The Fight in the Woods
I did not engage any one to fill Jake's place, for I felt that no man
really could fill it. In any case, with the approach of the wet,
wintry weather, the work at Golden Crescent diminished. I did not have
the continuous supplies to make ready for the Camps, such as they
demanded in the summer months. When they called, they generally took
away enough to last them over several weeks. Again, Jake had cut, sawn
and stacked all my winter supply of firewood long before he took sick.
Taking all these things into consideration, I decided I would go
through the winter, at least, without fresh help.
Mary Grant and Mrs. Malmsbury still remained at the cottage over the
way.
Often I asked Mary,--almost in dread,--if she were going away during
the stormier months, but she always said she had not made any
arrangements so far.
Not once, but many times, I tried to break through the reserve which
she had hedged round herself ever since our evening in the lagoon after
our first fishing experience when we had drawn so near in sympathy to
each other. I felt afraid lest I should forget myself some time and
tell her all that was in my heart craving to be told, for something
kept whispering to me that, if I did, I might lose her altogether.
Rita's lessons went on apace. Twice a week she came over in the
evenings for instruction. She was quickly nearing the point where I
would be of no further service, for I had imparted to her almost all I
was capable of imparting in the way of actual grammar.
I hoped to be able to complete her course before Christmas came round.
Then it would be merely a question of selection of reading matter.
Rita's manner of speaking had undergone a wonderful change. There were
no slangy expressions now; no "ain'ts" or "I guess"; no plural nouns
with singular verbs; no past participles for the past tense; no split
infinitives. To all intents and purposes, Rita Clark had taken a
course of instruction at a good grammar school.
And what a difference it made in her, generally! Even her dress and
her deportment seemed to have changed with her new manner of speaking.
It is always so. The forward progress in any one direction means
forward progress in almost every other.
Rita was a sweet, though still impetuous, little maiden that any
cultured man might have been proud to have for a wife.
One rainy night, she and I were sitting by the stove in my front room.
I was in an easy chair, with a book in my hand, while Rita was sitting
in front of me on a small, carpet-covered stool, leaning sideways
against my legs and supposedly doing some paraphrasing. A movement on
her part caused me to glance at her.
She had turned and was staring toward the window and her eyes were
growing larger and larger every moment. Her face grew pale, while her
lips parted and an expression, akin to fear, began to creep into her
eyes.
I turned my head hurriedly to the window, but all was dark over there
and the rain was pattering and splashing against the glass.
Still, Rita sat staring, although the look of fear had gone.
I laid my hand on her shoulder.
"Rita, Rita!--what in the world is wrong?"
"Oh, George,--I,--I saw Joe's face at the window. I never saw him look
so angry before," she whispered nervously.
I laughed.
"Why!--you foolish little woman, I looked over there almost as soon as
you did, but I saw no one."
"But he was there, I tell you," she repeated.
I rose to go to the door.
"No, no!" she cried. "Don't go."
But I went, nevertheless, throwing the door wide open and getting a
gust of wind and rain in my face as I peered out into the night.
I closed the door again and came back to Rita.
"Why! silly little girl, you must have dreamed it. There is no one
there."
I tapped her on the cheek.
"I did not know Rita Clark was nervous," I bandied.
She looked dreamily into the fire for a while, then she turned round to
me and laid her cheek against my knee.
"George!--Joe's been coming home more and more of late. He's been lots
nicer to me than he used to be. He brought me a gold brooch with
pearls in it, from Vancouver, to-day."
"Good for him!" I remarked.
"It was a lovely brooch," she went on. "I put it in my dress, it
looked so pretty. Then Joe asked me to go with him along the beach.
Said he wanted to talk to me. I went with him, and he asked me if I
would marry him.
"Marry him, mind you!--and I have known him all my life.
"He said he didn't know he loved me till just a little while ago. Said
it was all a yarn about the other girls he met.
"He was quiet, and soft as could be. I never saw Joe just the way he
was to-day. But I don't feel to Joe as I used to. He has sort of
killed the liking I once had for him.
"I got angry about the brooch then. I took it off and handed it back
to him.
"'Here's your brooch, Joe,' I said. 'I didn't know you gave it to me
just to make me marry you. I don't love you, Joe, and I won't marry a
man I don't love. You mustn't ask me again. You get somebody else.'
"Big Joe was just like a baby. His face turned white.
"'You're in love with Bremner,' he said, catching me by the wrist. I
drew myself away.
"'I'm not,' I said. 'I like him better than I like any other man,--you
included,--but I don't love him any more than he loves me.'"
Rita looked up at me and her eyes filled with tears.
"'Ain't Bremner in love with you?' Joe asked.
"'No!' I said.
"Then Joe got terribly mad.
"'By God in Heaven!' he cried, 'I'll kill that son-of-a-gun, if I hang
for it!'
"He meant you, George. He went off into the wood, leaving me standing
like a silly.
"Say! George,--the way Joe said that, makes me afraid that some day he
will kill you."
"Don't you worry your little head about that, Rita," I said.
"Oh!--that's all very well,--but Joe Clark's a big man. He's the
strongest man on the coast. He's always in some mix-up and he always
comes out on top. And I'm more afraid for you, because you are not
afraid of him."
I rowed Rita across home that evening in order to reassure her, and, on
our journey, neither sound nor sign did we experience of Joe Clark.
When the time came again for her next lesson, Rita seemed to have
forgotten her former fears.
I had fixed up a blind over the window and had drawn it down, so that
no more imaginary peering faces would disturb the harmony of our lesson
and our conversation.
How long we sat there by the stove, I could not say; but Rita was soft,
and gentle, and tender that night,--sweet, suppliant and loving. She
was all woman.
When our lesson was over, she sat at my feet as usual. She crossed her
fingers over my knee and rested her cheek there, with a sigh of
contentment.
I stroked her hair and passed my fingers through the long strands of
its black, glossy darkness, and I watched the pretty curves of her red,
sensitive lips.
"Rita! Rita!" I questioned in my heart, as her big eyes searched mine,
"I wonder, little maid, what this big world has in store for you? God
grant that it be nothing but good."
I bent down and kissed her once,--twice,--on those soft and yielding
upturned lips.
With terrifying suddenness, something crashed against my front window
and broken glass clattered on the floor.
A great hand and arm shot through the opening and tore my window blind
in strips from its roller. And then the hand and arm were withdrawn.
In the visual illusion caused by the strong light inside and the deep
darkness without, we saw nothing but that great hand and arm.
I sprang up and rushed to the door, followed by Rita.
There was no sign of any one about. I ran round the house, and scanned
the bushes; I went down on to the beach, then across the bridge over
the creek, but I failed to detect the presence of any man.
I came back to Rita to ease her mind, and found her anxious yet
wonderfully calm.
"George!--you need not tell me,--it was Joe. I know his hand and arm
when I see them. He is up to something.
"Oh! You must be careful. Promise me you will be careful?"
I gave her my word, then I set her in her boat for home, asking her to
wait for a moment until I should return.
Before setting her out on her journey, I wished to make perfectly sure
that there was no one about. I again crossed the creek, past Mary's
house, which was in complete darkness, and down on to her beach.
There, hiding in the shelter of the rocks, was a launch, moored to one
of the rings which Jake had set in at convenient places just for the
purpose it was now being used.
I ran out and examined it. It was Joe Clark's.
So!--I thought,--he is still on this side.
I returned to Rita, wished her good-night and pushed her out on the
water.
I came leisurely up the beach, keeping my eyes well skinned. But,
after a bit, I began to laugh, chiding myself for my childish
precautions.
I went into the kitchen, took an empty bucket in each hand and set out
along the back path for a fresh supply of water for my morning
requirements, to the stream, fifty yards in the wood, where I had
hollowed out a well and boarded it over.
It was dark, gloomy and ghostly in the woods there, for the moon was
stealing fitfully under the clouds and through the tall firs, throwing
strange shadows about.
I had almost reached the well, when I heard a crackling of dead wood to
my right.
A huge, agile-looking figure pushed its way through, and Joe Clark
stood before me, blocking my path.
He held two, roughly cut clubs, one in each hand. His sleeves were
rolled up over his tremendous arms; his shirt was open at the neck,
displaying, even in the uncertain moonlight, a great, hairy, massive
chest over which muscles and sinews crawled.
I scanned his face. His jaw was set, his lips were a thin line, his
eyes were gleaming savagely and a mane of fair hair was falling in a
clump over his brow. He looked dishevelled and was evidently labouring
under badly suppressed excitement.
"Where's Rita?" he growled.
I put my buckets aside and took my pipe from between my teeth.
"Half-way home by this time, I hope," I said.
"She is,--eh!" he cut in sarcastically. "Guess so! Look here,
Bremner,--what'n the hell's your game with Rita, anyway?"
I went straight up to him.
I did not want to quarrel. Not that I was afraid of him, even knowing,
as I did, that I would be likely to get much the worse of any possible
encounter;--but, for Rita's sake, I preferred peace.
"My good fellow," I said, "why in heaven's name can't you talk sense?
I have no game, as you call it, with Rita.
"If you would only play straight with her, you might get her yourself.
But I'll tell you this,--skulking around other people's property, after
the skirts of a woman, never yet brought a man anything but rebuffs."
"Aw!--cut out your damned yapping, Bremner," he yelled furiously. "Who
the hell wants any of your jaw? Play straight the devil! You're some
yellow cuss to talk to anybody about playin' straight."
It was all I could do to keep my temper in check.
"What d'ye bring her over to your place at night for, if you're playin'
straight?" he continued.
"To teach her grammar;--that's all," I exclaimed.
"Grammar be damned," he thundered. "What d'ye put up blinds for if
you're playin' straight?"
"To keep skulkers from seeing how respectable people spend their
evenings," I shot at him.
"You're a confounded liar," he yelled, beside himself. "I know what
you're up to, with your oily tongue and your Jim Dandy style.
"Rita was mine before you ever set your damned dial in Golden Crescent.
She'd 've been mine for keeps by this time, but you got her goin'. Now
you're usin' her to pass the time, keepin' men who want to from
marryin' her."
With a black madness inside me, I sprang in on him. He stepped aside.
"No, you don't!" he cried. "Take that."
He threw one of his clubs at my feet.
"Fists ain't no good this trip, Mister Man. I was goin' to kill you,
but I thought maybe it'd look better if we fight and let the best man
win."
I stood undecided, looking first at this great mountain of infuriated
humanity and then at the club he had tossed to me;--while around us
were the great trees, the streams of ghostly moonlight and the looming
blacknesses.
"Come on!--damn you for a yellow-gut. Take that up before I open your
skull with this."
He prodded me full in the chest with the end of his weapon. I needed
no second bidding. Evidently, it was he or I for it.
In fact, since the moment we first met at Golden Crescent that had been
the issue with which I had always been confronted. Joe Clark or George
Bremner!--one of us had to go down under the heel of the other.
I grabbed up the club and stood on guard for the terrific onslaught Joe
immediately made on me.
He threw his arm in the air and came in on me like a mad buffalo. Had
the blow he aimed ever fallen with all its original force, these lines
never would have been written; but its strength was partly shorn by the
club coming in contact with the overhanging branch of a tree.
I parried that blow, but still it beat down my guard and the club
grazed my head.
I gave ground before Clark, as I tried to find an opening. I soon
discovered, however, that this was not a fight where one could wait for
openings. Openings had to be made, and made quickly. I threw caution
to the winds. I drew myself together and rushed at him as he had
rushed at me. His blow slanted off my left shoulder, numbing my arm to
the finger-tips. Mine got home on a more vital place: it caught him
sheer on the top of the head.
I thought, for sure, I had smashed his skull. But no such luck; Joe
Clark's bones were too stoutly made and knit.
He gasped and staggered back against a tree for a second, looking dazed
as he wiped a flow of blood from his face.
"For God's sake, man," I shouted, "let us quit this."
He laughed derisively.
"The hell you say! Quit,--nothin'; not till one of us quits for keeps."
He rallied and came at me once more, but with greater wariness than
previously. He poked at me and jabbed at me. I warded him off,
keeping on the move all the time. He swung sideways on me, but I
parried easily; then, with a fierce oath, he caught his club with both
hands, raised it high in the air and brought it down with all his
sledge-hammer strength.
This time, I was ready for Joe Clark. I was strong. Oh!--I knew just
how strong I was, and I gloried in my possession.
I had a firmer grip of my cudgel than before. There was going to be no
breaking through as he had done last time; not if George Bremner's
right arm was as good as he thought it was.
I met that terrific crash at the place I knew would tell. With the
crack of a gun-shot, his club shivered into a dozen splinters against
mine, leaving him with nothing but a few inches of wood in his torn
hands.
He stood irresolute.
"Will you quit now?" I cried.
But he was game. "Not on your life," he shouted back. "We ain't
started yet. Try your damnedest."
He tossed aside the remainder of his club and jumped at me with his
great hands groping. I stepped back and threw my stick deliberately
far into the forest, then I stopped and met him with his own weapons.
After all, I was now on a more equal footing with him than I had been
when both of us were armed.
We clinched, and locked together. We turned, and twisted, and
struggled. He had the advantage over me in weight and sheer brute
strength, but I had him shaded when it came to knowing how to use the
strength I possessed.
We smashed at each other with our fists wherever and whenever we found
an opening. Our clothes were soon in ribbons. Blood spurted from us
as it would from stuck pigs.
Gasping for breath with roaring sounds,--choking,--half-blind, we
staggered and swayed, smashing into trees and over bushes.
At last I missed my footing and stumbled over a protruding log, falling
backward. Still riveted together,--Joe Clark came with me. The back
of my head struck, with a sickening crash, into a tree and I knew no
more.
When consciousness came back to me, I groaned for a return of the
blessed sleep from which I had awakened, for every inch of my poor body
was a racking agony.
A thousand noises drummed, and thumped, and roared in my head and the
weight of the entire universe seemed to be lying across my chest.
I struggled weakly to free myself, and, as I recollected gradually what
had happened to me, I put out my hands. They came in contact with
something cold and clammy.
It was the bloody face of Joe Clark, who was lying on top of me.
I wriggled and struggled with the cumbersome burden that had been
strangling the flickering life in me. Every effort, every turn was a
new pain, but all my hope was in getting free.
At last, I got from under him and staggered to my knees. I was a very
babe for weakness then. I clutched at the tree-trunk for support and
raised myself to my feet. I looked down on the pale face of Joe Clark,
as he lay there, the moon on his face disclosing a great open gash on
his forehead.
Evidently, he had struck the tree, face on, with the same impact as I
had done backward.
"Oh, God!" I groaned. "He is dead, ... Joe Clark is..."
Then the blissful mists and darknesses came over me again and I
crumpled to the earth.