Flanagan's Run

by Tom McNab

  Flanagan’s eyes twinkled in response. “I think that you’ll find it entirely to your liking, Mr Bouin,” he said. “Round here they call Las Vegas the Monte Carlo of the USA. They’ve got everything there any man could want, and perhaps a few things more.”

  Doc was the next to shout out. “What’s the weather forecast?” he asked, already on his feet.

  Flanagan looked sideways at Willard, who duly leaned forward to the microphone. “Hot,” he said. “At least seventy-five degrees in the shade, eighty-five degrees or more in the sun.”

  Doc stayed standing.

  “Then we’ll need to double up on water-points,” he said. He turned to the desert behind him. “Out there’s the meanest land in the world,” he said. “They call it the devil’s playground. People dried out in droves back in the Gold Rush days. Their bones are still out there somewhere. The speed we’re moving at, we burn up fluid like a racing car burns up gas.”

  Flanagan looked sideways again at Willard, who nodded.

  “It’ll be done,” Flanagan said. “Any other points?”

  “Yes,” said Doc. “No cuts till we get out of this graveyard. Else some of us won’t be having good times in Las Vegas or anywhere else.”

  There was a rumble of support. Flanagan immediately sensed the mood of the runners and nodded. “Agreed.”

  Pentti Eskola stood up. “What sort of country is it ahead, Mr Flanagan?” he asked. “In more detail, please.”

  “Well, very similar to what you have already passed through. Like Doc said, it’s hot and it’s dry. It’s a land of wastes, dry river beds and salt flats. We call it a desert, but it’s full of saguaro, yucca, mescal and palo verde – and rattlesnakes. Further on, there’s mountains going up to about five thousand feet.”

  “Any Indians, Mr Flanagan?” shouted a Cockney voice.

  “Plenty,” said Flanagan. “But you’ll find them selling sand paintings and blankets at the roadside or pushing gas at the gas stations. So don’t look for any Tom Mix action around here.”

  Eskola stood up. “What are the starting times?”

  Flanagan looked at his time-table. “Tomorrow’s leg starts at eight so we can get the first twenty miles under our belts before noon. We break till three, then run the second leg till six.”

  “What about prizes?” asked another voice. Flanagan smiled. “I thought that might come up sooner or later.” He picked up his clipboard. “The biggest money yet. The Six Companies, who are building America’s biggest dam at Boulder just south of Vegas, have put up prizes of two thousand dollars for first place down to a hundred dollars for sixth. That makes the Vegas stage our richest so far.”

  Jean Bouin got to his feet. “M’sieur Flanagan, the finish – is it in the centre of Las Vegas?”

  “Good question,” said Flanagan. “Yes, plumb in the middle of the main street, right by the Golden Nugget Casino. The whole goddam town is going to be there – the mayor, the city council, the whole circus. Tomorrow night, you guys are going to be the toast of Vegas.”

  “And what about these?” Doc Cole stood up, holding a yellow running vest with the letters ”IWW” emblazoned on the front and “Vegas” on the back. “We’ve been told that we’ve all got to wear these vests on the way into Vegas. Why?”

  Flanagan smiled uneasily. “Courtesy. Courtesy. We show a little respect for Vegas, they’re gonna show some respect for the Trans-America.”

  “Now Las Vegas I can understand,” rejoined Doc. “But what in tarnation does IWW stand for?”

  “I don’t care if it stands for International Widow Women,” shouted a gruff voice from the back of the crowd. “They’re clean and they sure beat that ole YMCA vest you’ve been wearing for the past week.”

  Doc tried to reply, but his answer was drowned in jeers and laughter. He sat down, shaking his head uncertainly and a few moments later the meeting drew to a close, and Doc’s group followed him back to his tent.

  “A real ball-buster,” said Doc, kneeling on all fours, spreading a map evenly over the rough sandy ground. “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” he added, looking over his shoulder at Kate.

  She grinned and shook her head.

  He jabbed his finger at a point in the map. “I reckon we’re about here, just beyond the Soda Mountains, about two hundred and thirty-odd miles out from Los Angeles. We’ve been climbing for the past three days of running, though it’s been gradual, for the most part.”

  “How high are we now?” asked Kate, joining Doc on her knees.

  “Must be over three thousand feet – even those goddam Germans are dropping close to nine-minute miles. The air gets real stingy at these heights.”

  His finger traced a short line on the map. “We have about forty-odd miles to Vegas. The first fifteen or so see us clear of the desert. Then it’s hard climbing all the way into Vegas, through the McCullough range.”

  “What height do they go to?” asked Hugh.

  “Over five thousand feet. At that height, even a ten-minute pace is tough, ’specially on the steep climbs. Your legs go, your breathing goes, everything goes.”

  “You ever run that high before, Doc?” asked Morgan, kneeling on one knee beside Kate and looking intently at the map.

  “Once,” said Doc. “Mexico City in 1912. Some fancy Mexican general had put up a couple of thousand dollars for a marathon there. That was real big money in those days, and we came clambering from all over to get at it. Kohlemainen, Shrubb, Appleby, Fox – all the great professionals turned up.”

  “How high was Mexico City?” asked Kate.

  “Something over seven thousand feet. The boys didn’t pay it much attention, though. They all went bounding off at the usual six-minute-mile pace, while I chugged along at the back of the field about half a minute a mile slower. They went through ten in the hour all right, but then at fifteen miles it all went haywire. They started coming back to me like I was pulling them in on a string. All the greats fell apart. There was Kohlemainen, dying on his feet, and even Alf Shrubb ended up in a pushcart. Old Charles Fox over there finished up walking.”

  “Did you win?” asked Kate.

  “I didn’t win it – they lost it. I just kept plugging along, staying loose, taking it easy, while they were dropping around me like drowned men. It was one of the slowest marathons I ever ran – it took me over three hours. I spent two weeks recovering too, much longer than usual. Kohlemainen and Shrubb were in a Mexican hospital for weeks, and so were a dozen others. Meanwhile, there I was travelling back first-class in the S.S. Marianna with two thousand bucks in my pocket. Happy days.”

  “So we have to keep the pace low?” said Hugh.

  “Exactly,” said Doc. “It’s always the pace that kills, never the distance.”

  Flanagan put down the telephone, his face fixed in a scowl, and slumped back into his armchair. He took his revolver from its holster, opened it and flicked its cylinder round.

  “Trouble in New York,” he said looking up. “Trouble for Mayor Jimmy Walker, and if Jimmy goes hungry then we starve.”

  Willard waited for an explanation.

  “That Sir Galahad Franklin Roosevelt, the state governor, has got a petition from the public affairs committee asking for jimmy Walker’s removal. ‘Malfeasance of office’ they call it.” Flanagan got up and poured out a full measure of whiskey and gulped it down in one.

  “So what?” said Willard. “Walker’s signed up to us tight for twenty grand.”

  “If this charge sticks, Walker could be on his way to the Tombs a full month before we hit New York. Twenty grand – we won’t see twenty cents! Jesus H. Christ, it’s all happening at once.”

  Willard picked up a sheaf of papers. “I know this may not be the best time, but could you look at these bills? All of a sudden they’ve started pouring in.”

  “Strange,” said Flanagan, pouring himself another drink and leafing through the bills.

  “Most of these people offered us long-term credit,” said Willard. “Now they all s
eem to want their money yesterday. The toughest one is the catering contract with De Luxe. They want twenty thousand dollars advance by the end of next week or they pull out the cooks.”

  “How much have we got in the kitty?”

  “About thirty grand.”

  “Pay it,” said Flanagan, pointing out of the window. “We run out of food, they run out of legs. They run out of legs, we run out of business.”

  He lay back on the caravan couch and closed his eyes. “Excite me, Willard,” he said. “Go over the figures again. You know what I mean.”

  Willard recited the accounts in a low monotone.

  “Costs: salaries and services, till New York total $640,000. Equipment costs $25,000. Publicity costs $15,500. Sundries $25,500. Prize money to be met by Trans-America Bank. Grand total $706,000

  “Income: entry fees $400,000. Films $50,000. Appropriations from towns $300,000. Sundry income $140,000. Total $890,000.”

  Flanagan kept his eyes closed. “Now to the best bit,” he said. “The profit.”

  Willard’s voice rose from its monotone.

  “Even excluding post-race contracts, there will be a profit of $185,000.”

  Flanagan stood up and stretched. “I feel better already.”

  “But what about the bills?”

  “Burn them,” said Flanagan. “The whole damn lot.”

  Unaware of Flanagan’s problems, Rae, Kowalski and Liebnitz were busy comparing notes in the press tent.

  “How do you think it’s going so far, Carl?” asked Rae.

  Liebnitz took off his horn-rimmed glasses and polished them.

  “You guys know, I’m no sports reporter. Still, Flanagan has surprised me. First, he somehow got two thousand men and women from all over the world to run in this crazy race of his.”

  He paused to replace his spectacles on his lean, peeling nose. “Perhaps, in the circumstances, that wasn’t too surprising, considering the present state of the nation. What is surprising is that up till now the whole goddam jamboree has been so well organized. When I first met Flanagan, it wasn’t that he didn’t know the next step ahead – he didn’t know the step he had just taken!”

  “Yep,” said Kowalski. “You’ve got to hand it to him, Carl. And he’s done well by the press corps too. Every day, a pack of good stories.”

  Liebnitz nodded.

  “And who have you got your two bits on, Mr Liebnitz?” It was Kevin Maguire of the Irish Times. Liebnitz smiled and continued polishing his glasses.

  “When I first hit Los Angeles I would have bet my last buck on Doc Cole,” he said, investigating the lens by holding it up to the light. “But that young German Muller . . .”

  “He’s going to take some beating,” interjected Kowalski.

  “And his pal Stock is still running easy,” observed Rae.

  “Perhaps Muller’s just the stalking horse,” said Liebnitz.

  “Put out there just to burn off likely contenders, to set the race up for Stock.”

  “He sure burnt me off yesterday,” growled Kowalski. “I couldn’t get a word out of him after the finish.”

  “And then there’s young McPhail and the Yankee boy Morgan,” said Maguire.

  “And your Lord Thurleigh’s no slouch, even if he has left his butler back at Barstow,” said Kowalski.

  “Don’t call him my Lord,” replied Maguire. “I hate the bloody English.”

  Liebnitz replaced his spectacles and rubbed his nose, removing a surface layer of dried, sunburnt skin.

  “I’ll chance my arm,” he said cautiously, “and take McPhail, with Cole second choice.”

  “Banana oil,” said Kowalski. “It’s got to be Muller and Stock. What about you, Kevin?”

  Maguire tipped back his hat and mopped his brow.

  “I’m going to use the Irish method,” he said. “Cole, Muller, Stock, Morgan, Thurleigh, Eskola, McPhail. It’s going to be one of them . . . I think.”

  7 a.m., 27 March 1931. The runners stood massed on the road to Las Vegas, a few miles north of the Soda Mountains. The desert air was sharp and clear. Behind them, Flanagan’s workers were clearing away the remains of the night’s stay. Ahead of them were Flanagan’s Trans-America caravan, six press buses, the Maxwell House Coffee Pot and a collection of over a hundred cars and motor-cycles. Around them, still and silent on the cool desert surface, the cotton-wood, cactus and yucca, which grew at between three thousand five hundred and five thousand feet.

  As Doc had predicted back in Los Angeles, the cranks, the dreamers and the optimists had now gone, and the Trans-America was now composed either of athletes or men rapidly becoming athletes. Luckily, the weather had been kind; they had been favoured by a succession of unusually mild spring days, days in which the desert was unable to impose its full vigour upon them. At present, only mileage was a problem, before they reached Las Vegas – “the meadow with many streams”.

  Again it was the German, Muller, who took the lead, this time after a mile of easy running with the main pack of thirty, in which Doc, Hugh, Morgan, Martinez and Peter Thurleigh were securely tucked, together with Eskola, Bouin and Dasriaux, the All-Americans and the remainder of the German team.

  The leading groups slipped into a reflex rhythm, running between six and seven miles an hour, for they had now accepted the reality both of their bodies and the nature of the Trans-America. They ran like clockwork toys, daily insinuating themselves into rather than piercing the desert, as they had tried to do in their first springier, more optimistic days.

  For Hugh, the road had become a dream, and as in a dream there was no pain. For he in turn had become a machine, through which oxygen and blood flowed endlessly, the oxygen exactly matching his needs. The stumbling, staggering days of his early training were long past him; he was no longer a sprinter, but a road-runner.

  In the early days, the air had sometimes ripped through him, rasping in his throat like emery paper. Now the easy in-and-out of his breathing was balanced, his strides were never an inch longer or shorter than necessary, regardless of the surface. He ran as if the road and its contours had been made for his legs and his alone. And, like a confession, the run somehow purged and cleansed him, bringing a daily flow of memories unchecked and without order.

  Hugh remembered that he had been drawn two nights before across to the circus camp by the mournful wail of bagpipes coming from somewhere on its perimeter. It had taken him some time to locate them in the cluster of tents, caravans and cages that formed the circus camp, but eventually he found that the pipes were being played by Albert Koch, the fat, balding owner of Fritz the talking mule.

  Koch stood in front of Fritz, his sweating face reddening as he played “The McCrimmon’s Lament” a few feet from the donkey, who silently munched from the trough in front of him. Albert Koch looked up apologetically as Hugh approached.

  “I’m trying to teach him some new words,” he explained. “These bagpipes – they gets him in the right mood – at least it always has done before. Goddam beast.”

  “Don’t you know any other tunes?” asked Hugh.

  “Hell no,” replied Koch. “I had enough trouble learning this one from the Scotsman who sold me this damn donkey.”

  “Did he sell you the pipes too?”

  “You bet your sweet life he did. Ten dollars extra, and one buck fifty for teaching me the tune. A Scottish Jew, he said he was.”

  “Sounds like it.” Hugh put out his hands to Koch. “Care to let me try?”

  “My pleasure,” said Koch, handing him the pipes.

  Hugh cleaned the mouthpiece and filled the bag. They were poor pipes, probably made in Aberdeen, Idaho rather than Aberdeen, Scotland, but he would squeeze a tune out of them. As he looked up at Koch he saw that Dixie Williams had strolled by, and was watching the scene, chewing on a blade of grass. Hugh reddened, but placed his fingers automatically in place on the chanter and swung into “Flora Macdonald’s Jig”.

  At the sound of the jaunty melody Fritz lifted his head from
the trough and viewed McPhail intently.

  “Dooog,” he brayed.

  “Great!” said Koch. “Keep at it.”

  Hugh continued to play, walking rhythmically, highland-style, in front of the now attentive donkey.

  “Caaat,” brayed Fritz again in a high nasal whine.

  “You got yourself a friend for life,” whooped Koch. “I been saying ‘Cat’ to him all goddam night.”

  Hugh continued to play for about ten more minutes, during which Fritz made several other additions to his vocabulary, none of them intelligible to Hugh or Dixie but evoking immediate response from Koch.

  Hugh handed the pipes back to Koch, who shook him vigorously by the hand.

  “What you think I should do, Scotsman? I’m moving up to Vegas tomorrow to set up camp.”

  “I think you should learn some new tunes, Mr Koch,” said Hugh. “And stay away from the sad stuff. That donkey’s got a sense of humour.”

  “So have you,” said a voice behind him. It was Dixie. Hugh blushed again.

  Leaving Koch with his pipes and his donkey, the two of them strolled back through the camp, through the tents and caravans as dogs scampered between the evening fires.

  “Where did you learn to play the bagpipes?” Dixie asked.

  “With the Boys’ Brigade,” answered Hugh.

  “Brigade? Is that the army?” asked Dixie, kicking a pebble along the dry ground.

  Hugh smiled. “Not quite,” he answered. “More like the Boy Scouts. All drill and marching up and down the church hall. I joined for the football. But they did teach me the pipes.”

  “Whatever happens you can always get a job with Mr Koch,” said Dixie.

  They had now reached the edge of the circus encampment.

  “It’s always a possibility,” he replied. “Well, we’ll see in Las Vegas if Flora Macdonald’s jig will help Fritz learn a few more words. I think I’ll have a look at this circus – I’ve never seen one in action.”

  “You’ll have to wait a bit,” said Dixie. “They only work the big towns. Mr Flanagan has got them booked ahead in all the towns from here to New York.” She paused. “Anyway, who was this Flora Macdonald?”