His primitive ferocity was reflected in the bulging
knots of muscles that corded his long, massive apish arms, his huge
sloping shoulders; above all the bullet-shaped head that jutted forward
on a column-like neck. The wide, flat nostrils, murky eyes, thick lips
that writhed back from tusk-like teeth--all proclaimed the man's
kinship with the primordial. "Where the devil do you fit into this nightmare?" I demanded. He showed his teeth in an ape-like grin. "I thought it was time you was comin' to, Kirby Garfield," he grinned. "I wanted you to come to 'fo' I kill you, so you know _who_ kill
you. Den I go back and watch Mistuh Grimm kill de ol' man and de gal." "What do you mean, you black devil?" I demanded harshly. "Grimm? What
do you know about Grimm?" "I meet him in de deep woods, after he kill Jim Tike. I heah a gun fire
and come with a torch to see who--thought maybe somebody after me. I
meet Mistuh Grimm." "So you were the man I saw with the torch," I grunted. "Mistuh Grimm smaht man. He say if I help him kill some folks, he help
me git away. He take and throw bomb into de cabin; dat bomb don't kill
dem folks, just paralyze 'em. I watchin' de trail, and hit you when you
come back. Dat man Ashley ain't plumb paralyze, so Mistuh Grimm, he
take and bite out he throat like he done Jim Tike." "What do you mean, bite out his throat?" I demanded. "Mistuh Grimm ain't a human bein'. He stan' up and walk like a man, but
he part hound, or wolf." "You mean a werewolf?" I asked, my scalp prickling. He grinned. "Yeah, dat's it. Dey had 'em in de old country." Then he
changed his mood. "I done talk long enough. Gwine blow yo' brains out
now!" His thick lips froze in a killer's mirthless grin as he squinted along
the barrel of the pistol in his right hand. My whole body went tense,
as I sought desperately for a loophole to save my life. My legs were
not tied, but my hands were manacled, and a single movement would bring
hot lead crashing through my brain. In my desperation I plumbed the
depths of black folklore for a dim, all but forgotten superstition. "These handcuffs belonged to Joe Sorley, didn't they?" I demanded. "Uh huh," he grinned, without ceasing to squint along the sights. "I
took 'em 'long with his gun after I beat his head in with window-bar. I
thought I might need 'em." "Well," I said, "if you kill me while I'm wearing them, you're
eternally damned! Don't you know that if you kill a man who's wearing a
cross, his ghost will haunt you for ever after?" He jerked the gun down suddenly, and his grin was replaced by a snarl. "What you mean, white man?" "Just what I say. There's a cross scratched on the inside of one of
these cuffs. I've seen it a thousand times. Now go ahead and shoot, and
I'll haunt you into hell." "Which cuff?" he snarled, lifting a gun-butt threateningly. "Find out for yourself," I sneered. "Go ahead; why don't you shoot? I
hope you've had plenty of sleep lately, because I'll see to it that you
never sleep again. In the night, under the trees, you'll see my face
leering at you. You'll hear my voice in the wind that moans through the
cypress branches. When you close your eyes in the dark, you'll feel my
fingers at your throat." "Shut up!" he roared, brandishing his pistols. His black skin was
tinged with an ashy hue. "Shut me up--if you dare!" I struggled up to a sitting position, and
then fell back cursing. "Damn you, my leg's broken!" At that the ashy tinge faded from his ebon skin, and purpose rose in
his reddish eyes. "So yo' leg's busted!" He bared his glistening teeth in a beastly grin. "Thought you fell mighty hard, and then I dragged you a right smart
piece." Laying both pistols on the ground, well out of my reach, he rose
and leaned over me, dragging a key out of his breeches pocket. His
confidence was justified; for was I not unarmed, helpless with a broken
leg? I did not need the manacles. Bending over me he turned the key in
the old-fashioned handcuffs and tore them off. And like twin striking
snakes my hands shot to his black throat, locked fiercely and dragged
him down on top of me. *       *       *       *       *

I had always wondered what would be the outcome of a battle between me
and Tope Braxton. One can hardly go about picking fights with black
men. But now a fierce joy surged in me, a grim gratification that the
question of our relative prowess was to be settled once and for all,
with life for the winner and death for the loser. Even as I gripped him, Braxton realized that I had tricked him into
freeing me--that I was no more crippled than he was. Instantly he
exploded into a hurricane of ferocity that would have dismembered a
lesser man than I. We rolled on the pine-needles, rending and tearing. Were I penning an elegant romance, I should tell how I vanquished Tope
Braxton by a combination of higher intelligence, boxing skill and deft
science that defeated his brute strength. But I must stick to facts in
this chronicle. Intelligence played little part in that battle. It would have helped
me no more than it would help a man in the actual grip of a gorilla. As for artificial skill, Tope would have torn the average boxer or
wrestler limb from limb. Man-developed science alone could not have
withstood the blinding speed, tigerish ferocity and bone-crushing
strength that lurked in Tope Braxton's terrible thews. It was like fighting a wild beast, and I met him at his own game. I
fought Tope Braxton as the rivermen fight, as savages fight, as bull
apes fight. Breast to breast, muscle straining against muscle, iron
fist crushing against hard skull, knee driven to groin, teeth slashing
sinewy flesh, gouging, tearing, smashing. We both forgot the pistols on
the ground; we must have rolled over them half a dozen times. Each of
us was aware of only one desire, one blind crimson urge to kill with
naked hands, to rend and tear and maul and trample until the other was
a motionless mass of bloody flesh and splintered bone. I do not know how long we fought; time faded into a blood-shot
eternity. His fingers were like iron talons that tore the flesh and
bruised the bone beneath. My head was swimming from its impacts against
the hard ground, and from the pain in my side I knew at least one rib
was broken. My whole body was a solid ache and burn of twisted joints
and wrenched thews. My garments hung in ribbons, wrenched by the blood
that sluiced from an ear that had been ripped loose from my head. But
if I was taking terrible punishment, I was dealing it too. The torch had been knocked down and kicked aside, but it still
smoldered fitfully, lending a lurid dim light to that primordial scene. Its light was not so red as the murder-lust that clouded my dimming
eyes. In a red haze I saw his white teeth gleaming in a grin of agonized
effort, his eyes rolling whitely from a mask of blood. I had mauled his
face out of all human resemblance; from eyes to waist his black hide
was laced with crimson. Sweat slimed us, and our fingers slipped as
they gripped.