Red-Eye was an atavism. He was the great discordant element in our
horde. He was more primitive than any of us. He did not belong with us,
yet we were still so primitive ourselves that we were incapable of a
cooperative effort strong enough to kill him or cast him out. Rude as
was our social organization, he was, nevertheless, too rude to live in
it. He tended always to destroy the horde by his unsocial acts. He was
really a reversion to an earlier type, and his place was with the Tree
People rather than with us who were in the process of becoming men.
He was a monster of cruelty, which is saying a great deal in that day.
He beat his wives—not that he ever had more than one wife at a time,
but that he was married many times. It was impossible for any woman to
live with him, and yet they did live with him, out of compulsion. There
was no gainsaying him.
No man was strong enough to stand against him.
Often do I have visions of the quiet hour before the twilight. From
drinking-place and carrot patch and berry swamp the Folk are trooping
into the open space before the caves. They dare linger no later than
this, for the dreadful darkness is approaching, in which the world is
given over to the carnage of the hunting animals, while the
fore-runners of man hide tremblingly in their holes.
There yet remain to us a few minutes before we climb to our caves. We
are tired from the play of the day, and the sounds we make are subdued.
Even the cubs, still greedy for fun and antics, play with restraint.
The wind from the sea has died down, and the shadows are lengthening
with the last of the sun’s descent. And then, suddenly, from Red-Eye’s
cave, breaks a wild screaming and the sound of blows. He is beating his
wife.
At first an awed silence comes upon us. But as the blows and screams
continue we break out into an insane gibbering of helpless rage. It is
plain that the men resent Red-Eye’s actions, but they are too afraid of
him. The blows cease, and a low groaning dies away, while we chatter
among ourselves and the sad twilight creeps upon us.
We, to whom most happenings were jokes, never laughed during Red-Eye’s
wife-beatings. We knew too well the tragedy of them. On more than one
morning, at the base of the cliff, did we find the body of his latest
wife. He had tossed her there, after she had died, from his cave-mouth.
He never buried his dead. The task of carrying away the bodies, that
else would have polluted our abiding-place, he left to the horde. We
usually flung them into the river below the last drinking-place.
Not alone did Red-Eye murder his wives, but he also murdered for his
wives, in order to get them. When he wanted a new wife and selected the
wife of another man, he promptly killed that man. Two of these murders
I saw myself. The whole horde knew, but could do nothing. We had not
yet developed any government, to speak of, inside the horde. We had
certain customs and visited our wrath upon the unlucky ones who
violated those customs. Thus, for example, the individual who defiled a
drinking-place would be attacked by every onlooker, while one who
deliberately gave a false alarm was the recipient of much rough usage
at our hands. But Red-Eye walked rough-shod over all our customs, and
we so feared him that we were incapable of the collective action
necessary to punish him.
It was during the sixth winter in our cave that Lop-Ear and I
discovered that we were really growing up. From the first it had been a
squeeze to get in through the entrance-crevice. This had had its
advantages, however. It had prevented the larger Folk from taking our
cave away from us. And it was a most desirable cave, the highest on the
bluff, the safest, and in winter the smallest and warmest.
To show the stage of the mental development of the Folk, I may state
that it would have been a simple thing for some of them to have driven
us out and enlarged the crevice-opening. But they never thought of it.
Lop-Ear and I did not think of it either until our increasing size
compelled us to make an enlargement. This occurred when summer was well
along and we were fat with better forage. We worked at the crevice in
spells, when the fancy struck us.
At first we dug the crumbling rocks away with our fingers, until our
nails got sore, when I accidentally stumbled upon the idea of using a
piece of wood on the rock. This worked well. Also it worked woe. One
morning early, we had scratched out of the wall quite a heap of
fragments. I gave the heap a shove over the lip of the entrance. The
next moment there came up from below a howl of rage. There was no need
to look. We knew the voice only too well. The rubbish had descended
upon Red-Eye.
We crouched down in the cave in consternation. A minute later he was at
the entrance, peering in at us with his inflamed eyes and raging like a
demon. But he was too large. He could not get in to us. Suddenly he
went away. This was suspicious. By all we knew of Folk nature he should
have remained and had out his rage. I crept to the entrance and peeped
down. I could see him just beginning to mount the bluff again. In one
hand he carried a long stick. Before I could divine his plan, he was
back at the entrance and savagely jabbing the stick in at us.
His thrusts were prodigious. They could have disembowelled us. We
shrank back against the side-walls, where we were almost out of range.
But by industrious poking he got us now and again—cruel, scraping jabs
with the end of the stick that raked off the hide and hair. When we
screamed with the hurt, he roared his satisfaction and jabbed the
harder.
I began to grow angry. I had a temper of my own in those days, and
pretty considerable courage, too, albeit it was largely the courage of
the cornered rat. I caught hold of the stick with my hands, but such
was his strength that he jerked me into the crevice. He reached for me
with his long arm, and his nails tore my flesh as I leaped back from
the clutch and gained the comparative safety of the side-wall.
He began poking again, and caught me a painful blow on the shoulder.
Beyond shivering with fright and yelling when he was hit, Lop-Ear did
nothing. I looked for a stick with which to jab back, but found only
the end of a branch, an inch through and a foot long. I threw this at
Red-Eye. It did no damage, though he howled with a sudden increase of
rage at my daring to strike back. He began jabbing furiously. I found a
fragment of rock and threw it at him, striking him on the chest.
This emboldened me, and, besides, I was now as angry as he, and had
lost all fear. I ripped a fragment of rock from the wall. The piece
must have weighed two or three pounds. With my strength I slammed it
full into Red-Eye’s face. It nearly finished him. He staggered
backward, dropping his stick, and almost fell off the cliff.
He was a ferocious sight. His face was covered with blood, and he was
snarling and gnashing his fangs like a wild boar. He wiped the blood
from his eyes, caught sight of me, and roared with fury. His stick was
gone, so he began ripping out chunks of crumbling rock and throwing
them in at me. This supplied me with ammunition. I gave him as good as
he sent, and better; for he presented a good target, while he caught
only glimpses of me as I snuggled against the side-wall.
Suddenly he disappeared again. From the lip of the cave I saw him
descending. All the horde had gathered outside and in awed silence was
looking on. As he descended, the more timid ones scurried for their
caves. I could see old Marrow-Bone tottering along as fast as he could.
Red-Eye sprang out from the wall and finished the last twenty feet
through the air. He landed alongside a mother who was just beginning
the ascent. She screamed with fear, and the two-year-old child that was
clinging to her released its grip and rolled at Red-Eye’s feet. Both he
and the mother reached for it, and he got it. The next moment the frail
little body had whirled through the air and shattered against the wall.
The mother ran to it, caught it up in her arms, and crouched over it
crying.
Red-Eye started over to pick up the stick. Old Marrow-Bone had tottered
into his way. Red-Eye’s great hand shot out and clutched the old man by
the back of the neck. I looked to see his neck broken. His body went
limp as he surrendered himself to his fate. Red-Eye hesitated a moment,
and Marrow-Bone, shivering terribly, bowed his head and covered his
face with his crossed arms. Then Red-Eye slammed him face-downward to
the ground. Old Marrow-Bone did not struggle. He lay there crying with
the fear of death. I saw the Hairless One, out in the open space,
beating his chest and bristling, but afraid to come forward. And then,
in obedience to some whim of his erratic spirit, Red-Eye let the old
man alone and passed on and recovered the stick.
He returned to the wall and began to climb up. Lop-Ear, who was
shivering and peeping alongside of me, scrambled back into the cave. It
was plain that Red-Eye was bent upon murder. I was desperate and angry
and fairly cool. Running back and forth along the neighboring ledges, I
gathered a heap of rocks at the cave-entrance. Red-Eye was now several
yards beneath me, concealed for the moment by an out-jut of the cliff.
As he climbed, his head came into view, and I banged a rock down. It
missed, striking the wall and shattering; but the flying dust and grit
filled his eyes and he drew back out of view.
A chuckling and chattering arose from the horde, that played the part
of audience. At last there was one of the Folk who dared to face
Red-Eye. As their approval and acclamation arose on the air, Red-Eye
snarled down at them, and on the instant they were subdued to silence.
Encouraged by this evidence of his power, he thrust his head into view,
and by scowling and snarling and gnashing his fangs tried to intimidate
me. He scowled horribly, contracting the scalp strongly over the brows
and bringing the hair down from the top of the head until each hair
stood apart and pointed straight forward.
The sight chilled me, but I mastered my fear, and, with a stone poised
in my hand, threatened him back. He still tried to advance. I drove the
stone down at him and made a sheer miss. The next shot was a success.
The stone struck him on the neck. He slipped back out of sight, but as
he disappeared I could see him clutching for a grip on the wall with
one hand, and with the other clutching at his throat. The stick fell
clattering to the ground.
I could not see him any more, though I could hear him choking and
strangling and coughing. The audience kept a death-like silence. I
crouched on the lip of the entrance and waited. The strangling and
coughing died down, and I could hear him now and again clearing his
throat. A little later he began to climb down. He went very quietly,
pausing every moment or so to stretch his neck or to feel it with his
hand.
At the sight of him descending, the whole horde, with wild screams and
yells, stampeded for the woods. Old Marrow-Bone, hobbling and
tottering, followed behind. Red-Eye took no notice of the flight. When
he reached the ground he skirted the base of the bluff and climbed up
and into his own cave. He did not look around once.
I stared at Lop-Ear, and he stared back. We understood each other.
Immediately, and with great caution and quietness, we began climbing up
the cliff. When we reached the top we looked back. The abiding-place
was deserted, Red-Eye remained in his cave, and the horde had
disappeared in the depths of the forest.
We turned and ran. We dashed across the open spaces and down the slopes
unmindful of possible snakes in the grass, until we reached the woods.
Up into the trees we went, and on and on, swinging our arboreal flight
until we had put miles between us and the caves. And then, and not till
then, in the security of a great fork, we paused, looked at each other,
and began to laugh. We held on to each other, arms and legs, our eyes
streaming tears, our sides aching, and laughed and laughed and laughed.