There was no way for me to see the finish. It was a straightaway course, and several of them seemed to be bunched up at the end.
Suddenly one of the judges, a man on a white horse, came galloping back.
"That damned mule!" he yelled. "The mule won by half a length!"
Back at the Mexicans' cabin nobody had much to say. The Mexican folks who owned it stayed out of sight most of the time and Juana stayed with them. I had made a bit of money and Halloran cut me in on what he'd made on the race, as well as giving a bit to Manuel.
That I did too.
Those two races had made that boy more money than he and Juana had seen since Miguel died.
Me, I stretched out on the bed and lay there, resting up for the fight. My stomach felt empty and kind of sick-like, and I began to wonder if I was scared. True enough, I'd whipped Caffrey, but he was no fighter then, just a big, awkward boy, and I might have been lucky. Now he had been out among men, he had proved himself against known fighters, defeating them all, and there's no escaping the worth of experience.
Between bouts he'd had a plenty of sparring with experienced fighters, and was up to all manner of tricks that only a professional can come by. But I thought of Jem Mace, who'd taught the Tinker. He had been a master boxer, one of the great ones. Never weighing more than one hundred and sixty pounds, he had been the world's champion, defeating men as much as sixty pounds heavier.
Thinking about it, I dozed off and did not wake up until the Tinker shook me.
"Move around," he advised. "Get the sleep out of you. Get your blood to circulating."
O'Flaherty, the Irishman who'd bet on our mule, came to the house. "I've not seen you with the knuckles," he commented, "but a man with sense enough to bet on a mule is a canny one, so I bet my winnings on you."
The Tinker was carrying a pistol, a rare thing for him, and the Irishman had brought his shotgun. Doc Halloran had bulges under his coat that meant he was wearing two guns, and I slipped mine into my waistband, too.
We mounted up and started for the ring, but I'd gone no way at all when someone called out to me, and when I turned I saw it was a girl in a handsome carriage. It was Marsha Deckrow, and she was more beautiful than I would have believed anybody could be.
Pulling up, I removed my hat. "Still the servant's entrance?" I said.
She showed her dimples. "I was a child then, Orlando. I must have sounded very snippy."
"You did."
"You're stern!" She laughed at me. "I'm sorry you were in prison. My father told me about it."
"I must be going on," I said, though to be honest it was the last thing I wished to do.
"You're going to fight that awful man. My father won't let me go, even though I promised to sit in the carriage and we needn't be close.
There's a knoll a little way from the corral, and we could keep the carriage there. But I'll watch. I think I've found a window."
"It is likely to be brutal," I said, "and he may whip me."
"Will I see you afterward, Orlando? After all, we're cousins, aren't we? Or something like that?
Your father married my aunt."
"Do you see them often?"
"With your father feeling the way he does about pa?
I should say not! In fact, we're on our way to Austin now."
I gathered the reins. The Tinker and Doc were waiting impatiently, and the time was soon. "You tell your pa for me," I said, "that he'd better drop that case. He'd best forget the whole thing.
He was working for Jonas in the beginning, and when this is over he won't even be doing that."
Her face hardened. "You're my enemy then?"
"I'm not anybody's enemy," I said, "but I know murder when I see it done. And betrayal, too."
The look in her eyes there for a minute--well, it wasn't what you'd rightly call pleasant; but then it was gone and she was all smiles. "After the fight, Orlando? Win or lose? Will you come?
Pa wouldn't approve, not one bit, but if you'd come to see me ... I'm staying with the Appletons, down at the end of the street. They hadn't room for pa, too, so he won't be there.
Do come."
"Well"--she was a mighty pretty girl--
"I'll see."
My stomach felt queasy when I dismounted at the corral, for there were a sight of folks sitting atop the corral fence, which had a board nailed on it all the way around so's men could look at stock when buying from the corral.
Inside, the yard had been sprinkled and then rolled or tamped until it was hard-packed.
They'd set four posts in the ground and had ropes around them, running through holes in the posts.
No sooner had I got down than a great yell went up from the crowd, and there was Dun Caffrey getting out of a carriage. He wore a striped sweater, and when he peeled it off, he showed a set of the finest shoulders a man ever did see.
He was some taller than me, maybe about three inches, and had longer arms. He would weigh better than me, for I was down to two hundred and six, whilst he weighed two hundred and thirty, and carrying no fat.
Folks crowded around--men in buckboards and spring wagons, men a-horseback and afoot.
Caffrey was wearing a pair of dark blue tights and some fancy, special-made shoes for boxing or handball. I wore moccasins and black tights--^the last the Tinker rustled up for me.
"They've got a set of gloves," Doc Halloran said, "and they offer to fight either way, with or without."
"Take 'em," the Tinker advised. "They protect your hands, and you'll hit even harder because of them. A lot of folks don't realize it, but a man hits harder with a bandaged hand and a glove than with a bare fist--m compact, better striking surface, and less danger of hurting your hands."
When we agreed, they brought a pair of gloves over and I shoved my hand down inside.
These were three-ounce gloves, and when my hand was doubled into a fist it was hard as rock.
"We fight London Prize Ring rules,"
Doc explained. "You fight until one man goes down, a knockdown, slip, or throw down, then you rest for one minute, and you toe the mark when you come up for each round, and the fight is to a finish."
"He knows," the Tinker said, dryly. He looked at me. "I hope you haven't forgotten what I taught you during those months of travel.
You can use a rolling hip-lock to throw him, and if you get hold of him, pound him until you're stopped."
Everybody had been taking notice of Caffrey, and when I slipped off my sweater, nobody was looking my way. I was brown as any Indian, and there were the scars of the old whip-cuts on my back and shoulders.
In spite of the difference in weight between us, I was better muscled and a little broader in the shoulders and quite a bit thicker through the chest.
Walton was to referee, and he made an announcement that he'd shoot the first man to come through the ropes or the first to try to tear down a post.
Around that ring those gamblers were gathered. Right off I could see that they'd outsmarted us, and the whole crowd against the ropes except right in my corner were his friends, and the men behind them were, too. My friends, and few enough of them there were, they were cut off, back some distance.
Suppose a whole rank started to move in on the ring? What would Walton do then?
Time was called and we walked out to toe the mark, and as soon as my toe touched it, Caffrey hit me. He hit me a straight left to the face, and it landed hard. I sprang at him, punching with both hands, and he moved around me like a cooper around a barrel. He hit me three times in the face without my landing a blow.
The crowd began to yell, and he came at me again, but this time I ducked my head against his chest and managed to hit him twice, short blows in the belly, before he put a headlock on me and threw me to my knees, ending the round.
When I walked back to my corner and sat on Halloran's knee, my lip was puffed from a blow, and there was a knot on my cheekbone.