by Annette Lyon
The strange event began when she jammed a wooden clothespin over the last wet sock on the washline. That’s when Prince’s brown ears suddenly perked up. Hoisting the laundry basket on her hip at the same time her dog let out a deep-throated growl, Stella asked, “What is it, boy?”
With a sharp bark, Prince bounded away toward the spring. The long-nosed mongrel’s whiskered face, looking as if it needed a shave, didn’t resemble any prince in Stella’s childhood fairy tale book. He was so ugly that he was oddly appealing. His main fault was that he didn’t always come when called. In spite of his imperfections, Papa said his princess needed a prince, and the dog was the only current prospect, so “Prince” he became.
Stella’s green eyes squinted in the gloom beneath the trees. “Prince!” she called, hoping her father couldn’t hear her from the house. She wouldn’t mind going inside and leaving Prince to find his own way home when he was through with his adventure, but Papa would worry about the small dog fending for himself in the woods. Her father needed rest, not worry, to get well.
When the dog didn’t appear, Stella dropped her basket, grabbed the front of her skirt to lift it several inches off the ground, and started after him. She called his name a few more times as she trudged along a faint game trail leading to the spring.
Before long, it grew so dark that she thought about turning back. Then the acrid odor of something burning drifted past her. Alarmed, she looked in all directions, testing the air, searching for the source, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Stomach twisting beneath her racing heart, Stella called in a softer voice, “Prince?” as if afraid she might waken sleeping giants. More than ever, she had to find the dog and get back to the safety of home.
Walking more slowly along the narrow path through the darkness, the scent of smoke teased her, sometimes faint, sometimes strong. When the sound of rippling water just beyond the tree line let her know she’d finally reached the spring’s runoff, she stopped. There was no flicker of firelight through the trees.
That was odd. Where was the burning smell coming from? Was someone camped there, with their fire already put out? Who could it be? Locals would surely be in their own house at this time of day, unless they were camping out close to home for some reason. Whoever it was, perhaps they’d seen her dog.
“Prince?” she called again, willing him to respond to the urgent pleading in her voice. Then her breath hitched with a sudden wish that she’d remained silent. What if a robber lay in wait? Or a murderer?
A single bark overrode her worry. Prince was alive, and quite near. Stella pulled her skirts in close and swept past the trees into the clearing. Then she stopped as stone cold as if she’d bumped into Medusa. Beneath the glow of stars lighting themselves in the sky, the broad shoulders of a man hunched over the stream bank, feet in the water, back bent over a dog she couldn’t see, but she recognized the tail wagging from beneath the stranger’s arm.
“Prince!” Stella called before she thought about whether or not it was a good idea to draw attention to herself.
When a mottled face turned toward her, she sucked in a shocked breath. Half of the ogre’s mouth was swollen below an obscenely bulging eye that refused to open. Worse yet, the ogre’s open eye locked on her.
Prince popped his head out from beneath the ogre’s arm, his tongue out, body waving wildly as he wagged his tail. Could the smoke she smelled be from fires the ogre kindled to roast dogs for his supper? At least he hadn’t eaten her dog yet. Stella bent and put her hands out. “Prince,” she begged.
The ogre opened his misshapen mouth as if to speak, but before he made a sound, a distant voice in the trees beyond him called, “Smash!”
As soon as the ogre turned toward the voice, Prince gathered his courage, squirmed out of the ogre’s grasp, and scampered toward Stella. She scooped him up in her arms and stumbled as fast as she could along the familiar path toward the safety of home.
~~~
“What are you doin’ clear over here?” Carrying a torch in one hand, Spud Raney tossed a bag of money on the stream bank with the other. Instead of looking at it, the Salt Lake Smasher turned his bruised face back toward the trees. “Hey,” Spud said, tapping the Smasher on the shoulder, not bothering to avoid any sore spots. “It seems that startin’ the fight before full dark was good strategy. We won.”
The Smasher’s parents had named him Adam Quinn, but Spud changed the name of the fatherless young man he found saving a stray cat from bullies in a Salt Lake City alley. Spud sat beside Adam and jammed his torch handle into the dirt. Then he bent, scooped some water from the stream, and tossed it into the Smasher’s face.
“Hey!” Adam shook his head, then moaned.
“What’s wrong?” Spud asked.
“Head hurts.” Adam held his head in both hands.
“You ain’t able to count on shoulders broad as a spud cellar or being tall as a tree to keep you in the game,” Spud said. “You gotta stop those other guys from gettin’ in all them head jabs, or they might knock some sense into you.”
“How much longer are we gonna do this?”
“Hear what you’re askin’?” Spud said, looking over at his young friend with a grin on his broad, freckled face. “Long as you’re makin’ us money, ya fight, ya dumb potato head.”
“There are other ways to make a living.”
“But this is what you’re good at, Smasher. You know them other ways don’t pay nearly as good. Why you askin’, anyway? ‘Fraid of the law?”
Adam shrugged, his gaze drifting over to the woods.
“Didn’t ya hear? Boxing’s legal in England now, complete with namby pamby rules. Shouldn’t be long afore we fall in with them sissy Brits and their three minute rounds. Some towns in the US don’t even bother arrestin’ fighters no more. They see the change coming, and you’re right on top, front and center of the public eye, the Salt Lake Smasher, punchin’ his way to fame and fortune. You’re good at this, Adam, really good.”
When there was still no reply, Spud tipped his head, his eyelashes and eyebrows so pale they were barely visible. “That was one of my best speeches. I better write it down.”
In contrast to his middle-aged trainer, Adam had thick eyelashes and strong brows. A lady in California wearing a low-cut dress told him once that his wavy brown hair streaked with honey colored strands looked good enough to eat. It was easy to imagine his tawny eyes as those of a lion enchanted into a man’s form. He began his boxing bouts with an angular jaw and straight nose set above full lips, often quirked up in a smile. But after a fight like tonight, he more closely resembled a beef roast that the dogs had gotten to.
“You’re too purty to quit,” Spud said. “You ain’t got the broken nose or lumpy ears of a true fighter.”
“I just saw the most beautiful woman in the world,” the Smasher said, his gaze fixed on the woods. “She didn’t look the sort who’d like lumpy ears.”
Spud laughed. “Ya got hit too hard in the noggin.”
“No. There was this dog, and then she came for him. Long hair dark as night, skin like starlight, and a voice that could introduce you to heaven.”
“My, ain’t we the poet,” Spud said. “Seems mighty late for a decent sort of woman to be about.”
Smasher was quick to her defense. “She was after her dog.” He moved his feet in the water. “I could see she was scared, but she wasn’t leaving her dog.”
“So, she’s brave and beautiful. She’d have to be brave to look at you.”
The Smasher raised his hand to his cheek. “Am I that bad?”
Spud shrugged. “The usual. But you’ll be ready for next week’s big match in Colorado with a Chinaman.”
The Smasher fixed his startled eye on Spud. “Chinaman? That doesn’t seem like an even match.”
“He’s supposed to be tall as you. Calls hisself the Emperor.”
The Smasher turned to stare at the trees again. “I wish I knew her name. She called her dog ‘Prince.’”
“
Well, just call her Cinderella, then. Come on, let’s go.”