DEMING BREAKS AN ARM
Rainey, dozing in his bunk, going over the sudden happenings of the day,
had placed Carlsen's automatic under his pillow after loading it. He
found that it lacked four shells of full capacity, the two that Lund had
fired at his bottle target, the one fired by Carlsen at Rainey, and the
last ineffective shot at Lund, a shot that went astray, Rainey decided,
largely through Lund's _coup-de-theatre_ of tearing off his glasses and
flinging them at the doctor.
The dynamo that he had idly fancied he could hear purring away inside of
Lund was apparent with vengeance now, driving with full force. That was
what Lund would be from now on, a driver, imperative, relentless,
overcoming all obstacles; as he had himself said, selfish at heart, keen
for his own ends.
Rainey was neither a weakling nor a coward, but he shrank from open
encounter with Lund, and knew himself, without fear, the weaker man. The
challenge of Lund, splendidly daring any one of them to come out against
him alone, and challenging them _en masse_, had found in Rainey an
acknowledgment of inferiority that was not merely physical.
Lund knew far more than he did about the class of men that made up the
inhabitants of the _Karluk_. Rainey had once fondly hugged the delusion
that he knew something of the nature of those who "went down to the sea
in ships."
Now he knew that his ignorance was colossal. Such men were not complex,
they moved by instinct rather than reason, they were not guided by
conscience, the values of right and wrong were not intuitive with them,
muscle rather than mind ruled their universe.
Yet Rainey could not solve them, and Lund knew them as one may know a
favorite book.
Lund had brains, cunning, brute force that commanded a respect not all
bred of being weaker. In a way he was magnificent. And Rainey vaguely
heralded trouble when Captain Simms was at last given to the deep. He
felt certain that the hunters under Deming were hatching something but,
in the main, his mental prophecy of trouble coming was connected with
the girl.
Lund had shown no disrespect to her, rather the opposite. But the girl
showed hatred of Lund and, in minor measure, of Rainey. Some of this
would die out, naturally. Rainey intended to attempt an adjustment in
his own behalf. But he held the feeling that Lund would not tolerate
this hatred against him on the part of the girl. Such scorn would arouse
something in the giant's nature, something that would either strike
under the lash, or laugh at it.
Dimly, Rainey saw these things as the giant gropings of sex, not as he
had known it, surrounded by conventionalities, by courtesies of
twentieth-century veneering, but a law, primitive, irresistible,
sweeping away barriers and opposition, a thing bigger even than the lust
of gold; the lure of woman for man, and man for woman.
Both Lund and the girl, he felt, would have this thing in greater
measure than he would. He shared his life with too many things, with
books, with amusements, with the social ping-pong of the level in which
he ordinarily moved.
There had been once a girl, perhaps there still was a girl, whom Rainey
had known on a visit to the camp-palace of a lumber king, high in the
Sierras, a girl who rode and hunted and lived out-of-doors, and yet
danced gloriously, sang, sewed and was both feminine and masculine, a
maddening latter-day Diana, who had swept Rainey off his feet for the
time.
But he had known that he was not up to her standards, that he was but a
paper-worm, aside from his lack of means. That latter detail would, he
knew, have bothered him far more than her. But she announced openly that
she would only mate with a man who had lived. He rather fancied that it
had been a challenge--one he had not taken up. The matrix of his own
life just then was too snug a bed. Well, he was living now, he told
himself.
On the border of dreams he was brought back by a strange noise on deck,
a rush of feet, many voices, and topping them all, the bellow of Lund,
roaring, not for help, but in challenge.
Rainey, half asleep, jumped from his bunk and rushed out of the room. He
had no doubt as to what had happened; the hunters had attacked Lund!
And, unused to the possession of firearms, still drowsy, he forgot the
automatic, intent upon rallying to the cry of the giant. As he made for
the companionway, the girl came out of her father's room.
"What is it?" she cried.
"Lund--hunters!" Rainey called back as he sped up the stairs. He thought
he heard a "wait" from her, but the stamping and yelling were loud in
his ears, and he plunged out on deck. As he emerged he saw the stolid
face of Hansen at the wheel, his pale blue eyes glancing at the set of
his canvas and then taking on a glint as they turned amidships.
Lund looked like a bear surrounded by the dog-pack. He stood upright
while the six hunters tore and smashed at him. Two had caught him by the
middle, one from the front and one from the rear, and, as the fight
raged back and forth, they were swung off their feet, bludgeoned and
kicked by Lund to stop them getting at the gun in its holster slung
under his coat close to his armpit.
Lund's arms swung like clubs, his great hands plucked at their holds,
while he roared volleys of deep-sea, defiant oaths, shaking or striking
off a man now and then, who charged back snarlingly to the attack.
Brief though the fight had been when Rainey arrived, there was ample
evidence of it. Clothes were torn and faces bloody, and already the men
were panting as Lund dragged them here and there, flailing, striking,
half-smothered, but always coming up from under, like a rock that
emerges from the bursting of a heavy wave.
And the voice of the combat, grunts and snarls, gasping shouts and
broken curses, was the sound of ravening beasts. So far as Rainey could
vision in one swift moment before he ran forward, no knives were being
used.
A hunter lunged out heavily and confidently to meet him as the others
got Lund to his knees for a fateful moment, piling on top of him,
bludgeoning blows with guttural cries of fancied victory.
Rainey's man struck, and the strength of his arm, backed by his hurling
weight, broke down Rainey's guard and left the arm numb. The next
instant they were at close quarters, swinging madly, rife with the one
desire to down the other, to maim, to kill. A blow crashed home on
Rainey's cheek, sending him back dazed, striking madly, clinching to
stop the piston-like smashes of the hunter clutching him, trying to
trip him, hammering at the fierce face above him as they both went down
and rolled into the scuppers, tearing at each other.
He felt the man's hands at his throat, gradually squeezing out sense and
breath and strength, and threw up his knee with all his force. It struck
the hunter fairly in the groin, and he heard the man groan with the
sudden agony. But he himself was nearly out. The man seemed to fade away
for the second, the choking fingers relaxed, and Rainey gulped for air.
His eyes seemed strained from bulging from their sockets in that fierce
grip, and there was a fog before them through which he could hear the
roar of Lund, sounding like a siren blast that told he was still
fighting, still confident.
Then he saw the hunter's face close to his again, felt the whole weight
of the man crushing him, felt the bite of teeth through cloth and flesh,
nipping down on his shoulder as the man lay on him, striving to hold him
down until he regained the strength that the blow in the groin had
temporarily broken down.
For just a moment Rainey's spirit sagged, his own strength was spent,
his will sapped, his lungs flattened. For a moment he wanted to lie
there--to quit.
Then the hunter's body tautened for action, and, at the feel, Rainey's
ebbing pride came surging back, and he heaved and twisted, clubbing the
other over his kidneys until the roll of the schooner sent them
twisting, tumbling over to the lee once more.
He felt as if he had been fighting for an hour, yet it had all taken
place during the leap of the _Karluk_ between two long swells that she
had negotiated with a sidelong lurch to the cross seas and wind.
Rainey came up uppermost. The hunter's head struck the rail heavily. His
shoulder was free, but he could see ravelings of his coat in the other's
teeth. The pain in his shoulder was evident enough, and the sight of the
woolly fragments maddened him. The tactics of boyish fights came back
to him, and he broke loose from the arms that hugged him, hitched
forward until he sat on the hunter's chest, set a knee on either bicep
and battered at the other's face as it twisted from side to side
helplessly, making a pulp of it, keen to efface all semblance of
humanity, a brute like the rest of them, intent upon bruising, on
blood-letting, on beating all resistance down to a quivering,
spirit-broken mass.
The hunter lay still beneath him at last, his nerve centers shattered by
some blow that had short-circuited them, and Rainey got wearily to his
feet. The hunter's thumbs had pressed deep on each side of his neck, and
his head felt like wood for heaviness, but shot with pain. The vigor was
out of him. He knew he could not endure another hand-to-hand battle with
one of the crowd still raging about Lund, who was on his feet again.
Rainey saw his face, one red mask of blood and hair, with his agate eyes
flaring up with the glory of the fight. He roared no longer, saving his
breath. Hands clutched for him and fists fell, a man was tugging at each
knee of his legs, set far apart, sturdy as the masts themselves.
Lund's arm came up, lifting a hunter clean from the deck, shook him off
somehow, and crashed down. One of the men tackling his legs dropped
senseless from the buffet he got on the side of his skull, and Lund's
kick sent him scudding across the deck, limp, out of the fight that
could not last much longer.
All this came as Rainey, still dazed, helped himself by the skylight
toward the companion, going as fast as he could to get his gun. If he
did not hurry he was certain they would kill Lund. No man could
withstand those odds much longer.
And, Lund killed, hell would break loose. It would be his turn next, and
the girl would be left at their mercy. The thought spurred him, cleared
his throbbing head, jarred by the smashes of his still senseless
opponent who would be coming to before long.
Then he saw the girl, standing by the rail, not crouching, as he had
somehow expected her to be, shutting out the sight of the fight with
trembling hands, but with her face aglow, her eyes shining, watching, as
a Roman maid might have watched a gladiatorial combat; thrilled with the
spectacle, hands gripping the rail, leaning a little forward.
She did not notice Rainey as he crept by Hansen, still guiding the
schooner, holding her to her course, imperturbable, apparently careless
of the issue. As he staggered down the stairs the line of thought he had
pursued in his bunk, broken by the noise of the fight and his
participation, flashed up in his brain.
This was sex, primitive, predominant! The girl must sense what might
happen to her if Lund went down. She had no eyes for Rainey, her soul
was up in arms, backing Lund. The shine in her eyes was for the strength
of his prime manhood, matched against the rest, not as a person, an
individual, but as an embodiment of the conquering male.
He got the gun, and he snatched a drink of brandy that ran through his
veins like quick fire, revivifying him so that he ran up the ladder and
came on deck ready to take a decisive hand.
But he found it no easy matter to risk a shot in that swirling mass.
They all seemed to be arm weary. Blows no longer rose and fell. Lund was
slowly dragging the dead weight of them all toward the mast. The two men
on the deck still lay there. Rainey's opponent was trying to get up,
wiping clumsily at the blood on his face, blinded.
The girl still stood by the rail. Back of the wrestling mass stood the
seamen, offering to take no part, their arms aswing like apes, their
dull faces working. Tamada stood by the forward companion, his arms
folded, indifferent, neutral.
[Illustration: Then he saw the girl standing by the rail]
All this Rainey saw as he circled, while the mass whirled like a
teetotum. The action raced like an overtimed kinetoscopic film. A man
broke loose from the scrimmage, on the opposite side from Rainey, who
barely recognized the disheveled figure with the bloody, battered face
as Deming. The hunter had managed to get hold of Lund's gun. Rainey's
aim was screened by a sudden lunge of the huddle of men. He saw Lund
heave, saw his red face bob up, mouth open, roaring once more, saw his
leg come up in a tremendous kick that caught Deming's outleveling arm
close to the elbow, saw the gleam of the gun as it streaked up and
overboard, and Deming staggering back, clutching at his broken limb,
cursing with the pain, to bring up against the rail and shout to the
seamen:
"Get into it, you damned cowards! Get into it, and settle him!"
Even in that instant the sarcasm of the cry of "cowards" struck home to
Rainey. The next second the girl had jumped by him, a glint of metal in
her hand as she brought it out of her blouse. This time she saw him.
"Come on!" she cried. And darted between the fighters and the storming
figure of Deming, who tried to grasp her with his one good arm, but
failed.
Rainey sped after her just as Lund reached the mast. The girl had a
nickeled pistol in her hand and was threatening the sullen line of
irresolute seamen. Rainey with his gun was not needed. He heard Lund
shout out in a triumphant cry and saw him battering at the heads of
three who still clung to him.
All through the fight Lund had kept his head, struggling to the purpose
he had finally achieved, to reach the mast-rack of belaying pins, seize
one of the hardwood clubs and, with this weapon, beat his assailants to
the deck.
He stood against the mast, his clothes almost stripped from him, the
white of his flesh gleaming through the tatters, streaked with blood.
Save for his eyes, his face was no longer human, only a mass of flayed
flesh and clotted beard. But his eyes were alight with battle and then,
as Rainey gazed, they changed. Something of surprise, then of delight,
leaped into them, followed by a burning flare that was matched in those
of the girl who, with Rainey herding back the seamen, had turned at
Lund's yell of victory.
Lund took a lurching step forward over the prone bodies of the men on
the deck, that was splotched with blood.
"By God!" he said slowly, his arms opening, his great fingers outspread,
his gaze on the girl, "by God!"
The girl's face altered. Her eyes grew frightened, cold. The retreating
blood left her cheeks pale, and she wheeled and fled, dodging behind
Tamada, who gave way to let her pass, his ivory features showing no
emotion, closing up the fore companionway as Peggy Simms dived below.
Lund did not follow her. Instead, he laughed shortly and appeared to see
Rainey for the first time.
"Jumped me, the bunch of 'em!" he said, his chest heaving, his breath
coming in spurts from his laboring lungs. "Couldn't use my gun. But I
licked 'em. Damn 'em! _Equals?_ Hell!"
He seemed to have a clear recollection of the fight. He smiled grimly at
Deming, who glared at him, nursing his broken arm, then glanced at the
man that Rainey had mastered.
"Did him up, eh? Good for you, matey! You didn't have to use your gun.
Jest as well, you might have plugged me. An' the gal had one, after
all."
He seemed to ruminate on this thought as if it gave him special cause
for reflection.
"Game!" he said. "Game as they make 'em!"
He surveyed the rueful, groaning combatants with the smile of a
conqueror, then turned to the seamen.
"Here, you!" he roared, and they jumped as if galvanized into life by
the shout. "Chuck a bucket of water over 'em! Chuck water till they git
below. Then clean the decks. Off-watch, you're out of this. Below with
you, where you belong. Jump!
"They all fought fair," he went on. "Not a knife out. Only Deming there,
when he knew he was licked, tried to git my gun. Yo're yeller, Deming,"
he said, with contempt that was as if he had spat in the hunter's face.
"I thought you were a better man than the rest. But you've got yores.
Git down below an' we'll fix you up."
He strode over to Hansen, stolid at the wheel.
"Wal, you wooden-faced squarehead," he said, "which way did you think it
was coming out? Damn me if you didn't play square, though! You kept her
up. If you'd liked you could have chucked us all asprawl, an' that would
have bin the end of it, with me down. You git a bottle of booze for
that, Hansen, all for yore own Scandinavian belly. Come on, Rainey.
Tamada, I want you."
While Tamada got splints and did what he could for the badly shattered
arm, Lund taunted Deming until the hunter's face was seamed with useless
ferocity, like a weasel's in a trap.
"I wonder you fix him at all, Tamada," he said. "He wanted to cut you
out of yore share. Called you a yellow-skinned heathen, Tamada. What
makes you gentle him that way? You've got him where you want him."
Tamada, binding up the splints professionally, looked at Deming with
jetty eyes that revealed no emotion.
Lund passed his hand over his face.
"I'm some mess myself," he said, stretching his great arms. "Give me a
five-finger drink, Rainey, afore I clean up. Some scrap. Hell popping on
deck, and a dead man in the cabin! And the gal! Did you see the gal,
Rainey?"
Out of the bloody mask of his face his agate eyes twinkled at Rainey
with a sort of good-natured malice. Rainey did not answer as he poured
the liquor.
"Make it four finger," exclaimed Lund. "Deming's goin' to faint. One for
Doc Tamada."
The Japanese excused himself, helping Deming, worn out with pain and
consumed by baffled hate, forward through the galley corridor. Then he
came back with warm water in a basin--and towels.
"After this cheery little fracas," said Lund, mopping at his face,
"we'll mebbe have a nice, quiet, genteel sort of ship. My gun went
overboard, didn't it? Better let me have that one you've got, Rainey."
He stretched out his hand for it. Rainey delivered it, reluctantly.
There was nothing else to do, but he felt more than ever that the
_Karluk_ was henceforth to be a one-man ship, run at the will of Lund.
But the girl, too, had a weapon. He hugged that thought. She carried it
for her own protection, and she would not hesitate to use it. What a
girl she was! What a woman rather! A woman who would _mate_--not marry
for the quiet safety of a home. Rainey thought of her as one does of a
pool that one plumbs with a stone, thinking to find it fairly shallow,
only to discover it a gulf with unknown depth and currents, capable of
smiling placidness or sudden storm.