The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (42 page)

“Honest to Roosevelt, Finny,” he said, “what kind of dope did you slip that kid? It sure snapped him out of it. He acted there for a while like he was in a dream!”

Maybe you don’t think I grinned then.

“Maybe he was, Palsy, maybe he was!”

T
HE NEXT TWO MONTHS
slipped by like another kind of dream. Morgan trained hard, and I spent a lot of time with him. If Doc Van Schendel was right, and I was betting he was, there wasn’t any hocus-pocus about the kid’s fighting. It was just that he had some stuff, a good fighting brain, and he thought fighting so much that his subconscious mind had got to planning his battles.

It isn’t so wild as it sounds. You know how a guy scraps, and what to use against him. Dempsey was a rusher who liked to get in close and work there, so Tunney made him fight at long range and then tied him up in the clinches. Every fighter is a sucker for something, and a guy who learns the angles can usually work out a way to beat the other fellow.

The kid had a lot on the ball, and I wanted him to have more. In those two months while we were building up for Abro, I gave him plenty of schooling. I knew he had the old moxie. He was fast, and he could hit. This dream business was just so much gravy. I’ll admit there was an angle that bothered me, but I didn’t mention it to the kid. I was afraid he’d get to thinking about it, and it would ruin him. What if he dreamed of losing?

Now wasn’t that something? The day I first thought of that wasn’t a happy one. But I kept my mouth shut. Race Malone was around a good deal. He liked the kid, and then there was a chance the promoter was slipping him a little geetus on the side for playing Morgan up for the Abro fight. With the sensational win over Gomez and the ten kayos behind him, not much was needed. If it had been, his fight with Cob Bennett would have been enough.

C
OB HAD RATED
among the first ten for six or seven years. He was a battle-scarred veteran, whose face was seamed with scar tissue and who knew his way around inside the ropes. A lot of fans liked him, and they all knew he could fight. About a month after the Gomez scrap, I took the kid over to Pittsburgh and stuck him in there with Bennett. It lasted a little over two minutes.

I
F
I
LIVE
to be a hundred, I’ll never forget that Abro fight. The preliminaries had been a series of bitter, hard-fought scraps, and the way things shaped up, anything but a regular brannigan was going to be sort of an anticlimax.

Dick Abro crawled through the ropes, looking tough as always. When he came over to our corner, I confess I got a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. Sometimes I think maybe I ain’t cut out for this racket. There was going to be four grand in this fight for me, yet when I thought of this kid going out there with that gorilla, I got a qualm or two. I’ll admit I didn’t let them queer my chances for that four grand, because four grand will buy a lot of onions, but nevertheless, I was feeling plenty sorry for Kip.

Abro grinned.

“Howya, keed?”

He had a face like a stone wall, all heavy bones and skin like leather. “You lika da tough going, huh?”

He gripped Morgan’s hand and then spun on his toe and walked back across the ring, easy on his feet as a ballet dancer, and him weighing in at two-oh-eight for this brawl.

When the bell sounded, the kid took his time. Abro wasn’t in any hurry either. His big brown shoulders worked easily, his head lowered just enough. Most people figured Abro as a tough slugger, but a guy doesn’t get as far as he did without knowing a thing or two. Abro feinted and landed a light left. Then he tried another left but the kid stepped away. Dick walked in, feinted again and jerked a short right hook to the ribs. He dug a hard left into the kid’s belly, and then jerked it up to slam against his chin.

Abro was cool. He knew the kid was no bum and was watching his step. The kid’s left shot out, twisting as it landed, and I saw Abro’s head jerk. He stepped back then, and I could see that it jarred more than he’d expected. Abro shot a steaming left to the head, jerked a right to the chin, then pushed his head against Morgan’s shoulder and started ripping punches into his body.

Morgan twisted away, flashed that left to Abro’s face twice, making the big fellow blink. I could see his eyes sharpen, saw him move in. Then the kid dropped a short right on his chin, and Dick Abro sat down hard. The crowd came off their seats yelling, and Abro sprang up at the count of one, and slammed a vicious right to the kid’s head.

Morgan staggered, and backed away, with Abro piling after him, both hands punching. Then Kip ripped up a short right uppercut, and Abro stopped dead in his tracks. Before he could recover, a sweeping left hook dropped him to the canvas. He was up at five, and working toward the kid cautiously.

But Morgan was ready and stepped in, his left ripping Abro’s face like a spur, that short right beating a drumfire of punches into the bigger man’s body. Abro staggered and seemed about to go down, but, as the kid stepped in, Dick fired a left at close quarters that set Morgan back on his heels.

Boring in, Abro knocked Morgan back into the ropes with a hard right. The kid was hurt. I could see him trying to cover up, trying to roll away from Abro, who was set for the kill. Always dangerous when hurt, the big fellow had caught Kip just right.

Morgan backed away, desperately trying to hold Abro off with a wavering left. Just as Dick got to the kid with two hard wallops to the body, the bell rang.

“Take it easy, kid,” I told him. “Don’t slug with this guy. Box him and keep moving this round.”

Abro came out fast for the next round, but the kid jabbed and stepped around, jabbed again and stepped around further. He missed with his right and took a stiff left to the ribs. Then Abro leaped in, splitting the kid’s lip with a snappy left hook, and as the kid tried to jab, rammed a right into his belly with such force it brought a gasp from his lips. The kid tried to clinch, but Abro shook him off and floored him with a short right.

The kid was hurt bad. He got to his knees at five, and when the referee said nine, swayed to his feet. Dick walked in, hitching up his trunks, looking the kid over. He was a little too sure, and Kip was desperate.

He let go with a wild right swing that fairly sizzled. Abro tried to duck, jumped back desperately, but the kid lunged, and the punch slammed against Abro’s ear! The big fellow went down with a crash. Thoroughly angered, he leaped to his feet, groggy with pain and rage, and sprang at the kid, swinging with both hands.

Toe-to-toe they stood and swapped it out. Tough as they come, and a wicked puncher, Dick Abro was fighting the fight of his life. He had to.

Ducking and weaving, swaying his big shoulders with every punch, his face set in grim lines, Kip Morgan was fighting like a champion. They were standing in the center of the ring, fighting like madmen, when the bell sounded. It took the referee, the timekeeper, and all the seconds to pry them apart.

R
ACE
M
ALONE WAS
battering away at his typewriter between rounds, and the kid sat there on his stool, grim as death. When the bell sounded, Abro looked bad. One eye was completely closed, the other cut. His lips were puffed and broken. I think everyone in the crowd that night sensed what was going to happen.

Abro rushed in and swung a left, but the kid slid inside, hooked short and hard with his left, and whipped a jolting, rib-loosening punch into the big man’s body. Abro staggered, and his legs went loose. He tried to clinch, but the kid shook him off, took a left without flinching, then chopped a right hook to the chin that didn’t travel a bit over six inches. Abro turned half around and dropped on his face, dead to the world.

M
AYBE YOU THINK
I was happy. Well, I wasn’t. The kid was suddenly one of the ranking heavies in the game, but me, I had worries. The more I thought of what might happen if the kid dreamt of losing, the more I worried. We were matched with Hans Blucher, a guy who had beaten Abro, had fought a draw with Deady McCall and been decisioned by the champ. Blucher, in a lot of ways, was one of the toughest boys in the game.

So I went to see Doc Van Schendel.

“Listen, Doc,” I said. “Supposing that kid dreams of losing?”

Doc shrugged.

“Vell? Maybe hiss psychology is spoiled by it, yes? Maybe he t’ink these dreams iss alvays true. Probably he vill lose.”

“You’re a big help!” I said, and walked out. Leaving, I saw Race Malone.

“Hello,” he said. “What’s the matter? You going to a psychiatrist now? Nuts, are you? I always suspected it.”

“Aw, go lay an egg!” I said wittily, and walked away. If I’d looked back I’d have seen Race Malone going into the Doc’s office. But I had enough worries.

When I walked into the gym the kid was walloping the bag. He was listless, and his heels were dragging. So I walked over.

“What’s the matter?” I said. “Didn’t you get any rest last night?”

“Yeah, sure I did,” he growled. It wasn’t like the kid to be anything but cheerful.

“Listen,” I said. “Tell me the trouble. What’s on your mind?”

He hesitated, glancing around. Then he stepped closer.

“Last night I dreamed a fight,” he said slowly, “and I lost! I got knocked out…I think I’d been winning until then.”

I knew it! Nothing lasts. Everything goes haywire. A guy can’t get a good meal ticket but what he goes to dreaming bad fights.

“Yeah,” I said. “Who were you fighting?”

“That’s just the trouble,” he said. “I couldn’t see who it was! His face was all vague and bleary!”

I grinned, trying to pass it off, hoping he won’t worry. “That sounds like Pete McCloskey,” I said. “He’s got the only face I know of that’s vague and bleary.”

But the kid doesn’t even crack a smile; as if it wasn’t bad enough for him to dream of losing a fight, he has to go and dream of losing to somebody he can’t see!

If I knew who it was he was going to lose to, we’d never go near the guy. But as it was, there I stood with a losing fighter who didn’t know who he was going to lose to!

B
LUCHER IS
the next guy we fight, and if we beat him, we get Deady McCall and then the champ. There’s too much at stake to take any chances. And I can see that dreaming about that knockout has got the kid worried. Every time he fights he’ll be in there under the handicap of knowing it’s coming and not being able to get out of it.

At best, this dreaming business is logical enough. But there’s a certain angle to it that runs into fatalism. The kid might just have found some weakness in his own defense, and thought about it until he got himself knocked out in his dreams.

Me, I don’t know a lot about such things, but I got to thinking. What if he got knocked out when he wasn’t fighting?

Pete McCloskey was punching the heavy bag, and when I looked at him, I got a flash of brains. Heck, what’s a manager good for if he can’t think?

“Listen, Pete…” I gave him the lowdown, and he nodded, grinning. After all, Morgan had knocked him so cold he’d have kept for years, and this was the only chance Pete would ever have to get even.

W
HEN THEY CRAWLED
into the ring for their afternoon workout, I chased the usual gang out. I gave Kip some tips on some new angles I wanted him to try. That was the gag for having a secret workout, but I just didn’t want them to see what’s going to happen.

They were mixing it up in the third round of the workout, and like I told him, Pete was ready. I looked up at Kip and yelled. “Hey, Morgan!”

And when he turned to look at me, Pete let him have it. He took a full swing at the kid and caught him right on the button! Kip Morgan went out like a light.

But it was only for a half minute or so. He came out of it and sat up, shaking his head.

“What—what hit me?” he gasped.

“It was my fault, kid,” I told him, and me feeling like a heel. “I yelled, an’ Pete here had started a swing. He clouted you.”

“Sure, I’m sorry, Kip,” Pete broke in, and he looked it, too.

“That’s okay.” He got up, shaking his head to clear it of the effects of the punch. “No hard feelings.”

“That’s enough for today, anyway,” I told him. “Let it go, and have a good workout tomorrow.”

Morgan was crawling from the ring when suddenly he stopped, and his face brightened up.

“Hey, Finny!” He dropped to the floor and grabbed my arm. “I’m okay! You hear? I’m okay! That was the knockout. Now I’m in the clear.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s great,” I told him.

But now, tell me a ghost story, I was still worried. One way or another the kid had convinced me. There might still be that knockout to think about—if there was really anything to it—but he could go in the ring without it hanging over him, anyway. He was in the clear now.

He was in the clear, but I wasn’t. You can’t be around a big, clean-looking kid like this Kip Morgan without liking him. He was easygoing and good-natured, but in the ring, he packed a wallop and never lacked for killer instinct. And me, Finny Sullivan, I was worried. Sooner or later the kid was going to get it, and I didn’t want to be there. Some guys are all the better for a kayo, and maybe he would be. But they are always hard to take.