by P. Creeden
James swallowed, but knew better than to answer the figurative question.
After crossing his arms over his chest, Mercer leaned back against one of the pillars at the front of the saloon. “It seems to me that you haven’t gotten over what happened last time, yet. You need to get your priorities in order. You’re a member of the Pugilist Society. Memberships are until death or marriage—and since most ladies worth marrying won’t touch a pugilist’s scarred and battered face, you’re in this until death. Just like me. Just like Rowdy Roddy. Just like Hank Jones.”
The blood drained from James’s face at the sound of the last man’s name. His palms began to sweat, and his heart raced. Black spots crowded his vision again. The earth shifted.
Mercer lurched forward and grabbed James by the collar. “See there. This is exactly what I’m talking about. What’s wrong with you, Fisher? Get a hold of yourself. You are not a woman, and you’re certainly not allowed to fall victim to the vapors. So, Hank died. We all die. It was his time obviously. You can’t control his ticker any more than anyone else can. It was a sanctioned fight, and Hank went into that ring as willingly as you did. Each time we enter the ring, it’s not just about winning or losing. It’s about living or dying. And if you keep this up, you’re going to be kissing the hardwood floors over and over again until death takes you for the final round.”
Mercer gave him a shake for good measure before pushing him away. James stumbled back but caught himself before falling. “I don’t think I can do this anymore,” he whispered, staring at the dirt at Mercer’s feet.
“It’s not up to you. There may not be slaves anymore, but you signed a contract. The society clothes you, feeds you, trains you and owns you. You will fight until death or marriage. That was what you agreed to.” Mercer’s voice took on a matter-of-fact tone. The threat in it was gone, only the law.
“And what happens if I don’t fight again.” James still couldn’t lift his eyes up.
“The society doesn’t take kindly to breaches of contract. Lawsuits might happen. Jail time might happen. People getting beaten to death in alleys—that sometimes happens, too.”
James’s eyes shot up at the the thinly-veiled threat. Mercer had finished rolling another cigarette and licked the paper so it would stay in place and didn’t even so much as peek James’s direction. What was James going to do? When he’d signed the contract, he was just an orphan on the street, like so many others in the legalized sport of pugilism—a child who could barely read. Fighting had seemed like his way out of living on the streets and stealing. He’d finally be doing something good and legal instead of being chased by the police and his conscience. Now what was he going to do? Death or marriage. That was the deal he’d signed onto. But like Mercer said, the only women who liked a pugilist were the kind who were paid to like him.
But still, he couldn’t help but hang onto the possibility. “So, if I find a woman to marry me, I won’t be in breach of contract. The society would let me go?”
Mercer lifted a brow and set the cigarette on his lip. “You can’t just go buying your way into a marriage with a quick annulment. You marry and stay married for at least a year. The society is always watching. But we’re not monsters. You find a woman to marry you, and you’ll have our blessing.”
The cigarette flamed at the tip for a brief moment as Mercer leaned toward a lantern and lifted the glass to get to the burning wick underneath. James let out a slow breath. “So, I just have to get married.”
Mercer shook his head and huffed a laugh. Then he stepped forward and set a hand on James’s shoulder, which James nearly shied away from. Mercer leaned in toward him. “That’s what your contract says. You find a good woman willing to marry you and live a good life outside the ring. But until then, you’re mine and you will step in the ring and fight or die trying.”
Chapter Three
Abby had been living with Momma June for nearly a month, and nothing was getting better. She sat on the front porch, watching the children play in a half-full tub of rainwater just to relieve themselves of the heat. Summer hadn’t yet given up it’s hold on them. The sun still beat down overhead, but Abby had to remain in the shadows of the covered porch, or she’d be as red as tomato. It wouldn’t be so bad if a breeze would just blow through, but instead it was roasting. She sighed and fanned herself with a section of newspaper. Light shined off the gravel road toward town and made her squint to see what was coming from that direction. A man riding a horse headed their way.
No one came down this way on a single horse. The milkman and iceman always drove a wagon. As the man drew nearer, Abby stepped down from the porch. When the children in the yard saw the visitor, they ran past her toward the house. The youngest, George, clung to Abby’s skirt. His big brown eyes stared up at her with fear in them. “It’s a white man, Miss Abby. What’s a white man doing here?”
Abby shook her head and patted the child’s bare back. “Head on inside. I’ll take care of this.”
George nodded and then stumbled on his way inside because he kept looking back at the man on the road. When Abby could finally make out who was coming her way, she stepped closer to the small picket fence around the yard and stood at the gate. Jud Howard. Her stomach turned, and she glared at him as he pulled up his mare and dismounted. Jud had a wide grin on his face, and as he pulled his hat from his head, he smoothed down his coiffed, well-oiled, dark hair. “Abigail!”
Abby frowned. “Jud.”
He straightened his jacket on his shoulders, and Abby noticed for the first time he was in his Sunday best. It was Thursday. And he had a purple wildflower pinned to his lapel. She didn’t like where this was going. He sniffed and sauntered toward the gate. When he touched the gate to open it, she leaned against it to keep it shut. He lifted a brow. “You gonna let me in?”
She shook her head. “You can say what you need just fine where you stand. Momma June didn’t invite you over, did she?”
His brow furrowed. “No, she did not.”
After sticking out a hip, Abby crossed her arms over her chest. “Then what do you need, Mr. Howard?”
For a long moment, he just glared at her. Then, finally, he sighed and looked up the road. “Must we keep playing these games, Abigail. You know you’ve got no other options. You’re going to have to take me up on my offer of marriage unless you want to stay here and live with those…those folks. How can you tolerate living in a house with them?” He spat the words as if they had a bad taste. He tilted his head. “If you stay here, that would be the waste of a fine woman.”
Abby narrowed her eyes at him. “These ‘dark skin folks,’ as you call them, are family to me. I could live with them for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy.”
A sneer raised his lip, and he narrowed his eyes at her. His voice took on a menacing tone. “But will they be happy, Abigail? They’ve lived here in peace because we let them, but there are certain people in town who don’t like a white woman living on this side of town. They don’t like the idea of what could end up out of an ungodly union like that.”
Her vision went white as anger flared up. “How dare you? There would be nothing ungodly about a union between any two of God’s children, no matter what their color or race. The only thing ungodly around here is your attitude and vanity. I don’t need to marry you to get on with my life. I don’t need you at all. Go find yourself a woman who needs you and wants you, Jud Howard, because that woman doesn’t go by the name of Abigail Lee.”
He blinked hard, the sneer wavering for a moment before it came back with a vengeance. “Don’t say I did’t warn you, Abby. Things are calm here at Momma June’s right now, but they won’t be for long. There’s been some ugly things going on in Tennessee this past year that might go on here in Suffolk if your friends aren’t keeping to themselves as they should. Mark my words.”
“I think you’d better leave before I do something I regret.” Her core began shaking, and she was afraid that she might not be able to stop hers
elf from getting physically violent with the man if he stayed much longer or said one more thing.
“If you’re dead set on staying with these people, you’re going to have regrets, Abigail. Tons of them. I’ve already heard things—”
She’d heard enough. Her hands fisted as she glared at the man. Then she reached over and grabbed a rake that had been lying to the side of the gate on the picket fence. She gripped it and began opening the gate.
“What are you doing?” Jud asked as he backed away toward his horse.
She lifted the rake over her head and rested it on her shoulder as she marched toward him.
He threw the reins over the horse’s neck and mounted his horse in a hurry. The horse shied away from Abby as she waved the rake at the two of them. “If anyone wants to hurt these people, they’ll have to get through me first. You hear!” she yelled at him as he trotted back down the road the same way that he had come. She stood in the road and watched his retreating back.
Heaving breaths shook her body. She wished the horse had dumped the man flat on his head when it had shied away. Threatening her like that. Threatening Mama June’s family like that. How dare he? Her heart raced in her chest. Sweat poured down the sides of her face. Her continued grip on the rake in her hands began to hurt the joints in her fingers.
How dare he? Slowly, as she was able to catch her breath, she lowered the rake.
Little George came out the front door and skipped down the sidewalk toward her. “You did it, Miss Abby! You chased him off good.” He peeked through the wooden slats of the gate.
She laughed, but her heart ached through it as she looked down at George’s smiling face. Then her knees felt weak, tears fell, and the sobs came as she collapsed down to her knees.
George ripped open the gate. “Miss Abby, are you all right?”
She looked up at him, her vision blurred with tears, but she couldn’t say anything through the sobs that racked her body. She nodded... then shook her head.
The gate fell closed as George ran back toward the house, yelling, “Momma June! Cecilia! Miss Abby’s not all right!”
Moments later both Momma June and Cecilia knelt beside her, their hands on her shoulders and arms, lifting her up and helping her to her feet. For a long while, she wasn’t able to do anything more than blubber. But soon she found herself in Momma June’s kitchen, sitting at the table with a wet rag on the back of her neck. After a long moment of just breathing, she was finally able to calm down.
“Here’s a glass of tea, sugar, for you to drink once you’re calm. I iced it,” Momma June said as she sat back down in the chair across the table from Abby. She could see her feet below.
Abby swallowed. The sobs had finally stopped, and it was time for her to face the reality before her again. Finally, she lifted her head and removed the wet rag from the back of her neck. “I can’t stay here any longer. I need to go.”
Cecilia frowned. “Whatever that man said to you, don’t pay no mind. You don’t need to marry him to live happy.”
Slowly, Abby shook her head, a lump forming in her throat. She feared she might start crying again. After swallowing and taking a slow, deep breath she finally said, “He threatened that people in town would come here and hurt you if I stayed. I have to go. I love you both—you are all like family. I can’t let anything happen to you.”
Their eyes went wide. Momma June shook her head. “Don’t let that man pressure you into doing something you don’t want to because of his threats. He’s a coward. We’ll do what we can to defend ourselves.”
Images of little George getting hurt flashed through her mind. No. She couldn’t let any of them get hurt on her account. The wet rag on her hands felt good, so she used it to cool down her face. She’d gotten too much sun today; her face already burned. The room already began to darken since the sun had lowered itself in the sky. How long had she been crying? When she pulled the rag away, she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s time. I’ve overstayed your hospitality. I should go.”
“You don’t have to marry Jud Howard,” Cecilia said firmly. “If you truly feel you can’t stay here, we’ll find another situation. We’ll find something else.”
Abby huffed a dry laugh. “No, I’m not going to marry Jud Howard. I wouldn’t marry him if you dipped him in pure gold.”
“Good,” Momma June said as she pulled little George into her lap. “But I don’t want you living on the street or in some saloon. You need to live as the good Christian woman your momma raised you to be.”
Momma June had always been a good friend to Abby’s momma—they had known each other growing up, just as Cecilia and she did. When Abby’s mother passed on, Momma June had promised to always take care of Abby as if she was her own. She’d kept that promise. Tears stung the backs of Abby’s eyes again. “I don’t know what to do or where to go.”
Cecilia’s hand slapped the table. “I’ve got an idea, but I’ll need to run to the telegraph office. Will you trust me and not do anything untoward until I get back.”
Abby’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean? What is it?”
When she grabbed the door handle, Cecilia looked back. “I’ll be right back. Don’t leave, promise?”
“All right. Promise,” Abby said, still frowning at her best friend.
With a wide smile, Cecilia raced out the door.
Chapter Four
James sat in a private room in the Smokehouse Saloon with a wet rag on the back of his neck. Knocked out again. His third fight in a row where he froze up and couldn’t manage to even strike a punch, much less land one. If things kept going like this, what would happen to him? A dark-alley beating seemed assured. Fredrick had disappeared after a boy had come with a message for him, and James hated being alone after a fight. Especially when he lost.
Fredrick came barging in as James thought of him.
James looked up. “Where have you been?”
Fredrick swallowed, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Um... I got a telegram from my cousin Cecilia in Virginia. It was marked emergency. I’m sorry I missed the end of your fight.”
James huffed a laugh. “You didn’t miss much. Just me... getting knocked out... again.”
The tall man’s lips drew thin. “That’s not good, James.”
Tension gripped James’s shoulders as he narrowed his eyes at his friend. “You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I know that if I don’t start throwing punches, it’s going to go badly for the society? And when things go badly for the society, they go badly for the fighter. I know.”
“What if you didn’t have to throw no more punches?”
James’s neck hurt as he sat up quickly to eye his best friend. “What do you mean?”
“Marriage or death, the contract says, right? What if we could arrange a marriage?”
“You pulling my leg?” He frowned. Fredrick rarely joked and never lied. This wasn’t a hypothetical question he was asking James. “What are you talking about here?”
Fredrick swallowed and sat down on the bench next to James. “My cousin Cecilia and I have been writing each other for ten years. We tell each other everything. Writing to her helps ground me. Always has. So, I tell her about everything. All my problems, and sometimes your problems, too. She does the same.”
“You’ve been telling your cousin about me?”
Fredrick held up a hand. “Just listen. I knew you probably wouldn’t like that part, but the important thing here is that we’ve come up with a solution to your problem. We know a woman who is likely to marry you, but it’s probably best to do a proxy marriage, just in case.”
James blinked at him. “A what?”
“It’s a marriage where you get someone else to stand-in for the bride here... while someone stands in for you as the groom in Virginia. That way you’re married right now. It’s all legal and such.”
“Then what? The bride doesn’t know what she’s in for. She doesn’t know me, or the kind of man I am. How can I put
that kind of burden on a lady?” James asked, his back bending as he put his face back into his hands.
“What if marrying her will save her?”
He peeked at Fredrick through his fingers.
Fredrick continued, “Her father and brother died in the War, fighting for the Union. Now she’s been kicked out of her house and living with my Aunt June. The men in town are Rebs, James. They don’t like that a white woman is living with my family members in that part of town. They are threatening her and threatening my family. One of them is trying to force her into marrying him. She’s a true lady, James—a Southern belle—full of spirit. She shouldn’t live in poverty, but she’s a strong woman, too. She can handle living out here in the frontier and being married to a former pugilist.”
Something deep inside James sparked and warmed him at his core. Hope. He swallowed and uncovered his face. “So, marrying her would be helping her? Helping your family, too?”
Fredrick nodded. “And helping you. You could be married tomorrow. You wouldn’t have to step into the fighting ring again.”
“Tomorrow?” he whispered. He could be free. Mercer and the pugilist society would let him out of his contract, and he’d be free to go. They would leave him be with their blessings. No more threat of being beaten to death in a dark alley. “If it will truly help her... if she is truly willing to marry a man like me... then I’m willing as well.”
Mama June sat at the kitchen table while Abby paced the kitchen, wearing a spot in the floor while waiting for Cecilia to return. She wrung her hands. What if Jud had found Cecilia in town? What if he’d hurt her? What if he—
The kitchen door swung in, and Cecilia rushed inside with a wide smile on her face. She slapped down a yellow paper telegraph on the table. “He said yes!” she exclaimed, looking back and forth between Abby and Momma June.
Momma June peered at the telegraph and asked the question that was on Abby’s mind as well. “Who did?”