The Republic of Selegania Boxed Set: Volumes One through Four

by Daniel Lawlis

  A left haymaker was headed his way before he could fire off another punch. The speed surprised him, given the usual slowness of the technically frowned-upon haymaker. Righty ducked it neatly, this time again chastising Sam with a left uppercut to the jaw. Again, little recognition of the blow.

  This time a right haymaker was coming in towards Righty’s ribs. He shielded his ribs with his left arm. A bolt of pain shot through his arm. The blow would have shattered the arm of the average man. And it might have even shattered Righty’s, were it not for the fact he was well trained in the technique of absorbing the force of such a blow and quickly transferring it into a strike. No sooner had Sam’s knuckles bit into Righty’s left arm than Righty shot it upwards, delivering a crisp uppercut to Sam’s jaw.

  Righty then decided it was a time for a little offense of his own—something that came from his barroom days—and sent his right elbow crashing hard into Sam’s left cheek, just below the eye. The skin cut immediately, and blood began to flow, but Righty learned simultaneously the price for that strike, for Sam had been swinging with his left at the same time. Unfortunately, it had been headed towards Righty’s ribs, which were left exposed, due to his right shield currently being used as a small battering ram against Sam’s face.

  They both recoiled from each other in recognition of the wound. Righty’s ribs had been calloused pretty good over the years, but he knew that punch must have been only a hair short of cracking them through. If his elbow hadn’t slightly put Sam off balance, his ribs would have been cracked for sure. In spite of his adrenaline, he could feel pulsating pain shooting through the area. But his pain was assuaged significantly by the sight of blood now streaming down Sam’s face from where Righty hit him with the elbow.

  Sam grinned. “I like dirty,” he said.

  He then went rushing at Righty. Righty decided it would probably be best to revert to single counterstrikes at least momentarily, as even one strike from this prehistoric creature held the potential of inflicting death. Sam threw another right haymaker. Righty could see it was clearly headed towards his ribs, and he didn’t feel like shielding against another one of those. He stepped quickly to his own right, throwing a snappy jab in the process that crushed Sam’s nose and sent a geyser of blood flowing out.

  Sam’s punch missed Righty entirely, and Righty saw this was too good an opportunity to pass by. He charged towards Sam, leading with a stiff left jab to the chin, followed a millisecond later by a right cross to the nose. Unfortunately, Sam’s two hands had already been going towards the injured area to inspect the damage, and their meaty mass cushioned a considerable amount of the blow.

  Sam shouted in fury, and he threw an overhand left towards Righty’s face. Righty slipped to the right and fired a left jab directly to Sam’s chin. Righty couldn’t believe the guy hadn’t fallen yet. He had never inflicted that many clean shots to an opponent’s chin without giving the guy at least a short nap in the process.

  Sam was already coming around with another left haymaker. Righty was trained to look at the solar plexus so that his peripheral vision could see all the surrounding action clearly, but nonetheless he noticed the look of fury on Sam’s face as the haymaker neared him. He ducked under it and threw a hard right hook to Sam’s gut. It would have folded any other man. It was solid and Righty put almost all of his power into it. It knocked Sam back a moment but didn’t knock the air out of him.

  Righty didn’t want to be the first person to make the fight get really dirty, since it might be interpreted as a sign of weakness in front of his men, but he realized he needed to take this guy out because it was only going to take one well-connected punch from this beast to knock him out and render his body defenseless.

  Sam charged at him with another right haymaker, and this time when Righty ducked underneath it he went a bit lower than usual and sent his fist slamming into Sam’s groin.

  “AWWWWWW!!!!” Sam shouted, but no sooner did he shout than he grabbed Righty in a full bear hug, pinning both of his arms helplessly to his sides.

  Righty was no wrestler, but he had tangled with a few during his bar-fighting days, and he knew that fighting on the ground was not the way he wanted this to go. He put his right leg back behind him and braced himself for what he knew was to come. He was proved right as Sam squeezed harder and harder while simultaneously trying to drive him backwards and onto the ground.

  Righty tried to reach his groin so that he could show Sam the stone-crushing power of a former lumberman’s grip, but he couldn’t free his arms from the prison within which Sam had placed them.

  Sam was rushing forward like a bull trying to knock Righty backwards, and Righty was bemoaning that he had given Sam cause for escalating the dirtiness of the fight. That ship had already set sail though, Righty reckoned, and he knew he had to do something fast, or he was going to have some 340 pounds of solid muscle on top of him.

  Righty remembered the bite he had intended for Oscar Peters, but that had been intercepted unwittingly by the ref, and Righty sank his teeth like a Pit Bull into Sam’s right ear.

  Sam let out a wail, but it quickly turned into a snarl. Sam jerked his head to his right to free it from the grip of his canine competitor. As Righty lost his grip on the ear, he saw a nose come into view, and he bit his teeth into that far more savagely than he had the ear. Righty’s trainer had been a believer that by chewing a tough gum—a terrible concoction he had made, from what vile substances Righty did not know—could strengthen a man’s jaw and allow him to take more punishment there before dropping.

  Righty had unenthusiastically—but dutifully—chewed the gum, a reusable wad that his instructor had told him he should keep for life, an hour per day during his boxing days. He still did so about an hour per week, just out of obstinate habit. While he didn’t know what the truth was about conditioning the jaw to take a punch, he became a believer at that moment in its ability to strengthen a man’s bite, for he heard Sam let out a terrible wail as what was left of his battered nose crunched underneath Righty’s bite.

  Sam released his bear hug and brought both hands to his nose. Righty knew now was the time to put all his cards on the table. He dropped down and gave another vicious right uppercut to Sam’s groin. Sam howled in pain and fury, and though all the action at this point was happening in split seconds, it did seem that for a moment a debate raged in Sam’s mind as to which body part merited attention. Ultimately, his groin was the victor, leaving his face wide open for what was probably the hardest right hook Righty had ever thrown in his life. It connected with Sam’s chin squarely, and notwithstanding it being the hardest chin Righty had ever encountered it had finally met its breaking point. Righty heard a crunching sound, saw Sam’s eyes roll back into his head, and down he went.

  Righty knew better than to break out the champagne just yet. He had dropped many a competitor who had nonetheless risen to fight with renewed fury, and he suspected Sam was in this category. There was an awkward silence, as it appeared Righty’s gang also dared not begin celebrations, especially with twelve armed bodyguards still in their midst.

  Sure enough, about fifteen seconds later, Sam’s feet began slowly moving. He then sat up with a sleepy look on his face, as if he was confused as to what had happened. Then, all clearly registered. Sam’s fury was impossible to describe.

  Righty himself, upon seeing it, for a second felt like all was lost, in spite of the fact it had been him dishing out the punishment. Righty was frozen to the ground in terror as Sam charged at him like an enraged bull. Righty knew that if he got hit even one time by Sam in his current state he would probably leave Righty’s unborn child an orphan. Everything was going to have to be strictly dirty from this point forward.

  Before Sam reached him—with what attack he did not know, for Sam was simply running towards him—Righty slid back and slightly to his right, while at the same time delivering a snappy jab with his left hand. Except this was no ordinary jab. Two fingers went sticking into Sam’s right eye, like
a fork into a grape. Righty’s next attack was launched even before Sam’s next howl issued from his infuriated soul.

  Righty threw a right cross and poked his index, middle, and ring fingers into Sam’s left eye. Sam started to bring both hands up to his injured eyes, but before they could even get there Righty threw an overhand right directly into Sam’s throat—a tiny target indeed. He heard a terrible wheezing sound and saw Sam move backwards, struggling greatly to keep his balance. Righty grabbed his already injured throat with his right hand and squeezed harder than he ever had in his life. It was time for Sam to feel a lumberman’s grip. Sam’s wheezing became far more desperate now.

  Hand still firmly wrapped around Sam’s trachea, Righty now kicked his right leg out from under him and sent him crashing down hard onto the ground. A rock—convenient from Righty’s vantage point, fatal from Sam’s—connected with the lower portion of Sam’s skull. A horrible cracking sound issued forth, and Sam’s eyes rolled back. Righty maybe hadn’t seen as many people die as a battlefield surgeon, but he knew one thing. Sam was dead.

  For a moment a silence reigned that was even more tense than when Sam was knocked out. Righty knew Sam was dead, but he wasn’t sure what was going to happen with the twelve swordsmen standing in front of him.

  They were hard-nosed looking, and they either didn’t seem to realize or didn’t seem capable of fathoming that their freak-sized boss would not be standing up again ever.

  Perhaps out of fear Sam was just pulling a trick—he did that from time to time to terrorize his men—one of the meanest of the bunch said, “You’s a dirty fighter. That’s what you is.”

  He then unsheathed his sword and went charging towards Righty. Righty crouched down and quickly pulled out his own sword from his left boot, where he had hidden it. The man looked uneasy, seeing he was up against an armed man with a sword he probably couldn’t even carry. He turned around and looked at his accomplices, but their looks seemed to tell him he was on his own.

  He charged at Righty in a wild overhand chop. Righty moved diagonally to his left and sliced horizontally into the man’s left side. If he had been fresh, it likely would have cut the man in two, but fatigue had taken its toll. Nonetheless, a gaping wound showed Righty’s sword had slashed through eight inches of flesh. Righty swung his sword to his right slicing off the man’s right leg at the knee. Screaming, the man grabbed the bloody stump and fell backwards. Righty’s sword pierced through his heart, exited his back, and dug into the ground before the man’s back even touched the earth.

  Thinking that a bit of intimidation might save further bloodshed, Righty quickly approached Sam’s corpse and lopped off his head. He then picked it up and threw it towards one of the armed toughs, who caught it instinctively.

  “You take that and show it to your gang so that there isn’t any doubt about what happened today. Don’t worry about the rest of Sam’s body. It’s already in the junkyard.”

  The eleven men—particularly the man carrying the grisly souvenir—eyed the men around them. Eleven valiant men perhaps could have caused quite a slaughter, as no one besides Tats and Righty were armed with a sword. But their morale had been vanquished as thoroughly as their once terrifying boss. Without comment or offensive gesture, they turned and left.

  Righty was greeted with pomp and celebration that transcended the grimy milieu of the junkyard. For a moment in time, he knew what it meant to be a hero.

  Being in good cheer, at one point Righty took Tats aside and told him that unless he had uncovered any evidence of Ben or Chris’s treachery to just forget about it all and chalk it up as being one last lie out of that wretched Stitches’ mouth. Tats had discovered nothing, so Righty cleared them but told Tats to keep an eye on them from time to time.

  After a few hours of celebrations, Righty and the gang moved all twenty pounds in a mere hour. No customers had any excuses about payment that night, and the gang even moved several blocks back into their old turf. The news of Sam’s demise seemed to have let loose an invisible force that cleared the streets of Righty’s competitors, and Righty found himself wishing he had brought more merchandise with him. Righty noticed with relish that he received looks of terror and deference from more than one customer who only a night ago had presented a haughty countenance.

  But fighting with Sam had taken its toll. He wanted to go home and have a much-needed day off, so he told the gang to expect him in two days at 9 p.m., this time with forty pounds. At that moment, however, he didn’t want to think about business or money. He just wanted to rest and spend the next day with his wife, whom he realized he had badly neglected lately.

  Chapter 35

  By 3 a.m. he was home in bed, and by 3:02 a.m. he was sleeping with the dead, and in several nightmares Sam assisted him in joining the dead. It was around 11 a.m. when he woke up. He realized his new job at the junkyard was starting to turn him into a bit of a night owl after he had been accustomed for years, by his work at the lumberyard, to awake before daybreak.

  He had scribbled Janie a note last night before crashing into bed like a sack of potatoes, asking if she would be free for dinner tomorrow evening. “Yes, sleepy head, at 6 p.m.” had been her response, with a picture of a heart.

  Righty looked at the damage to his body. He had a very solid bruise developing on his left arm and on his right side. He made a few cautious movements with his arms and felt no searing bolts of pain, so he decided it was time for a little gardening and gentle sword practice.

  He was beginning to become very concerned about this garden. It now covered a good acre within the forest, and he dared not extend its boundaries any further. As it was, he already knew it was only a matter of time before some overly curious young punk, or perhaps two lovebirds, went traipsing through there and found the source of his livelihood. From that discovery would come a little digging, and the next thing he knew he would lose a couple million dollars and all of his seeds.

  And while the young punks would never dream of sharing their discovery with the local sheriff—that would be too inconvenient for their own illicit activities—they would spread rumors. First one, then two groups of curious monkeys would show up, and then there would be a regular pilgrimage. All wanting to see what goodies lay in the woods behind the house of Richard Simmers.

  If the thieves who made the initial discovery were smart and disciplined they would dig like gophers and not open their mouths until they had swiped every falon and transported every plant and every seed to some distant location for their own use. Of course, they wouldn’t be. Word would get out before they had moved even a fraction of what he had there, and while he wasn’t sure how much would have already been pilfered by the time the police started showing up, he was sure there would be some evidence there.

  Then, it would be off to jail for Righty. He realized he was living on borrowed time, and he felt immensely grateful that tomorrow was finally the day. The day he would move everything to the ranch. He was going to miss this place. He could still use it for morning sword practice, but not for agriculture. His nostalgic feelings were challenged by the realization of what an onerous task the move would be.

  And without Harold, it would be flat-out impossible. Righty continued making careful movements through the air with his sword as his mind grappled with his upcoming obstacles. He wouldn’t be able to put quite the intensity into it today that he normally did, but he would try to compensate by paying additional attention to form.

  He realized that in addition to the work of the move itself he was going to have his work cut out for him planting enough Smokeless Green to be able to keep up with the volume he was moving. As it was, he was already maxing out his small farm, carefully rotating around and picking the ripest bulbs in order to give time for the smaller ones to reach greater size and weight. But he knew that if he could just get everything to the ranch that would soon seem like a laughable problem.

  That was if Harold came back. It had been two days since he had seen him, and although Ha
rold had warned it would be at least that, Righty felt as if he hadn’t seen Harold for decades. The vain triumph of his victory over Sam was quickly beginning to vanish now, as it seemed far more obstacles lay ahead than ever. And he knew that without Harold none of it would be possible.

  Then, suddenly, he heard something. A fluttering? It was growing noisier by the moment. Suddenly, what seemed like a swarm of bees came rushing into the forest. Chuckling and singing filled the air as countless birds flew above, behind, and around him, and were it not for his alarm at these unexpected guests he may have considered their good cheer a glad tiding.

  He watched them dazed, wondering if perhaps Harold had been pursuing this hapless flock in order to acquire breakfast.

  Then, he saw Harold, looking grumpier and more tired than he had ever seen him before, trying to keep up with these little balls of energy.

  “You’re hurt!!” Harold exclaimed.

  Righty had been practicing bare-chested, as was his custom, and he realized Harold must be referring to Heavy Sam’s artwork. “I got pounded on a little,” Righty said frankly, “but I think we’ve got more pressing things to talk about first.”