Logger’s Smallpox: Kick Him When He’s Down by Mark Hatmaker

[The following is an extract from the well-researched 1979 novel, The Holdouts by William Decker. It discusses a topic we discussed at length in last week’s offering The Lumberjack/Mining Camp Caulk-Kick. You can read that piece here. Or better yet, snag our instructional on this godawful viciousness here.]

With his size and strength Red had always been a formidable fist fighter, but he tried to avoid fighting. Sam remembered how disturbed Red had been when an old logger had given them advice on how to fight. They had been at a dance when a fight broke out in the parking lot and a crowd gathered to watch two men slug it out in a clearing among the cars and pickups. No rowdiness or drinking was allowed inside the community dance hall, so it all took place out in the parking lot, and this was the third fight that night. It ended when one of the men went down and did not rise again. Sam had been awed by the solid blows the men exchanged. The sight of grown men battling was so much grimmer than boys wrestling in the schoolyard. But the old logger standing between them shook his head and spat in disgust.

“Don't know a damn thing about fighting anymore,” he said. “Knock a man down and the fight’s over. Hell, that's when you want to go to work on him. Put him in bed for a week or two so he can think over how bad you beat him. Kick him! Stomp on him! Give him the logger’s smallpox.”

“Logger’s smallpox?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” the old man growled. “Walk all over him with your calked boots. Leave some marks for him to remember you by.”

[One in a series of pieces on Frontier JKD, you can read the initial essay here.]

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