“Yes, that’s so!”
There was a pause of labored breathing and contorted lips; the acrid taste of loathing and the poisonous constrictions of brute fear, a sense of dizziness about the head, a kind of hollow numbness in the stomach pit, knee sockets gone a trifle watery; all of the gold of just a while ago gone now, all of the singing and the green; no color now, a poisonous whiteness in the very quality of light, a kind of poisonous intensity of focus everywhere; the two antagonists’ faces suddenly keen, eyes sharp with eager cruelty, pack-appetites awakened, murder-sharp now, lusts aware.
“You’d better not be gettin’ big about it,” said Victor Munson slowly, breathing heavily, “or somebody’ll smack you down!”
“You know anyone who’s going to do it?”
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t, I’m not sayin’. It’s none of your business.”
“It’s none of your business either!”
“Maybe,” said Victor Munson, breathing swarthily, and edging forward an inch or so—“Maybe I’ll make it some of my business!”
“You’re not the only one who can make it your business!”
“You know of anyone who wants to make it anything?”
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.”
“Do you say that you do?”
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. I don’t back down from saying it.”
“Boys, boys,” said Sidney Purtle, quietly, mockingly. “You’re gettin’ hard with each other. You’re usin’ harsh language to each other. The first thing you know you’ll be gettin’ into trouble with each other—about Christmas time,” he jeered quietly.
“If he wants to make anything out of it,” said Victor Munson bitterly, “he knows what he can do.”
“You know what you can do, too!”
“Boys, boys,” jeered Sidney Purtle softly.
“Fight! Fight!” said Harry Nast, and snickered furtively. “When is the big fight gonna begin?”
“Hell!” said Carl Hooton coarsely, “they don’t want to fight. They’re both so scared already they’re ready to—in their pants. Do you want to fight, Munson?” he said softly, brutally, coming close and menacing behind the other boy.
“If he wants to make something of it—” the Munson boy began again.
“Well, then, make it!” cried Carl Hooton, with a brutal laugh, and at the same moment gave the Munson boy a violent shove that sent him hurtling forward against the pinioned form of his antagonist. Sid Purtle sent his captive hurtling forward at the Munson boy; in a second more, they were crouching toe to toe, and circling round each other. Sid Purtle’s voice could be heard saying quietly:
“If they want to fight it out, leave ’em alone! Stand back and give ’em room!”
“Wait a minute!”
The words were spoken almost tonelessly, but they carried in them such a weight of quiet and inflexible command that instantly all the boys stopped and turned with startled surprise, to see where they came from.
Nebraska Crane, his bat upon his shoulder, was advancing towards them from across the street. He came on steadily, neither quickening nor changing his stride, his face expressionless, his black Indian gaze fixed steadily upon them.
“Wait a minute!” he repeated as he came up.
“What’s the matter?” Sidney Purtle answered, with a semblance of surprise.
“You leave Monk alone,” Nebraska Crane replied.
“What’ve we done?” Sid Purtle said, with a fine show of innocence.
“I saw you,” said Nebraska with toneless stubbornness, “all four of you ganged up on him; now leave him be.”
“Leave him be?” Sid Purtle now protested.
“You heard me!”
Carl Hooton, more brutal and courageous and less cautious than Sid Purtle, now broke in truculently:
“What’s it to you? What business is it of yours what we do?”
“I make it my business,” Nebraska answered calmly. “Monk,” he went on, “you come over here with me.”
Carl Hooton stepped before the Webber boy and said:
“What right have you to tell us what to do?”
“Get out of the way,” Nebraska said.
“Who’s gonna make me?” said Carl Hooton, edging forward belligerently.
“Carl, Carl—come on,” said Sid Purtle in a low, warning tone. “Don’t pay any attention to him. If he wants to get on his head about it, leave him be.”
There were low, warning murmurs from the other boys.
“The rest of you can back down if you like,” Carl Hooton answered, “but I’m not takin’ any backwash from him. Just because his old man is a policeman, he thinks he’s hard. Well, I can get hard, too, if he gets hard with me.”
“You heard what I told you!” Nebraska said. “Get out of the way!”