“What’s the round?” Jack asked.
“The eleventh.”
“I can’t stay,” Jack says. “My legs are going bad.”
Walcott had been just hitting him for a long time. It was like a baseball catcher pulls the ball and takes some of the shock off. From now on Walcott commenced to land solid. He certainly was a socking-machine. Jack was just trying to block everything now. It didn’t show what an awful beating he was taking. In between the rounds I worked on his legs. The muscles would flutter under my hands all the time I was rubbing them. He was sick as hell.
“How’s it go?” he asked John, turning around, his face all swollen.
“It’s his fight.”
“I think I can last,” Jack says. “I don’t want this bohunk to stop me.” It was going just the way he thought it would. He knew he couldn’t beat Walcott. He wasn’t strong any more. He was all right though. His money was all right and now he wanted to finish it off right to please himself. He didn’t want to be knocked out.
The gong rang and we pushed him out. He went out slow. Walcott came right out after him. Jack put the left in his face and Walcott took it, came in under it and started working on Jack’s body. Jack tried to tie him up and it was just like trying to hold on to a buzz-saw. Jack broke away from it and missed with the right. Walcott clipped him with a left hook and Jack went down. He went down on his hands and knees and looked at us. The referee started counting. Jack was watching us and shaking his head. At eight John motioned to him. You couldn’t hear on account of the crowd. Jack got up. The referee had been holding Walcott back with one arm while he counted.
When Jack was on his feet Walcott started toward him.
“Watch yourself, Jimmy,” I heard Solly Freedman yell to him.
Walcott came up to Jack looking at him. Jack stuck the left hand at him. Walcott just shook his head. He backed Jack up against the ropes, measured him and then hooked the left very light to the side of Jack’s head and socked the right into the body as hard as he could sock, just as low as he could get it. He must have hit him five inches below the belt. I thought the eyes would come out of Jack’s head. They stuck way out. His mouth come open.
The referee grabbed Walcott. Jack stepped forward. If he went down there went fifty thousand bucks. He walked as though all his insides were going to fall out.
“It wasn’t low,” he said. “It was a accident.”
The crowd were yelling so you couldn’t hear anything.
“I’m all right,” Jack says. They were right in front of us. The referee looks at John and then he shakes his head.
“Come on, you polak son-of-a-bitch,” Jack says to Walcott.
John was hanging onto the ropes. He had the towel ready to chuck in. Jack was standing just a little way out from the ropes. He took a step forward. I saw the sweat come out on his face like somebody had squeezed it and a big drop went down his nose.
“Come on and fight,” Jack says to Walcott.
The referee looked at John and waved Walcott on.
“Go in there, you slob,” he says.
Walcott went in. He didn’t know what to do either. He never thought Jack could have stood it. Jack put the left in his face. There was such a hell of a lot of yelling going on. They were right in front of us. Walcott hit him twice. Jack’s face was the worst thing I ever saw—the look on it! He was holding himself and all his body together and it all showed on his face. All the time he was thinking and holding his body in where it was busted.
Then he started to sock. His face looked awful all the time. He started to sock with his hands low down by his side, swinging at Walcott. Walcott covered up and Jack was swinging wild at Walcott’s head. Then he swung the left and it hit Walcott in the groin and the right hit Walcott right bang where he’d hit Jack. Way low below the belt. Walcott went down and grabbed himself there and rolled and twisted around.
The referee grabbed Jack and pushed him toward his corner. John jumps into the ring. There was all this yelling going on. The referee was talking with the judges and then the announcer got into the ring with the megaphone and says, “Walcott on a foul.”
The referee is talking to John and he says, “What could I do? Jack wouldn’t take the foul. Then when he’s groggy he fouls him.”
“He’d lost it anyway,” John says.
Jack’s sitting on the chair. I’ve got his gloves off and he’s holding himself in down there with both hands. When he’s got something supporting it his face doesn’t look so bad.
“Go over and say you’re sorry,” John says into his ear. “It’ll look good.”
Jack stands up and the sweat comes out all over his face. I put the bathrobe around him and he holds himself in with one hand under the bathrobe and goes across the ring. They’ve picked Walcott up and they’re working on him. There’re a lot of people in Walcott’s corner. Nobody speaks to Jack. He leans over Walcott.
“I’m sorry,” Jack says. “I didn’t mean to foul you.”
Walcott doesn’t say anything. He looks too damned sick.
“Well, you’re the champion now,” Jack says to him. “I hope you get a hell of a lot of fun out of it.”
“Leave the kid alone,” Solly Freedman says.
“Hello, Solly,” Jack says. “I’m sorry I fouled your boy.”
Freedman just looks at him.
Jack went to his corner walking that funny jerky way and we got him down through the ropes and through the reporters’ tables and out down the aisle. A lot of people want to slap Jack on the back. He goes out through all that mob in his bathrobe to the dressing-room. It’s a popular win for Walcott. That’s the way the money was bet in the Garden.
Once we got inside the dressing-room Jack lay down and shut his eyes.
“We want to get to the hotel and get a doctor,” John says.
“I’m all busted inside,” Jack says.
“I’m sorry as hell. Jack,” John says.
“It’s all right,” Jack says.
He lies there with his eyes shut.
“They certainly tried a nice double-cross,” John said.
“Your friends Morgan and Steinfelt,” Jack said. “You got nice friends.”
He lies there, his eyes are open now. His face has still got that awful drawn look.
“It’s funny how fast you can think when it means that much money,” Jack says.
“You’re some boy, Jack,” John says.
“No,” Jack says. “It was nothing.”
A Simple Enquiry
OUTSIDE, THE SNOW WAS HIGHER THAN the window. The sunlight came in through the window and shone on a map on the pineboard wall of the hut. The sun was high and the light came in over the top of the snow. A trench had been cut along the open side of the hut, and each clear day the sun, shining on the wall, reflected heat against the snow and widened the trench. It was late March. The major sat at a table against the wall. His adjutant sat at another table.
Around the major’s eyes were two white circles where his snow-glasses had protected his face from the sun on the snow. The rest of his face had been burned and then tanned and then burned through the tan. His nose was swollen and there were edges of loose skin where blisters had been. While he worked at the papers he put the fingers of his left hand into a saucer of oil and then spread the oil over his face, touching it very gently with the tips of his fingers. He was very careful to drain his fingers on the edge of the saucer so there was only a film of oil on them, and after he had stroked his forehead and his cheeks, he stroked his nose very delicately between his fingers. When he had finished he stood up, took the saucer of oil and went into the small room of the hut where he slept. “I’m going to take a little sleep,” he said to the adjutant. In that army an adjutant is not a commissioned officer. “You will finish up.”
“Yes, signor maggiore,” the adjutant answered. He leaned back in his chair and yawned. He took a paper-covered book out of the pocket of his coat and opened it; then laid it down on the table and
lit his pipe. He leaned forward on the table to read and puffed at his pipe. Then he closed the book and put it back in his pocket. He had too much paper-work to get through. He could not enjoy reading until it was done. Outside, the sun went behind a mountain and there was no more light on the wall of the hut. A soldier came in and put some pine branches, chopped into irregular lengths, into the stove. “Be soft, Pinin,” the adjutant said to him. “The major is sleeping.”
Pinin was the major’s orderly. He was a dark-faced boy, and he fixed the stove, putting the pine wood in carefully, shut the door, and went into the back of the hut again. The adjutant went on with his papers.
“Tonani,” the major called.
“Signor maggiore?”
“Send Pinin in to me.”
“Pinin!” the adjutant called. Pinin came into the room. “The major wants you,” the adjutant said.
Pinin walked across the main room of the hut toward the major’s door. He knocked on the half-opened door. “Signor maggiore?”
“Come in,” the adjutant heard the major say, “and shut the door.”
Inside the room the major lay on his bunk. Pinin stood beside the bunk. The major lay with his head on the rucksack that he had stuffed with spare clothing to make a pillow. His long, burned, oiled face looked at Pinin. His hands lay on the blankets.
“You are nineteen?” he asked.
“Yes, signor maggiore.”
“You have ever been in love?”
“How do you mean, signor maggiore?”
“In love—with a girl?”
“I have been with girls.”
“I did not ask that. I asked if you had been in love—with a girl.”
“Yes, signor maggiore.”
“You are in love with this girl now? You don’t write her. I read all your letters.”
“I am in love with her,” Pinin said, “but I do not write her.”
“You are sure of this?”
“I am sure.”
“Tonani,” the major said in the same tone of voice, “can you hear me talking?”
There was no answer from the next room.
“He can not hear,” the major said. “And you are quite sure that you love a girl?”
“I am sure.”
“And,” the major looked at him quickly, “that you are not corrupt?”
“I don’t know what you mean, corrupt.”
“All right,” the major said. “You needn’t be superior.”
Pinin looked at the floor. The major looked at his brown face, down and up him, and at his hands. Then he went on, not smiling, “And you don’t really want—” the major paused. Pinin looked at the floor. “That your great desire isn’t really—” Pinin looked at the floor. The major leaned his head back on the rucksack and smiled. He was really relieved: life in the army was too complicated. “You’re a good boy,” he said. “You’re a good boy, Pinin. But don’t be superior and be careful some one else doesn’t come along and take you.”
Pinin stood still beside the bunk.
“Don’t be afraid,” the major said. His hands were folded on the blankets. “I won’t touch you. You can go back to your platoon if you like. But you had better stay on as my servant. You’ve less chance of being killed.”
“Do you want anything of me, signer maggiore?”
“No,” the major said. “Go on and get on with whatever you were doing. Leave the door open when you go out.”
Pinin went out, leaving the door open. The adjutant looked up at him as he walked awkwardly across the room and out the door. Pinin was flushed and moved differently than he had moved when he brought in the wood for the fire. The adjutant looked after him and smiled. Pinin came in with more wood for the stove. The major, lying on his bunk, looking at his cloth-covered helmet and his snow-glasses that hung from a nail on the wall, heard him walk across the floor. The little devil, he thought, I wonder if he lied to me.
Ten Indians
AFTER ONE FOURTH OF JULY, NICK, DRIVing home late from town in the big wagon with Joe Garner and his family, passed nine drunken Indians along the road. He remembered there were nine because Joe Garner, driving along in the dusk, pulled up the horses, jumped down into the road and dragged an Indian out of the wheel rut. The Indian had been asleep, face down in the sand. Joe dragged him into bushes and got back up on the wagon-box.
“That makes nine of them,” Joe said, “just between here and the edge of town.”
“Them Indians,” said Mrs. Garner.
Nick was on the back seat with the two Garner boys. He was looking out from the back seat to see the Indian where Joe had dragged him alongside of the road.
“Was it Billy Tabeshaw?” Carl asked.
“No.”
“His pants looked mighty like Billy.”
“All Indians wear the same kind of pants.”
“I didn’t see him at all,” Frank said. “Pa was down into the road and back up again before I seen a thing. I thought he was killing a snake.”
“Plenty of Indians’ll kill snakes tonight, I guess,” Joe Garner said.
“Them Indians,” said Mrs. Garner.
They drove along. The road turned off from the main highway and went up into the hills. It was hard pulling for the horses and the boys got down and walked. The road was sandy. Nick looked back from the top of the hill by the schoolhouse. He saw the lights of Petoskey and, off across Little Traverse Bay, the lights of Harbour Springs. They climbed back in the wagon again.
“They ought to put some gravel on that stretch,” Joe Garner said. The wagon went along the road through the woods. Joe and Mrs. Gamer sat close together on the front seat. Nick sat between the two boys. The road came out into a clearing.
“Right here was where Pa ran over the skunk.”
“It was further on.”
“It don’t make no difference where it was,” Joe said without turning his head. “One place is just as good as another to run over a skunk.”
“I saw two skunks last night,” Nick said.
“Where?”
“Down by the lake. They were looking for dead fish along the beach.”
“They were coons probably,” Carl said.
“They were skunks. I guess I know skunks.”
“You ought to,” Carl said. “You got an Indian girl.”
“Stop talking that way. Carl,” said Mrs. Garner.
“Well, they smell about the same.”
Joe Garner laughed.
“You stop laughing, Joe,” Mrs. Garner said. “I won’t have Carl talk that way.”
“Have you got an Indian girl, Nickie?” Joe asked.
“No.”
“He has too, Pa,” Frank said. “Prudence Mitchell’s his girl.”
“She’s not.”
“He goes to see her every day.”
“I don’t.” Nick, sitting between the two boys in the dark, felt hollow and happy inside himself to be teased about Prudence Mitchell. “She ain’t my girl,” he said.
“Listen to him,” said Carl. “I see them together every day.”
“Carl can’t get a girl,” his mother said, “not even a squaw.”
Carl was quiet.
“Carl ain’t no good with girls,” Frank said.
“You shut up.”
“You’re all right, Carl,” Joe Garner said. “Girls never got a man anywhere. Look at your pa.”
“Yes, that’s what you would say,” Mrs. Garner moved close to Joe as the wagon jolted. “Well, you had plenty of girls in your time.”
“I’ll bet Pa wouldn’t ever have had a squaw for a girl.”
“Don’t you think it,” Joe said. “You better watch out to keep Prudie, Nick.”
His wife whispered to him and Joe laughed.
“What you laughing at?” asked Frank.
“Don’t you say it. Garner,” his wife warned. Joe laughed again.
“Nickie can have Prudence,” Joe Garner said. “I got a good girl.”
“That’s the
way to talk,” Mrs. Garner said.
The horses were pulling heavily in the sand. Joe reached out in the dark with the whip.
“Come on, pull into it. You’ll have to pull harder than this tomorrow.”
They trotted down the long hill, the wagon jolting. At the farmhouse everybody got down. Mrs. Garner unlocked the door, went inside, and came out with a lamp in her hand. Carl and Nick unloaded the things from the back of the wagon. Frank sat on the front seat to drive to the barn and put up the horses. Nick went up the steps and opened the kitchen door. Mrs. Garner was building a fire in the stove. She turned from pouring kerosene on the wood.
“Good-by, Mrs. Garner,” Nick said. “Thanks for taking me.”
“Oh shucks, Nickie.”
“I had a wonderful time.”
“We like to have you. Won’t you stay and eat some supper?”
“I better go. I think Dad probably waited for me.”
“Well, get along then. Send Carl up to the house, will you?”
“All right.”
“Good-night, Nickie.”
“Good-night, Mrs. Garner.”
Nick went out the farmyard and down to the barn. Joe and Frank were milking.
“Good-night,” Nick said. “I had a swell time.”
“Good-night, Nick,” Joe Garner called. “Aren’t you going to stay and eat?”
“No, I can’t. Will you tell Carl his mother wants him?”
“All right. Good-night, Nickie.”
Nick walked barefoot along the path through the meadow below the barn. The path was smooth and the dew was cool on his bare feet. He climbed a fence at the end of the meadow, went down through a ravine, his feet wet in the swamp mud, and then climbed up through the dry beech woods until he saw the lights of the cottage. He climbed over the fence and walked around to the front porch. Through the window he saw his father sitting by the table, reading in the light from the big lamp. Nick opened the door and went in.