The Abysmal Brute by Jack London (best books to read for teens .txt) š
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The Abysmal Brute
by Jack London
Published as a book by The Century Company (May 1913)
First Published in Popular Magazine, 1911
Copyright, 1911, by Street and Smith, New York
SAM STUBENER ran through his mail carelessly and rapidly. As became a manager of prize-fighters, he was accustomed to a various and bizarre correspondence. Every crank, sport, near sport, and reformer seemed to have ideas to impart to him. From dire threats, such as pushing in the front of his face, from rabbit-foot fetishes to lucky horseshoes, from dinky jerkwater bids to the quarter-of-a-million-dollar offers of irresponsible nobodies, he knew the whole run of the surprise portion of his mail.
In his time having received a razor-strop made from the skin of a lynched Negro, and a finger, withered and sun-dried, cur from the body of a white man found in Death Valley, he was of the opinion that never again would the postman bring him anything that could startle him. But this morning he opened a letter that he read a second time, put away in his pocket, and took out for a third reading. It was postmarked from some unheard-of post office in Siskiyou County, and it ran:
Dear Sam:
You donāt know me, except my reputation. You come after my time, and Iāve been out of the game a long time. But take it from me I aināt been asleep. Iāve followed you, from the time Kal Aufman knocked you out to your last handling of Nat Belson, and I take it youāre the niftiest thing in the line of managers that ever came down the pike.
I got a proposition for you. I got the greatest unknown that ever happened. This aināt con. Itās the straight goods. What do you think of a husky that tips the scales at two hundred and twenty pounds fighting weight, is twenty-two years old, and can hit a kick twice as hard as my best ever? Thatās him, my boy, Young Pat Glendon, thatās the name heāll fight under. Iāve planned it all out. Now the best thing you can do is hit the first train and come up here.
I bred him and trained him. All that I ever had in my head Iāve hammered into his. And maybe you wonāt believe it, but heās added to it. Heās a born fighter. Heās a wonder at time and distance. He just knows to the second and the inch, and he donāt need to think about it at all. His six-inch jolt is more the real sleep medicine than the full-arm swing of most geezers.
Talk about the hope of the white race. This is him. Come and take a peep. When you was managing Jeffries you was crazy about hunting. Come along and Iāll give you some real hunting and fishing that will make your movie picture winnings look like thirty cents. Iāll send Young Pat out with you. I aināt able to get around. Thatās why Iām sending for you. I was going to manage him myself. But it aināt no use. Iām all in and likely to pass out any time. So get a move on. I want you to manage him. Thereās a fortune in it for both of you, but I want to draw up the contract.
Yours truly,
PAT GLENDON
Stubener was puzzled. It seemed, on the face of it, a jokeāthe men in the fighting game were notorious jokersāand he tried to discern the fine hand of Corbett or the big friendly paw of Fitzsimmons in the screed before him. But if it were genuine, he knew it was worth looking into. Pat Glendon was before his time, though, as a cub, he had once seen Old Pat spar at the benefit for Jack Dempsey. Even then he was called āOldā Pat, and had been out of the ring for years. He had antedated Sullivan, in the old London Prize Ring Rules, though his last fading battles had been put up under the incoming Marquis of Queensbury Rules.
What ring-follower did not know of Pat Glendon?āthough few were alive who had seen him in his prime, and there were not many more who had seen him at all. Yet his name had come down in the history of the ring, and no sporting writerās lexicon was complete without it. His fame was paradoxical. No man was honored higher, and yet he had never attained championship honors. He had been unfortunate, and had been known as the unlucky fighter.
Four times he all but won the heavyweight championship, and each time he had deserved to win it. There was the time on the barge, in San Francisco Bay, when at the moment he had the champion going, he snapped his own forearm; and on the island in the Thames, sloshing about in six inches of rising tide, he broke a leg at a similar stage in a winning fight; in Texas, too, there was the never-to-be-forgotten day when the police broke in just as he had his man going in all certainty. And finally, there was the fight in the Mechanicsā Pavilion in San Francisco, when he was secretly jobbed from the first by a gun-fighting bad man of a referee backed by a small syndicate of bettors. Pat Glendon had had no accidents in that fight, but when he had knocked his man cold with a right to the jaw and a left to the solar plexus, the referee calmly disqualified him for fouling. Every ringside witness, every sporting expert, and the whole sporting world, knew there had been no foul. Yet, like all fighters, Pat Glendon had agreed to abide by the decision of the referee. Pat abided, and accepted it as in keeping with the rest of his bad luck.
This was Pat Glendon. What bothered Stubener was whether or not Pat had written the letter. He carried it down town with him. Whatās become of Pat Glendon? Such was his greeting to all the sports that morning. Nobody seemed to know. Some thought he must be dead, but none knew positively. The fight editor of a morning daily looked up the records and was able to state that his death had not been noted. It was from Tim Donovan, that he got a clue.
āSure anā he aināt dead,ā said Donovan. āHow could that be?āa man of his make that never boozed or blew himself? He made money, and whatās more, he saved it and invested it. Did nāt he have three saloons at the time? Anā wasnāt he makinā slathers of money with them when he sold out? Now that Iām thinkinā, that was the last time I laid eyes on himāwhen he sold them out. āT was all of twenty years and more ago. His wife had just died. I met him headinā for the Ferry. āWhere away, old sport?ā says I. āItās me for the woods,ā says he. āIāve quit. Good-by, Tim, me boy.ā And Iāve never seen him from that day to this. Of course he aināt dead.ā
āYou say when his wife diedādid he have any children?ā Stubener queried.
āOne, a little baby. He was lugginā it in his arms that very day.ā
āWas it a boy?ā
āHow should I be knowinā?ā
It was then that Sam Stubener reached a decision, and that night found him in a Pullman speeding toward the wilds of Northern California.
Stubener was dropped off the overland at Deer Lick in the early morning, and he kicked his heels for an hour before the one saloon opened its doors. No, the saloonkeeper didnāt know anything about Pat Glendon, had never heard of him, and if he was in that part of the country he must be out beyond somewhere. Neither had the one hanger-on ever heard of Pat Glendon. At the hotel the same ignorance obtained, and it was not until the storekeeper and postmaster opened up that Stubener struck the trail. Oh, yes, Pat Glendon lived out beyond. You took the stage at Alpine, which was forty miles and which was a logging camp. From Alpine, on horseback, you rode up Antelope Valley and crossed the divide to Bear Creek. Pat Glendon lived somewhere beyond that. The people of Alpine would know. Yes, there was a young Pat. The storekeeper had seen him. He had been in to Deer Lick two years back. Old Pat had not put in an appearance for five years. He bought his supplies at the store, and always paid by check, and he was a white-haired, strange old man. That was all the storekeeper knew, but the folks at Alpine could give him final directions.
It looked good to Stubener. Beyond doubt there was a young Pat Glendon, as well as an old, living out beyond. That night the manager spent at the logging camp of Alpine, and early the following morning he rode a mountain cayuse up Antelope Valley. He rode over the divide and down Bear Creek. He rode all day, through the wildest, roughest country he had ever seen, and at sunset turned up Pinto Valley on a trail so stiff and narrow that more than once he elected to get off and walk.
It was eleven oāclock when he dismounted before a log cabin and was greeted by the baying of two huge deerhounds. Then Pat Glendon opened the door, fell on his neck, and took him in.
āI knew yeād come, Sam, me boy,ā said Pat, the while he limped about, building a fire, boiling coffee, and frying a big bear-steak. āThe young un aināt home the night. We was gettinā short of meat, and he went out about sundown to pick up a deer. But Iāll say no more. Wait till ye see him. Heāll be home in the morn, and then you can try him out. Thereās the gloves. But wait till ye see him.
āAs for me, Iām finished. Eighty-one come next January, anā pretty good for an ex-bruiser. But I never wasted meself, Sam, nor kept late hours anā burned the candle at all ends. I had a damned good candle, anā made the most of it, as youāll grant at lookinā at me. And Iāve taught the same to the young un. What do you think of a lad of twenty-two thatās never had a drink in his life nor tasted tobacco? Thatās him. Heās a giant, and heās lived natural all his days. Wait till he takes you out after deer. Heāll break your travelinā light, him a carryinā the outfit and a big buck deer belike. Heās a child of the open air, anā winter nor summer has he slept under a roof. The open for him, as I taught him. The one thing that worries me is how heāll take to sleepinā in houses, anā how heāll stand the tobacco smoke in the ring. āTis a terrible thing, that smoke, when youāre fighting hard anā gaspinā for air. But no more, Sam, me boy. You āre tired anā sure should be sleepinā. Wait till you see him, thatās all. Wait till you see him.
But the garrulousness of age was on old Pat, and it was long before he permitted Stubenerās eyes to close.
āHe can run a deer down with his own legs, that young un,ā he
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