The Abysmal Brute, Jack London [readnow .TXT] 📗
- Author: Jack London
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“‘What’s become of Waring?’” she murmured.
“‘Land travel or sea-faring?’” he murmured back.
And to her this kindred sufficient note was a vindication of her madness.
At the entrance of the building he raised his hand to call a taxi, but was stopped by her touch on his arm.
“Where are we going?” she breathed.
“To the Ferry. We’ve just time to catch that Sacramento train.”
“But I can’t go this way,” she protested. “I… I haven’t even a change of handkerchiefs.”
He held up his hand again before replying.
“You can shop in Sacramento. We’ll get married there and catch the night overland north. I’ll arrange everything by telegraph from the train.”
As the cab drew to the curb, she looked quickly about her at the familiar street and the familiar throng, then, with almost a flurry of alarm, into Glendon’s face.
“I don’t know a thing about you,” she said.
“We know everything about each other,” was his answer.
She felt the support and urge of his arms, and lifted her foot to the step. The next moment the door had closed, he was beside her, and the cab was heading down Market Street. He passed his arm around her, drew her close, and kissed her. When next she glimpsed his face she was certain that it was dyed with a faint blush.
“I… I’ve heard there was an art in kissing,” he stammered. “I don’t know anything about it myself, but I’ll learn. You see, you’re the first woman I ever kissed.”
Where a jagged peak of rock thrust above the vast virgin forest, reclined a man and a woman. Beneath them, on the edge of the trees, were tethered two horses. Behind each saddle were a pair of small saddle-bags. The trees were monotonously huge. Towering hundreds of feet into the air, they ran from eight to ten and twelve feet in diameter. Many were much larger. All morning they had toiled up the divide through this unbroken forest, and this peak of rock had been the first spot where they could get out of the forest in order to see the forest.
Beneath them and away, far as they could see, lay range upon range of haze empurpled mountains. There was no end to these ranges. They rose only behind another to the dim, distant skyline, where they faded away with a vague promise of unending extension beyond. There were no clearings in the forest; north, south, east, and west, untouched, unbroken, it covered the land with its mighty growth.
They lay, feasting their eyes on the sight, her hand clasped in one of his; for this was their honeymoon, and these were the redwoods of Mendocino. Across from Shasta they had come, with horses and saddle-bags, and down through the wilds of the coast counties, and they had no plan except to continue until some other plan entered their heads. They were roughly dressed, she in travel-stained khaki, he in overalls and woolen shirt. The latter was open at the sunburned neck, and in his hugeness he seemed a fit dweller among the forest giants, while for her, as a dweller with him, there were no signs of aught else but happiness.
“Well, Big Man,” she said, propping herself up on an elbow to gaze at him, “it is more wonderful than you promised. And we are going through it together.”
“And there ‘s a lot of the rest of the world we’ll go through together,” he answered, shifting his position so as to get her hand in both of his.
“But not till we’ve finished with this,” she urged. “I seem never to grow tired of the big woods… and of you.”
He slid effortlessly into a sitting posture and gathered her into his arms.
“Oh, you lover,” she whispered. “And I had given up hope of finding such a one.”
“And I never hoped at all. I must just have known all the time that I was going to find you. Glad?”
Her answer was a soft pressure where her hand rested on his neck, and for long minutes they looked out over the great woods and dreamed.
“You remember I told you how I ran away from the red-haired school teacher? That was the first time I saw this country. I was on foot, but forty or fifty miles a day was play for me. I was a regular Indian. I wasn’t thinking about you then. Game was pretty scarce in the redwoods, but there was plenty of fine trout. That was when I camped on these rocks. I didn’t dream that some day I’d be back with you, YOU.”
“And be champion of the ring, too,” he suggested.
“No; I didn’t think about that at all. Dad had always told me I was going to be, and I took it for granted. You see, he was very wise. He was a great man.”
“But he didn’t see you leaving the ring.”
“I don’t know. He was so careful in hiding its crookedness from me, that I think he feared it. I’ve told you about the contract with Stubener. Dad put in that clause about crookedness. The first crooked thing my manager did was to break the contract.”
“And yet you are going to fight this Tom Cannam. Is it worth while?”
He looked at her quickly.
“Don’t you want me to?”
“Dear lover, I want you to do whatever you want.”
So she said, and to herself, her words still ringing in her ears, she marveled that she, not least among the stubbonly independent of the breed of Sangster, should utter them. Yet she knew they were true, and she was glad.
“It will be fun,” he said.
“But I don’t understand all the gleeful details.”
“I haven’t worked them out yet. You might help me. In the first place I’m going to double-cross Stubener and the betting syndicate. It will be part of the joke. I am going to put Cannam out in the first round. For the first time I shall be really angry when I fight. Poor Tom Cannam, who’s as crooked as the rest, will be the chief sacrifice. You see, I intend to make a speech in the ring. It’s unusual, but it will be a success, for I am going to tell the audience all the inside workings of the game. It’s a good game, too, but they’re running it on business principles, and that’s what spoils it. But there, I’m giving the speech to you instead of at the ring.”
“I wish I could be there to hear,” she said.
He looked at her and debated.
“I’d like to have you. But it’s sure to be a rough time. There is no telling what may happen when I start my program. But I’ll come straight to you as soon as it’s over. And it will be the last appearnce of Young Glendon in the ring, in any ring.”
“But, dear, you’ve never made a speech in your life,” she objected. “You might fail.”
He shook his head positively.
“I’m Irish,” he announced, “and what Irishman was there who couldn’t speak?” He paused to laugh merrily. “Stubener thinks I’m crazy. Says a man can’t train on matrimony. A lot he knows about matrimony, or me, or you, or anything except real estate and fixed fights. But I’ll show him that night, and poor Tom, too. I really feel sorry for Tom.”
“My dear abysmal brute is going to behave most abysmally and brutally, I fear,” she murmured.
He laughed.
“I’m going to make a noble attempt at it. Positively my last appearance, you know. And then it will be you, YOU. But if you don’t want that last appearance, say the word.”
“Of course I want it, Big Man. I want my Big Man for himself, and to be himself he must be himself. If you want this, I want it for you, and for myself, too. Suppose I said I wanted to go on the stage, or to the South Seas or the North Pole?”
He answered slowly, almost solemnly.
“Then I’d say go ahead. Because you are you and must be yourself and do whatever you want. I love you because you are you.”
“And we’re both a silly pair of lovers,” she said, when his embrace had relaxed.
“Isn’t it great!” he cried.
He stood up, measured the sun with his eye, and extended his hand out over the big woods that covered the serried, purple ranges.
“We’ve got to sleep out there somewhere. It’s thirty miles to the nearest camp.”
Who, of all the sports present, will ever forget the memorable night at the Golden Gate Arena, when Young Glendon put Tom Cannam to sleep and an even greater one than Tom Cannam, kept the great audience on the ragged edge of riot for an hour, caused the subsequent graft investigation of the supervisors and the indictments of the contractors and the building commisioners, and pretty generally disrupted the whole fight game. It was a complete surprise. Nor even Stubener had the slightest apprehension of what was coming. It was true that his man had been insubordinate after the Nat Powers affair, and had run off and got married; but all that was over. Young Pat had done the expected, swallowed the inevitable crookedness of the ring, and come back into it again.
The Golden Gate Arena was new. This was its first fight, and it was the biggest building of the kind San Francisco had ever erected. It seated twenty-five thousand, and every seat was occupied. Sports had traveled from all the world to be present, and they had paid fifty dollars for their ringside seats. The cheapest seat in the house had sold for five dollars.
The old familiar roar of applause went up when Billy Morgan, the veteran announcer, climbed through the ropes and bared his gray head. As he opened his mouth to speak, a heavy crash came from a near section where several tiers of low seats had collapsed. The crowd broke into loud laughter and shouted jocular regrets and advice to the victims, none of whom had been hurt. The crash of the seats and the hilarious uproar caused the captain of police in charge to look at one of his lieutenants and lift his eyebrows in token that they would have their hands full and a lively night.
One by one, welcomed by uproarious applause, seven doughty old ring heroes climbed through the ropes to be introduced. They were all ex-heavy-weight champions of the world. Billy Morgan accompanied each presentation to the audience with an appropriate phrase. One was hailed as “Honest John” and “Old Reliable,” another was “the squarest two-fisted fighter the ring ever saw.” And others: “the hero of a hundred battles and never threw one and never lay down”; “the gamest of the old guard”; “the only one who ever came back”; “the greatest warrior of them all”; and “the hardest nut in the ring to crack.”
All this took time. A speech was insisted from each one of them, and they mumbled and muttered in reply with proud blushes and awkward shamblings. The longest speech was from “Old Reliable” and lasted nearly a minute. Then they had to be photographed. The
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