s a whole list of other don’ts. Even if you figure you’re as good as the man opposite—if you ever get that way, which I hope you don’t, for your sake—don’t fight the people I’m going to tell you about. One, don’t fight anyone my size or smaller, particularly if he’s as young or younger than you are, unless of course he’s a kid. Even then, even if he’s a kid, you could be in trouble. The reason is, if he’s smaller, chances are his reflexes are faster than yours.
“Second, for the same sort of reason, don’t try to take on anyone a lot bigger than you. He just maybe could be enough bigger and heavier so that he can absorb enough punishment to get to you. And if he can get to you, chances are he can either kill you or do real damage to you even if he dies for it. Don’t get into a fight at all if you think the other man’s got friends around. They don’t even have to step in and help him. You could just be backing up and find a chair in your way where there wasn’t a chair before, to say nothing of being actually tripped. Carry the big knife in all kinds of weather, so it looks like you’re used to using it, but try to forget you’ve got it, except for cleaning and sharpening it when you think it needs it. Otherwise, just put it out of your mind. It’s like a life preserver on a luxury liner; it’s there, but ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time you don’t even need to think about it. Just so you shouldn’t never think about using this knife until there’s no other way than that. Remember that forearm knife rig I showed you, your first day at the wagon? Well, this bowie’s just another rig. Remember that.”
“I will,” said Jeebee.
The knife disappeared from Nick’s hand as magically as it had appeared.
“Now,” he said, “if you’ll forget all about the revolver and the Bowie, I’ve got some sticks here; and I’ll run you through just a few things that might help you with real knife trouble. Take one of the longer sticks. We’ll use them like knives.”
The sticks were about as thick and round as broomstick handles. Jeebee picked one that was about sixteen inches long and, standing at a little more than arm’s length from Nick, tried to imitate the other’s stance.
“If you want to make best use of the longer blade,” said Nick, “you probably shouldn’t stand like me. Let your right foot lead. You won’t be able to make much use of your empty hand, but it’ll give you another six inches of reach. All right, that’s better. Come at me, then.”
“No,” Jeebee said cautiously, “you come at me first.”
“Good. You remembered,” said Nick, “let the other man make the first move.” He was still talking when suddenly Jeebee found himself tripped by something hooked behind his right ankle. He fell heavily on his back, and a moment later one of Nick’s boots was pinning down his arm that held the stick, while the other one rested lightly with its boot edge against his Adam’s apple.
“I thought you were going to show me about knife fighting!” Jeebee said.
“That is part of knife fighting,” said Nick. “It’s your ‘third’ hand. I find people remember that part of it better if I simply show them before I tell them about it. Do you remember what I did just now?”
Jeebee had to stop and remember, as if he was rerunning a memory tape in his head. He remembered Nick suddenly dropping toward the ground, then he had been tripped—that was all that came to mind.
He said as much. Nick laughed.
“Watch,” he said, “I’ll do it slowly for you.”
He took the weight of his one boot off Jeebee’s arm and the touch of his other boot off Jeebee’s throat and stood back.
“I did this,” he said.
He dropped vertically suddenly until he was squatting on one leg. The other leg snaked out and swung in an arc at full length before him, the toe of the boot turned inward.
“That tripped you up,” Nick said. “Then it was simply a matter of stepping on your arm and on your throat. If I’d wanted to, I could have crushed your throat and everything would’ve been over right then and there.”
“I’m going to have to practice getting down and doing that leg swing,” Jeebee said ruefully.
“Practice all you want,” said Nick, “but remember that that’s just one thing you can do. When you’re fighting, a knife is just one of the things you fight with. Most people forget that, just like most people think that if you point a gun at them, it’s all over and you might as well give up. Not necessarily. Now, if you’re interested, we will work with the actual sticks themselves while we’re on our feet.”
They practiced for a while with the sticks. Jeebee tried desperately to use his longer arms and stick to keep the stick Nick held from touching him, but he was a constant failure. If they had actually been holding knives, Nick would have killed him a dozen times over.
At the same time, Jeebee’s mind was reacting in its usual manner by trying to remember what he was going through and to see some pattern in it. He was just beginning to see what he thought of as that pattern when Nick called a halt.
“Enough for now.” Nick reached out with his left hand to take the stick from Jeebee’s hand. “You’re beginning to get jumpy and poke out blindly. After you leave us, try it the same way you’d try shadowboxing. Just imagine me or somebody coming at you with a knife and imagine what you’d have to do to block him. Let’s go to breakfast.”
This morning Merry was making the breakfast, and Nick would be washing up afterwards, now that Jeebee was leaving. They ate pancakes and bacon, and after they were done, Merry took off her apron and put her hand on Jeebee’s arm.
“Come along,” she said, “come on back with me to the horses.”
Jeebee swallowed a final syrup-drenched piece of pancake, gulped the last of his coffee from its cup, and got up. The two of them went out of the wagon, climbed down to the ground, and walked together toward the back of it, behind which the horses were picketed.
Merry went briskly, so that he had to stretch his legs to keep up with her. It was almost as if she brought him along with an invisible grip on his ear with her fingers. Behind the wagon, Jeebee saw that tied directly to it was one horse already saddled, and tied to that saddle with a lead rope, another horse, which must be his packhorse, which had only a blanket on its back secured by a strap around its belly.
On the ground next to this horse was a pile of gear ready to travel. Merry took him to it.
“Here you go,” she said over her shoulder, “and here’s something I particularly wanted you to have.”
From a sack, the drawstring of which she had untied, she brought out a ball of dark blue yarn, thick strands, and a couple of long knitting needles stuck through the ball.
“There’s a book here, too,” she said, rummaging in a small box, and produced it. It was not so much a book as a thick pamphlet, with paper covers. The title How to Knit was printed plainly on the cover. She shoved it into his hands.
“You study this now,” she said sternly, “and you work with the needles and the yarn. Learn how to knit things for yourself. You’ll need them more than you think, and they can be more use to you than anything you can imagine. You’ll have all winter long someplace wh
ere you’ve nothing to do but knit, so you might as well start learning now. You’ll need socks, sweaters, everything else. Look here!”
From the same box she produced a pair of socks knitted of bright red yarn. They looked enormous, and Jeebee estimated that they would come well up to his knee, if not over it. The feet were very large and the legs were wide. He felt slightly embarrassed, since clearly she had guessed at his feet and leg sizes and had got them wrong.
“I don’t think you understand,” she said, looking at his face. “When winter comes, you’re going to need to wear layers of all kinds of clothes, including three or four pairs of socks. This is the pair that goes outside everything else, that’s why I made them so big. I made it exactly according to the diagram and directions on page forty-nine. The first thing you do is try to make another pair of socks just like it; and you can look at this pair to see how close you’re coming. Do you understand that?”
“Oh, I see!” said Jeebee. “I… thank you. I never thought of anything like this. I’ll do just what you say. I’ll learn how to knit.”
“You’ll make a lot of mistakes while you’re learning, and there’s going to be no one around to help. It’ll be you and the book,” said Merry. “But if you keep on trying, you’ll get to where you can make socks, sweaters—all sorts of things. Mittens too. Don’t forget mittens!”
She passed him the pamphlet and dug back into the box, coming up with another paper-bound volume. She shoved it into his hands.
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