with These Hands (Ss) (2002) (18 page)

It had been a war of extermination, a case of survival of the fittest. And Bart Malone had survived. He had used deadfalls and pits, spring traps, and traps that shot arrows.

He had learned to kill tigers as hunters in Brazil kill jaguars-with a lance. For nearly eight years he had lived on the remote island, then he had been rescued-and returned to the world as the "Tiger Man."

The Tiger Man shook himself from his reverie, and rubbed his feet in the resin.

And in the champion's apartment, Tom McKeown toyed with the dials, seeking the right spot on the radio.

"You should see him fight, champ. Might get a line on him. This will be his big test. And if Noble beats him, as he probably will, we'll have to fight a Negro."

Hayes snorted. "I don't care. Noble is a sucker for a left uppercut. I can take him. I'd have fought him two years ago if you'd let me!"

"There's plenty of time, if you have to. He ain't getting any younger. You got seven years on him, champ,"

McKeown said smoothly. Deke Hayes grinned.

"That was neat work, McKeown, steering the Tiger into Noble. No matter who wins, we got a drawing card. And no matter who wins, if we move fast, he'll be softened by this fight. So the goose hangs high!"

The bell clanged. Tom Noble was easy, confident. He came out fast, jabbed a light left to the head, feinted, and hooked a solid right to the body. The Tiger circled warily, intent.

Noble put both hands to the head, and then tried a left.

The Tiger slipped inside, but made no attempt to hit. As they broke the crowd booed, and the Negro looked puzzled.

The Tiger circled again, still wary. Noble landed a left, tried to feint the Tiger in, but it didn't work. The Tiger circled, feinted, and suddenly sprang to close quarters, striking with lightning-like speed.

A swift left, followed by a hard right cross that caught the Negro high on the side of the head. Tom Noble was stepping back, and that took the snap out of the punch; but it shook him, nevertheless.

Noble stepped in, jabbed a left three times to the head, and crossed with a right. The Tiger slipped inside Noble's extended left and threw two jarring hooks to the body.

The fans were silent as the round ended. The usual killing rush of the Tiger hadn't been there. Noble looked puzzled.

The Tiger glanced up at Ruby Ryan, then bared his teeth in sort of a smile.

Noble boxed carefully through the second and third rounds, winning both by an easy margin. The Tiger seemed content to circle, to feint, and to spar at long range. The killing rush failed to come, and the Negro, who carefully studied each man he fought, was puzzled. The longer the Tiger waited, the more bothered Noble became.

The giant Negro could sense the repressed power in the steel of the Tiger's muscles. When they clinched, Noble could feel his great strength; but still the Tiger waited. He stalled, and Noble began to feel like a mouse before the cat.

In the fourth round, Tom Noble opened hostilities with a hard left to the head, and then crossed a terrific right to the jaw that snapped the Tiger's head back and split his lip.

Noble, eager, whipped over another right, but the Tiger slid under it and drove a powerful left hook to the body that jarred the Negro to his heels.

Before Noble could recover from his surprise, a hard right uppercut snapped his head back, and a steaming left hook slammed him to the floor in a cloud of resin dust!

Wild with pain and rage, the Negro scrambled to his feet and rushed. Toe-to-toe, they stood in the center of the ring and swapped punches until every man in the house was wild with excitement.

Bronze against black, Negro from the Baltimore rail yards against the mysterious Tiger Man, they fought bitterly, desperately, their faces streaked with blood and sweat, their breath coming in great gasps.

The crowd, shouting and eager, saw the great Negro boxer, the man whom all white fighters were purported to fear, slugging it out with this jungle killer-the strange white man, bronzed by sun and wind, who had come out of the tropics to batter all his competition into fistic oblivion!

When the bell rang for the fifth round, the Tiger came out like a streak. His wild left hook missed. Overanxious, he stumbled into a torrid right uppercut that slammed into his jaw with crashing force. The Bronze Behemoth slid forward on his face, to all intents and purposes out cold!

For a moment the crowd was aghast. The Tiger Man was down! For the first time in his career, the Tiger Man was down! Roaring with excitement, the crowd jumped up on their chairs, shrieking their heads off.

Then suddenly, the Tiger Man was up! All the stillness, the watching, the waiting was gone from him now. Like a beast from the jungle, he leaped to the fray and with a torrent of smashing, bone-crushing blows, he battered the giant black man across the ring!

Twice the Negro slipped to one knee, and both times came up without a count. Like a fiend out of hell he battled, cornered, fierce as a wounded lion.

But with all his ferocity, all his great strength, it was useless for Tom Noble to sjand up against that whirlwind of blows that drove him back, back, and back!

The Tiger was upon him now, fighting like a madman!

Suddenly, a steaming right cross snapped the Negro's head back, and he came down with a crash! Like an animal, the Tiger whirled and leaped to his corner.

Tom Noble was up at nine. A great gash streaked his black face. One eye was closed tight, and his lips had been reduced to bloody shreds of flesh. His mouthpiece, lost in the titanic struggle, had failed him when most needed.

Noble was up, and bravely he staggered forward. But the Tiger dropped into a crouch. Grimly, surely, he stalked his opponent.

Seeing him coming, Tom Noble backed off, suddenly seeming to realize that no human effort could stem that tide of blows he knew would be coming.

He backed away, and the Tiger followed him, slowly herding him toward the corner, set for the kill. Not a whisper stirred the crowd. They were breathless with suspense, realizing they were seeing the perfect replica of a jungle kill. A live tiger from Sumatra couldn't have been more fierce, or more deadly!

Then, suddenly, Noble was cornered. Vainly, desperately, he tried to sidestep. But the Tiger was before him and a short, jolting left set Noble's chin for the right cross that flickered over with the speed of a serpent's tongue.

The great legs tottered, and Tom Noble, once invincible, crashed to the canvas, a vanquished gladiator.

In Hayes's apartment, there was silence. McKeown wiped the sweat from his forehead, although he suddenly felt cold. He looked at the champion, but Hayes's face was a mask that told nothing.

"Well," Tom McKeown said at last. "I guess we overrated Noble. It looks now like he was a setup!" But in his heart there was a chill as he thought of those crashing fists.

"Setup, hell! That guy could fight!"

Hayes whirled.

"Listen, McKeown: you find out who this Tiger is; where he came from-and why! He started in Calcutta. Okay! I want to know where he was before then! I think I know that guy, and if I do-"

Toronto Tom McKeown walked out into the street. He stood still, looking at nothing. The Tiger had the champ's goat. What was behind it all? One thing he knew: if there was any way to prevent it, the Tiger would never meet Deke Hayes.

Ruby Ryan walked into the hotel room and threw his hat on the table. His eyes were bright with satisfaction.

"Well, that settles that! I guess McKeown has tossed every monkey wrench into the machinery that he can think of-but nevertheless, the fight goes on, and no postponements.

The commission accepted my arguments, and agreed that Hayes has got to meet the Tiger-and no more dodging."

Beck looked up from the sport sheet he was reading. He seemed worried.

"Maybe it's okay, but you and me know Tom McKeown, and he's nobody's fool. There'll be trouble yet!" Beck opined.

"It'll have to be soon, then. Tomorrow night's the night," the manager said grimly.

Suddenly the door burst open and the Tiger staggered in. He was carrying "Pug" Doman, one of his sparring partners. Over the Tiger's eye was a deep cut from which a trickle of blood was still flowing.

"What th'-" Ryan's face was white, strained. "For cryin' out loud, man, what's happened?"

"Five men jumped us. I heard them slipping up from behind. We fought. Four of them are out there"-he jerked a thumb toward the door-"in the road, Doman got in the way of a knife." '

"Well, that's more of McKeown's work!" Ryan said angrily.

"I'll get that dirty so-and-so if it's the last thing I ever do! Look at that cut over your eye. And I just put up the same amount McKeown did-to guarantee appearance, and no postponements!"

The Tiger Man crawled through the ropes, stood rubbing his feet in the resin. Ruby Ryan, his face hard, was staring up the aisle for Hayes to appear. Beck arranged the water bottle and stood silent, waiting. Behind them the excited crowd continued to swell. The arena was fairly alive with tension.

Now Deke Hayes was in the ring. The two men stepped to the center for instructions. Hayes's eyes were fastened on the Tiger with a queer intensity. The Tiger looked up, and there was such a light in his eyes as made even the referee wince.

"It's been a long time, Deke Hayes!" the Tiger growled.

"A long time! But tonight, you can't run off and leave me.

"You gypped me out of my girl. You tried to gyp me out of the title, too. Now I'm going to thrash you until you can't move! After tonight, Hayes, you're through!"

"I don't know what you're talkin' about!" Hayes sneered. Then they were back in their corners, and the bell clanged.

Hayes was fast. The Tiger, circling to the center, realized that. He was even faster than Tom Noble. Probably as good a boxer, too. Hayes feinted a left, then hurled a vicious right that spun the Tiger halfway around and made him give way. Deke Hayes bored in promptly, punching fast, accurately.

But the Tiger danced away, boxing carefully for the first time. Hayes's left flicked at the wounded eye, but was just short, and the Tiger slipped under it, and whipped both hands to the body as the round ended.

Deke Hayes came out fast for the second heat, and a right opened the cut over Tiger's eye. Hayes sprang in and, punching like a demon, drove the Tiger across the ring, where he hung him on the ropes with a wicked right uppercut that jerked his head back and slammed him off balance into the hemp.

The Tiger staggered, and almost went down. He straightened and by a great effort of will, tried to clinch, but Deke Hayes shook him loose, floored him with a wicked left hook.

The crowd was on its feet now, in a yelling frenzy. Ryan sat in the corner, twisting the towel in his hands, chewing on the stump of a dead cigar. But even as the referee counted nine, the Tiger was up!

He tried to clinch, but Hayes shook him off. Confident now, he jabbed three fast lefts to the bad eye, then drove the Tiger to a corner with a volley of hooks, swings, and uppercuts. A short right hook put the Tiger down a second time-and then the bell rang!

The arena was a madhouse as the Tiger came out for the third round, his brain still buzzing. He couldn't seem to get started. Hayes's left flicked out again, resuming the torture. Hayes stepped in and the Tiger evaded a left, then clinched. He caught Hayes's hands, hung on until the referee broke them, warning him for holding.

Through the fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds, Hayes boxed like the marvel he was, but the Tiger kept on. In the clinches he hung on until the referee broke them; he slipped, ducked, and rode punches. He tried every trick he knew.

Only the terrific stamina of those long jungle years carried the Tiger through now; only the running, the diving, the swimming he had done, the fighting in the jungle, the bitter struggle to live, sustained him, kept him on his feet.

Strangely, as the seventh round opened, the Tiger felt better. His natural strength was asserting itself. Hayes came out, cocky, confident. The Tiger stepped in, but his feet were lighter. Some of the confusion seemed to have gone from his mind. Between rounds the blood from his cut eye had been stopped. He was getting his second wind.

Deke Hayes rushed into the fray, throwing both hands to the head, but the Tiger was ready this time. Dropping into a crouch, he whipped out a snapping left hook and dug a right into the solar plexus.

But the champion fired a left to the head that shook the Tiger to his heels, then threw a right that cracked against his jaw with the force of a thunderbolt. The Tiger went to one knee; but came up, fighting like a demon!

He ripped into the champion with the fury of an unleashed cyclone, battering him halfway across the ring.

But when the champion caught himself, he drove the Tiger back onto his heels with a straight left, crossed a right, and then threw both hands to the body.

The Tiger took it. He stepped in, swapping blow for blow, taking the champion's hardest punches with scarcely a wince. Deke Hayes backed off, jabbed a left, but was short, and then the Tiger was inside, tearing away at the other's body with the fury of a Gatling gun. He ripped a mad tattoo of punches against Deke Hayes's ribs; then, stepping back suddenly, he blocked Hayes's left and hooked his own solid left to the head.