But Ed Middleton was wise enough to take the hint.
“Good night, Frank,” he said finally, “I’ll see you in the morning,” and the door closed behind him.
After taking a needed shower I switched on the little television set and sat on the couch to watch the gray, shimmering images. There was a lot of snow, and jagged bars of black appeared much too often. In less than five minutes I was forced to turn it off. I’m not overly fond of television anyway. Traveling around so much I have never formed the habit of watching it. And I’ve never owned a set.
I was impressed by the pleasant room of Ed Middleton’s. It was a man’s room, and if he really wanted to write a book on cock-breeding, it was certainly quiet enough. I doubted, however, that he would ever write one. What Ed Middleton did with his remaining years was no concern of mine, and yet I found myself worried about him. He had been fighting game fowl and refereeing pit matches for thirty-odd years. Without any birds to fool around with, what could he possibly do with his time? I felt sorry for the old man.
He had a nice home, his wife was a wonderful woman, and the Citrus Syndicate took care of his orange groves. He had turned over the operation of his groves to the Central Citrus Syndicate some years back. In return, they paid him a good percentage on the crop each year, and now he didn’t have to do anything with his trees except to watch them grow. By giving up cockfighting he was giving up his entire existence, and, like most elderly men who retire, he probably won’t live very long—with nothing to do. Martha was wrong, dead wrong, in forcing Ed to give up his game chickens.
Mary Elizabeth’s opposition to the sport was the major reason we had never gotten married. Why can’t the American woman accept a man for what he is instead of trying to make him over into the idealized image of her father or someone else?
There was no use worrying about Ed Middleton. I had problems of my own that were more pressing. But with a little pushing from me, my problems would somehow take care of themselves. All I knew was that I had to do what I knew best how to do. Nothing else mattered.
I switched off the light and, despite the lumpiness of the beat-up old couch, fell asleep within minutes.
4
IT SEEMED AS IF I had only been asleep for about five minutes when the lights were switched on and Ed Middleton yelled at me to get up.
“Are you going to sleep all day?” he shouted gruffly. “I’ve been up for more than an hour already. Come on out to the kitchen when you get dressed. I’ve got a pot of coffee on.”
Reluctantly, I sat up, kicked off the sheet, and swung my feet to the floor. The door banged shut and I looked at my wristwatch. Five thirty. It was pretty late to be sleeping. No wonder Ed had hollered at me. I stumbled into the bathroom. After a quick shave I dug some clean white socks out of my suitcase, and put on the same clothes I had worn the day before. I joined Ed in the kitchen, and sat at the breakfast nook.
“We can eat breakfast later, Frank,” he said, pouring two cups of coffee. “Coffee’ll hold us for a while. I want to show you something first.”
I drank the coffee black, and it was thick enough to slice with my knife.
“You want a glass of orange juice?”
I held up a hand to show that coffee was enough for now.
Ed refilled my cup, set the pot back on the stove, and paced up and down on the shiny terrazzo floor. He wore an old pair of blue bib overalls and an expensive, embroidered short-sleeved sport shirt. The bottoms of the overalls were tucked into a pair of ten-inch, well-oiled engineer boots. His great paunch stretched the middle of his overalls tight, but the bib on his chest flapped loosely as he walked.
The second cup of coffee seemed hotter than the first, and I was forced to sip it slowly. Ed snapped his fingers impatiently, pushed open the back door, and said over his shoulder, “Come on Frank. We can have breakfast later, like I told you already.”
I gulped down the remainder of the coffee and followed him outside to the patio. The sun was just rising, and the upper rim could be seen through the trees. The tops of the orange trees looked as if they had been painted on. A mist rose from the tiny lake like steam rising from a pot of water just before it begins to boil. Ed Middleton sat down in the center of the little skiff tied to the concrete pier, and fitted the oars into the locks. I sat forward in the prow.
“Untie the line, Frank, and let’s cast off.”
Mr. Middleton rowed across the lake—forty yards of it. It would have been less trouble to take the path that circled the pond, but if he wanted to use the skiff, it didn’t make any difference to me.
When we reached the other side of the pond, I jumped out, held the skiff steady for Mr. Middleton, and then both of us pulled the boat onto dry land. There was a narrow path through the grove, and I trailed the old man for about five hundred yards until we reached his chicken walks. There was a flat, well-hidden clearing in the grove, and about a dozen coop walks that were eight feet tall, about ten feet wide by thirty feet in length, with the tops and sides covered with chicken wire. The baseboards were two feet high, and Painted with old motor oil to keep down the mite population.
Seeing the empty walks reminded me of my own farm in Ocala, although I had a better setup for coop-walked birds than Ed Middleton. At one time, many years before, long before he had converted his land to orange trees, he had had the ideal setup for a country-walked rooster. A pond, gently rolling terrain, and enough trees for the chickens to choose their own limbs for roosting. We walked down the row of walks to the end coop. As the rooster crowed, Ed turned around with a proud expression and pointed to the cock.
If there is anything more beautiful than the sight of a purebred gamecock in the light of early morning I do not know what it is. The fighting cock of Ed’s was the most brilliantly colored chicken I had ever seen, and I’ve seen hundreds upon hundreds of chickens.
Middleton had devoted sixteen years and countless generations of game fowl to developing the famous Middleton Gray, and there were traces of the Gray in the cock’s shawl and broad, flat chest. But the cock was a hybrid of some kind that I couldn’t place or recognize. He walked proudly to the fence and tossed his head back and crowed, beating the tips of his long wings together. The tips of his wings were edged with vermillion. The crow of a fighting cock is strong and deep and makes the morning sounds of a common dunghill barnyard rooster sound puny in comparison.
The same flaming color that tipped his wings was repeated in his head feathers and thighs, but his remaining feathers, including the sweep of his high curving tail, were a luminous peacock blue. Ed was planning—or had planned—to keep him for a brood cock, because his comb and wattles hadn’t been clipped for fighting. His lemon beak was strong, short and evenly met. His feet and legs were as orange and bright as a freshly painted bridge.
The floor of the cock’s private walk was thickly covered with a mixture of finely ground oyster shells and well-grated charcoal, essential ingredients for a fighter’s diet. The oyster hells were for lime content, and the charcoal for digestion, but against this salt-and-pepper background, the cock’s colorful plumage was emphasized.
Unfortunately, coloring is not the essential factor for a winning gamecock. Good blood first, know-how in conditioning, and a good farm walk are the three essentials a pit bird needs to win. I knew that thirty years of cock-breeding knowledge had found its way into that cock. I could see it in every feather, and his good blood was assured by the pleased smile on Ed Middleton’s thin lips.
“Except for a couple of battered Grays and an old Middleton hen I’ve kind of kept around for a pet, this is the only cock I’ve got left. I’ve never pitted him, and he’s overdue, but I was afraid to lose him. Not really, Frank. I know damned well he can outhit any other cock in the South!”
I agreed with him, at least in theory. I spread my arms, grinned, and shook my head with admiration. Ed nodded sagely with self-satisfaction, and I didn’t blame him. A flush slowly enveloped his features until his entire face was as red as
his bulbous nose.
“He’s got a pretty damned fancy handle, Frank,” Ed said. “I call him Icarus. You probably remember the old legend from school. There was a guy named Daedalus, who had a son named Icarus. Anyway, these two—Greeks they were—got tossed into jail, and Daedalus made a pair of wings out of wax for his boy to escape. This kid, Icarus, put on the wings and flew so damned high he reached the sun and the wings melted on him. He fell to the ground and was killed. No man has ever flown so high before or since but, anyway, that’s the handle I hung on the chicken. Icarus.”
Ed Middleton cracked his knuckles and clomped away from the walk and entered the feed shack. I gripped the chicken wire with my fingers and turned my attention to Icarus. For a rugged character like Ed Middleton, the highbrow name and the story that went with it were fairly romantic, I thought. Most cockers who fight a lot of cocks don’t get around to naming them in the first place. A metal leg band with the cock’s weight and owner number usually suffices for identification. Of course, a favorite brood cock, or a bird that has won several battles, is frequently named. But I went along with Ed all the way. As far as looks were concerned the fancy name fitted the chicken to a T. However, if I had owned the bird, I would have called him Icky and kept the private name to myself.
I entered the feed shed, dipped into the open sack of cracked corn in the corner, and picked out a dozen fat grains. I returned to the cock’s walk, opened the gate and entered. As the cock watched me with his head to one side I lined up the grains of corn on the ground about six inches apart. The cock marched toward me boldly, eating as he came, and pecked the remaining grain of corn out of my outstretched palm. He wasn’t a man fighter. Ed had probably spent a good many hours talking to the cock and gently handling him. I picked Icarus up with both hands, holding him underhanded, and examined the cock’s legs and feet.
They hung down in perfect alignment with his body. If a cock’s legs are out of line with the direction of his body, he is called a dry-heeled cock, because he can’t hit and do much harm. But if the legs are in perfect direction, the cock stands erect, and he raises high. And usually he’s a close hitter. This cock’s legs were perfect.
I lowered the cock to the ground, released him and opened the gate. The cock tried to follow me out, and I liked that for some reason. Ed came out of the feed shack and showed me the bird’s weight chart, which was attached to a clipboard.
Icarus was seventeen months old and weighed 4:03 pounds. He had maintained this weight fairly well for the past three months, within two ounces either way. For a cock that wasn’t on a conditioning diet, this even weight indicated that the bird was healthy enough. He was fed cracked corn twice a day, barley water, and purged twice a week with a weak solution of one grain of calomel and one grain of bicarbonate of soda dissolved in water.
The flirting and exercising sections on the chart were empty. I tapped them with a forefinger and looked questioningly at Mr. Middleton.
“I haven’t done any conditioning, Frank. But as you can see, I’ve watched his weight closely. He should go to 4:05 maybe, or 4:07 at most—under training. That’s my opinion, anyway,” he qualified his estimate. For a full minute, Ed looked through the fence at the cock, and I returned the weight chart to the hook on the wall inside the shack.
“Do you want this cock, Frank?” Ed asked fiercely, when I rejoined him.
What could I say? I stretched out the fingers of my left hand and made a sawing motion higher up, at the shoulder.
“Okay, Frank. You can have him for five hundred dollars. I told Martha last night you’d come home with me to buy the last of my chickens. So that’s the price. Pay me and take him!”
The old cock fancier dug his hands into his pockets and walked away from me, unable, for the moment, to look me in the face.
He knew perfectly well I didn’t have five hundred dollars, and he also knew that the cock wasn’t worth that much. For fifty dollars apiece I could purchase country-walked gamecocks, with authenticated bloodlines, from almost any top breeder in the United States. And fifty dollars was a good price. I’ve seen Ace cocks sell for a hundred, and sometimes for one hundred and fifty—but never for five hundred.
No breeder wants to sell any of his fighters to another cocker he may meet at the same pit someday. The cock he sells or gives away may possibly kill some of his own birds in a pitting. On the other hand, the breeders who raise game fowl to sell would be thought ridiculous if they attempted to peddle an untested cock for five hundred dollars!
The answer was simple. Ed Middleton didn’t want to sell Icarus. He was looking for an out to keep his pet. After I left he could tell Martha I had made an offer and that he had promised to sell it to me. Anybody else who came around to buy it could be legitimately refused. “I’d be glad to sell it,” he could truthfully say to a prospective buyer, “but I’ve promised the cock to Frank Mansfield. Sorry…”
The old bastard was trying to renege on his promise to his wife. Knowing that I didn’t have his price and was unlikely to pay it if I did, he planned on keeping his pet cock until it died of old age. One thing I did know, if I showed up with the money, he would have to sell it. And I wanted that bird. I seemed to sense somehow that this was the turning point in my run of bad luck at the pits…Little Icky.
Standing by an orange tree, Ed jerked a piece of fruit from a lower limb and threw it in a looping curve over the trees. I could hear the mushy thud of the orange as it landed deep in the grove. I crossed the space separating us with an outstretched hand.
Ed grimly accepted my promise to buy his cock with a strong handshake.
While Mr. Middleton made a mixture of barley water, I leaned against the door of the feed shack and finished my cigarette. Somehow, I was going to get the money to buy that cock. Now my impending trip to Jacksonville had a sharpened point to it. If Doc Riordan had any money at all, I intended to get it.
Ed measured out the cracked corn and fed his pet, the two battered Gray roosters, and the old hen. Although I could feel some sympathy for Martha in not wanting her husband out traveling the cockfight circuits, I could not understand her desire to make him give up cock-breeding. If she considered cock-breeding morally wrong, she could have consoled herself with the idea that Ed was doing the breeding, not her. A man like Ed Middleton could never give up his love of the game. Perhaps she was going through her menopause and, as a consequence, was losing her mind.
“Let’s go get us some breakfast, Frank,” Ed said, as he locked the feed shack door. Ed started down the path toward the lake, and I lingered for a last look at Icarus. He pecked away at his grain hungrily. I could see the fine breeding of the cock in his stance and proud bearing. The cock had shape, health, and an inborn stamina. Through proper conditioning I could teach him responsiveness, alertness, improve his speed, and sharpen his natural reflexes. Other than that, there wasn’t much else I could do for the cock. His desire to fight was inherited. And the only way his gameness could be tested truly was in the pit.
I turned away from the walk and ran down the path to catch up with Ed.
When we entered the kitchen, Martha greeted us cheerfully and began to prepare our breakfast. Ed and I sat down across from each other at the breakfast nook and I inhaled the delicious fragrance of the frying bacon. It was quite a breakfast: crisp bacon, fried eggs, hot biscuits, grits and melted butter, orange juice, and plenty of orange-blossom honey to coil onto the fluffy biscuits.
As I sat back with a full stomach to drink my after-breakfast coffee, Ed told his wife that I was going to buy his remaining chickens.
“That’s wonderful, Ed,” Martha said happily. She smiled at me and bobbed her chin several times. “You know Ed wouldn’t sell those old birds to just anybody, Frank. But Ed has always had a lot of respect for you, and I know you’ll take good care of them.”
I nodded, finished my coffee, and slid out of the booth.
“Frank isn’t taking the cocks today, Martha,” Ed said, getting up from the table. “H
e’ll be back for them later on.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that! I thought he was taking them now.”
“These deals aren’t made in an instant, sweetheart,” Ed said sharply. “But we’ve shaken hands on the deal, and Frank’ll be back, all in good time.” He forced a smile and turned to me. “Come on, Frank. I’ll drive you into Orlando.”
“Where’re you going, Frank?” Martha asked.
I shrugged indifferently and returned her smile. This was the kind of question that could only be answered by writing it down, and I didn’t feel that it required an answer. Where I was going or what I was going to do couldn’t possibly have any real interest for the old lady.
“Frank can’t answer questions like that without writing them down,” Ed reminded his wife. “But you know we’ll be reading about him in the trade magazines.”
“Well, I’ll pack a lunch for you anyway. Wait out on the patio. Take some more coffee out there with you. It’ll only take a minute and you can surely wait that long.”
While she fixed a lunch for me, I repacked my suitcase and took it out to the car. Ed unlocked the door, and I removed the coop and handed it to him before I tossed the suitcase on the floorboards.
“Sure, leave the coop with me if you like,” he said, leaning it against the concrete wall.
When I returned for Icky, I could use the coop to carry him, and I didn’t feel like lugging it along to Jacksonville, not hitchhiking, anyway.
A few minutes later Martha joined us on the patio and handed me a heavy paper bag containing my lunch.
Cockfighter Page 5