A Moment in the Sun (6 page)

“Your name, Brother?” asks the tallest of the hooded men, the hero of Paombong. They are all watching Diosdado now, who stands with a thread of blood dripping off his fingertips to the polished floor.

“I am Argus,” he tells them. “He who sees all.”

SKAGUAY

Hod is working on the wagon road three miles out of Skaguay, felling trees and dragging logs through the mud with a chain rig, when a dude strolls up with the road boss.

“That’s the one,” says the road boss.

The dude, checked sack suit, street shoes and the only straw boater Hod has seen since coming north, cocks his head and speaks loud enough for Hod to hear over the chopping and whipsawing and cursing of laborers.

“I expected a larger man.”

But he continues to watch Hod work, a little dude smile on his face, smoking three cigarettes and dancing out of the way as trees are felled, as logs are dragged and dropped on the corduroy road, and is waiting when the shift ends.

“Niles Manigault,” he says, offering a soft hand and smiling. “And you are?”

“Brackenridge.”

“Splendid. May I ask, Mr. Brackenridge, if you are a practitioner of the fistic arts?”

The words make no sense at first. Hod rolls his shoulders, feeling the chafe marks where the chain cut in. “I fought a couple guys. In Montana.”

“Montana.”

“Three fights. With other miners.”

Niles Manigault nods, considering, then taps Hod on the chest with his finger. “No matter. The lure of ample recompense should outweigh any lack of experience.”

“You offering me a job?”

The young man has a markedly Southern accent and a very neatly brushed moustache. “A business opportunity, yes.” He indicates the hodgepodge of felled trees around them. “Something of a step up for you, I would imagine.”

“What I have to do?”

They walk back toward town over the roadbed that has already been laid, Hod with his ax over his shoulder, the dude trying not to sink his street shoes too deep in the muck.

“You’ll need to absorb a certain amount of punishment,” says Niles Mani-gault, smiling. “And, if able, to deal some out.”

An older colored man with a pushed-in face sits in a battered wagon pointed toward town.

“Our barouche,” says Manigault, gesturing for Hod to get in. Hod climbs onto the bed while the dude sits up front by the drayman, and they begin to thump home over the logs, passing the other road workers slogging back through the mud, lugging their tools over their shoulders. “This is our new pugilist, Smokey,” says the dude. “What do you think?”

The negro casts a quick look back at Hod.

“He gonna beat Choynski,” he says, turning his attention to the slat-ribbed nag pulling the wagon, “he best carry that ax into the ring with him.”

The new docks have pulled all the action from Dyea here to Skaguay, and the town has more false-fronted wood buildings than tents now, new structures being thrown up on every block of the grid the original claim jumpers laid out, the frozen-mud streets swarming with new arrivals in a hurry to reach the Pass and merchants and buncos hustling to pick them clean before they get there. There are dogs everywhere, dogs too small or stubborn or weak or vicious to be useful pulling sleds on the trail, dogs of all shapes and sizes formed into packs that fight over slops thrown on the street or over territory or just for the mean dog delight of it. A half-dozen of them crowd around barking and snapping as Smokey guides the wagon past the little brewery, then scamper away when it’s clear there is nothing worth eating or killing. Hod and Manigault climb down onto the board sidewalk that runs in front of the buildings and tents, weaving around stampeders and drunks and the tame Russian bear doing tricks and a hatless, startle-eyed wild man predicting that the usurers, whoremongers, and worshippers of the Golden Idol who rush about ignoring him will soon be cast into a lake of fire.

“Any idea how much you weigh?” asks Niles Manigault.

“A sight less than when I got here,” says Hod, and then the dude pulls him down onto Holly Street.

He has passed Jeff Smith’s Parlor several times, but prefers the big dance halls on Broadway or Clancy’s on Trail Street. All the resorts are pretty much the same, dedicated to separating a man from what’s in his poke as quick as possible, but some do it with a lighter touch. Smith turns out to be another Southerner, a bearded, dark-haired, dark-eyed man in a big-brimmed wideawake hat, leaning back with elbows propped on the bar and one bootheel hooked over the brass rail.

“You’re not a boxer,” he says, looking Hod up and down.

“Never claimed to be,” Hod tells him. Manigault takes a seat on a stool, the bartender laying a short whiskey in front of him. “I just been in a fight or two.”

“And how did you fare?”

“Held my own.”

A half-dozen other men drift close around him, watching with appraising eyes. Smith has a soft voice and a friendly manner.

“Take your shirt off,” he says. “We’ll have a look.”

Hod hesitates, then begins to peel the layers, draping his work-grimed clothes over the bar counter. They are paying six a day on the wagon road, good wages on the Outside, but prices in Skaguay leave nothing much to show for it, and on every corner there are a dozen busted stampeders ready to work for coffee and johnnycakes. When Hod is down to his skin, Niles Manigault puts in a word.

“Devereaux says he’s the strongest of the lot out there, best stamina, most stubborn—”

Jeff Smith raises a hand to silence him, steps close to lock eyes with Hod.

“Young man,” he says, smiling, “how would you like to earn an easy one hundred dollars?”

The fight is only a few hours away, and Niles explains that it will be necessary to meet with his opponent first.

“Merely a formality,” he says as he and Smith lead Hod, struggling back into his clothes, across the muck on Broadway. “Our previous champion being indisposed—”

“Stiff as a plank,” says Smith. “Passed out drunk in a snowdrift last night and froze to death.”

“—you are something of a last-moment replacement. They need to be reassured that you’re no ringer.”

“I never even had gloves on.”

“We’ll do the talking in here, son,” says Smith, stepping into the Pack Train Restaurant.

The manager is an older man with a face like boiled ham. Choynski, trim and curly haired, is sawing at a steak.

“Where’d you get this dub?” says the manager, flicking his eyes over Hod.

“The north country breeds fighting men,” answers Niles Manigault. “This lad has bested all comers in the region—”

The fighter sits back to look at Hod. “You ever been in the rope arena, young man?”

“He is neither a seasoned professional nor a mere chopping block,” Niles intercedes. “A raw talent, you might say.”

The manager is not impressed. “Folks won’t be happy paying to see a slaughter.”

“You underestimate our boy,” says Smith, pulling his wideawake off and holding it over his heart. “As well as the drawing power of your Mr. Choynski.”

“An exhibition,” says Choynski.

“I expect our citizenry will expect a bit more fireworks than that.”

“A lively exhibition. What’s your name?”

Niles Manigault begins to speak but Hod beats him to the punch. “Hosea Brackenridge. Always called me Hod, though.”

The fighter smiles. “That’s too good to have made up.” He holds out his hand to shake. Several of the knuckles are misshapen. “If you’re anywhere near as tough as this beef, Mr. Brackenridge, we will reward the people of Skaguay with a memorable evening.”

“Cocky Jew bastard,” drawls Niles Manigault as they step out onto Broad-way again. A mulecart is tipped on its side and men are trying to right it, boots sliding in the mud as they push.

“We’ve already sold the tickets.” Jeff Smith steps around the accident, unconcerned. “Add the liquor on top and the wagers, there’s a tidy sum to be gathered. My only true concern is what to call our boy Hosea here.”

“I concur,” says Manigault. “One Jew name in the ring is quite enough.”

“It’s not Jew,” Hod protests. “It’s from the Bible.”

“Which is nothing but Jews till you reach the end of the Book,” says Smith. He stops on the far boardwalk to look Hod over again. “Young McGinty.”

Niles laughs.

“That a real person?” Hod knows he’s signed on for a beating, and hopes that’s all it is.

“I ran an establishment called the Orleans Club in Creede during their bonanza,” Smith tells him. “I acquired a statue, a prehistoric man who had been artfully carved out of stone, and kept him in the back room. For the price of one nickel the curious were allowed to take a brief look. We named it McGinty.”

“Christened thusly,” explains the dude, “because anyone that petrified has
got
to be Irish.”

The fight is in the dance hall at the front of the Nugget. The room smells of cigars and spilled beer and the wet woolen clothes of the three hundred men already packed in around the tiny roped square where two windmilling prospectors settle a grudge to cheers and catcalls. Smokey walks Hod around the already drunken throng in the hall, then back through the packed, whiskey-reeking bar into a tiny room screened off by a dirty American flag hung over a narrow doorway. A skinny girl, still in her teens, lies on a cot staring at the ceiling. She sits up to look at them blankly. She wears a sleeveless green chemise and has her red hair pinned up with an emerald-colored brooch.

“Sorry, Miss,” says Hod.

She looks at the negro. “Boxin over?”

“Just about to start, the real one.” Smokey points to Hod. “He got to change.”

She nods and stands, glancing at Hod as she steps out of the crib. “He aint no fighter.”

“Nemmine her,” says Smokey, tossing a pair of stained trunks onto the cot. He holds up a pair of high-topped leather shoes. “These aint gonna fit you, is they?”

“Don’t appear so.”

“Put them of yours back on when you ready, then.” Smokey watches as Hod strips down, turning away when he peels his long underwear off. There are postcards of naked women stuck all over the walls, naked women holding tennis rackets, astride bicycles, lounging on divans, naked women staring right at you.

“These are big, too,” says Hod, holding the waist of the trunks out with his thumbs.

“You put this in there, protect your privates.” Smokey hands him a molded triangle with padding stuffed in it. “Then pull them drawstrings tight. You sure you been in the ring?”

Hod wedges the protector into the trunks, then wriggles his hips to get it to sit right. “There wasn’t any ropes. The other miners just crowded around in sort of a circle.”

Smokey shakes his head. “Makin you toe the line with Chrysanthemum Joe.”

“He somebody?”

The colored man snorts. “He put that left hand of his on your chin, you find out quick who he is. Beat Kid McCoy
twice
.”

“What you think I ought to do?” Hod is more worried about the crowd, raw-faced and shouting around the ring, of being humiliated, than of the soft-spoken man from the Pack Train Restaurant.

Smokey strikes a pose—arms slightly bent and extended out before him, loose fists held palms toward the ground, left hand and foot slightly forward of the right, right elbow tucked in close to the ribs. “You stand like this,” he says, “then you try catch his hits with your gloves or duck your head away from them. With Joe they gonna come in bunches, so stay on your toes, keep movin. This here,” he taps the spot between the ribs just below his breastbone, “this is your
mark
. You let him hit you sharp on that mark, your knees gonna buckle right under you. So you keep this elbow down here ready to block him, throw it across your mark when he try at it.”

“That leaves my head open on the right.”

Smokey smiles, showing a few missing teeth. “Don’t it though? That’s what
beau
tiful about the game. Whatever a man do, it open him up to something comin back.”

“So if I think he’s gonna—”

“Last thing you want to do out there is any
think
in, son. It’s all time and distance, time and distance, and then you just got to have a
feel
for it.”

“You were a fighter?”

Smokey begins to wrap Hod’s left hand in a tight, complicated cross-pattern with a roll of cloth bandage. “Bare-knuckle days. My last bout I went twenny-eight rounds with Peter Jackson when he come over from Australia. Near kilt each other.”

Hod looks down at his heavy shoes. “These gonna be all right?”

Smokey nods. “Got a nice tread on em. Wood floor, slicked up with blood—”

Hod feels a little dizzy. He tries to focus on one of the postcards. A naked woman with dimpled knees and a feathered hat poses, chin up and eyes to the heavens, before a backdrop of a distant, smoking volcano.

“Should I try to hit him back?”

“Try to hit him
first
and then get away. Hit him, hold him, wrestle him around. Just don’t get him mad at you.”

There is a roar from the dance floor as one or both of the prospectors hit the floor.

“I think I better piss first.”

Smokey sighs, starts out. “I get you a cuspidor.” He pauses with the flag half lifted to look back. “Whenever you think you can’t stand no more, you take your dive. And once you in that tank, stay under for a while. Can’t nobody hit you with nothing down there.”

Three hundred men turn to look, whiskey-ornery, as Smokey brings Hod back into the dance hall. Jeff Smith stands with Niles Manigault and several of the others from the Parlor at the side of the little improvised ring, cargo rope stretched between four cattle stanchions nailed to the floor. The one they call the Sheeny Kid barks out from the center.

“Gentlemen, if I may direct your attention—now entering the squared circle—from the mists of County Cork—European Catchweight Champion and challenger for the Heavyweight crown—the Gaelic Goliath—Young McGiiiiiiiiinty!”

Smokey holds the ropes apart and Hod ducks in to more jeers than applause. He stands trying to look above the men’s howling faces and sees the red-haired girl from the little room leaning against the far wall with her arms crossed. He wishes she wasn’t there.