Collection 1999 - Beyond The Great Snow Mountains (v5.0) Read online

  It went along like that until two days before the fight. Then Pop came in, he had a long look at me, and he pushed his wide hat back on his head and took the cigar from his lips.

  “Kid,” he said, “I got a tip today. Your dame’s bettin’ on Ludlow.”

  If anybody had sprung that on me, even Pop Farley, before I went west, I’d have said he was a liar. Now I just looked at him. Pop was my friend. Maybe the best one I had. I was like a son to him, and Pop wouldn’t lie to me.

  “Give it to me, Pop,” I said. “What do you know?”

  “Saw her coming from Mark Lanning’s office. I got curious and I had her followed. I found out she’s hocked her jewelry to bet on Ludlow. I traced the sale of that yellow car. Lanning paid for it.”

  Well, I got out of the ring and walked back to the house. I pulled on my pants and a sweater, I changed into some heavy shoes. Then I went for a walk.

  There was work to be done. Fences needed mending, one barn would soon need a new roof, over the winter I would have to repair my tractor, which hadn’t worked right in years…I always dreamed I was doing it for someone, someone besides me, that is. Suddenly I realized that person wasn’t Marge and never would be.

  Marge Hamlin meant a lot to me, but hurt as it did, it wasn’t as bad as it would have been before I went west. That trip had made me see things a lot clearer.

  I walked in the hills, breathing a lot of fresh, cool air, and before long I began to feel better. Well, maybe Duck was right. She had been hungry too much. Somehow, I didn’t find any resentment in me.

  * * *

  WE WERE SITTING on the porch the day of the fight when Marge drove up. She’d been out twice before, but I was gone. She looked at my eyes when I walked down to the car. I heard Pop and Buck get up and go inside.

  Marge looked beautiful as a picture, and just as warm.

  “Marge,” I said, “you shouldn’t have bet that money.” Her eyes went sharp, and she started to speak. “It’s okay,” I said, “we all have to live. You play it your way, it’s just that you’ll lose, and that’ll be too bad. You’re going to need the money.”

  “What do you mean? Who told you how I bet?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Copper those bets if you can, because I’m going to win.”

  “With those eyes?” She was hard as ice now.

  “Sure, even with these eyes. Tony Innes was a good boy. I beat him. Outweighed fifteen pounds, I beat him. I’ll beat Ludlow, too.”

  “Like fun you can!” Her voice was bitter. “You haven’t a chance!”

  “Take my tip, Marge. And then,” I added, “cut loose from Mark. He won’t do right by you, baby. He won’t be able to, even if he wanted to.”

  “What do you mean? What can you do to Mark?” Contempt was an inch thick in her voice.

  “It isn’t me. That story from out West started it. Mark’s through. He’s shooting everything on this fight. He still thinks he’s riding high. He isn’t. Neither are you.”

  She looked at me. “You don’t seem much cut up about this,” she said then.

  “I’m not. You’re no bargain, honey. In fact you’ve been a waste of my time.”

  That got her. She had sold me out for Mark Lanning and his money, but she didn’t like to think I was taking it so easy. She had set herself up to be the prize, but now she wasn’t the prize I wanted. She started the car, spun the wheel and left the ranch with the car throwing gravel as I walked back inside.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT YOU couldn’t have forced your way into the fight club with a jimmy. The Zenith Arena was jammed to the doors, and when Ludlow started for the ring, a friend told me and I slid off the table and looked at Pop.

  “Well, Skipper,” I said, “here goes everything.”

  “You’ll take him,” Buck said, but he wasn’t sure. It’s hard to fight with blood running into your eyes.

  When we were in the center of the ring, Buck Farley was with me. I turned to him. “You got that heater, Buck?”

  “Sure thing.” He showed me the butt of his .45 under his shirt.

  The referee’s eyes widened. Ludlow’s narrowed and he touched his thin lips with his tongue.

  “Just a tip.” I was talking to the referee. “Nobody stops this fight. No matter how bloody I get, or no matter how bloody Ludlow gets, this fight goes on to the end. When you count one of us out, that will be soon enough.

  “Buck,” I said, “if this referee tries to give this to Ludlow any way but on a knockout or decision at the end of fifteen rounds, kill him.”

  Of course, I didn’t really mean it. Maybe I didn’t. Buck was another guess. Anyway, the referee was sure to the bottom of his filthy little soul that I did mean it. He was scared, scared silly.

  Then I went back to my corner and rubbed my feet in the resin. This was going to be murder. It was going to be plain, unadulterated murder.

  The gong sounded.

  Van Ludlow was a tough, hard-faced blond who looked like he was made from granite. He came out, snapped a fast left for my eyes, and I went under it, came in short with a right to the ribs as he faded away. He jabbed twice and missed. I walked around him, feinted, and he stepped away, watching me. The guy had a left like a cobra. He stabbed the left and I was slow to slip it. He caught me, but too high.

  Ludlow stepped it up a little, missed a left and caught me with a sweet right hand coming in. He threw that right again and I let it curl around my neck and smashed both hands to the body, in close. We broke clean and then he moved in fast, clipped me with a right uppercut and then slashed a left to my mouth that hurt my bad lip. I slipped two lefts to the head and went in close, ripping both hands to the body before he tied me up. He landed a stiff right to the head as the bell rang.

  Three rounds went by just like that. Sharp, fast boxing, and Ludlow winning each of them by a steadily increasing margin. My punches were mostly to the body in close. In the fourth the change came.

  He caught me coming in with a stiff left to the right eye and a trickle of blood started. You could hear a low moan from the crowd. They had known it was coming.

  Blood started trickling into my eye. Ludlow stabbed a left and got in close. “How d’you like it, boy?”

  “Fine!” I said, and whipped a left hook into his ribs that jolted him to his socks.

  He took two steps back and I hit him with both hands. Then the fight turned into a first-rate blood-and-thunder scrap.

  * * *

  VAN LUDLOW COULD go. I give him that. He came in fast, stabbed a left to my mouth, and I went under another one and smashed a right into his ribs that sounded like somebody had dropped a plank. Then I ripped up a right uppercut that missed but brought a whoop from the crowd.

  Five and six were a brawl with blood all over everything. Both my eyes were cut and there was blood in my mouth. I’d known this would happen and so was prepared for it. Ludlow threw a wicked right for my head in the seventh round and I rolled inside and slammed my right to his ribs again. He backed away from that one.

  “Come on, dish face!” I told him politely. “You like it, don’t you?”

  He swung viciously, and I went under it and let him have both of them, right in the lunch basket. He backed up, looking unhappy, and I walked into him blazing away with both fists. He took two, slipped a left, and rocked me to my number nines with a rattling right hook.

  He was bloody now, partly mine and partly his own. I shot a stiff left for his eye and just as it reached his face, turned my left glove outside and ripped a gash under his eye with the laces that started a stream of blood.

  “Not bleeding?” I protested in close. “That wasn’t in the lesson for today. I’m the one supposed to bleed!”

  The bell cut him off short, and he glared at me. I took a deep breath and walked back to my corner. I couldn’t see myself. But I could guess. My face felt like it had been run through a meat grinder, but I felt better than I had in months. Then I got the shock of my life.

  * * *

&
nbsp; TONY INNES WAS standing in my corner.

  “Hi, champ!” He looked at me, got red around the gills, and grinned. “Shucks, man! You’re a fighter. Don’t tell me the guy who licked me can’t take Van Ludlow.”

  “You ever fight Ludlow?” I was still standing up. I didn’t care. I felt good.

  “No,” he said.

  “Well,” I told him, “it ain’t easy!”

  When the bell sounded, I went out fast, feeling good. I started a left hook for his head and the next thing I knew the referee was saying “Seven!”

  I rolled over, startled, wondering where the devil I’d been, and got my feet under me. I came up fast as Van moved in, but not fast enough. A wicked right hand knocked me into the ropes and he followed it up, but fast. He jabbed me twice, and blind with blood, I never saw the right.

  That time it was the count of three I heard, but I stayed where I was to eight, then came up. I went down again, then again. I was down the sixth time in the round when the bell rang. Every time I’d get up, he’d floor me. I never got so tired of a man in my life.

  Between rounds they had my eyes fixed up. Tony Innes was working on them now, and he should have been a second. He was as good a man on cut eyes as any you ever saw.

  The ninth round opened with Ludlow streaking a left for my face, and I went under it and hit him with a barrage of blows that drove him back into the ropes. I nailed him there with a hard right and stabbed two lefts to his mouth.

  He dished up a couple of wicked hooks into my middle that made me feel like I’d lost something, and then I clipped him with a right. He jerked his elbow into my face, so I gave his the treatment with my left and he rolled away along the ropes and got free.

  I stepped back and lanced his lip with a left, hooked that same left to his ear, and took a wicked left to the body that jerked my mouth open, and then he lunged close and tried to butt.

  “What’s the matter?” I said. “Can’t you win it fair?”

  He jerked away from me and made me keep my mouth shut with a jolting left. I was counterpunching now. He started a hook and I beat him with an inside right that set him back on his heels. He tried to get his feet set, and rolled under a punch. I caught him with both hands and split one of his eyes.

  Ludlow came in fast. It was a bitter, brutal, bloody fight and it was getting worse. His eyes were cut as badly as mine now, and both of us were doing plenty of bleeding. I was jolting him with body punches, and it was taking some of the snap out of him. Not that he didn’t have plenty left. That guy would always have plenty left.

  Sweat streamed into my eyes and the salt made me blink. I tried to wipe the blood away and caught a right hook for my pains. I went into a crouch and he put a hand on my head, trying to spin me. I was expecting that and hooked a left high and wide that caught him on the temple. It took him three steps to get his feet under him, and I was all over him like a cold shower.

  He went back into the ropes, ripping punches with both hands, but I went on into him. He tried to use the laces and hit me low once, but that wasn’t stopping me. Not any. I was out to get this guy, and get him but good. I hung him on the ropes and then the bell sounded and I turned and trotted to my corner.

  Tony Innes was there, and he leaned over. “Watch yourself, kid. Mark’s got some muscle men here.”

  “Don’t let it throw you,” Buck said grimly, “so’ve we!”

  I looked at him, and then glanced back at the crowd. Lanning was there, all right, and Gasparo was with him, but they both looked unhappy. Then I recognized some faces. Bulge Mahaney, the carnival strong man from Greater American, had a big hand resting on Lanning’s shoulder. Beside him, with a heavy cane I knew to be loaded with lead, was Charley Dismo, who ran the Ferris wheel.

  Behind them, around them, were a half-dozen tough carnival roughnecks. I grinned suddenly, and then, right behind my corner, I saw somebody else. It was Mantry, the big guy I fought several times. He lifted a hand and waved to me, grinning from ear to ear. Friends? Gosh, I had lots of friends.

  Yet, in that minute, I looked for Marge. No, there was no love in me for her, but I felt sorry for the girl. I caught her eye, and she was looking at me. She started to look away, but I waved to her, and smiled. She looked startled, and when the bell rang I got a glimpse of her again, and there were tears in her eyes.

  Van Ludlow wasn’t looking at tears in anybody’s eyes. He came out fast and clipped me with a right that rang all the bells in my head. I didn’t have to look to see who these bells were tolling for. So I got off the canvas, accepted a steamy left hand to get close and began putting some oomph into some short arm punches into his middle.

  He ripped into me but I rolled away, and he busted me again, and then I shoved him away and clipped him. His legs turned to rubber and I turned his head with a left and set Mary Ann for the payoff. He knew it was coming, but the guy was still trying, he jerked away and let one come down the main line.

  That one got sidetracked about a flicker away from my chin, but the right that I let go, with all the payoff riding on it, didn’t. It took him coming in and he let go everything and dropped on his face so hard you’d have thought they’d dropped him from the roof!

  A cloud of resin dust floated up and I walked back to my corner. I leaned on the ropes feeling happy and good, and then the referee came over and lifted my right and the crowd went even crazier than they had been. The referee let go my hand, and when I started to take a bow, I bowed all the way to the canvas, just hit it on my face and passed out cold.

  Only for a minute, though. They doused me with water and picked me up, and they were still working over Van Ludlow. I walked across toward his corner, writing shallow figure S’s with my feet, and put my hand on his shoulder.

  Duck Miller was standing there with his cigar in his face and he looked at me through the smoke.

  “Hi, champ,” he said.

  I stopped and looked at him. “I won some dough on this fight,” I said. “I’m going to open a poolroom, gym, and bowling alley in Zenith. I need a manager. Want the job?”

  He looked at me, and something came into his eyes that told me Duck Miller had all I’d ever believed he had.

  “Sure,” he said, “I’d never work for a better guy!”

  I walked back to my corner then, and Buck Farley slipped my robe around my shoulders and I crawled through the ropes. I walked back to the dressing room. Pop was leaning on the table with a roll of bills you could carry in a wheelbarrow. “I bet some money,” he said happily, “a lot of money!” He looked up. “And you,” he said, “even if you never get a middleweight title fight, you are still going to be a wealthy young man!”

  When I came out, Marge was sitting in the canary convertible.

  “Everything all right?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She looked at me.

  “If it isn’t,” I said, “let me know.”

  She sat there looking at me, and then she said, “I guess I made a mistake.”

  “No,” I said, “you weren’t brave enough to take a chance.”

  All the way back to the ranch I could hear Pop and Buck talking about how the G-men came in and picked Lanning up for some gyp deal on his income tax, an investigation stirred up by my stories from the West. But I wasn’t thinking of that.

  I was thinking that in the morning I’d slip on some old brogans and a sweater to take a walk over the hills. I’d watch the grass shifting in the wind, see the brown specks of my cattle in the meadows, the blunt angles of my corrals and barns. I was thinking that after the frozen winters in Korea, the blood and sweat of the ring—choking down that smoky air…how I loved and hated it—I had a chance with something that was really mine. I had no one to fight anymore.

  CRASH LANDING

  * * *

  DYEA WAS THE first to speak. “Don’t anyone move.” His voice was quiet, and its very calm destroyed the moment of rising panic. “The plane seems to be resting insecurely, we must act carefully and with intelligence. I will inve
stigate.”

  With infinite care, he straightened himself from his seat, glancing briefly at the wreckage of the nose. There was no possibility that pilot or co-pilot were alive. The stewardess was sitting in the aisle, where she had been thrown by the crash. She looked toward him uncertainly.

  “Miss Taylor,” he said, recalling her name from the tab above her breast pocket, “I was an officer in the Army, and I have some experience with this sort of thing. If all will cooperate, I’m sure we will be all right.”

  He could see the relief in her eyes, and she nodded quickly. “Sit still,” he said, before she could rise. “I’ll only be a moment. The plane is resting, I believe, on a mountainside. Its position seems to be precarious.”

  The crashed commuter plane lay on the mountain, and could be no more than a dozen feet from the crest of the ridge. Balancing his weight, his body leaning against the slant, he eased down the incline to the door in the back of the cabin. Fortunately, it had not jammed. The wind, which had been blowing hard, seemed to have lulled, and he stepped carefully from the door.

  Snow swirled around him as he took a few steps back, along the fuselage, and then he looked down into an awful void that dropped away beneath the very tail of the plane. For a long moment he stared, awed by what he could sense rather than see. The slightest gust of wind or concerted movement could start the ship sliding, and in an instant it would fall off into the black void.

  Yet, where he stood, the rock was solid, covered only by a thin coating of ice and snow blown by the wind. Moving carefully, he checked the position of the cliff edge and the area nearest the crashed plane. Then he returned to the door.

  Dyea stood outside and looked within. Five faces had turned to stare at him. “You must move one at a time, and at my direction. The ship is in an extremely dangerous position. If there is any confusion or hurry, it may start sliding. You, in the right front seat, rise carefully. If you’re not sure you can move under your own power, please tell me now.”