The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (26 page)

Reiser caught him with a left to the head, and Tandy landed a right. He felt the glove smack home solidly in Stan’s body, and it felt good. They clinched, and he could feel the other man’s weight and strength, sensing his power.

He broke and Stan came after him, his left stabbing like a living thing. A sharp left to the mouth, then another.

Both men were in excellent shape and the murderous punches slid off their toughened bodies like water off a duck’s back.

Just before the bell, Reiser rushed him into the ropes and clipped him with a wicked right to the chin.

Tandy was sweating now and he was surprised to see blood on his glove when he wiped his face.

When the bell rang for the second, he went out, feinted, and then lunged. Reiser smashed a right to the head that knocked him off balance, and before he could get his feet under him, the bigger man was on him with a battering fury of blows.

Tandy staggered and retreated hastily, but to no avail. Stan was after him instantly, jabbing a left, then crossing a right. Tandy landed a right uppercut in close and Stan clipped him with two high hooks.

Sweaty and bloody now, Tandy bored in; lost to the crowd; lost to Gus, to Dorinda, and to Briggs, living now only for battle and the hot lust of combat. It lifted within him like a fierce, unholy tide. He drove Stan back and was in turn driven back, and they fought, round after round, with the tide of battle seesawing first one way and then another, bloody and desperate and bitter.

In the seventh round, they both came out fast. The crowd was in a continuous uproar now. Slugging like mad, they drove together. Stan whipped over a steaming right uppercut that caught Tandy coming in and his knees turned to rubber. He started to sink and Stan closed in, smashing a sharp left to the face and then crossing a right to the jaw that drove Tandy to his knees.

His head roaring, Tandy came up with a lunge and dove for a clinch, but Stan was too fast. He stepped back and stopped the attempt with a stiff left to the face that cut Tandy’s lips, and then he rushed Tandy, smashing and battering him back with a furious flood of blows, driving him finally into the ropes with a sweeping left that made Tandy turn a complete somersault over the top rope!

His head came through them again and he crawled inside, with Reiser moving in for the kill.

Retreating, Tandy fought to push his thoughts through the fog from the heavy punches. He moved back warily, circling to avoid Reiser. The big man kept moving in, taking his time, more sure of himself now, and set for a kill.

Tandy Moore saw the cruel lips and the high cheekbones, one of them now wearing a mouse, he saw a thin edge of a cut under Stan’s right eye, and his lips looked puffed. His side was reddened from the pounding Tandy had given it, and Tandy’s eyes narrowed as he backed into the ropes. That eye and the ribs!

Reiser closed in carefully and stabbed a left. More confident now, Tandy let the punch start, then turned his shoulders behind a left jab that speared Stan on the mouth. It halted him and the big fighter blinked.

Instantly, Tandy’s right crossed over the left jab to the mouse on the cheekbone.

It landed with a dull thud and Stan’s eyes glazed. His nostrils alive with the scent of sweaty muscles and blood, Tandy jabbed, then crossed, and suddenly they were slugging.

Legs spread apart, jaws set, they stood at point-blank range and fired with both hands!

The crowd came up roaring. The pace was too furious to last and it finally became a matter of who would give ground first. Suddenly Tandy Moore thrust his foot forward in a tight, canvas-gripping movement. Tandy saw his chance and threw a terrific left hook to the chin but it missed and a right exploded on his own jaw and he went to the canvas with a crash and a vast, roaring sound in his skull.

He came up swinging and went down again from a wicked left hook to the stomach and a crashing right to the corner of his jaw.

Rolling over, he got to his knees, his head filled with that roaring sound, and vaguely he saw Stan going away from him and realized with a shock that he was on his feet and that the bell ending the round was clanging in his ears!

One more round! It must be now or never! Whatever Reiser and Bernie had planned, whatever stratagem they had conceived, would be put into execution in the ninth round, and in the next, the eighth, he must win. He heard nothing that Gus Coe said. He felt only the ministering hands, heard the low, careful tone of his voice, felt water on his face and the back of his neck, and then a warning buzzer sounded and he was on his feet ready for the bell.

VI

The bell rang and Tandy went out, a fierce, driving lust for victory welled up within him until he could see nothing but Stan Reiser. This was the man who had beaten his father, the man who had whipped him, the man who was fighting now to win all he wanted, all he desired. If Tandy could win, justice was at hand.

He hurled himself at Reiser like a madman. Toughened by years of hard work, struggle, and sharpened by training, he was ready. Fists smashing and battering he charged into Reiser, and the big heavyweight met him without flinching. For Stan Reiser had to win in this round, too. He must win in this round or confess by losing that he was the lesser man. Hating Tandy with all the ugly hatred of a man who has wronged another, he still fought the thought of admitting that he must stoop to using other methods to beat this upstart who would keep him from the title.

Weaving under a left, Tandy smashed a right to the ribs, then a left, a right, a left. His body swayed as he weaved in a deadly rhythm of mighty punching, each blow timed to the movements of Stan Reiser’s body.

The big man yielded ground. He fell back and tried to sidestep, but Tandy was on him, giving no chance for a respite.

Suddenly the haze in Tandy’s head seemed to clear momentarily and he stared upon features that were battered and swollen. One of Stan’s eyes was closed and a raw wound lay under the other. His lips were puffed and his cheekbone was an open cut, yet there was in the man’s eyes a fierce, almost animal hatred and something else.

It was something Tandy had never until that moment seen in a boxer’s eyes. It was fear!

Not fear of physical injury, but the deeper, more awful fear of being truly beaten. And Stan Reiser had never been bested in that way. And now it was here, before him.

It was an end. Reiser saw it and knew it. Nothing he could do could stop that driving attack. He had thrown his best punches, used every legitimate trick, but there was one last hope!

Tandy feinted suddenly and Reiser struck out wildly, and Tandy smashed a right hand flush to the point of his chin!

Stan hit the ropes rolling, lost balance, and crashed to the floor. Yet at seven he was up, lifting his hands, half blind, but then the bell rang!

T
HE NINTH ROUND
. Here it was. Almost before he realized it, the gong sounded and Tandy was going out again. But now he was wary, squinting at Stan’s gloves.

Were they loaded? But the gloves had not been slipped off. There was no time, and no chance for that under the eyes of the crowd and the sportswriters. It would be something on the gloves.

He jabbed and moved away. Stan was working to get in close and there was a caution in his eyes. His whole manner was changed. Suddenly Reiser jabbed sharply for Tandy’s head, but a flick of his glove pushed the blow away and Tandy was watchful again.

The crowd seemed to sense something. In a flickering glimpse at his corner, Tandy saw Gus Coe’s face was scowling. He had seen that something in Reiser’s style had changed; something was wrong. But what?

Stan slipped a left and came in close. He hooked for Tandy’s head and smeared a glove across his eye. The glove seemed to slide on the sweat, and Tandy lowered his head to Stan’s shoulder and belted him steadily in the stomach. He chopped a left to the head and the referee broke them. His right eye was smarting wickedly.

Something on the gloves! And in that instant, he recalled a story Gus had told him;
it was mustard oil!
So far he’d gotten little of it, but if it got directly in his eyes—

He staggered under a left hook, blocked a right, but caught a wicked left to the ribs. Sliding under another left, he smashed a right to the ribs with such force that it jerked Reiser’s mouth open. In a panic the bigger man dove into a clinch, and jerking a glove free ground the end of it into Tandy’s eye! He gritted his teeth and clinched harder.

“You remember me; the newsboy?” Tandy hissed as they swung around in a straining dance.

The referee was yelling,
“Break!”

Stan hooked again but Tandy got his shoulder up to take the blow. “I’m going to take you down and if I don’t I’ll tell my story to anyone who’ll listen!” Panic and fear haunted Stan Reiser’s eyes and then something in him snapped; there was no longer any thought of the future just a driving, damning desire to punish this kid who would dare to threaten him.

Tandy jerked away and Stan hooked viciously to the jaw. Staggering, he caught the left and went to the canvas. He rolled over and got up, but Stan hooked another wicked left to his groin, throwing it low and hard with everything he had on it!

Tandy’s mouth jerked open in a half-stifled cry of agony and he pitched over on his face, grabbing his crotch and rolling over and over on the canvas!

Men and women shouted and screamed. A dozen men clambered to the apron of the ring; flashbulbs popped as the police surged forward to drag everyone back. Around the ring all was bedlam and the huge arena was one vast roar of sound.

Tandy rolled over and felt the sun on his face, and he knew he had to get up.

Beyond the pain, beyond the sound, beyond everything was the need to be on his feet. He crawled to his knees and while the referee stared, too hypnotized by Tandy’s struggle to get up to stop the fight, Tandy grabbed the ropes and pulled himself erect.

Blinded with pain from his stinging eyes, his teeth sunk into his mouthpiece with the agony that gnawed at his vitals, Tandy brushed the referee aside and held himself with his mind, every sense, every nerve, every ounce of strength, concentrated on Stan Reiser. And Reiser rushed to meet him.

Smashing Reiser’s lips with a straight left, Tandy threw a high hard one and it caught Reiser on the chin as he came in. Falling back to the ropes, fear in every line of his face, Stan struggled to defend against the tide of punches that Tandy summoned from some hidden reserve of strength.

With a lunge, Reiser tried to escape. As he turned Tandy pulled the trigger on a wicked right that clipped Stan flush on the chin and sent him off the platform and crashing into the cowering form of Bernie Satneck!

Stan Reiser lay over a chair, out cold and dead to the world. Bernie Satneck struggled to get out from beneath him.

Then, Gus and Briggs were in the ring and he tried to see them through eyes that streamed with tears from the angry smart of the mustard oil.

“You made it, son. It’s over.” Gus carefully wiped off his face. “You’ll fight the champ, and I think you’ll beat him, too!”

Dory was in the ring, her eyes bright, her arm around his shoulders.

“It’s just a game now, Gus.” He sank to the mat, gasping. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

“Your poor face.” Dorinda’s eyes were full of tears, her hand cool on his cheek.

“Just don’t complain about my beard.” He grinned. “It could be weeks before I can shave.”

Gus and Briggs got him to his feet. “Hell,” he grumbled, “I hope it isn’t weeks before I can walk.”

Supported by his two friends, trailed by Dorinda, who had caught up his robe and towel, Tandy limped toward the dressing rooms.

“I wish my dad could have seen,” he whispered. “I wish my dad could have seen me fight.”

The Money Punch

I

T
he girl in the trench coat and sand-colored beret was on the sidelines again. She was standing beside a white-haired man, and as Darby McGraw crawled through the ropes, she was watching him.

Darby grinned at his second and trainer, Beano Brown. “That babe’s here again,” he said. “She must think I’m okay.”

“She prob’ly comes to see somebody else,” Beano said without interest. “Lots of fighters work out here.”

“No, she always looks at me. And why is that, you ask me? It’s because I’m the class of this crowd, that’s why.”

“You sure hate yourself,” Beano said. “These people seen plenty of fighters.” Beano leaned on the top rope and looked at Darby with casual eyes. The boy was built. He had the shoulders, a slim waist and narrow hips, and he had good hands. A good-looking boy.

“Wait until I get in there with Mink Delano. I’ll show ’em all something then. When I hit ’em with my right and they don’t go down, they do some sure funny things standing up!”

“You come from an awful small town,” Beano said. “I can tell that.”

Darby moved in, feeling for the distance with his left. He felt good. Sammy Need, the boy he was working with, slipped inside of Darby’s left and landed lightly to the ribs. Darby kept his right hand cocked. He would like to throw that right, just once, just to show this girl what he could do.

He liked Sammy, though, and didn’t want to hurt him. Sammy was fast, and Darby wasn’t hitting him very often, but that meant nothing. He rarely turned loose his right in workouts, and it was the right that was his money punch. That right had won his fights out in Jerome, and those fights had gotten him recommended to Fats Lakey in L.A.

Fats was his manager. Fats had been a pool hustler who dropped into Jerome one time and met some of the guys in the local fight scene. He’d been looking for new talent, and so the locals had talked McGraw into going to the coast and looking him up. With nine knockouts under his belt, Darby was willing.

He felt good today. He liked to train and was in rare shape. He moved in, and as he worked, he wondered what that girl would say if she knew he had knocked out nine men in a row. And no less than six of these in the first round. Neither Dempsey nor Louis had that many kayos in their first nine fights.

When he had worked six rounds, he climbed down from the ring, scarcely breathing hard. He started for the table to take some body-bending exercise and deliberately passed close to the girl. He was within ten feet of her when he heard her say distinctly, “Delano will win. This one can’t fight for sour apples.”

Darby stopped, flat-footed, his face flushing red with sudden anger. Who did she think she was, anyway, talking him down like that! He started to turn, then noticed they were paying no attention to him, hadn’t noticed him, in fact, so he wheeled angrily and went on to the table.

I’ll show ’em! he told himself. He was seething inside. Why, just for that, he’d murder Delano; knock him out, like the others, in the very first round!

D
ARBY
M
C
G
RAW’S ANGER
had settled to a grim, bitter determination by the night he climbed into the ring with Mink Delano. Fats Lakey was standing behind his corner, swelling with importance, a long cigar thrust in his fat, red cheek. He kept talking about “my boy McGraw” in a loud voice.

Beano Brown crawled into Darby’s corner as second. He was not excited. Beano had seen too many of them come and go. He had been seconding fighters for twenty-two years, and it meant just another sawbuck to him, or whatever he could get. He was a short black man with one cauliflowered ear. Tonight he was bored and tired.

Darby glanced down at the ringside and saw the girl in the beret. She glanced at him, then looked away without interest.

“The special event was a better fight than this semifinal will be,” he heard her say. “I can’t see why they put this boy in that spot.”

Darby stood up. He was mad clear through. I’ll show her! he told himself viciously. I’ll show her! He wouldn’t have minded so much if she hadn’t had wide gray eyes and lovely, soft brown hair. She was, he knew, almost beautiful.

They went to the center of the ring for their instructions. The crowd didn’t bother him. He was impatient, anxious to get started and to feel his right fist smashing against Mink’s chin. He’d show this crowd something, and quick! Why, it took them four hours to bring Al Baker back to his senses after Baker stopped that right with his chin!

The bell clanged and he wheeled and went out fast. Delano was a slim, white, muscled youngster who fought high on his toes. Darby moved in, feinted swiftly, and threw his right.

Something smashed him in the body, and then a light hook clipped him on the chin. He piled in, throwing the right again, but a fast left made him taste blood and another snapped home on his temple. Neither punch hurt, but he was confused. He steadied down and looked at Mink. The other boy was calm, unruffled.

Darby pawed with his left, but his left wasn’t good for much, he knew. Then he threw his right. Again a gloved fist smashed him in the ribs. Darby bored in, landing a light left, but taking a fast one to the mouth. He threw his right and Mink beat him to it with a beautiful inside cross that jolted him to his heels. The bell sounded and he trotted back to his corner.

“Take your time, boy,” Beano said. “Just take your time. No hurry.”

Darby McGraw was on his feet before the bell sounded. He pulled up his trunks and pawed at the resin. This guy had lasted a whole round with him, and this after he’d sworn to get him in the first, too. The bell rang and he lunged from his corner and threw his right, high and hard.

A fist smashed into his middle, then another one. He was hit three times before he could get set after the missed punch. Darby drew back and circled Mink. Somehow he wasn’t hitting Delano. He was suddenly vastly impatient. Talk about luck! This guy had it. Mink moved in and Darby’s right curled around his neck. He smiled at Darby, then smashed two wicked punches to the body.

Darby was shaken. His anger still burning within him, he pawed Delano’s left out of the way and slammed a right to the body, but Mink took it going away and the glove barely touched him.

Darby stepped around, set himself to throw his right, but Mink sidestepped neatly, taking himself out of line. Before Darby could change position, a left stabbed him in the mouth. Darby ducked his head and furrowed his brow. He’d have to watch this guy. He would have to be careful.

Delano moved in now, landing three fast left jabs. Darby fired his right suddenly, but it slid off a slashing left glove that smashed his lips back into his teeth and set him back on his heels. He took another step back and suddenly Delano was all over him. Before Darby could clinch, Mink hit him seven times.

Three times in the following round he tried with his right. Each time he missed. When the bell ended the round, he walked wearily back to his corner. He slumped on the stool. “Use your left,” Beano told him. “This boy, he don’t like no lefts. Use a left hook!”

Darby tried, but he had no confidence in that left of his. It had always been his right that won fights for him. All he had to do was land that right. One punch and he could win. Just one. He feinted with his right and threw his left. It was a poorly executed hook, more of a swing, but it caught Mink high on the head and knocked him sprawling on the canvas.

Darby was wild. He ran to a corner and waited, hands weaving. Delano scrambled to his feet at the count of nine and Darby went after him with a rush and threw a roundhouse right. Mink ducked inside of it and grabbed Darby with both hands.

Wildly, McGraw tore him loose and threw his right again. But Mink was crafty and slid inside and clinched once more. Darby could hear someone yelling to use his left. He tried. He pushed Delano away and cocked his left, but caught a left and right in the mouth before he could throw it.

In the last round of the fight he was outboxed completely. He was tired, but he kept pushing in, kept throwing his right. He didn’t need to look at the referee. He kept his eyes away from the girl in the trench coat. He did not want to hear the decision. He knew he had lost every round.

Fats Lakey was waiting in the dressing room, his fat face flushed and ugly. “You bum!” he snarled. “You poor, country bum! I thought you were a fighter! Why, this Delano is only a preliminary boy, a punk, and he made a monkey out of you! Nine knockouts, but you can’t fight! Not for sour apples, you can’t fight!”

That did it. All the rage and frustration and disappointment boiled over. Darby swung his right. Fats, seeing his mistake too late, took a quick step back, enough to break the force of the blow but not enough to save him. The right smashed against his fat cheek and Lakey hit the floor on the seat of his pants, blood streaming from a cut below his eye.

“I’ll have you pinched for this!” he screamed. He got up and backed toward the door. “I’ll get you thrown in the cooler so fast!”

“No, you won’t!” It was the white-haired man who had sat with the girl in the beret. They were both there. “I heard it all, Lakey, and if he hadn’t clipped you, I would have. Now beat it!”

Fats Lakey backed away, his eyes ugly. The white-haired man had twisted a handkerchief around his fist and was watching him coolly.

II

When Fats was gone, the girl walked over to Darby. “Hurt much?”

“No,” he said sullenly, keeping his eyes down. “I ain’t hurt. That Delano couldn’t break an egg!”

“Lucky for you he couldn’t,” she said coolly. “He hit you with everything but the stool.”

Darby’s eyes flashed angrily. He was bitter and ashamed. He wanted no girl such as this to see him beaten. He had wanted her to see him win.

“He was lucky,” he muttered. “I had an off night.”

“Oh?” Her voice was contemptuous. “So you’re one of those?”

His head came up sharply. “One of what?” he demanded. “What do you mean?”

“One of those fighters who alibi themselves out of every beating,” she said. “A fighter who is afraid to admit he was whipped. You were beaten tonight—you should be man enough to admit it.”

He pulled his shoelace tighter and pressed his lips into a thin line. He glanced at her feet. She had nice feet and good legs. Suddenly, memory of the fight flooded over him. He recalled those wild rights he had thrown into empty air, the stabbing lefts he had taken in the mouth, the rights that had battered his ribs. He got to his feet.

“All right,” he said. “If you want me to admit it, he punched my head off. I couldn’t hit him. But next time I’ll hit him. Next time I’ll knock him out!”

“Not if you fight the way you did tonight,” she said matter-of-factly. “Fighting the way you do, you wouldn’t hit him with that right in fifty fights. Whoever told you you were a fighter?”

He glared. “I won nine fights by knockouts,” he said defiantly. “Six in the first round!”

“Against country boys who knew even less about it than you did, probably. You might make a fighter,” she admitted, “but you aren’t one now. You can’t win fights with nothing but a right hand.”

“You know all about it,” he sneered. “What does a girl know about fighting, anyway?”

“My father was Paddy McFadden,” she replied quietly, “if you know who he was. My uncle was lightweight champion of the world. I grew up around better fighters than you’ve ever seen.”

He picked up his coat. “So what?” He started for the door, but feeling a hand on his sleeve, he stopped. The white-haired man was holding out some money to him.

“I was afraid Lakey might forget to pay you, so I collected your part of this.”

“Thanks,” Darby snapped. He took the money and stuffed it into his pocket. He was out the door when he heard Beano.

“Mr. McGraw?”

“Yeah?” He was impatient, anxious to be gone. “Fats, he forgot to give me my sawbuck.”

The Negro’s calm face quieted Darby. “Oh?” he said. “I’m sorry. Here.” He reached for the money. It wasn’t very much. He took a twenty from the thin packet of bills and handed it to Beano. “Here you are, and thanks. If I’d won, I’d have given you more.”

He ducked out through the door and turned into the damp street, wet from a light drizzle of rain. Suddenly, he was ashamed of himself. He shouldn’t have talked to the girl that way. It was only that he had wanted so much to make a good showing, to impress her, and then he had lost. It would have been better if he had been knocked out. It would have been less humiliating than to take the boxing lesson he’d taken.

With sudden clarity he saw the fight as it must have looked to others. A husky country boy, wading in and wasting punches on the air, while a faster, smarter fighter stepped around him and stuck left hands in his face.

What would they be saying back home now? He had told them all he would be back, welterweight champion of the world. His nine victories had made him sure that all he needed was a chance at the champion and he could win. And he’d been beaten by a comparatively unknown preliminary boxer!

Hours later he stopped at a cheap hotel and got a room for the night. What was it she had said?

“You can’t win fights with nothing but a right hand.”

She had been right, of course, and he’d been a fool. His few victories had swollen his head until he was too cocky, too sure of himself. Suddenly, he realized how long and hard the climb would be, how much he had to learn.

F
OR A LONG TIME
he lay awake that night, recalling those stabbing lefts and the girl’s scorn. Yet she’d come to his dressing room. Why? She had bothered enough to talk to him. Darby McGraw shook his head. Girls had always puzzled him. But this one seemed particularly puzzling.

In the morning he recovered his few possessions at the hotel where he and Fats had stayed. Fats was gone, leaving the bill for him to pay. He paid it and had twelve dollars left.

He found Beano Brown leaning against the wall at Higherman’s Gym. “Beano,” he said hesitantly, “what was wrong with my fight last night?”

The Negro looked at him, then dug a pack of smokes from his pocket and shook one into his hand. “You ain’t got no left,” he said, “for one thing. Never was no great fighter without he had a good left hand. You got to learn to jab.”