THE HEAVIEST HITTER
Akerley lay awake for hours on a blanket spread on a mattress of
innumerable springs—a ton or more of last year’s timothy, bluejoint
and clover. He had air enough, though it was still and warm; for one
of the wide doors stood open and the fingers could be thrust
anywhere between the horizontal poles of which the sides and ends of
the barn were constructed. Only the roof was weather-tight.
His thoughts kept him awake; and yet he let them deal only with the
immediate past and the immediate to-morrow. He did not think
backward or forward beyond this forest-farm. What was the use of
brooding over the past or dreaming of the future? After much
reflection, he decided on the character in which he was to emerge
from the woods into the clearing and encounter that formidable old
Gaspard Javet. He would come as a backwoodsman from the upper waters
of the main river, two hundred miles or more away to the west and
south, looking for new land and seclusion. He had known that country
well, years ago. This was a part that he could act with a degree of
interest and realism; and he would explain it to the old man—sooner
or later, as circumstances determined—that the game-wardens of his
old stamping-grounds wanted him in connection with a little matter
of spearing salmon at night by the light of a torch. The confession
of a crime against the Game Laws was not likely to prejudice the old
woodsman against him; and this was a particularly mild offense. He
knew enough of back-countrymen to believe that his story would
excite Gaspard’s sympathy—if Gaspard were true to type.
He worked out his part carefully, giving all his thought to it until
he considered it to be as nearly perfect as was possible to bring it
before the actual performance. He saw that certain details of
character and action would have to be left until the illumination of
the psychological moment. As the thing had to be done, it must be
well done—with all his brain, all his will and all his skill. If
not, then it was not worth attempting. This was the spirit in which
he had set his hand and mind to every task, congenial or otherwise,
in the lost past. Success had been won by him again and again in
this spirit; and though the task before him was but a play, a game,
the stakes for which he was to play were serious enough to give it
the dignity of a great adventure. The stakes were honor and freedom.
Still he did not sleep. Invention seemed to have agitated his mind.
He continued to keep his thoughts within the former limits of time,
but he could not soothe them to rest. They made pictures for him of
every one of his waking hours since his first awaking among the
young oats in the gray dawn. He heard mice rustling in the hay and
scampering on the rafters. At last he slept. He awoke sharply at the
first hint of dawn. He continued to lie still for a little while,
recalling the details of his plan of action for the new day. Then he
donned the ancient and rustic garments which Catherine had brought
him and hid his own shirt and breeches. His high, moccasin-toed
boots were in part with his new character. He hid his wrist-watch
and identification disc, then took up his bundle and left the barn.
He made his way swiftly and cautiously to the nearest point of woods
and, behind a screen of saplings, to the road. He followed this road
toward Boiling Pot for several miles through the awakening forest.
Here and there, in swampy hollows, he encountered mud-holes and
intentionally stepped into them. By the time he sat down on an old
stump and lit his pipe he looked as if he had come a long and rough
journey.
He had not been seated more than ten minutes when his reveries were
disturbed by the appearance of a large young man with an axe on his
shoulder and a pack on his back. The stranger came into view
suddenly and close at hand, around a bend in the track from the
direction of Boiling Pot.
He halted abruptly at sight of Akerley.
“Good day,” said Akerley, coolly.
“Where’d you come from?” exclaimed the other.
“I’m a stranger in these parts,” returned Akerley; “and what I want
to know is, where’ve I got to?”
“Into the woods, that’s where. But you know where you come from,
don’t you? You ain’t just been born right here, I reckon.”
“Maybe I was.”
“Say, you know where you’re headin’ for, don’t you?”
“Sure thing. I’m heading for somewhere north of here on this track.”
“Well, it’s got a name, ain’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
“T’ell you say! Where do you cal’late to fetch up at?”
“Somewhere quite a way north of this—if I don’t have to spend all
day answering questions.”
“Looka here, friend, you don’t want to git too cussed sassy.”
“Friend nothing! I choose my friends.”
“Say, d’you reckon you’re talkin’ to me?”
“That’s what I am dead sure of. It’s you I am talking to; and unless
you change your line of conversation for the better pretty quick
I’ll quit talking.”
The big young man in the road flung down his ax and pack, uttered a
string of blistering language and spat on the palms of his hands.
“What’s the idea?” queried Akerley, still smoking his pipe, still
hunched forward with his elbows on his knees.
The other raised and flipped his feet about as if in the opening
steps of a popular rustic dance, and at the same time began to chant
in sing-song tones of a marked nasal quality.
“Stan’ up an’ take yer medicine, ye pore skunk,” he chanted. “Git up
onto yer hind legs so’s I kin knock ye off’n ’em again, ye
slab-sided mistake. Git onto yer splayed feet, or I’ll sure lam ye
in the lantern right where ye set.”
“I don’t know if you want to dance or fight,” said Akerley, calmly
but clearly, “but I’ll tell you this—I don’t feel like dancing. And
I warn you not to start anything else, for I am a smart man with my
hands.”
“Git up,” sang the other, continuing to jink about on his booted
feet without shifting his ground. “Git up so’s I kin swing onto ye.
Stan’ up on yer feet, dad blast ye, or git down onto yer
prayer-handles an’ say ye’re bested already—for I’m Ned Tone, the
heaviest hitter in Injun River.”
“So be it—but never say that I didn’t warn you,” replied Akerley,
laying aside his pipe.
Then he complied with Ned Tone’s reiterated request with speed and
violence suggestive of the releasing of tempered springs within him.
His feet touched the ground in the same instant of time that his
right fist touched the cheek of the heaviest hitter on Injun River.
That was a glancing blow. Ned Tone turned completely around in his
tracks, but he did not fall. He staggered and lurched. He recovered
his balance quickly and plunged at his antagonist. He spat blood as
he plunged, for his cheek had been cut against his teeth. He flailed
a murderous blow—but it returned harmlessly to him through the
non-resistant air. He jumped again, quick as thought, with a jab and
a hook.
Akerley employed all his skill of defense, for he realized in a
moment that the big bushwhacker was a practical fighter and that he
possessed agility as well as weight. In height and reach there was
little to choose between them—but that little was in favor of the
woodsman. Akerley’s left shoulder was still tender; and when he
caught a swing on it like the kick of a mule he gasped with pain and
realized that now was the time for him to do all that he knew how
for all that he was worth. His left was useless for offense, but he
managed to keep it up so that it looked dangerous. After a little
more clever foot-work, which seemed to bewilder and madden the
heaviest hitter on Indian River, he stepped close in and did his
very best at the very top of his speed.
Akerley was glad to sit down and press his hands to his head. He
felt dizzy and slightly sick with the pain in his shoulder and neck.
The dizziness and nausea passed almost instantly; but he continued
to sit limp and gaze contemplatively at the sprawled bulk of the
heavy hitter.
Ned Tone lay flat on the moss of that woodland road. For a few
minutes he lay face-down; then he turned slowly over onto his broad
back, with grunts of pain. He opened one eye slowly, only to close
it immediately.
“Feeling bad?” asked Akerley, drily.
“Kinder that way,” replied Tone, thickly.
“As if you’d had enough, perhaps?”
“Too durned much.”
“You’ll be right as you ever were in a little while, so cheer up. I
didn’t hit you hard.”
“Ye hit me hard enough, I guess—but I ain’t complainin’.”
“You remember that I warned you.”
“Sure thing. I ain’t complainin’ none. Leave me be, can’t ye?”
“I’m talking for your good, just as it was for your own good that I
hammered your ugly mug.”
“Sure. I feel real good.”
Akerley laughed, then took his frying-pan in hand and went along to
a green, alder-grown dip in the road. There he found water, and
after drinking deep and bathing his face, neck and wrists, he filled
the pan and returned to the heavy hitter. Tone drank what he could
of that panful and asked that the rest be poured over his damaged
face. Akerley humored him in this; after which Tone sat up groggily.
“Ready to start?” asked Akerley.
“Start nothin’!” retorted Tone, in a voice of bitter disgust. “I
ain’t goin’ back nor forrards till my grub gives out or my face
mends. I’m makin’ camp right here. I ain’t fit to show myself at
Javet’s place nor yet back home.”
“Javet’s place? Who’s Javet?”
“Gaspard Javet. He’s an old codger got a farm back here in the
woods.”
“Is it far from here?”
“Ol’ Gaspard’s farm? Seven or eight mile to the west of this. Ye
turn off jist round that bend. Ye can’t miss the track.”
“Thanks. And where does this road go to?”
“Straight north to nowhere. Maybe ye’d find an old camp if ye went
far enough.”
“Javet’s place for me,” said Akerley, turning and moving away.
“Watch out on yer left,” Ned Tone called after him. “The road to
Gaspard’s clearin’s turns off jist past the next bend.”
The unexpected encounter with the heavy hitter had delayed the
intruder’s plan by nearly an hour, so now he stepped forward
briskly. But he did not feel very brisk. The mill with the big
woodsman had been a more strenuous before-breakfast job than he
liked or was accustomed to; and now his shoulder and neck felt even
worse than when he had first opened his eyes in the young oats in
the gray dawn. He decided to blame the imaginary accident in the
rapids below Boiling Pot for the crippled condition of his left
shoulder.
When he issued from the green shade of the forest into the wide
light of Gaspard’s clearings he saw that the front door of the house
stood open and smoke trailed straight up into the sunshine from the
gray chimney. He moved slowly but unfalteringly toward the house.
He had not gone far before Catherine appeared in the doorway, only
to vanish instantly. Then old Gaspard Javet appeared, with the rifle
in the crook of his right arm. The devil-hunter stepped across the
threshold and stood with a hand raised to shade his eyes.
Akerley thought of the extracted cordite and smiled. He was more
than half-way to the house before the old man broke his dramatic
attitude in front of the door and moved forward with the obtrusive
rifle at the port.
“What are you doing with that gun?” cried Akerley, halting. “Do you
take me for a moose? What’s the matter with you, anyhow?”
Old Gaspard Javet continued to advance with long and even strides.
He came to a standstill within three paces of the intruder and
regarded him searchingly for several seconds. The young man returned
the gaze steadily.
“I’m out gunnin’ for a devil,” said Gaspard. “At fust glimp I kinder
hoped you was him, but now I reckon ye ain’t. Ye’re in luck. Hev ye
seen him by any chance?”
“Seen who?”
“The devil.”
“I don’t know him by sight.”
“He’s somewheres ’round in these woods.”
“I met a fellow back along that track a few miles who may be a
devil. His temper was bad enough; but he said his name was Ned Tone.
I haven’t seen anyone else.”
“Ned Tone, hey? No, that ain’t the one I’m lookin’ fer.”
“I don’t know what you’re looking for or what you’re talking
about—but if you asked me if I had a mouth I’d make a guess at what
you meant.”
“Come along to the house an’ hev some breakfast. Ye look all played
out, that’s a fact.”
“Now you’re talking English.”
Gaspard turned and led the way to the house. Akerley followed him
into the wide living-room. Breakfast was on the table; and between
the stove and the table stood Catherine, with a glow of conflicting
excitements and emotions in her eyes and on her cheeks.
“This here’s a young feller jist in time for a bite of breakfast,”
said Gaspard. “He ain’t a devil, nor he ain’t seen the devil. Don’t
know his name nor his business.”
“My name is Anderson,” said Akerley, with an apologetic smile at
Catherine.
“Good morning,” she replied, none too steadily.
They sat down at the table, and the old man made a long arm and
speared half a dozen pancakes from a central platter with his fork.
Catherine poured coffee.
“The young feller here says as how he see Ned Tone a ways back along
the road,” said Gaspard, spanking butter on the hot cakes.
The girl started and shot a quick glance of anxious inquiry at her
guest. Guessing the reason for her alarm, he smiled reassuringly at
her. They had not considered or guarded against that ghost of a
chance of his meeting anyone on the road.
“Is Ned Tone coming here?” she asked.
“I think not,” answered Akerley. “Not for a few days, anyway.”
“Why ain’t he comin’ here?” said Gaspard. “Not that he’s wanted—but
he’s comin’ all the same! Where else would he be on his way to but
here?”
“He told me he wasn’t,” replied Akerley, pouring molasses on his
cakes. “He said he would stay where he was—where I met him—as long
as his grub hung out.”
His hearers did not make the slightest effort to hide their
astonishment.
“Ye’re crazy!” exclaimed the old man. “What’s the matter with him,
that he ain’t comin’ here? He’s been here often enough before, durn
his pesky hide!”
Akerley looked fairly into the girl’s eyes for a moment, then turned
his glance back to her grandfather.
“He doesn’t consider himself fit to be seen either here or back
where he came from,” he said. “He has a black eye, a cut cheek, a
swollen ear, a split lip and a skinned nose.”
“He run agin the devil, that’s sure!”
“You’re wrong. He started roughing it with me, when I was sitting as
quiet and polite as you please, smoking my pipe. He asked for it.
But for my hurt shoulder I’d have given him more than he asked for.”
“What’s that ye say? Walloped Ned Tone! Bested the heaviest hitter
on Injun River an’ split his lip! Stranger, I wisht it was true—but
it ain’t. It couldn’t be done by no one man as ever I see—leastwise
not since my own j’ints begun to stiffen. Young man, ye’re a liar.”
“Grandfather!” exclaimed Catherine.
“That’s as may be—but it is no lie when I tell you I pounded the pep
out of Ned Tone,” replied Akerley. “You can go and see for yourself.
You’ll find him at the edge of the road, about two miles from here.”
“That so? Reckon I’ll go take a look after I’ve et my breakfast. But
it’s that devil out o’ the sky I wanter see! I got what he needs an’
don’t want, young man—bullets nigh an inch long, in nickel jackets!”
The old man had a fine appetite; and he could do several things at
the same time. He could not only talk with his mouth full but he
could quaff coffee from his saucer in the same breath. He asked many
questions. He heard that his guest’s name was Tom Anderson, that Tom
had come from somewhere about the upper waters of the main river and
lost his canoe and outfit, and injured his left shoulder, on Indian
River.
But Akerley did not tell his story gracefully, though it was to save
his life.
“Whereabouts on Injun River?” asked Gaspard.
“In white water, below a big pool and a fair-sized fall.”
“B’ilin’ Pot. An’ how’d ye git here?”
“I took a track ’round the pool and the falls and struck a road that
led me into the crease in the woods that brought me here.”
“Didn’t ye see no clearin’ nigh the Pot?”
“Maybe I did. What does it matter what I saw? I was heading for the
tall timber; and when Ned Tone overhauled me this morning I wasn’t
more than two miles from here. After our fight—after Tone woke up—he
told me to take the first turn off to the west and follow that track
seven or eight miles and I’d strike Gaspard Javet’s farm—but I
guessed he was lying by the look in his available eye, so I didn’t
turn off to the west.”
[Illustration: “‘HE WAS FIGGERIN’ TO LOSE YE IN THE WOODS.’”]
“Did he tell you that?” cried the girl. “To go to the west—seven or
eight miles! And he saw that you hadn’t a rifle, or any food! And he
didn’t know that you knew better than to go to the west!”
“Knowed better!” exclaimed the old man, testily. “It wasn’t what he
knowed brought him here—it was the hand of Providence. That thar Ned
Tone’s a pore skunk! He was layin’ to lose ye in the woods; for ther
ain’t a house due west o’ this here within sixty mile, an’ all ye’d
find at the end o’ that loggin’ road is an empty shack that was
built by Mick Otter the Injun an’ me one year we cut out a bunch o’
pine timber. He was figgerin’ to lose ye in the woods, the mean
critter!”
“The coward!” exclaimed Catherine, pale with scorn.
Old Gaspard eyed her contemplatively for a moment. Akerley felt a
pleasant warmth at his heart.
“I’ll step along an’ take a look,” said Gaspard. “Ye kin stop right
here, young man, an’ rest up. I ain’t heared all about ye I wanter
know yet. Maybe ye’re a liar, fer all I know.”
“Liar or not, you’ll find me right here when you get back,” replied
Akerley.