The Valley of the Moon Jack London

rushed up, he was around the sharp corner and clawing upward hand

  and foot to escape being caught. Billy was now left alone. He

  could not even see Hall, much less be further advised by him, and

  so tensely did Saxon watch, that the pain in her finger-tips,

  crushed to the rock by which she held, warned her to relax. Billy

  waited his chance, twice made tentative preparations to leap and

  sank back, then leaped across and down to the momentarily exposed

  foothold, doubled the corner, and as he clawed up to join Hall

  was washed to the waist but not torn away.

  Saxon did not breathe easily till they rejoined her at the fire.

  One glance at Billy told her that he was exceedingly disgusted

  with himself.

  "You'll do, for a beginner," Hall cried, slapping him jovially on

  the bare shoulder. "That climb is a stunt of mine. Many's the

  brave lad that's started with me and broken down before we were

  half way out. I've had a dozen balk at that big jump. Only the

  athletes make it."

  "I ain't ashamed of admittin' I was scairt," Billy growled.

  "You're a regular goat, an' you sure got my goat half a dozen

  times. But I'm mad now. It's mostly trainin', an' I'm goin' to

  camp right here an' train till I can challenge you to a race out

  an' around an' back to the beach."

  "Done," said Hall, putting out his hand in ratification. "And

  some time, when we get together in San Francisco, I'll lead you

  up against Bierce--the one this cove is named after. His favorite

  stunt, when he isn't collecting rattlesnakes, is to wait for a

  forty-mile-an-hour breeze, and then get up and walk on the

  parapet of a skyscraper--on the lee side, mind you, so that if he

  blows off there's nothing to fetch him up but the street. He

  sprang that on me once."

  "Did you do it!" Billy asked eagerly.

  "I wouldn't have if I hadn't been on. I'd been practicing it

  secretly for a week. And I got twenty dollars out of him on the

  bet."

  The tide was now low enough for mussel gathering and Saxon

  accompanied the men out the north wall. Hall had several sacks to

  fill. A rig was coming for him in the afternoon, he explained, to

  cart the mussels back to Carmel. When the sacks were full they

  ventured further among the rock crevices and were rewarded with

  three abalones, among the shells of which Saxon found one coveted

  blister-pearl. Hall initiated them into the mysteries of pounding

  and preparing the abalone meat for cooking.

  By this time it seemed to Saxon that they had known him a long

  time. It reminded her of the old times when Bert had been with

  them, singing his songs or ranting about the last of the

  Mohicans.

  "Now, listen; I'm going to teach you something," Hall commanded,

  a large round rock poised in his hand above the abalone meat.

  "You must never, never pound abalone without singing this song.

  Nor must you sing this song at any other time. It would be the

  rankest sacrilege. Abalone is the food of the gods. Its

  preparation is a religious function. Now listen, and follow, and

  remember that it is a very solemn occasion."

  The stone came down with a thump on the white meat, and

  thereafter arose and fell in a sort of tom-tom accompaniment to

  the poet's song:

  "Oh! some folks boast of quail on toast,

  Because they think it's tony;

  But I'm content to owe my rent

  And live on abalone.

  "Oh! Mission Point's a friendly joint

  Where every crab's a crony,

  And true and kind you'll ever find

  The clinging abalone.

  "He wanders free beside the sea

  Where 'er the coast is stony;

  He flaps his wings and madly sings--

  The plaintive abalone.

  "Some stick to biz, some flirt with Liz

  Down on the sands of Coney;

  But we, by hell, stay in Carmel,

  And whang the abalone."

  He paused with his mouth open and stone upraised. There was a

  rattle of wheels and a voice calling from above where the sacks

  of mussels had been carried. He brought the stone down with a

  final thump and stood up.

  "There's a thousand more verses like those," he said. "Sorry I

  hadn't time to teach you them." He held out his hand, palm

  downward. "And now, children, bless you, you are now members of

  the clan of Abalone Eaters, and I solemnly enjoin you, never, no

  matter what the circumstances, pound abalone meat without

  chanting the sacred words I have revealed unto you."

  "But we can't remember the words from only one hearing," Saxon

  expostulated.

  "That shall be attended to. Next Sunday the Tribe of Abalone

  Eaters will descend upon you here in Bierce's Cove, and you will

  be able to see the rites, the writers and writeresses, down even

  to the Iron Man with the basilisk eyes, vulgarly known as the

  King of the Sacerdotal Lizards."

  "Will Jim Hazard come?" Billy called, as Hall disappeared into

  the thicket.

  "He will certainly come. Is he not the Cave-Bear Pot-Walloper and

  Gridironer, the most fearsome, and, next to me, the most exalted,

  of all the Abalone Eaters?"

  Saxon and Billy could only look at each other till they heard the

  wheels rattle away.

  "Well, I'll be doggoned," Billy let out. "He's some boy, that.

  Nothing stuck up about him. Just like Jim Hazard, comes along and

  makes himself at home, you're as good as he is an' he's as good

  as you, an' we're all friends together, just like that, right off

  the bat."

  "He's old stock, too," Saxon said. "He told me while you were

  undressing. His folks came by Panama before the railroad was

  built, and from what he said I guess he's got plenty of money."

  "He sure don't act like it."

  "And isn't he full of fun!" Saxon cried.

  "A regular josher. An' HIM!--a POET!"

  "Oh, I don't know, Billy. I've heard that plenty of poets are

  odd."

  "That's right, come to think of it. There's Joaquin Miller, lives

  out in the hills back of Fruitvale. He's certainly odd. It's

  right near his place where I proposed to you. Just the same I

  thought poets wore whiskers and eyeglasses, an' never tripped up

  foot-racers at Sunday picnics, nor run around with as few clothes

  on as the law allows, gatherin' mussels an' climbin' like goats."

  That night, under the blankets, Saxon lay awake, looking at the

  stars, pleasuring in the balmy thicket-scents, and listening to

  the dull rumble of the outer surf and the whispering ripples on

  the sheltered beach a few feet away. Billy stirred, and she knew

  he was not yet asleep.

  "Glad you left Oakland, Billy?" she snuggled.

  "Huh!" came his answer. "Is a clam happy?"

  CHAPTER VIII

  Every half tide Billy raced out the south wall over the dangerous

  course he and Hall had traveled, and each trial found him doing

  it in faster time.

  "Wait till Sunday," he said to Saxon. "I'll give that poet a run

  for his money. Why, they ain't a place that bothers me now. I've

&nb
sp; got the head confidence. I run where I went on hands an' knees. I

  figured it out this way: Suppose you had a foot to fall on each

  side, an' it was soft hay. They'd be nothing to stop you. You

  wouldn't fall. You'd go like a streak. Then it's just the same if

  it's a mile down on each side. That ain't your concern. Your

  concern is to stay on top and go like a streak. An', d'ye know,

  Saxon, when I went at it that way it never bothered me at all.

  Wait till he comes with his crowd Sunday. I'm ready for him."

  "I wonder what the crowd will be like," Saxon speculated.

  "Like him, of course. Birds of a feather flock together. They

  won't be stuck up, any of them, you'll see."

  Hall had sent out fish-lines and a swimming suit by a Mexican

  cowboy bound south to his ranch, and from the latter they learned

  much of the government land and how to get it. The week flew by;

  each day Saxon sighed a farewell of happiness to the sun; each

  morning they greeted its return with laughter of joy in that

  another happy day had begun. They made no plans, but fished,

  gathered mussels and abalones, and climbed among the rocks as the

  moment moved them. The abalone meat they pounded religiously to a

  verse of doggerel improvised by Saxon. Billy prospered. Saxon had

  never seen him at so keen a pitch of health. As for herself, she

  scarcely needed the little hand-mirror to know that never, since

  she was a young girl, had there been such color in her cheeks,

  such spontaneity of vivacity.

  "It's the first time in my life I ever had real play," Billy

  said. "An' you an' me never played at all all the time we was

  married. This beats bein' any kind of a millionaire."

  "No seven o'clock whistle," Saxon exulted. "I'd lie abed in the

  mornings on purpose, only everything is too good not to be up.

  And now you just play at chopping some firewood and catching a

  nice big perch, Man Friday, if you expect to get any dinner."

  Billy got up, hatchet in hand, from where he had been lying

  prone, digging holes in the sand with his bare toes.

  "But it ain't goin' to last," he said, with a deep sigh of

  regret. "The rains'll come any time now. The good weather's

  hangin' on something wonderful."

  On Saturday morning, returning from his run out the south wall,

  he missed Saxon. After helloing for her without result, he

  climbed to the road. Half a mile away, he saw her astride an

  unsaddled, unbridled horse that moved unwillingly, at a slow

  walk, across the pasture.

  "Lucky for you it was an old mare that had been used to

  ridin'--see them saddle marks," he grumbled, when she at last

  drew to a halt beside him and allowed him to help her down.

  "Oh, Billy," she sparkled, "I was never on a horse before. It was

  glorious! I felt so helpless, too, and so brave."

  "I'm proud of you, just the same," he said, in more grumbling

  tones than before. "'Tain't every married women'd tackle a

  strange horse that way, especially if she'd never ben on one.

  An' I ain't forgot that you're goin' to have a saddle animal all

  to yourself some day--a regular Joe dandy."

  The Abalone Eaters, in two rigs and on a number of horses,

  descended in force on Bierce's Cove. There were half a score of

  men and almost as many women. All were young, between the ages of

  twenty-five and forty, and all seemed good friends. Most of them

  were married. They arrived in a roar of good spirits, tripping

  one another down the slippery trail and engulfing Saxon and Billy

  in a comradeship as artless and warm as the sunshine itself.

  Saxon was appropriated by the girls--she could not realize them

  women; and they made much of her, praising her camping and

  traveling equipment and insisting on hearing some of her tale.

  They were experienced campers themselves, as she quickly

  discovered when she saw the pots and pans and clothes-boilers for

  the mussels which they had brought.

  In the meantime Billy and the men had undressed and scattered out

  after mussels and abalones. The girls lighted on Saxon's ukulele

  and nothing would do but she must play and sing. Several of them

  had been to Honolulu, and knew the instrument, confirming

  Mercedes' definition of ukulele as "jumping flea." Also, they

  knew Hawaiian songs she had learned from Mercedes, and soon, to

  her accompaniment, all were singing: "Aloha Oe," "Honolulu

  Tomboy," and "Sweet Lei Lehua." Saxon was genuinely shocked when

  some of them, even the more matronly, danced hulas on the sand.

  When the men returned, burdened with sacks of shellfish, Mark

  Hall, as high priest, commanded the due and solemn rite of the

  tribe. At a wave of his hand, the many poised stones came down in

  unison on the white meat, and all voices were uplifted in the

  Hymn to the Abalone. Old verses all sang, occasionally some one

  sang a fresh verse alone, whereupon it was repeated in chorus.

  Billy betrayed Saxon by begging her in an undertone to sing the

  verse she had made, and her pretty voice was timidly raised in:

  "We sit around and gaily pound,

  And bear no acrimony

  Because our ob--ject is a gob

  Of sizzling abalone."

  "Great!" cried the poet, who had winced at ob--ject. "She speaks

  the language of the tribe! Come on, children--now!"

  And all chanted Saxon's lines. Then Jim Hazard had a new verse,

  and one of the girls, and the Iron Man with the basilisk eyes of

  greenish-gray, whom Saxon recognized from Hall's description. To

  her it seemed he had the face of a priest.

  "Oh! some like ham and some like lamb

  And some like macaroni;

  But bring me in a pail of gin

  And a tub of abalone.

  "Oh! some drink rain and some champagne

  Or brandy by the pony;

  But I will try a little rye

  With a dash of abalone.

  "Some live on hope and some on dope

  And some on alimony.

  But our tom-cat, he lives on fat

  And tender abalone."

  A black-haired, black-eyed man with the roguish face of a satyr,

  who, Saxon learned, was an artist who sold his paintings at five

  hundred apiece, brought on himself universal execration and

  acclamation by singing:

  "The more we take, the more they make

  In deep sea matrimony;

  Race suicide cannot betide

  The fertile abalone."

  And so it went, verses new and old, verses without end, all in

  glorification of the succulent shellfish of Carmel. Saxon's

  enjoyment was keen, almost ecstatic, and she had difficulty in

  convincing herself of the reality of it all. It seemed like some

  fairy tale or book story come true. Again, it seemed more like a

  stage, and these the actors, she and Billy having blundered into

  the scene in some incomprehensible way. Much of wit she sensed

  which she did not understand. Much she did understand. And she

  was aware that brains were playing as she had never seen brains

  play before. The puritan streak in her training was astonished

  and shocked by some of the broadness; but she refuse
d to sit in

  judgment. They SEEMED good, these light-hearted young people;

  they certainly were not rough or gross as were many of the crowds

  she had been with on Sunday picnics. None of the men got drunk,

  although there were cocktails in vacuum bottles and red wine in a

  huge demijohn.

  What impressed Saxon most was their excessive jollity, their

  childlike joy, and the childlike things they did. This effect was

  heightened by the fact that they were novelists and painters,

  poets and critics, sculptors and musicians. One man, with a

  refined and delicate face--a dramatic critic on a great San

  Francisco daily, she was told--introduced a feat which all the

  men tried and failed at most ludicrously. On the beach, at

  regular intervals, planks were placed as obstacles. Then the

  dramatic critic, on all fours, galloped along the sand for all

  the world like a horse, and for all the world like a horse taking

  hurdles he jumped the planks to the end of the course.

  Quoits had been brought along, and for a while these were pitched

  with zest. Then jumping was started, and game slid into game.

  Billy took part in everything, but did not win first place as

  often as he had expected. An English writer beat him a dozen feet

  at tossing the caber. Jim Hazard beat him in putting the heavy

  "rock." Mark Hall out-jumped him standing and running. But at the

  standing high back-jump Billy did come first. Despite the

  handicap of his weight, this victory was due to his splendid back

  and abdominal lifting muscles. Immediately after this, however,

  he was brought to grief by Mark Hall's sister, a strapping young

  amazon in cross-saddle riding costume, who three times tumbled

  him ignominiously heels over head in a bout of Indian wrestling.

  "You're easy," jeered the Iron Man, whose name they had learned

  was Pete Bideaux. "I can put you down myself,

  catch-as-catch-can."

  Billy accepted the challenge, and found in all truth that the

  other was rightly nicknamed. In the training camps Billy had

  sparred and clinched with giant champions like Jim Jeffries and

  Jack Johnson, and met the weight of their strength, but never had

  he encountered strength like this of the Iron Man. Do what he

  could, Billy was powerless, and twice his shoulders were ground

  into the sand in defeat.

  "You'll get a chance back at him," Hazard whispered to Billy, off

  at one side. "I've brought the gloves along. Of course, you had

  no chance with him at his own game. He's wrestled in the music

  halls in London with Hackenschmidt. Now you keep quiet, and we'll

  lead up to it in a casual sort of way. He doesn't know about

  you."

  Soon, the Englishman who had tossed the caber was sparring with

  the dramatic critic, Hazard and Hall boxed in fantastic

  burlesque, then, gloves in hand, looked for the next

  appropriately matched couple. The choice of Bideaux and Billy was

  obvious.

  "He's liable to get nasty if he's hurt," Hazard warned Billy, as

  he tied on the gloves for him. "He's old American French, and

  he's got a devil of a temper. But just keep your head and tap

  him--whatever you do, keep tapping him."

  "Easy sparring now"; "No roughhouse, Bideaux"; "Just light

  tapping, you know," were admonitions variously addressed to the

  Iron Man.

  "Hold on a second," he said to Billy, dropping his hands. "When I

  get rapped I do get a bit hot. But don't mind me. I can't help

  it, you know. It's only for the moment, and I don't mean it."

  Saxon felt very nervous, visions of Billy's bloody fights and all

  the scabs he had slugged rising in her brain; but she had never

  seen her husband box, and but few seconds were required to put

  her at ease. The Iron Man had no chance. Billy was too completely

  the master, guarding every blow, himself continually and almost

  at will tapping the other's face and body. There was no weight in

  Billy's blows, only a light and snappy tingle; but their

  incessant iteration told on the Iron Man's temper. In vain the