Lithe and broad-shouldered, Rafe was an inch shorter and forty pounds lighter than the other man.
Narrow-hipped and lean as a greyhound, he was built for speed, but the powerful shoulders and powerful hands and arms spoke of years of training as well as hard work with a double jack or an ax, or heaving at the heavy, wet lines of a ship. Dan Shute’s neck was thick, his chest broad and massive. His stomach was flat and hard. His hands were big, and he reeked of sheer animal strength and power. Licking his lips like a hungry wolf, he started forward. He was grinning, and the light was dancing in his hard gray-white eyes.
He did not rush or leap. He walked right up to Rafe, with that grin on his lips, and Caradec stood flat-footed, waiting for him. But as Shute stepped in close, Rafe suddenly whipped up a left to the wind that beat the man to the punch. Shute winced at the blow and his eves narrowed. Then he smashed forward with his hard skull, trying for a butt.
Rafe clipped him with an elbow and swung away, keeping out of the corner.
Still grinning, Dan Shute moved in. The big man was deceptively fast, and as he moved in, suddenly he left his feet and hurled himself feet foremost at Rafe.
Caradec sprang back, but too slow. The legs jackknifed around his, and Rafe staggered and went to the floor! He hit hard, and Dan was the first to move. Throwing himself over, he caught his weight on his left hand and swung with his right. It was a wicked, half-arm blow, and it caught Rafe on the chin. Lights exploded in his brain and he felt himself go down. Then Shute sprang for him.
Rafe rolled his head, more by instinct than knowledge, and the blow clipped his ear. He threw his feet high and tipped Dan over on his head and off his body.
Both men came to their feet like cats and hurled themselves at each other. They struck like two charging bulls with an impact that shook the room.
Rafe slugged a right to the wind and took a smashing blow to the head. They backed off and then charged together, and both men started pitching them-short, wicked hooks thrown from the hips with everything they had in the world in every punch.
Rafe’s head was roaring, and he felt the smashing blows rocking his head from side to side. He smashed an inside right to the face, and saw a thin streak of blood on Shute’s cheek. He fired his right down the same groove, and it might as well have been on a track. The split in the skin widened and a trickle of blood started. Rafe let go another one to the same spot and then whipped a wicked left uppercut to the wind. Shute took it coming in and never lost stride. He ducked and lunged, knocking Rafe off balance with his shoulder and then swinging an overhand punch that caught Rafe on the cheekbone.
Rafe tried to sidestep and failed, slipping in a wet spot on the floor. As he went down, Dan Shute aimed a teriffic kick at his head that would have ended the fight right there, but half off-balance, Rafe hurled himself at the pivot leg and knocked Dan sprawling.
Both men came up and walked into each other, slugging. Rafe evaded a kick aimed for his stomach and slapped a palm under the man’s heel, lifting it high. Shute went over on his back, and Rafe left the floor in a dive and lit right in the middle of Dan Shute and knocked the wind out of him. But not enough so that Dan’s thumb failed to stab him in the eye.
Blinded by pain, Rafe jerked his head away from that stabbing thumb and felt it rip along his cheek. Then he slammed two blows to the head before Shute heaved him off. They came up together.
Dan Shute was bleeding from the cut on his cheek, but he was still smiling. His gray shirt was torn, revealing bulging white muscles. He was not even breathing hard, and he walked into Rafe with a queer little bounce in his step. Rafe weaved right to left and then straightened suddenly and left-handed a stiff one into Shute’s mouth.
Dan went under a duplicate punch and slammed a right to the wind that lifted Rafe off the floor.
They went into a clinch then, and Rafe was the faster, throwing Dan with a rolling hiplock. He came off the floor fast, and the two went over like a pinwheel, gouging, slugging, ripping, and tearing at each other with fists, thumbs, and elbows. Shute was up first and Rafe followed, lunging in, but Dan stepped back and whipped up a right uppercut that smashed every bit of sense in Rafe’s head into a blinding pinwheel of white light. But he was moving fast and went on in with the impetus of his rush, and both men crashed to the floor. Up again and swinging, they stood toe to toe and slugged viciously, wickedly, each punch a killing blow. Jaws set, they lashed at each other like madmen. Then Rafe let his right go down the groove to the cut cheek. He sidestepped and let go again, then again and again. Five times straight he hit that split cheek. It was cut deeply now and streaming blood.
Dan rushed and grabbed Rafe around the knees, heaving him clear of the floor. He brought him down with a thunderous crash that would have killed a lesser man.
Rafe got up panting and was set for Shute as he rushed. He split Dan’s lips with another left and then threw a right that missed and caught a punch in the middle that jerked his mouth open and brought his breath out of his lungs in one great gasp.
All reason gone, the two men fought like animals, yet worse than animals, for in each man was the experience of years of accumulated brawling and slugging in the hard tough, wild places of the world. They lived by their strength and their hands and the fierce animal drive that was within them, the drive of the fight for survival.
Rafe stepped in, punching Shute with a wicked, cutting, stabbing left. And then his right went down the line again, and blood streamed from the cut cheek.
They stood, then, facing each other, shirts in ribbons, blood streaked, with arms a-swing. They started to circle, and suddenly Shute lunged.
Rafe took one step back and swung a kick from the hips. An inch or so lower down and he would have caught the bigger man in the solar plexus.
As it was, the kick struck him on the chest and lifted him clear of the floor. He came down hard, but his powerful arms grabbed Rafe’s leg as they swung down, and both men hit the floor together.
Shute sank his teeth into Rafe’s leg, and Rafe stabbed at his eye with a thumb. Shute let go and got up, gabbing a chair. Rafe went under it, heard the chair splinter and scarcely realized in the heat of battle that his back had taken the force of the blow. He shoved Dan back and smashed both hands into the big man’s body. Then he rolled aside and spilled him with a rolling hiplock.
Dan Shute came up, and Rafe walked in.
He stabbed a left to the face, and Shute’s teeth showed through his lip, broken and ugly. Rafe set himself and whipped up an uppercut that stood Shute on his toes. Tottering and punchdrunk, the light of battle still flamed in Shute’s eyes. He grabbed a bottle and lunged at Rafe, smashing it down on his shoulder. Rafe rolled with the blow and felt the bottle shatter over the compact mass of the deltoid at the end of his shoulder. Then he hooked a left with that same numb arm, and felt the fist sink into Shute’s body. The strong muscles of that rock-ribbed stomach were yielding now.
Rafe set himself and threw a right from the hip to the same place, and Shute staggered, his face greenish white. Rafe walked in and stabbed three times with a powerful, cutting left that left Shute’s lips in shreds.
Then, suddenly, calling on some hidden well of strength, Dan dived for Rafe’s legs, got him around the knees, and jerked back. Rafe hit the floor on the side of his head, and his world splintered into fragments of broken glass and light, flickering and exploding in a flaming chain reaction. He rolled over, took a kick on the chest, and then staggered up as Shute stepped in, drunk with a chance of victory. Heavy, brutal punches smashed him to his knees, but Rafe staggered up. A powerful blow brought him down again, and he lunged to his feet.