He stood with his arms dangling, and suddenly I thought what a fool I was to
force such a fight on a friend; but then my pride took command and my fingers
clenched into a fist and I swung at him.
End it with a blow, I thought, and save him a bad beating. That was in my mind
when I swung. Suddenly long fingers caught my wrist with a strength I’d never
have believed, and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air, to land
with a thump on the hard ground. It fairly knocked the wind from me, and the
nonsense from my brain as well; but then I saw him standing a few feet away,
regarding me coolly.
Anger surged through me and I lunged up from the ground, prepared for that throw
he had used upon me. This time I struck the ground even harder—he had thrown me
in another way, and so suddenly and violently that I had no idea how it was
done.
There was some sense in me after all, for I looked up at him and grinned. “At
least you know a few tricks. Are these what you would show me?”
“These, and more,” he said. “Now drink your coffee. It grows cold.”
My anger was gone, and my good sense warned me that had he been my enemy I
should now have been crippled or dead. For once down, he could put the boots to
me and kick in my ribs, crush my chest or crush my skull. In such fighting there
is no sportsmanship, for it is no game but is in deadly earnest, and men fight
to win.
“Have you heard of Jem Mace?” he asked me.
“No.”
“He was the world champion prize fighter, an Englishman and a gypsy. He whipped
the best of them, and he was not a large man, but he was among the first to
apply science to the art of fist fighting. He taught me boxing and I have
sparred with him many times.
“Footwork is not mere dancing about. By footwork you can shift a man out of
position to strike you effectively, and still leave yourself in position to
strike him. By learning to duck and slip punches, you can work close to a man
and still keep your hands free for punching. Certain blows automatically create
openings for the blows to follow.”
He refilled his cup. “A man who travels alone must look out for himself.”
“You have your knives.”
“Aye, but a hand properly used can be as dangerous as a knife.” He was silent
for a moment, and then added, “And a man is not lynched for what he does with
his hands.”
We both were still, letting the campfire warm our memories. What memories the
Tinker had, what strange thoughts might come into his head, and of what strange
things he had seen, I knew nothing, but my own memories went back to the day Pa
left me with Will Caffrey.
Three heavy sacks of gold he passed over to Caffrey that day, and then he said,
“This is my son, of whom I have spoken. Care for him well, and every third coin
is your own.”
“You’ll be leaving now?”
“Yes … to wander is a means to forgetting, and we were very close, my wife and
I.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll come back, son. Do you be a good boy
now.”
Pa advised Caffrey to send me to the best schools and treat me well, and in due
time he would return. For the first year I was treated well enough, yet long
before the change came I had seen shadows of it. Often at night I would hear
Mrs. Caffrey complaining of the extra burden I was, and how much the money would
mean to them if they had not to think of me. And Caffrey would speculate aloud
on how much interest the money would bring, and what could be bought of lands
and cattle with such an amount of gold.
Her words bothered me more than his, for I sensed an evil in her that was not in
him. He was a greedy, selfish man, close with money and hard-fisted as well as
self-righteous; but as for her—I think she would have murdered me. Indeed, I
think it was in her mind to do so.
Caffrey had a reputation for honesty, but many a man with such a reputation
simply has not been found out or tested, and for Will Caffrey the test of those
bags of gold was too much for his principles to bear. The year after Pa had gone
they took me from school—their own son continued—and they put me to work with
the field hands. Eleven years old I was then, and no place to go, nor anyone to
turn to.
The day came when Duncan struck me.
Contemptuous of me he was, taking that from his parents’ treatment of me, and he
often sneered or cursed at me, but when he struck me we had at it, knuckle and
skull. It was even-up fighting until I realized all his blows were struck at my
face, so I scrooched down as he rushed at me and struck him a mighty blow in the
belly.
It taken his wind. He let go a grunt and his mouth dropped open, so I spread
wide my legs and let go at his chin. With his mouth open and jaw slack, a girl
might have broken his jaw, and I did, for I was a naturally strong boy who had
worked hard and done much gunning and climbing in the forest.
He fell back against the woodpile where I had been working, his face all white
and strange-looking, but my blood was up and I swung a final fist against his
nose, which broke, streaming blood over his lips and chin.
The door slammed and his Ma and Pa were coming at me, Will Caffrey with his cane
lifted, and her with her fingers spread like claws.
I taken out.
So far as I could see, nothing was keeping me, and by the time I stopped running
I was far off in the piney woods and nighttime a-coming on. By that time I was
twelve years old and knew only the mountains. The towns I feared, so it never
occurred to me to leave all I had known behind.
The one place I knew was the cabin, and there I had known happiness, so I turned
up through the woods, hunting the way. It was thirty-odd miles of rough mountain
and forest, and I slept three nights before I got there, the first nights I ever
spent in the forest alone.
When at last I came to the cabin I was a tuckered-out boy.
If they ever came seeking me, I never knew. They might have come before I got
back, or after, when I was off a-hunting. More than likely they were pleased to
be free of me, for now they had the gold.
Five years I lived there alone.
That isn’t to say I didn’t see anybody in all that time. Long before Ma died I
used to go hunting with the Cherokee boys, and I could use a bow and arrow or
set a snare as good as the best of them. These were wild Cherokees who took to
the mountains when the government moved the Indians west. Pa had been friendly
with them, and they liked me. Whenever I was over that way I was sure of a meal,
and many a time during that first year I made it a point.
Whilst working with Caffrey I had done most of the kitchen-garden planting, and
there was seed at the house. The Cherokees were planting Indians, so I got more
seed from them, and I spaded up garden space and planted melons, corn, potatoes,
and suchlike. For the rest, I hunted the woods for game, berries, nuts, and
roots.
It would be a lie to say I was brave, for of a night I was a scared boy, and
more than once I cried myself to sleep, remembering Ma and wishing Pa would come
home. Those first years it was only the thought of Pa coming back that kept me
going. Caffrey had been sure Pa was dead and had never left off telling me so,
although why he should be so sure I never knew. It wasn’t until I was past
fifteen that I really gave up hope. In my thinking mind I was sure after that
that he would not come back, but my ears pricked every time I heard a horse on
the trail.
Travel was no kind thing those days, what with killers along the Natohez Trace
and the Wilderness Road, Bald Knobbers, and varmints generally. Many a man who
set out from home never got back, and who was to say what became of him?