The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (41 page)

“Look, kid,” he said excitedly, “we got to scram. Somebody is stirrin’ up a lot of heat! Look at this!”

He pointed at the same daily column of sports comment that had been giving so much space to the activities of the champion, both in and out of the ring.

Where is Barney Malone? That question may or may not mean anything, but this
A.M
., as we recovered from last night’s fistic brawl in which Bat McGowan (or somebody) hung a kayo on Hamp Morgan’s chin, we received an anonymous note asking this very question: Where is Barney Malone?

Now, it is true that we are not too well aware of who this Malone party is, but an enclosed clipping from a Capetown, South Africa, paper shows us a picture entitled
BARNEY MALONE
, a picture of a fighter whose resemblance to Bat McGowan is striking, to say the least. The accompanying story assures the interested reader that Mr. Malone is headed for pugilistic fame in the more or less Land of the Free.

Can it be possible that this accounts for the startling alterations in the appearance and actions of Bat McGowan? And if so, who knocked out Hamp Morgan? Was it indeed our beloved champion, or was it some guy named Jones, from Peoria, or perhaps Malone, from Capetown?

I wonder, Major Kenworthy, if Bat McGowan has a large ear this morning?

There was a light step behind them as Malone finished reading, and they whirled about to confront Tony Mada. He smiled.

“Hello, kid, the boss wants to see you.”

“Hendryx? Why don’t he come over here like he always does?” Ryan demanded. “He knows it’s dangerous to have Barney on the streets.”

“We got a car, Barney, a closed car. Come on, he’s waiting for you.”

Ryan was standing by the window, and he turned his head slightly, glancing at the car across the street. Suddenly his face went deathly white. Behind the wheel was “Shiv” McCloskey, another of Hendryx’s muscle men. He had the feeling that Barney Malone was about to disappear, forever.

Malone picked up his hat, straightened his tie. In the mirror he caught a glimpse of Ryan’s face, white and strained. A jerk of the head indicated the car, with McCloskey at the wheel. Mada was lighting a cigarette.

W
ITHOUT A WORD
, Barney Malone spun on his heel, and as Mada looked up, his fist caught the torpedo on the angle of the jaw. Something crunched, and the gunman toppled to the floor. Quickly, Ryan grabbed the automatic from Mada’s shoulder holster.

“Come on, kid, we got to scram—”

Suddenly in the door of the room stood Major Kenworthy, Rack Hendryx, Bat McGowan, and two reporters. Kenworthy stepped over to Mada, and then glanced out the window. He turned slowly to Hendryx.

“I don’t know quite what this is all about yet, Hendryx,” he said dryly, “but I’d advise you to call off your dog out there. He might become conspicuous. It seems”—he smiled at Ryan and Malone—“that your other shadow has met with an accident.”

“Are you Malone?” asked one of the reporters.

“Of course he’s Malone,” Kenworthy interrupted. “Just what else he is, we’ll soon find out. But before asking any questions or listening to any alibis, I’m going to speak my piece. Apparently, Malone”—he eyed Barney’s bruised ear—“fighting as the champion, defeated Hamp Morgan. This means”—he looked at Hendryx—“that your ten thousand dollars is forfeit. Apparently, Malone, you scored ten knockouts while posing as champion. This is all going to be public knowledge, but you and McGowan are going to get a chance to make it right with the fans. A chance I’d not be giving either of you but for the good of the game. You can fight each other for the world’s title, the proceeds, above training expenses, to go to charity…that, or you can both be barred for life. And if you can also be prosecuted, I’ll see that it’s done. What do you men say?”

“I’ll fight,” Barney Malone said. “I’ll fight him, and only too willing to do it.”

Hendryx agreed, sullenly, for the scowling McGowan.

“D
ON’T MISS
any guesses, Barney,” Ruby Ryan whispered. “Watch him all the time. Remember, he won the title, and he can hit. He’s dangerous, experienced, and a killer. He’s out for blood and to keep his title. Both of you got everything to fight for. Now, go get him!”

The bell clanged, and Malone stepped from his corner, stabbing a lightninglike jab to McGowan’s face. McGowan slid under another left and slammed both hands into Malone’s ribs with jolting force, then whipped up a torrid right uppercut that missed by a hairsbreadth. Malone spun away, jabbing another left to the chin, and hooking a hard right to the temple that shook McGowan to his heels.

But Bat McGowan looked fit. For two months, he had trained like a demon. Ryan had not been joking when he said that McGowan was out for blood. He crowded in close, Malone clinched, and McGowan tried to butt him, but took a solid punch to the midsection before the break.

McGowan crowded in again, slugging viciously, but Malone was too fast, slipping over a left hook and slamming him on the chin with a short right cross. Bat McGowan slipped under another left, crowded in close to bury his right in Malone’s solar plexus.

Malone staggered, tried to cover up, but McGowan was on him, pulling his arms down, driving a terrific right to the side of his head that slammed him back into the ropes. Before he could recover, McGowan was throwing a volley of hooks, swings, and uppercuts, and Malone was battered into a corner, where he caught a stiff left and crashed to the canvas!

He was up at nine, but McGowan came in fast, measured Malone with a left, and dropped him again. Slowly, his head buzzing, the onetime ghost fighter struggled to his knees, and caught a strand of rope to pull himself erect. McGowan rushed in, but was a little too anxious, and Malone fell into a clinch and hung on for dear life.

At the break, McGowan missed a hard right, and the crowd booed. Malone circled warily, boxing. Bat McGowan crowded in close, but Malone met him with a fast left that cut his eyebrow. Then just before the bell, another hard right to the head put Malone on the canvas again. The gong rang at seven.

“Say, you sap,” Ruby Ryan growled in his ear, “who said you couldn’t take it? Whatever has been wrong with you is all right. You’ve taken all he can dish out now. Keep that left busy, and keep this guy at long range and off balance, got me?”

The second round opened fast. Malone was boxing now, using all the cleverness he had. McGowan bored in, then hooked both hands to the head. But Malone took them going away. A short right dropped Bat McGowan to his knees for no count, and then the champion was in close battering away at Malone’s ribs with both hands. Just before the bell, Malone staggered the champion with a hard left hook, and then took a jarring right to the body that drove him into the ropes.

Through the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds the two fought like madmen. Toe-to-toe, they battered away, first one having a narrow lead, then the other. It was nobody’s fight. Bloody, battered, and weary, the two came up for the seventh berserk and fighting for blood. McGowan’s left eye was a bloody mess, his lips were in shreds; Malone’s body was red from the terrific pounding he had taken, his lip was split, and one eye was almost closed. It had been a fierce, grueling struggle with no likelihood of quarter.

McGowan came out slowly and missed a hard right hook, which gave Malone a chance to step in with a sizzling uppercut that nearly tore the champion’s head off! Quickly Malone feinted a left, tried another uppercut, but it fell short as McGowan rolled away, then stepped in, slamming both hands to the body, and then landed a jarring left hook to the head. Slipping away, Malone jabbed a left four times to the face without a return, danced away. McGowan put a fist to Barney’s sore mouth, but took a fearful right and left to the stomach in return that made him back up hurriedly, plainly in distress. McGowan swung wildly with a left and right, Malone ducked with ease, and fired a torrid right uppercut that stretched the champion flat on his shoulder blades!

McGowan came up at seven and, desperate, swung a wicked left that sank into Malone’s body, inches below the belt!

There was an angry bellow from the crowd and a rush for the ring amidst a shrilling of police whistles! But Malone caught himself on the top rope, and as McGowan rushed to finish him, the younger fighter smashed over a driving right to the chin that knocked the champion clear across the ring. Staying on his feet with sheer nerve, Barney Malone lunged across the canvas and met McGowan with a stiff left as he bounded off the ropes, then a terrific right to the jaw and McGowan went down and out, stretched on the canvas like a study in still life!

R
UBY
R
YAN THREW
Malone’s robe across his shoulders, grinning happily. “Well, son, you made it! What are you going to do now?”

Barney Malone carefully raised his head. “A couple more fights. Then I’m goin’ back home…buy a farm up north near Windhoek…find a wife. I need to be in a place where a man can just be himself without having to be someone else first!”

I
N THE PRESS BENCHES
, a radio columnist was speaking into the mike: “Well, folks, it’s all over! Barney Malone is heavyweight champion of the world, after the first major ring battle in recent years in which neither fighter was paid a dime! And”—he glanced over at McGowan’s corner, where Hendryx was slowly reviving his fighter—“if Major Kenworthy is asked tomorrow morning whether Bat McGowan has a large ear, he will have to say ‘Yes,’ and very emphatically!”

Dream Fighter

H
e never even cracked a smile. Just walked in and said, “Mr. Sullivan, I want a fight with Dick Abro.”

Now Dick Abro was one of the four or five best heavyweights in the racket and who this kid was I didn’t know. What I did know was that if he rated a fight with anybody even half so good as Dick Abro, his name would have been in every news sheet in the country.

At first I thought the guy was a nut. Then I took another look, and whatever else you can say, the kid had all his buttons. He was a tall, broad-shouldered youngster with a shock of wavy brown hair and a nice smile. He looked fit, too, his weight was around one eighty. And Abro tipped the beam at a plenty tough two hundred.

“Listen, kid,” I said, shoving my hat back on my head and pointing all four fingers at him. “I never saw you before. But if you were twice as good as you think you are, you still wouldn’t want any part of Dick Abro.”

“Mr. Sullivan,” he said seriously, “I can beat him. I can beat him any day, and if you get me the fight, you can lay your money he will go out in the third round, flatter than ten pancakes.”

What would you have said? I looked at this youngster, and then I got up. When I thought of that wide, brown face and flat nose of Abro’s, and those two big fists ahead of his powerful shoulders, it made me sick to think what would happen to this kid.

“Don’t be a sap!” I said, hard-boiled. “Abro would slap you dizzy in half a round! Whatever gave you the idea you could take that guy?”

“You’d laugh if I told you,” he said quite matter-of-factly.

“I’m laughing now,” I said. “You come in here asking for a fight with Abro. You’re nuts!”

His face turned red, and I felt sorry for the kid. He was a nice-looking boy, and he did look like a fighter, at that.

“Okay,” I said. “You tell me. What made you think you could lick Abro?”

“I dreamed it.”

You could have knocked me down with an axe. He dreamed it! I backed up and sat down again. Then, I looked up to see if he was still there, and he was.

“It’s like this, Mr. Sullivan,” he said seriously. “I know it sounds goofy, but I dream about all my fights before I have them. Whenever I get a fight, I just train and never think about it. Then, a couple of nights before the fight, I dream it. Then I get in the ring and fight like I did in the dream, and I always win.”

Well, I thought if Dick Abro ever smacked this lad for a row of channel buoys, he’d do a lot of dreaming before he came to. Still, there’s a lot of nuts around the fight game. At best, and it’s the grandest game in the world, it’s a screwy one. Funny things happen. So I tipped back in my chair and looked up at him, rolling a quid of chewing gum in my jaws.

“Yeah? Who’d you ever lick?”

“Con Patrick, in two rounds. Beetle Kelly in four, Tommy Keegan in three. Then I beat a half dozen fellows before I started to dream my fights.”

I knew these boys he mentioned. At least, I knew one of them personally and two by their records. None of them were boys you could beat by shadowboxing.

“When’d you have this pipe about Abro?” I asked.

“About a week ago. I went to see the pictures of his fight with the champ. Then, two weeks ago I saw him knock out Soapy Moore. Then I dreamed about fighting him. In the dream, I knocked him out with a right hook in the middle of the third.”

I got up. “You got some gym stuff?” I asked.

He nodded. “I thought maybe you’d want to see me box. Doc Harrigan down in Copper City told me to see you soon as I arrived.”

“Harrigan, eh?” I rolled that around with my gum a few times. Whatever else Harrigan might be, and he was crooked enough so he couldn’t even play a game of solitaire without trying to cheat without catching himself at it, he did know fighters.

We walked down to the gym, and I looked around. There were a couple of Filipinos in the ring, and I watched them. They were sure slinging leather. That man Sambo they tell about in the Bible who killed ten thousand Filipinos with the jawbone of an ass must have framed the deal. Those boys can battle. Then, I saw Pete McCloskey punching the heavy bag. I caught his eye and motioned him over. The kid was in the dressing room changing clothes.

“Listen, Pete,” I said. “You want that six-round special with Gomez?”

“I sure do, Finny,” he said. “I need it bad.”

“Okay, I’ll fix it up. But you got to do me a favor. I got a kid coming out on the floor in a couple of minutes, and I want to see is he any good. Watch your step with him, but feel him out, see?”

“I get it. You don’t want him killed, just bruised a little, eh?” he said.

The kid came out and shadowboxed a couple of rounds to warm up. Pete was looking him over, and he wasn’t seeing anything to feel happy about. The kid was fast, and he used both hands. Of course, many a bum looks pretty hot shadowboxing.

When they got in the ring, the kid, who told me his name was Kip Morgan, walked over and shook hands with Pete. Then he went back to his corner, and I rang the bell.

McCloskey came out in a shell, tried a left that the kid went away from, and then bored in suddenly and slammed a wicked right to the heart. I looked to see Morgan go down, but he didn’t even draw a breath. He just stepped around, and then, all of a sudden, his left flashed out in four of the snappiest, shortest jabs I ever saw. Pete tried to slide under it, but that left followed him like the head of a snake. Then, suddenly, Pete and I saw that opening over the heart again. And when I saw what happened I was glad I was outside the ring.

McCloskey hadn’t liked those lefts a bit, so when he saw those open ribs again, he uncorked his right with the works on it. The next thing I knew, Pete was flat on his shoulders with his feet still in the air. They fell with a thump, and I walked over to the edge of the ring. Pete McCloskey was out for the afternoon, his face resting against the canvas in a state of calm repose. I couldn’t bear to disturb him.

T
HAT NIGHT
I dropped in on Bid Kerney. Race Malone, the sportswriter, was sitting with him. We talked around a while, and then I put it up to him.

“What you doing with Abro?” I asked. “Got anybody for him?”

“Abro?” Bid shrugged. “Heck, no. McCall wants the champ, an’ Blucher wants McCall. There ain’t a kid in sight I could stick in there that could go long enough to make it look good. Even if I knew one, he wouldn’t fight him.”

“What’s in it?” I asked. “You make it ten grand, and I got a guy for you.”

Race looked up, grinning. “For ten grand I have, too. Me! I’d go in there with him for ten grand. But how long would I last?”

“This kid’ll beat Abro,” I said coolly, peeling the paper off a couple of sticks of gum casually as I could make it. “He’ll stop him.”

“You nuts?” Kerney sneered. “Who is he?”

“Name of Morgan, Kip Morgan. From over at Copper City. Stopped Patrick the other night. Got ten straight kayos. Be fighting the champ in a year.”

When I talked it up so offhand, they began wondering. I could see Malone smelling a story, and Bid was interested.

“But nobody knows him!” Bid protested. “Copper City’s just a mill town. A good enough place, but too far away.”

“Okay,” I said, getting up. “Stick him in there with Charlie Gomez. But after he beats Gomez, it’ll cost you more.”

“If he beats him, it’ll be worth it!” Bid snapped. “Okay, make it the last Friday this month. That gives you two weeks.”

When I walked out of there, I was feeling good. There would be three grand in this, anyway, and forty percent of that was a nice cut these days. Secretly, I was wondering how I could work it to make the kid win. He had some stuff. I’d seen that when he was in there with Pete, and while Gomez was tough, there was a chance. Pete was fighting Tommy Gomez, Charlie’s brother, so he would be training. That took care of the sparring partner angle.

S
UDDENLY
, I thought of Doc Van Schendel. He was an old Dutchman, from Amsterdam, and a few years before I’d done him a favor. We’d met here and there around town several times, and had a few bottles of beer together. He called himself a psychiatrist, and in his office one time, I noticed some books on dreams, on psychology, and stuff like that. Me, I don’t know a thing about that dope, but it struck me as a good idea to see the Doc.

He was in, with several books on the table, and he was writing something down on a sheet of paper. He leaned back and took off his glasses.

“Hallo, hallo, mein Freund! Sit yourself down and talk mit an oldt man!” he said.

“Listen, Doc, I want to ask you a question. Here’s the lay.” Then I went ahead and told him the whole story. He didn’t say much, just leaned back with his fingertips together, nodding his head from time to time. Finally, when I’d finished, he leaned toward me.

“Interesting, very, very interesting! You see, it iss the subconscious at work! He boxes a lot, this young man. He sees these men fight. All the time, he iss asking, ‘How would I fight him?’ Then the subconscious takes what it knows of the fighter, and what it knows of boxing, undt solves the problem!”

He shrugged.

“Some man t’ink of gomplicated mathematical problem. They go to sleep, undt wake up mit the answer! It iss the subconscious! The subconscious mindt, always at vork vile ve sleep!”

R
ACE
M
ALONE WAS
short of copy, and he took a liking to Kip Morgan so we drove over together. When we got down to the arena, the night of the fight, it was jammed to the doors. Charlie Gomez was a rugged, hard-hitting heavy with a lot of stuff. If the kid could get over him, we were in the money. Race grabbed a seat behind our corner and the kid and I headed for the changing rooms.

“How is it, Kip?” I asked him. I was bandaging his hands, and he sat there watching me, absently.

“It’s okay. I dreamed about the fight last night!”

“Yeah?” I said cautiously. I wasn’t very sold on this dream stuff. “How’d you do?”

“Stopped him in the second.”

We got our call then, and it wasn’t until I was crawling through the ropes after him that it struck me what a sweet setup this was. It was too late to get to a bookie, but looking down I saw Race Malone looking up at us.

“Want a bet?” I asked him, grinning. “I’ll name the round.”

Race grinned.

“You must think the kid’s a phenom,” he said. “All right. You name the round, and I’ll lay you three to one you’re wrong!”

“Make it the second,” I said. “I don’t want it over too soon.”

“Okay,” Race grinned. “For two hundred? It’s a cinch at any odds.”

I gulped. I’d been figuring on a five spot, a fin, like I always bet. That’s why they called me Finny Sullivan. But if I backed down, he’d kid me for crawfishing. “Sure,” I said, trying to look cheerful, “two yards against your six.”

T
HE BELL SOUNDED
, and Gomez came out fast. He snapped a short left hook to the kid’s head, and it jerked back a good two inches. Then, before the kid could see, Charlie was inside, slamming away at Morgan’s ribs with both hands. The kid pushed the Portugee off and ripped his eye with a left, hooked a short right to the head, and then Gomez caught him with a long overhand right, and the kid sailed halfway across the ring and hit the canvas on his tail!

I grabbed the edge of the ring and ground my teeth. I wasn’t thinking of my two yards either, although I could afford to lose two yards as much as I could afford to lose an eye, but I was thinking of that shot at Abro and what a sap I was to get taken in on a dream fighter. Second round, eh? Phooey!

But the kid made it to one knee at seven and glanced at me. He needed rest, but there wasn’t time, so I waved him up. He straightened up, and Gomez charged across the ring throwing a wild left that missed by a hairsbreadth, and then the kid was inside, hanging on for dear life!

Gomez shook him loose, ripped both hands into the kid’s heaving belly, then jerked a wicked right chop to the chin. The kid toppled over on the canvas. I was sick enough to stop it, but the referee had to do that, so I just sat there, watching that game youngster crawl to his feet. Gomez rushed again, took a glancing left to the face that split his eye some more, and then whipped a nasty right to the body. They were in a clinch with the kid hanging on when the bell rang.

Race Malone looked over at me shaking his head.

“I never thought I’d be smart enough to take you for two hundred, Finny,” he said. “At that, I hate to see the kid lose.”

So did I.

“Listen, Kip,” I said. “You ain’t got a chance. I’m going to call the referee over and stop it!”

He jerked up on the stool.

“No you won’t!” he snapped. “I’m winning in the next round! I’ve been ready for this. I knew it was going to happen! Now watch!”

The bell rang, and the kid walked out fast. Charlie Gomez was serious. He was all set to win by a kayo this round, and he knew what it meant. It meant he’d be back in the big money again.

He snapped a vicious left hook, but it missed, and then that flashy left jab of the kid’s spotted him in the mouth. I’m telling you, there never was one like it. Bang-bang-bang-bang! Just like a trip-hammer, and then a jolting right to the body that wrenched a gasp from Charlie, and had the fans yelling like crazy men.

Leaping in, Gomez swung a volley of punches with both hands so fast you could hardly see them travel, but the kid slid away, and then stepped back and nearly tore Charlie’s head loose with a wicked left hook. Then came a crashing right that knocked Gomez into the ropes, and then a left that laid Charlie’s cheek open like it had been cut with a knife!

With Gomez streaming blood, and the fans howling like madmen, the kid stepped in coolly, measured the Portugee with a nice straight left, and fired his right—right down the groove! The referee could have counted to five thousand.

I was trembling so I could hardly control myself, but I calmly turned around to Race.

“I’ll take that six yards, son,” I told him, in a bored voice. “And I’ll treat you to a feed and beer.”

Race paid me carefully. Then he looked up.