Members of the cockfighting fraternity are from all walks of life. There are men like myself, from good southern families, sharecroppers, businessmen, loafers on the county relief rolls, Jews, and Holy Rollers. If there is one single thing in the world, more than all the others, preserving the tradition of the sport of cocking for thousands of years, it’s the spirit of democracy. In a letter to General Lafayette, George Washington wrote, “It will be worth coming back to the United States, if only to be present at an election and a cocking main at which is displayed a spirit of anarchy and confusion, which no countryman of yours can understand.” I carried a clipping of this letter, which had been reprinted in a game fowl magazine, in my wallet. I had told Mary Elizabeth once that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton had both been cockfighters during the colonial period, but she had been unimpressed. Nonetheless, cockfighters are still the most democratic group of men in the United States.
But the Milledgeville Tourney was unlike other U.S. meets. Senator Foxhall had his own rules, and he made his own decisions about whom to invite. I had earned my right to fight there, and I suppose the old man knew that I would be there if it was physically possible for me to be there. Maybe he didn’t think Omar was ready yet. I didn’t know. Surely Omar’s fifty-fifty showing didn’t put him into the top cocker’s class. He still had a lot to learn about game fowl if he wanted to be a consistent winner.
I looked at Omar and smiled. There wasn’t any use to write a note for him telling him what I thought was the reason for his turndown. His feelings would be hurt more than they were already. By writing to the senator, he had made a grave error, a social error. It was like calling a host of a party you were not invited to and asking point black for an invitation!
I had finished my coffee, and I had work to do. I got up from the table and clapped Omar on the shoulder. Before leaving the shack, I took a can of lighter fluid off the dresser and slipped it into my hip pocket. Omar sighed audibly and decided to follow me out.
When we got to the cockhouse, I removed the Mellhorn Blacks one at a time from their separate coops, showing off the good and the bad points to Omar as well as I could before putting them back. For a shipment of a dozen, they were a beautiful lot. As Jake had promised in his letter, six were full brothers, a few months past staghood, and the other six were Aces, two to three years old, with one or more winning fights behind them. Each cock was identifiable by its web-marking, and the cardboard record sheet of each bird had been enclosed in its shipping crate when Jake had expressed them down from North Carolina. Before putting them away the night before, I had purged them with a mild plain-phosphate mixture, and they were feeling fine as consequence.
As a conditioning bench, I used a foam-rubber double mattress stretched flat on a wooden, waist-high platform Buford and I had knocked together out of scrap lumber when I had first leased the farm. I had one of the older Mellhorn cocks on the bench showing it to Omar. The cock was a one-time winner, but he must have won by accident. His conformation was fair, but the bird was high-stationed, with his spurs jutting out just below the knee joint. He would miss as often as he hit. A low-stationed cock would have greater leverage and fight best in long heels, but a high-stationed cock like this one would never make a first-class fighter. Jake Mellhorn hadn’t gypped me on the sale. He was truly bred, and in small-time competition against strainers, the cock could often win. It had weight in its favor and was close to the shake class, but the chicken couldn’t really compete in S.C. competition unless it got lucky. Luck is not for the birds. The element of chance must be reduced to the minimum if a cocker wants to win the prize money. In a six-entry derby, for instance, when the man winning the most fights takes home the purse put up by all the entries, the odd fight often provides the verdict. I couldn’t take a chance with this one.
After pointing out the high spurs to show Omar what was wrong with the Black, I picked up my hatchet and chopped off the rooster’s head on the block outside the doorway.
“I see,” Omar said thoughtfully, as he watched the decapitated chicken flop about in the dusty yard. “You don’t like to put high-stationed cocks.”
I clipped the hatchet into the block so it stuck.
“Some cockers prefer high-stationed birds,” Omar said argumentatively. “And a seventy-five dollar chicken is damned expensive eating.”
True, the plateful of fried chicken I would eat that night would be a costly meal, but it would have been much more expensive to pit the cock when he would probably lose. And an owner should only bet his own gamecock—not against it. I shrugged indifferently.
“I suppose you know what you’re doing,” Omar said. “But he was a purebred Mellhorn and could have been kept as a brood cock.”
Except on a small scale, I’ve never done much breeding. I prefer to buy my gamecocks. Conditioning and fighting them are what I do best, but I would never have bred the high-stationed Black. Like begets like, and the majority of the chicks sired would have been high-stationed.
I shook my head and grinned at Omar. He was well aware of the heredity factor—his head was crammed with breeding knowledge he had learned through reading and four years’ experience. Omar was still sore about the Milledgeville Tourney.
“What about the six brothers? How do you know they’re game? The Aces have been pit-tested, but if one of the brothers is a runner they all may be runners.”
Unfortunately, there is no true test for gameness. Only a pit battle can decide gameness. There are various tests, however, a cocker can try which will give him an indication of a cock’s gameness. In the case of the six brothers, I was stymied by a lack of knowledge concerning the father and mother. If the father had been a champion, Jack Mellhorn would have said so, and would have charged a higher price for them. The six cocks were obviously Mellhorn Blacks. I could tell that by looking at them. But only one drop of cold blood from a dunghill will sometimes cause a cock to run when it is hurt. One of the young cocks had to be tested for gameness, and I had planned on doing it this morning before Omar came over. If the cock I tested proved to be game, I could then assume that the others were equally game. But in the testing I would lose the gamecock. Another seventy-five bucks shot.
One rigid test for gameness is to puncture a cock all over his body with an ice pick, digging it in for a quarter to half an inch. If the injured cock will still attempt to fight another cock the next morning, even if all he can do is lie on his back and peck, it is considered game. The ice-pick method of testing is fairly popular with cockers because they can usually salvage their bird after it recovers from its injuries. I don’t consider this test severe enough. The Roman method I use is more realistic than halfhearted jabbing with an ice pick, even though the cock is lost during the process.
For the test, I selected one of the brothers with the poorest conformation. The choice was difficult because all of the brothers were fine Mellhorn Blacks. For an opponent, I used the largest of the two Middleton Grays. Omar held the Gray when I heeled it with sparring muffs. The Black would be practically helpless, and I didn’t want him killed until he had suffered sufficiently to determine his gameness.
My homemade pit is crudely put together with scrap lumber, but it meets the general specifications. I’ve also strung electric lights above it in order to work my birds at night, and it’s good enough for training purposes. Omar put the Gray under one arm, after I completed the heel-tying of the muffs, and headed for the training pit in front of my shack.
The young Black was a man fighter and pecked my wrist before I could get a good grip around his upper legs with my left hand. A moment later I had his body held firmly against my left where he couldn’t peck at me anymore. In this awkward position, I stretched his legs out on the block outside the cockhouse and chopped them off at the knee with the hatchet.
When I joined Omar at the pit, his brown eyes bulged until they resembled oil-soaked target agates. “Good God, Frank! You don’t expect him to fight without any legs, do you?”
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nbsp; I nodded and stepped over the pit wall. I cradled the Black over my left arm, holding the stumps with my right hand, and raised my chin to indicate that we should bill them. Omar brought the Gray in close and the Black tore out a beakful of feathers.
We billed the cocks until their ingrained natural combativeness was aroused, and then I set the Black down on the floor of the pit and took the Gray away from Omar. The Gray was anxious to get to his legless opponent, but I held him tightly by the tail and only let him approach to within pecking range. When the Black struggled toward him, I pulled him back by his tail. Without his feet, the Black was unable to get enough balance or leverage to fly, and his wildly fluttering wings couldn’t support him in an upright position. He kept falling forward on his chest, and after a short valiant period of struggling, he gave up altogether. I let the Gray scratch into range, still holding him by the tail. The Black pecked every time, although he no longer tried to stand on his stumps. Finally, I let the Gray go, and he described a short arc in the air and landed, shuffling, in the center of the Black’s back. Getting a good bill hold on the prostrate cock, the Gray shuffled methodically in place, hitting the padded muffs hard enough to make solid thumping sounds on the Black’s body. This was the first time I had seen the Gray in action. I realized that Ed Middleton had really done me a favor when he gave me the once-battered fighter. Any cock that could shuffle with the deadly accuracy displayed by the Middleton Gray would win a lot of pit battles.
The Black was too helpless to fight off the Gray, so I picked up the muff-armed bird and gave him to Omar to hold for a moment. I took the can of lighter fluid out of my hip pocket, and sprinkled the liquid liberally over the Mellhorn Black. Flipping my lighter into action, I applied the lighter to the cock, and his feathers blazed into oily flames.
When Omar returned the Gray I pitted him against the burning bird from the score on the opposite side of the pit. He walked stiff-winged toward the downed Black with his long neck outstretched, holding his head low above the ground. The fire worried and puzzled him, and he was afraid to hit with his padded spurs. The Gray pecked savagely at the Black’s head, however, even though it was on fire, and managed to pluck out an eye on his first bill thrust.
The Black tried to stand again, fluttering his smoldering wings, but his impassioned struggles only succeeded in increasing the flames. The smell of scorching feathers filled the air with a pungent, acid stench. As I grabbed the Gray’s tail with my right hand, I held my nose with my left. As the flames puffed out altogether, the Black lay quietly. The charred quills resembled matchheads or cloves dotting his undressed body, and for a moment I thought he was dead. But as I allowed the straining Gray to close the gap between them, the dying Mellhorn raised his head and pecked blindly in the general direction of the approaching Gray. With that last peck, a feeble peck that barely raised his head an inch above the ground, he died.
I put the Gray under my arm and turned around to see what Omar thought of this remarkable display of gameness. But Omar had gone inside the shack. I cut the sparring muffs away from the Gray’s spurs and returned him to his coop.
Omar sat at the table, staring at his open hands, when I joined him inside the shack. I opened a pint of gin I had stashed away behind the dresser—because of Buford—and put the bottle on the table. Omar took a long pull, set the bottle down, and I took a long one myself. I needed that drink and felt a little sick at my stomach. And I knew that Omar felt as badly as I did. But what else could I do? I had lost a wonderful gamecock, but I could now assume that his five brothers would be as game as he had been. The unfortunate part of the testing was that I didn’t really know if the brothers were equally game. But I could now assume that they were.
“I couldn’t treat a gamecock like that, Frank,” Omar said, without looking at me, keeping his eyes on his open hands. “Sure, I know. A chicken is supposed to be an insensitive animal and all that crap. But I couldn’t do it! I could no more set a cock on fire than I could—” His mind searched for something he could no more than do, and then he shrugged his heavy shoulders and took another shot of gin.
I took another short one myself.
“Was he game, Frank? It was too much for me. I couldn’t stick around to see.”
I nodded glumly and lit a cigarette.
“Unbelievable, isn’t it! Burning like damned torch and still trying to fight! A man couldn’t take that kind of punishment and still fight. Not a man in this world could do it.”
I stubbed out the cigarette. It tasted like scorched feathers, despite the menthol and filter tip.
“Well, Frank,” Omar said pensively, “there’re a lot of things I don’t like about cockfighting, but a cocker’s got to take the bad with the good.”
I nodded in agreement and pushed the bottle towards him.
Omar studied my face and, ignoring the bottle, leaned forward.
“You and I need each other, Frank,” he said suddenly. “Why don’t we have a partnership for the season?”
For some reason his suggestion startled me, and I shook my head automatically.
“Don’t decide so hastily,” he continued earnestly, leaning over the table. “I’ve picked up twenty cocks already, and I’ve still got better birds to pick up on walks in Alabama. Between the two of us, if you conditioned and handled, and I took charge of the business end, we could have one hell of a season. I know how tough it’s been since you lost your voice. I still remember how you used to holler and argue and knock down the odds before the fights. What do you say, Frank?”
I was tempted. Two of my cocks were gone before I started. I only had thirteen birds left for the season, and my cash was low. If we combined our gamecocks we could enter every money main and derby on the circuit, and if Omar didn’t interfere with my conditioning—
“Let it go for now,” Omar said carelessly, getting to his feet. “Just think about it for a while. I don’t like to mention my money, but I’m lousy with capital. I’ve got a lot more than you have, and if you had a partner putting up the forfeits, entry fees, and doing all the betting, you could concentrate on conditioning and handling. And on a partnership we can split everything we take in right down the middle.”
He turned in the doorway and his shadow fell across my face. “No matter what you decide,” he said cheerfully, “come over to my place for dinner tonight. I’ll take that high-stationed Mellhorn home with me. I’ve always wanted to eat a Mellhorn Black with dumplings.” He laughed. “Chicken and dumplings for two! That’s about thirty-seven, fifty a plate, isn’t it?” Omar waved from the door and disappeared from sight.
I remained seated at the table. A few minutes later I heard the engine of his new Pontiac station wagon turn over, and listened to the sounds as he drove out of the yard. The pot of coffee on the hot plate burbled petulantly. I poured another cup, and a cock crowed outside, reminding me of all the work still to be done that morning. I couldn’t put off the dubbing of Icky any longer.
Ordinarily, the deaf ears, wattles and comb are trimmed away when the bird is a young stag of six or seven months. Ed Middleton, for reasons known only to himself, had failed to dub Icky. He probably meant to keep Icky as a pet and brood cock and had never intended to pit him. But I was going to pit him, and he had to be dubbed for safety in battle. With his lovely free-flowing comb and dangling wattles, an opposing cock could get a billhold and shuffle him to death in the first pitting. I had been putting off the dubbing, afraid that he might bleed to death. With a stag the danger is slight, but Icky was fully matured, more than a year-and-a-half old. And it had to be done.
I got my shears, both the straight and the curved pairs, and went outside to Icky’s coop room.
He was a friendly chicken, used to kindness and handling, and ran toward me when I opened the gate. I picked him up, sat on the bench in front of the shack, and went to work on his comb. With my experience I don’t need a man to hold a chicken for me. I’ve dubbed as many as fifty stags in a single morning, all by myself, and I’ve
never had one die from loss of blood yet. But I was extra careful with Icky.
Gripping his body firmly between my knees, and holding his head with my left hand, I clipped his comb with the straight shears as close to the head as possible. Many cockers leave about an eighth of an inch, believing erroneously that the slight padding will give the head protection from an opponent’s pecking. But I’ve never known a cock to be pecked to death. I trim right down to the bone because the veins are larger close to the head and there isn’t as much bleeding. I cut sharply, and with solid, quick snips, so the large veins were closed by the force of the shears. Luckily, Icky’s head bled very little. I then cut away the wattles and deaf ears with the curved shears, again taking my time, and did a clean job. As an afterthought I pulled a few short feathers out of the hackle and planted them in Icky’s comb. The little blue feathers would grow there and ornament his head, until they were billed out by an irate adversary.
When I completed the dubbing I turned him loose in his coop. He had held still nicely, and because he had been so good about it, I caught the Middleton Gray game hen running loose in the yard, and put her into his coop. The dubbing hadn’t bothered him. He mounted the hen before she had taken two steps. A moment later he flew to his roosting pole and crowed. Within a week his head would be healed completely, and he would be ready for conditioning.
Omar had taken the decapitated Ace Black with him, but the charred Mellhorn was still in the pit. I buried the dead chicken and the other cock’s severed head in the sand before eating lunch.
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