________________________________________________
_ 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 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. _
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