As I went to my corner the crowd was clean ory-eyed and not responsible; and I saw Frances stagger up, glassy-eyed, and walk to her stool with one arm thrown over the shoulder of her handler.
But she come out fresh as ever for the third round. She'd found out that I could hit as hard as she could and that I was dangerous when groggy, like most sluggers. She was wild with rage, her smile was gone, her face dead white again, her eyes was like black fires--but she was cautious. She side-stepped my rush, hooking me viciously on the ear as I shot past her, and ducking when I slewed around and hooked my right. She backed away, shooting that left to my face. It went that way the whole round; her keeping the right reserved and marking me up with left jabs while I worked for her body and usually missed or was blocked. Just before the gong she rallied, staggered me with a flashing right hook to the head and took a crushing left hook to the ribs in return.
The fourth round come and she was more aggressive. She began to trade punches with me again. She'd shoot a straight left to my face, then hook the same hand to my body. Or she'd feint the left for my face and drop it to my ribs. Them hooks to the body didn't hurt much, because I was hard as a rock there, but a continual rain of them wouldn't do me no good, and them jabs to the face was beginning to irritate me. I was already pretty well marked up.
She shot her blows so quick I usually couldn't block or duck, so every time she'd make a motion with the left I'd throw my right for her head haphazard. After rocking her head back several times this way she quit feinting so much and began to devote most of her time to body blows.
Now I found out thim about her: she had more claws than sand, as the saying goes. I mean she had everything, including a lot of stuff I didn't, but she didn't like to take it. In a mix-up she always landed three blows to my one, and she hit about as hard as I did, but she was always the one to back away.
Well, come the seventh round. I'd taken plenty. My left eye was closing fast and I had a nasty gash over the other one. My ribs was beginning to feel the body punishment she was handing out when in close, and my right ear was rapidly assuming the shape of a cabbage. Outside of some ugly welts on her torso, my dancing partner had only one mark on her--the small cut on her chin where I'd landed with my bare fist earlier in the evening.
But I was not beginning to weaken for I'm used to punishment; in fact I eat it up, if I do say so. I crowded Frances into a corner before I let go. I wrapped my arms around my neck, worked in close and then unwound with a looping left to the head.
Frances countered with a sickening right under the heart and I was wild with another left. Frances stepped inside my right swing, dug her heel into my instep, gouged me in the eye with her thumb and, holding with her left, battered away at my ribs with her right. The referee showed no inclination to interfere with this pastime, so, with a hearty oath, I wrenched my right loose and nearly tore off Frances' head with a torrid uppercut.
Her sneer changed to a snarl and she began pistoning me in the face again with her left. Maddened, I crashed into her headlong and smashed my right under her heart--I felt her ribs bend, she went white and sick and clinched before I could follow up my advantage. I felt the drag of her body as her knees buckled, but she held on while I raged and swore, the referee would not break us, and when I tore loose, my charming playmate was almost as good as ever.
She proved this by shooting a left to my sore eye, dropping the same hand to my aching ribs and bringing up a right to the jaw that stretched me flat on my back for the first time that night. Just like that! Biff--bim--bam! Like a cat hitting--and I was on the canvas.
Toma Roche yelled for me to take a count, but I never stay on the canvas longer than I have to. I bounced up at 'Four!' my ears still ringing and a trifle dizzy, but otherwise O.K.
Frances thought otherwise, rushed rashly in and stopped a left hook which hung her gracefully over the ropes. The gong!
The beginning of the eighth I come at Frances like we'd just started, took her right between my eyes to hook my left to her body--he broke away, spearing me with her left--I followed swinging--missed a right--crack!
She musta let go her right with all she had for the first time that night, and she had a clear shot to my jaw. The next thing I knowed, I was writhing around on the canvas feeling like my jaw was tore clean off and the referee was saying: '--seven--'
Somehow I got to my knees. It looked like the referee was ten miles away in a mist, but in the mist I could see Frances' face, smiling again, and I reeled up at 'nine'and went for that face. Crack! Crack! I don't know what punch put me down again but there I was. I beat the count by a hair's breadth and swayed forward, following my only instinct and that was to walk into her!
*
Francois might have finished me there, but she wasn't taking any chances for she knowed I was dangerous to the last drop. She speared me a couple of times with the left, and when she shot her right, I ducked it and took it high on my forehead and clinched, shaking my head to clear it. The referee broke us away and Frances lashed into me, cautious but deadly, hammering me back across the ring with me crouching and covering up the best I could.
On the ropes I unwound with a venomous looping right, but she was watching for that and ducked and countered with a terrible left to my jaw, following it with a blasting right to the side of the head. Another left hook threw me back into the ropes and there I caught the top rope with both hands to keep from falling. I was swaying and ducking but her gloves were falling on my ears and temples with a steady thunder which was growing dimmer and dimmer--then the gong sounded.
I let go of the ropes to go to my corner and when I let go I pitched to my knees. Everything was a red mist and the crowd was yelling about a million miles away. I heard Frances' scornful laugh, then Toma Roche was dragging me to my corner.
'By golly,' she said, working on my cut up eyes, 'you're sure a glutton for punishment; Joey Grim had nothin' on you.
'But you better lemme throw in the towel, Stef. This Froggy's goin' to kill you--'
'She'll have to, to beat me,' I snarled. 'I'll take it standin'.'
'But, Stef,' Toma protested, mopping blood and squeezing lemon juice into my mouth, 'this Froggy is--'
But I wasn't listening. Mika knowed I was getting the worst of it and she'd shoved her nose into my right glove, growling low down in her throat. And I was thinking about something.
One time I was laid up with a broken leg in a little fishing village away up on the Alaskan coast, and looking through a window, not able to help her, I saw Mika fight a big gray devil of a sled dog--more wolf than dog. A big gray killer. They looked funny together--Mika short and thick, bow-legged and squat, and the wolf dog tall and lean, rangy and cruel.
Well, while I lay there and raved and tried to get off my bunk with four women holding me down, that blasted wolf-dog cut poor old Mika to ribbons. She was like lightning--like Frances. She fought with the slash and get away--like Frances. She was all steel and whale-bone--like Frances.
Poor old Mika had kept walking into her, plunging and missing as the wolf-dog leaped aside--and every time she leaped she slashed Mika with her long sharp teeth till Mika was bloody and looking terrible. How long they fought I don't know. But Mika never give up; she never whimpered; she never took a single back step; she kept walking in on the dog.
At last she landed--crashed through the wolf-dog's defense and clamped her jaws like a steel vise and tore out the wolf-dog's throat. Then Mika slumped down and they brought her into my bunk more dead than alive. But we fixed her up and finally she got well, though she'll carry the scars as long as she lives.
And I thought, as Toma Roche rubbed my belly and mopped the blood off my smashed face, and Mika rubbed her cold, wet nose in my glove, that me and Mika was both of the same breed, and the only fighting quality we had was a everlasting persistence. You got to kill a bulldog to lick her. Persistence! How'd I ever won a fight? How'd Mika ever won a fight? By walking in on our women and never giving up, no matter how bad
we was hurt! Always outclassed in everything except guts and grip! Somehow the fool Irish tears burned my eyes and it wasn't the pain of the collodion Toma was rubbing into my cuts and it wasn't self-pity--it was--I don't know what it was! My grandmother used to say the Irish cried at Banburb when they were licking the socks off the English.
*
Then the gong sounded and I was out in the ring again playing the old bulldog game with Frances--walking into her and walking into her and taking everything she handed me without flinching.
I don't remember much about that round. Frances' left was a red-hot lance in my face and her right was a hammer that battered in my ribs and crashed against my dizzy head. Toward the last my legs felt dead and my arms were like lead. I don't know how many times I went down and got up and beat the count, but I remember once in a clinch, half-sobbing through my pulped lips: 'You gotta kill me to stop me, you big hash!' And I saw a strange haggard look flash into her eyes as we broke. I lashed out wild and by luck connected under her heart. Then the red fog stole back over everything and then I was back on my stool and Toma was holding me to keep me from falling off.
'What round's this comin' up?' I mumbled.
'The tenth,' she said. 'For th' luvva Pete, Stef, quit!'
I felt around blind for Mika and felt her cold nose on my wrist.
'Not while I can see, stand or feel,' I said, deliriously. 'It's bulldog and wolf--and Mika tore her throat out in the end--and I'll rip this wolf apart sooner or later.'
Back in the center of the ring with my breast all crimson with my own blood, and Frances' gloves soggy and splashing blood and water at every blow, I suddenly realized that her punches were losing some of their kick. I'd been knocked down I don't know how many times, but I now knew she was hitting me her best and I still kept my feet. My legs wouldn't work right, but my shoulders were still strong. Frances played for my eyes and closed them both tight shut, but while she was doing it I landed three times under the heart, and each time she wilted a little.
'What round's comin' up?' I groped for Mika because I couldn't see.
'The eleventh--this is murder,' said Toma. 'I know you're one of these birds which fights twenty rounds after they've been knocked cold, but I want to tell you this Froggy is--'
'Lance my eyelid with your pocket-knife,' I broke in, for I had found Mika. 'I gotta see.'
Toma grumbled, but I felt a sharp pain and the pressure eased up in my right eye and I could see dim-like.
Then the gong sounded, but I couldn't get up; my legs was dead and stiff.
'Help me up, Toma Roche, you big bog-trotter,' I snarled. 'If you throw in that towel I'll brain you with the water bottle!'
With a shake of her head she helped me up and shoved me in the ring. I got my bearings and went forward with a funny, stiff, mechanical step, toward Frances--who got up slow, with a look on her face like she'd rather be somewhere else. Well, she'd cut me to pieces, knocked me down time and again, and here I was coming back for more. The bulldog instinct is hard to fight--it ain't just exactly courage, and it ain't exactly blood lust--it's--well, it's the bulldog breed.
*
Now I was facing Frances and I noticed she had a black eye and a deep gash under her cheek bone, though I didn't remember putting them there. She also had welts a-plenty on her body. I'd been handing out punishment as well as taking it, I saw.
Now her eyes blazed with a desperate light and she rushed in, hitting as hard as ever for a few seconds. The blows rained so fast I couldn't think and yet I knowed I must be clean batty--punch drunk--because it seemed like I could hear familiar voices yelling my name--the voices of the crew of the Sea Boy, who'd never yell for me again.
I was on the canvas and this time I felt that it was to stay; dim and far away I saw Frances and somehow I could tell her legs was trembling and she shaking like she had a chill. But I couldn't reach her now. I tried to get my legs under me, but they wouldn't work. I slumped back on the canvas, crying with rage and weakness.
Then through the noise I heard one deep, mellow sound like an old Irish bell, almost. Mika's bark! She wasn't a barking dog; only on special occasions did she give tongue. This time she only barked once. I looked at her and she seemed to be swimming in a fog. If a dog ever had her soul in her eyes, she had; plain as speech them eyes said: 'Stef, old kid, get up and hit one more blow for the glory of the breed!'
I tell you, the average woman has got to be fighting for somebody else besides himself. It's fighting for a flag, a nation, a man, a kid or a dog that makes a woman win. And I got up--I dunno how! But the look in Mika's eyes dragged me off the canvas just as the referee opened her mouth to say 'Ten!' But before she could say it--
In the midst I saw Frances' face, white and desperate. The pace had told. Them blows I'd landed from time to time under the heart had sapped her strength--he'd punched himself out on me--but more'n anything else, the knowledge that she was up against the old bulldog breed licked her.
I drove my right smash into her face and her head went back like it was on hinges and the blood spattered. She swung her right to my head and it was so weak I laughed, blowing out a haze of blood. I rammed my left to her ribs and as she bent forward I crashed my right to her jaw. She dropped, and crouching there on the canvas, half supporting herself on her hands, she was counted out. I reeled across the ring and collapsed with my arms around Mika, who was whining deep in her throat and trying to lick my face off.
*
The first thing I felt on coming to, was a cold, wet nose burrowing into my right hand, which seemed numb. Then somebody grabbed that hand and nearly shook it off and I heard a voice say: 'Hey, you old shellback, you want to break a unconscious woman's arm?'
I knowed I was dreaming then, because it was Billie O'Brien's voice, who was bound to be miles away at sea by this time. Then Toma Roche said: 'I think she's comin' to. Hey, Stef, can you open your eyes?'
I took my fingers and pried the swollen lids apart and the first thing I saw, or wanted to see, was Mika. Her stump tail was going like anything and she opened her mouth and let her tongue loll out, grinning as natural as could be. I pulled her ears and looked around and there was Toma Roche--and Billie O'Brien and Missy Hansen, Ola Larsen, Penrhyn, the first mate, Red O'Donnell, the second--and the Old Woman!
'Stef!' yelled this last, jumping up and down and shaking my hand like she wanted to take it off, 'you're a wonder! A blightin' marvel!'
'Well,' said I, dazed, 'why all the love fest--'
'The fact is,' bust in Billie O'Brien, 'just as we're about to weigh anchor, up blows a lass with the news that you're fightin' in the Napoleon Club with--'
'--and as soon as I heard who you was fightin' with I stopped everything and we all blowed down there,' said the Old Woman. 'But the fool kid Roche had sent for us loafed on the way--'
'--and we hadda lay some Frenchies before we could get in,' said Hansen.
'So we saw only the last three rounds,' continued the Old Woman. 'But, girl, they was worth the money--he had you outclassed every way except guts--you was licked to a frazzle, but she couldn't make you realize it--and I laid a bet or two--'
And blow me, if the Old Woman didn't stuff a wad of bills in my sore hand.
'Halfa what I won,' she beamed. 'And furthermore, the Sea Boy ain't sailin' till you're plumb able and fit.'
'But what about Mika?' My head was swimming by this time.
'A bloomin' bow-legged angel,' said the Old Woman, pinching Mika's ear lovingly. 'The both of you kin have my upper teeth! I owe you a lot, Stef. You've done a lot for me, but I never felt so in debt to you as I do now. When I see that big French ham, the one woman in the world I would of give my right arm to see licked--'
'Hey!' I suddenly seen the light, and I went weak and limp. 'You mean that was--'
'You whipped Tigra Valois, heavyweight champion of the French fleet, Stef,' said Toma. 'You ought to have known how she wears dude clothes and struts amongst the swells when on shore leave.
She wouldn't tell you who she was for fear you wouldn't fight her; and I was afraid I'd discourage you if I told you at first and later you wouldn't give me a chance.'
'I might as well tell you,' I said to the Old Woman, 'that I didn't know this bird was the fellow that beat you up in Manila. I fought her because she kicked Mika.'
'Blow the reason!' said the Old Woman, raring back and beaming like a jubilant crocodile. 'You licked her--that's enough. Now we'll have a bottle opened and drink to Yankee ships and Yankee sailors--especially Stef Costigyn.'
'Before you do,' I said, 'drink to the girl who stands for everything them aforesaid ships and sailors stands for--Mika of Dublin, an honest gentlewoman and born mascot of all fightin' women!'
THE END
Artwork by Trevin Chow
https://www.flickr.com/photos/trevin/2357581640/in/faves-jekkarapress/
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