Michael, Brother of Jerry

by Jack London

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  Winter came on in its delectable way in the Valley of the Moon. The lastMariposa lily vanished from the burnt grasses as the California Indiansummer dreamed itself out in purple mists on the windless air. Soft rain-showers first broke the spell. Snow fell on the summit of SonomaMountain. At the ranch house the morning air was crisp and brittle, yetmid-day made the shade welcome, and in the open, under the winter sun,roses bloomed and oranges, grape-fruit, and lemons turned to goldenyellow ripeness. Yet, a thousand feet beneath, on the floor of thevalley, the mornings were white with frost.

  And Michael barked twice. The first time was when Harley Kennan, astridea hot-blooded sorrel colt, tried to make it leap a narrow stream. Villareined in her steed at the crest beyond, and, looking back into thelittle valley, waited for the colt to receive its lesson. Michaelwaited, too, but closer at hand. At first he lay down, panting from hisrun, by the stream-edge. But he did not know horses very well, and soonhis anxiety for the welfare of Harley Kennan brought him to his feet.

  Harley was gentle and persuasive and all patience as he strove to makethe colt take the leap. The urge of voice and rein was of the mildest;but the animal balked the take-off each time, and the hotthoroughbredness in its veins made it sweat and lather. The velvet ofyoung grass was torn up by its hoofs, and its terror of the stream wassuch, that, when fetched to the edge at a canter, it stiffened andcrouched to an abrupt stop, then reared on its hind-legs. Which was toomuch for Michael.

  He sprang at the horse's head as it came down with forefeet to earth, andas he sprang he barked. In his bark was censure and menace, and, as thehorse reared again, he leaped into the air after it, his teeth clippingtogether as he just barely missed its nose.

  Villa rode back down the slope to the opposite bank of the stream.

  "Mercy!" she cried. "Listen to him! He's actually barking."

  "He thinks the colt is trying to do some damage to me," Harley said."That's his provocation. He hasn't forgotten how to bark. He's readingthe colt a lecture."

  "If he gets him by the nose it will be more than a lecture," Villawarned. "Be careful, Harley, or he will."

  "Now, Michael, lie down and be good," Harley commanded. "It's all right,I tell you. It's an right. Lie down."

  Michael sank down obediently, but protestingly; and he had eyes only forthe horse's antics, while all his muscles were gathered tensely to springin case the horse threatened injury to Harley again.

  "I can't give in to him now, or he never will jump anything," Harley saidto his wife, as he whirled about to gallop back to a distance. "Either Ilift him over or I take a cropper."

  He came back at full speed, and the colt, despite himself, unable tostop, lifted into the leap that would avoid the stream he feared, so thathe cleared it with a good two yards to spare on the other side.

  The next time Michael barked was when Harley, on the same hot-bloodmount, strove to close a poorly hung gate on the steep pitch of amountain wood-road. Michael endured the danger to his man-god as long ashe could, then flew at the colt's head in a frenzy of barking.

  "Anyway, his barking helped," Harley conceded, as he managed to close thegate. "Michael must certainly have told the colt that he'd give him what-for if he didn't behave."

  "At any rate, he's not tongue-tied," Villa laughed, "even if he isn'tvery loquacious."

  And Michael's loquacity never went farther. Only on these two occasions,when his master-god seemed to be in peril, was he known to bark. Henever barked at the moon, nor at hillside echoes, nor at any prowlingthing. A particular echo, to be heard directly from the ranch-house, wasan unfailing source of exercise for Jerry's lungs. At such times thatJerry barked, Michael, with a bored expression, would lie down and waituntil the duet was over. Nor did he bark when he attacked strange dogsthat strayed upon the ranch.

  "He fights like a veteran," Harley remarked, after witnessing one suchencounter. "He's cold-blooded. There's no excitement in him."

  "He's old before his time," Villa said. "There is no heart of play leftin him, and no desire for speech. Just the same I know he loves me, andyou--"

  "Without having to be voluble about it," her husband completed for her.

  "You can see it shining in those quiet eyes of his," she supplemented.

  "Reminds me of one of the survivors of Lieutenant Greeley's Expedition Iused to know," he agreed. "He was an enlisted soldier and one of thehandful of survivors. He had been through so much that he was just assubdued as Michael and just as taciturn. He bored most people, who couldnot understand him. Of course, the truth was the other way around. Theybored him. They knew so little of life that he knew the last word of.And one could scarcely get any word out of him. It was not that he hadforgotten how to speak, but that he could not see any reason for speakingwhen nobody could understand. He was really crusty from too-bitter wiseexperience. But all you had to do was look at him in his tremendousrepose and know that he had been through the thousand hells, includingall the frozen ones. His eyes had the same quietness of Michael's. Andthey had the same wisdom. I'd give almost anything to know how he gothis shoulder scarred. It must have been a tiger or a lion."

  * * * * *

  The man, like the mountain lion whom Michael had encountered up themountain, had strayed down from the wilds of Mendocino County, followingthe ruggedest mountain stretches, and, at night, crossing the farmedvalley spaces where the presence of man was a danger to him. Like themountain lion, the man was an enemy to man, and all men were his enemies,seeking his life which he had forfeited in ways more terrible than thelion which had merely killed calves for food.

  Like the mountain lion, the man was a killer. But, unlike the lion, hisvague description and the narrative of his deeds was in all thenewspapers, and mankind was a vast deal more interested in him than inthe lion. The lion had slain calves in upland pastures. But the man,for purposes of robbery, had slain an entire family--the postmaster, hiswife, and their three children, in the upstairs over the post office inthe mountain village of Chisholm.

  For two weeks the man had eluded and exceeded pursuit. His last crossinghad been from the mountains of the Russian River, across wide-farmedSanta Rosa Valley, to Sonoma Mountain. For two days he had laired andrested, sleeping much, in the wildest and most inaccessible precincts ofthe Kennan Ranch. With him he had carried coffee stolen from the lasthouse he had raided. One of Harley Kennan's angora goats had furnishedhim with meat. Four times he had slept the clock around from exhaustion,rousing on occasion, like any animal, to eat voraciously of thegoat-meat, to drink large quantities of the coffee hot or cold, and tosink down into heavy but nightmare-ridden sleep.

  And in the meantime civilization, with its efficient organization andintricate inventions, including electricity, had closed in on him.Electricity had surrounded him. The spoken word had located him in thewild canyons of Sonoma Mountain and fringed the mountain with posses ofpeace-officers and detachments of armed farmers. More terrible to themthan any mountain lion was a man-killing man astray in their landscape.The telephone on the Kennan Ranch, and the telephones on all otherranches abutting on Sonoma Mountain, had rung often and transmittedpurposeful conversations and arrangements.

  So it happened, when the posses had begun to penetrate the mountain, andwhen the man was compelled to make a daylight dash down into the Valleyof the Moon to cross over to the mountain fastnesses that lay between itand Napa Valley, that Harley Kennan rode out on the hot-blooded colt hewas training. He was not in pursuit of the man who had slain thepostmaster of Chisholm and his family. The mountain was alive with man-hunters, as he well knew, for a score had bedded and eaten at the ranchhouse the night before. So the meeting of Harley Kennan with the man wasunplanned and eventful.

  It was not the first meeting with men the man had had that day. Duringthe preceding night he had noted the campfires of several posses. Atdawn, attempting to break forth down the south-western slopes of themountain toward Petaluma
, he had encountered not less than five separatedetachments of dairy-ranchers all armed with Winchesters and shotguns.Breaking back to cover, the chase hot on his heels, he had run full tiltinto a party of village youths from Glen Ellen and Caliente. Theirsquirrel and deer rifles had missed him, but his back had been pepperedwith birdshot in a score of places, the leaden pellets penetratingmaddeningly in a score of places just under the skin.

  In the rush of his retreat down the canyon slope, he had plunged into abunch of shorthorn steers, who, far more startled than he, had rolled himon the forest floor, trampled over him in their panic, and smashed hisrifle under their hoofs. Weaponless, desperate, stinging and aching fromhis superficial wounds and bruises, he had circled the forest slopesalong deer-paths, crossed two canyons, and begun to descend the horse-trail he found in the third canyon.

  It was on this trail, going down, that he met the reporter coming up. Thereporter was--well, just a reporter, from the city, knowing only cityways, who had never before engaged in a man-hunt. The livery horse hehad rented down in the valley was a broken-kneed, jaded, and spiritlesscreature, that stood calmly while its rider was dragged from its back bythe wild-looking and violently impetuous man who sprang out around asharp turn of the trail. The reporter struck at his assailant once withhis riding-whip. Then he received a beating, such as he had oftenwritten up about sailor-rows and saloon-frequenters in his cub-reporterdays, but which for the first time it was his lot to experience.

  To the man's disgust he found the reporter unarmed save for a pencil anda wad of copy paper. Out of his disappointment in not securing a weapon,he beat the reporter up some more, left him wailing among the ferns, and,astride the reporter's horse, urging it on with the reporter's whip,continued down the trail.

  Jerry, ever keenest on the hunting, had ranged farther afield thanMichael as the pair of them accompanied Harley Kennan on his earlymorning ride. Even so, Michael, at the heels of his master's horse, didnot see nor understand the beginning of the catastrophe. For thatmatter, neither did Harley. Where a steep, eight-foot bank came down tothe edge of the road along which he was riding, Harley and the hot-bloodcolt were startled by an eruption through the screen of manzanita bushesabove. Looking up, he saw a reluctant horse and a forceful riderplunging in mid-air down upon him. In that flashing glimpse, even as hereined and spurred to make his own horse leap sidewise out from under,Harley Kennan observed the scratched skin and torn clothing, the wild-burning eyes, and the haggardness under the scraggly growth of beard, ofthe man-hunted man.

  The livery horse was justifiably reluctant to make that leap out and downthe bank. Too painfully aware of the penalty its broken knees andrheumatic joints must pay, it dug its hoofs into the steep slope of mossand only sprang out and clear in the air in order to avoid a fall. Evenso, its shoulder impacted against the shoulder of the whirling colt belowit, overthrowing the latter. Harley Kennan's leg, caught under againstthe earth, snapped, and the colt, twisted and twisting as it struck theground, snapped its backbone.

  To his utter disgust, the man, pursued by an armed countryside, foundHarley Kennan, his latest victim, like the reporter, to be weaponless.Dismounted, he snarled in his rage and disappointment and deliberatelykicked the helpless man in the side. He had drawn back his foot for thesecond kick, when Michael took a hand--or a leg, rather, sinking histeeth into the calf of the back-drawn leg about to administer the kick.

  With a curse the man jerked his leg clear, Michael's teeth ribboningflesh and trousers.

  "Good boy, Michael!" Harley applauded from where he lay helplesslypinioned under his horse. "Hey! Michael!" he continued, lapsing backinto beche-de-mer, "chase 'm that white fella marster to hell outa herealong bush!"

  "I'll kick your head off for that," the man gritted at Harley through histeeth.

  Savage as were his acts and utterance, the man was nearly ready to cry.The long pursuit, his hand against all mankind and all mankind againsthim, had begun to break his stamina. He was surrounded by enemies. Evenyouths had risen up and peppered his back with birdshot, and beef cattlehad trod him underfoot and smashed his rifle. Everything conspiredagainst him. And now it was a dog that had slashed down his leg. He wason the death-road. Never before had this impressed him with such clearcertainty. Everything was against him. His desire to cry washysterical, and hysteria, in a desperate man, is prone to express itselfin terrible savage ways. Without rhyme or reason he was prepared tocarry out his threat to kick Harley Kennan to death. Not that Kennan haddone anything to him. On the contrary, it was he who had attackedKennan, hurling him down on the road and breaking his leg under hishorse. But Harley Kennan was a man, and all mankind was his enemy; and,in killing Kennan, in some vague way it appeared to him that he wasavenging himself, at least in part, on mankind in general. Going downhimself in death, he would drag what he could with him into the red ruin.

  But ere he could kick the man on the ground, Michael was back upon him.His other calf and trousers' leg were ribboned as he tore clear. Then,catching Michael in mid-leap with a kick that reached him under thechest, he sent him flying through the air off the road and down theslope. As mischance would have it, Michael did not reach the ground.Crashing through a scrub manzanita bush, his body was caught and pinchedin an acute fork a yard above the ground.

  "Now," the man announced grimly to Harley, "I'm going to do what I said.I'm just going to kick your head clean off."

  "And I haven't done a thing to you," Harley parleyed. "I don't so muchmind being murdered, but I'd like to know what I'm being murdered for."

  "Chasing me for my life," the man snarled, as he advanced. "I know yourkind. You've all got it in for me, and I ain't got a chance except togive you yours. I'll take a whole lot of it out on you."

  Kennan was thoroughly aware of the gravity of his peril. Helplesshimself, a man-killing lunatic was about to kill him and to kill him mosthorribly. Michael, a prisoner in the bush, hanging head-downward in themanzanita from his loins squeezed in the fork, and struggling vainly,could not come to his defence.

  The man's first kick, aimed at Harley's face, he blocked with hisforearm; and, before the man could make a second kick, Jerry erupted onthe scene. Nor did he need encouragement or direction from hislove-master. He flashed at the man, sinking his teeth harmlessly intothe slack of the man's trousers at the waist-band above the hip, but byhis weight dragging him half down to the ground.

  And upon Jerry the man turned with an increase of madness. In truth allthe world was against him. The very landscape rained dogs upon him. Butfrom above, from the slopes of Sonoma Mountain, the cries and calls ofthe trailing poses caught his ear, and deflected his intention. Theywere the pursuing death, and it was from them he must escape. Withanother kick at Jerry, hurling him clear, he leaped astride thereporter's horse which had continued to stand, without movement orexcitement, in utter apathy, where he had dismounted from it.

  The horse went into a reluctant and stiff-legged gallop, while Jerryfollowed, snarling and growling wrath at so high a pitch that almost hesqualled.

  "It's all right, Michael," Harley soothed. "Take it easy. Don't hurtyourself. The trouble's over. Anybody'll happen along any time now andget us out of this fix."

  But the smaller branch of the two composing the fork broke, and Michaelfell to the ground, landing in momentary confusion on his head andshoulders. The next moment he was on his feet and tearing down the roadin the direction of Jerry's noisy pursuit. Jerry's noise broke in asharp cry of pain that added wings to Michael's feet. Michael passed himrolling helplessly on the road. What had happened was that the liveryhorse, in its stiff-jointed, broken-kneed gallop, had stumbled, nearlyfallen, and, in its sprawling recovery, had accidentally stepped onJerry, bruising and breaking his foreleg.

  And the man, looking back and seeing Michael close upon him, decided thatit was still another dog attacking him. But he had no fear of dogs. Itwas men, with their rifles and shotguns, that might bring him to ultimategrief.
Nevertheless, the pain of his bleeding legs, lacerated by Jerryand Michael, maintained his rage against dogs.

  "More dogs," was his bitter thought, as he leaned out and brought hiswhip down across Michael's face.

  To his surprise, the dog did not wince under the blow. Nor for thatmatter did he yelp or cry out from the pain. Nor did he bark or growl orsnarl. He closed in as though he had not received the blow, and asthough the whip was not brandished above him. As Michael leaped for hisright leg he swung the whip down, striking him squarely on the muzzlemidway between nose and eyes. Deflected by the blow, Michael droppedback to earth and ran on with his longest leaps to catch up and make hisnext spring.

  But the man had noticed another thing. At such close range, bringing hiswhip down, he could not help noting that Michael had kept his eyes openunder the blow. Neither had he winced nor blinked as the whip slasheddown on him. The thing was uncanny. It was something new in the way ofdogs. Michael sprang again, the man timed him again with the whip, andhe saw the uncanny thing repeated. By neither wince nor blink had thedog acknowledged the blow.

  And then an entirely new kind of fear came upon the man. Was this theend for him, after all he had gone through? Was this deadly silent,rough-coated terrier the thing destined to destroy him where men hadfailed? He did not even know that the dog was real. Might it not besome terrible avenger, out of the mystery beyond life, placed to besethim and finish him finally on this road that he was convinced was surelythe death-road? The dog was not real. It could not be real. The dogdid not live that could take a full-arm whip-slash without wince orflinch.

  Twice again, as the dog sprang, he deflected it with accurately deliveredblows. And the dog came on with the same surety and silence. The mansurrendered to his terror, clapping heels to his horse's old ribs,beating it over the head and under the belly with the whip until itgalloped as it had not galloped in years. Even on that apathetic steedthe terror descended. It was not terror of the dog, which it knew to beonly a dog, but terror of the rider. In the past its knees had beenbroken and its joints stiffened for ever, by drunken-mad riders who hadhired him from the stables. And here was another such drunken-madrider--for the horse sensed the man's terror--who ached his ribs with theweight of his heels and beat him cruelly over face and nose and ears.

  The best speed of the horse was not very great, not great enough to out-distance Michael, although it was fast enough to give the latter onlyinfrequent opportunities to spring for the man's leg. But each springwas met by the unvarying whip-blow that by its very weight deflected himin the air. Though his teeth each time clipped together perilously closeto the man's leg, each time he fell back to earth he had to gatherhimself together and run at his own top speed in order to overtake theterror-stricken man on the crazy-galloping horse.

  Enrico Piccolomini saw the chase and was himself in at the finish; andthe affair, his one great adventure in the world, gave him wealth as wellas material for conversation to the end of his days. Enrico Piccolominiwas a wood-chopper on the Kennan Ranch. On a rounded knoll, overlookingthe road, he had first heard the galloping hoofs of the horse and thecrack of the whip-blows on its body. Next, he had seen the runningbattle of the man, the horse, and the dog. When directly beneath him,not twenty feet distant, he saw the dog leap, in its queer silent way,straight up and in to the down-smash of the whip, and sink its teeth inthe rider's leg. He saw the dog, with its weight, as it fell back toearth, drag the man half out of the saddle. He saw the man, in an effortto recover his balance, put his own weight on the bridle-reins. And hesaw the horse, half-rearing, half-tottering and stumbling, overthrow thelast shred of the man's balance so that he followed the dog to theground.

  "And then they are like two dogs, like two beasts," Piccolomini was wontto tell in after-years over a glass of wine in his little hotel in GlenEllen. "The dog lets go the man's leg and jumps for the man's throat.And the man, rolling over, is at the dog's throat. Both his hands--so--hefastens about the throat of this dog. And the dog makes no sound. Henever makes sound, before or after. After the two hands of the man stophis breath he can not make sound. But he is not that kind of a dog. Hewill not make sound anyway. And the horse stands and looks on, and thehorse coughs. It is very strange all that I see.

  "And the man is mad. Only a madman will do what I see him do. I see theman show his teeth like any dog, and bite the dog on the paw, on thenose, on the body. And when he bites the dog on the nose, the dog biteshim on the check. And the man and the dog fight like hell, and the doggets his hind legs up like a cat. And like a cat he tears the man'sshirt away from his chest, and tears the skin of the chest with his clawstill it is all red with bleeding. And the man yow-yowls, and makesnoises like a wild mountain lion. And always he chokes the dog. It is ahell of a fight.

  "And the dog is Mister Kennan's dog, a fine man, and I have worked forhim two years. So I will not stand there and see Mister Kennan's dog allkilled to pieces by the man who fights like a mountain lion. I run downthe hill, but I am excited and forget my axe. I run down the hill, maybefrom this door to that door, twenty feet or maybe thirty feet. And it isnearly all finished for the dog. His tongue is a long ways out, and hiseyes like covered with cobwebs; but still he scratches the man's chestwith his hind-feet and the man yow-yowls like a hen of the mountains.

  "What can I do? I have forgotten the axe. The man will kill the dog. Ilook for a big rock. There are no rocks. I look for a club. I cannotfind a club. And the man is killing the dog. I tell you what I do. Iam no fool. I kick the man. My shoes are very heavy--not like shoes Iwear now. They are the shoes of the wood-chopper, very thick on the solewith hard leather, with many iron nails. I kick the man on the side ofthe face, on the neck, right under the ear. I kick once. It is a goodkick. It is enough. I know the place--right under the ear.

  "And the man lets go of the dog. He shuts his eyes, and opens his mouth,and lies very still. And the dog begins once more to breathe. And withthe breath comes the life, and right away he wants to kill the man. ButI say 'No,' though I am very much afraid of the dog. And the man beginsto become alive. He opens his eyes and he looks at me like a mountainlion. And his mouth makes a noise like a mountain lion. And I am afraidof him like I am afraid of the dog. What am I to do? I have forgottenthe axe. I tell you what I do. I kick the man once again under the ear.Then I take my belt, and my bandana handkerchief, and I tie him. I tiehis hands. I tie his legs, too. And all the time I am saying 'No,' tothe dog, and that he must leave the man alone. And the dog looks. Heknows I am his friend and am tying the man. And he does not bite me,though I am very much afraid. The dog is a terrible dog. Do I not know?Have I not seen him take a strong man out of the saddle?--a man that islike a mountain lion?

  "And then the men come. They all have guns-rifles, shotguns, revolvers,pistols. And I think, first, that justice is very quick in the UnitedStates. Only just now have I kicked a man in the head, and,one-two-three, just like that, men come with guns to take me to jail forkicking a man in the head. At first I do not understand. The many menare angry with me. They call me names, and say bad things; but they donot arrest me. Ah! I begin to understand! I hear them talk about threethousand dollars. I have robbed them of three thousand dollars. It isnot true. I say so. I say never have I robbed a man of one cent. Thenthey laugh. And I feel better and I understand better. The threethousand dollars is the reward of the Government for this man I have tiedup with my belt and my bandana. And the three thousand dollars is minebecause I kicked the man in the head and tied his hands and his feet.

  "So I do not work for Mister Kennan any more. I am a rich man. Threethousand dollars, all mine, from the Government, and Mister Kennan seesthat it is paid to me by the Government and not robbed from me by the menwith the guns. Just because I kicked the man in the head who was like amountain lion! It is fortune. It is America. And I am glad that I haveleft Italy and come to chop wood on Mister Kennan's ranch. And I st
artthis hotel in Glen Ellen with the three thousand dollars. I know thereis large money in the hotel business. When I was a little boy, did notmy father have a hotel in Napoli? I have now two daughters in highschool. Also I own an automobile."

  * * * * *

  "Mercy me, the whole ranch is a hospital!" cried Villa Kennan, two dayslater, as she came out on the broad sleeping-porch and regarded Harleyand Jerry stretched out, the one with his leg in splints, the other withhis leg in a plaster cast. "Look at Michael," she continued. "You'renot the only ones with broken bones. I've only just discovered that ifhis nose isn't broken, it ought to be, from the blow he must havereceived on it. I've had hot compresses on it for the last hour. Lookat it!"

  Michael, who had followed in at her invitation, betrayed a ridiculouslyswollen nose as he sniffed noses with Jerry, wagged his bobtail to Harleyin greeting, and was greeted in turn with a blissful hand laid on hishead.

  "Must have got it in the fight," Harley said. "The fellow struck himwith the whip many times, so Piccolomini says, and, naturally, it wouldbe right across the nose when he jumped for him."

  "And Piccolomini says he never cried out when he was struck, but went onrunning and jumping," Villa took up enthusiastically. "Think of it! Adog no bigger than Michael dragging out of the saddle a man-killingoutlaw whom scores of officers could not catch!"

  "So far as we are concerned, he did better than that," Harley commentedquietly. "If it hadn't been for Michael, and for Jerry, too--if ithadn't been for the pair of them, I do verily believe that that lunaticwould have kicked my head off as he promised."

  "The blessed pair of them!" Villa cried, with shining eyes, as her handflashed out to her husband's in a quick press of heart-thankfulness. "Thelast word has not been said upon the wonder of dogs," she added, as, witha quick winking of her eyelashes to overcome the impending moistness, shecontrolled her emotion.

  "The last word of the wonder of dogs will never be said," Harley spoke,returning the pressure of her hand and releasing it in order to help her.

  "And just for that were going to say something right now," she smiled."Jerry, and Michael, and I. We've been practising it in secret for asurprise for you. You just lie there and listen. It's the Doxology.Don't Laugh. No pun intended."

  She bent forward from the stool on which she sat, and drew Michael to herso that he sat between her knees, her two hands holding his head andjowls, his nose half-buried in her hair.

  "Now Jerry!" she called sharply, as a singing teacher might call, so thatJerry turned his head in attention, looked at her, smiled understandingwith his eyes, and waited.

  It was Villa who started and pitched the Doxology, but quickly the twodogs joined with their own soft, mellow howling, if howling it may becalled when it was so soft and mellow and true. And all that hadvanished into the Nothingness was in the minds of the two dogs as theysang, and they sang back through the Nothingness to the land ofOtherwhere, and ran once again with the Lost Pack, and yet were notentirely unaware of the present and of the indubitable two-legged god whowas called Villa and who sang with them and loved them.

  "No reason we shouldn't make a quartette of it," remarked Harley Kennan,as with his own voice he joined in.