Flanagan's Run

by Tom McNab

  “People like us,” interrupted Kate.

  “ – and wealth like this?” ended Hugh.

  “Nothing wrong with it, if you can get it,” said Doc.

  “That all depends how many faces you have to smash in on the way,” said Morgan.

  “Oh, I don’t reckon that our Mr Levy qualifies as a face-smasher,” said Doc, slipping into the pool. He nodded across at Flanagan, Levy and Cranston. “Looks like he’s cooking up some deal over there with Flanagan. Wonder what it is this time . . .”

  At that moment Levy was pointing a stubby finger at Flanagan. “I rate you, sir, as a sportsman of the first rank,” he began.

  “Wait for it,” said Flanagan, winking at Colonel Cranston. “The last time he said that back in Topeka I nearly lost my pants.”

  “Seriously, Mr Flanagan – may I call you ‘Charles’?” continued Levy. “Last night I received a call from a friend of mine in Bloomington, a General Aloysius Honeycombe.”

  “Honeycombe?” said Cranston. “Never heard of him. In the army?”

  “An honorary title, I believe, Colonel,” said Levy. “He runs a travelling circus, and he’ll be in Springfield, Illinois in five days or so. When will your runners reach Springfield?”

  Flanagan looked over at Willard. “Springfield?” he said.

  “Down for 14 May, boss,” said Willard.

  “Ideal,” said Levy. “My friend, General Honeycombe, has a proposition for you. He’s got a big circus and fairground just outside Bloomington for a week. He’ll offer you five hundred dollars a day for your circus, plus a slice of the profits.”

  “Keep talking,” said Flanagan.

  “What he really wants is some of your boys and Miss Sheridan to run a few exhibition handicap races,” continued Levy. “You know, with some of the local boys. He’ll give you five hundred for that as well.”

  “Done,” said Flanagan.

  “And Doc Cole,” said Levy. “He must have Doc Cole.”

  “What for?”

  “Not for running. But you know as well as I do that Doc’s a national figure now – look over at the pool: all the matrons of St Louis are after him. Well, my friend General Honeycombe wants Doc to put on a public appearance, giving some sort of lecture.”

  “How much?” said Flanagan.

  “Five hundred dollars,” said Levy.

  “A thousand.”

  “Seven fifty.”

  “Done,” said Flanagan.

  Levy smiled. “The way I see it, no hard feelings on my part. We both came out well today. We can do the same up in Bloomington.” He paused. “One final matter,” he said. “General Honeycombe would like one of your boys to take on a little fisticuffs.”

  “Boxing?” said Flanagan, frowning. “My boys are runners, not prizefighters.”

  “Well, the owner of the boxing booth at his carnival offers five hundred dollars if one of your boys can take his pug in four rounds.”

  “Impossible,” said Flanagan, looking idly across the pool. “I told you, Mr Levy, my boys are runners.”

  “Look, I owe Honeycombe some favours from way back,” said Levy. “And after today, I can afford to be generous. How does five grand at five to one sound to you?”

  “It would take us to Newark,” said Flanagan quietly, still looking across the pool. “But I told you, Leonard, my boys aren’t fighters, so how can I get some guy who’s never boxed to go in against a trained fighter, and that after he’s run over two thousand miles?”

  “Eight to one,” said Levy, pouting.

  “I’m a fool to myself,” said Flanagan, his gaze now fixing firmly on Morgan. “But you just make it ten to one and I think we might have ourselves another little deal.”

  Levy nodded. “Agreed,” he said. “I’ll be in Bloomington at the end of the week to arrange the final details.”

  He turned to Colonel Cranston. “Have you had any experience in boxing, Colonel?”

  “Army light heavy champion 1907,” said Cranston, pushing back his shoulders.

  “Then might I ask you to make the trip to Bloomington to referee, to ensure that fair play is done? All expenses paid, of course.”

  “It will be an honour, sir,” said Cranston, before adding to Flanagan, “I’m afraid that you may have bitten off a little more than you can chew this time, sir.”

  “It certainly does appear that way, Colonel,” said Flanagan, waving idly at Mike Morgan, who was at that moment being drowned by Kate.

  Flanagan had never seen Morgan so mad.

  “You’re crazy,” he said. “Either that or pig stupid.” He shook his head and sat down on the downy divan in Flanagan’s lush caravan. “First you set us up against a horse and damn near kill us. Now you want me to take on a professional fighter. What next? Pitch against Babe Ruth, tackle Red Grange? Why not? I’ve got just as good a chance.”

  “Have a beer, Mike,” said Flanagan easily. “Look, you know the trouble I’ve had keeping this show on the road. It costs me over five grand a day just to stay alive. If you guys hadn’t won today the Trans-America wouldn’t even have got as far as Bloomington. And don’t forget, if we don’t make New York then we’re all in the cellar.”

  As he filled Morgan’s glass Kate entered the caravan, concern on her face as she saw Morgan, head down, elbows on his knees.

  “What’s up? Just what have you asked him to do this time, Flanagan?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing much. Just another little deal I’ve set up,” said the Irishman, pouring Kate out an orange juice. “Levy offered me ten to one on one of our boys taking on some stumblebum in a booth in Bloomington. I’ve asked Mike here to deal with it.”

  “Fighting? Mike’s no fighter,” she said stoutly.

  “He knows, honey,” said Morgan quietly.

  “I figured Mike for a fighter from the beginning,” Flanagan explained. “I’ve seen hands like his before, and I’ve seen eyes like his too.”

  Morgan looked up. “So I fought in booths? I admit that. But Flanagan, last time I fought barefist I killed a guy. For all I know the cops are still looking for me.”

  “But not in Springfield,” said Flanagan, his mind travelling back to his meeting with Bullard. “Look, I give you my solemn word, anything happens then I put up ten grand for legal expenses. I’ll get the very best – this time it’ll really be Clarence Darrow. What do you say?”

  Morgan looked at Kate.

  “What sort of fighter is he going to be up against?” she asked.

  Flanagan rubbed his chin. “No way of knowing. Some palooka. Who cares?”

  “I do,” said Morgan, standing up. “Flanagan, I know the booths – I’ve fought in them. There’re two kinds of fighter there, the guys on the way up and the guys on the skids. The ones on the way up will take on a gorilla for a dime. They don’t have much science, but they come out hitting like crazy. The ones on the skids have to take you if they’re going to earn their oats. They know all the dirty tricks – the thumb in the eye, the dig in the kidneys, the knee in the groin. They sap you with wrestling, stand on your feet, elbow you until your ribs are raw. Then, when you’re tiring, they straighten you up with a left and then right hook you into crazyland.”

  Flanagan had never heard Morgan speak at such length. He was taken aback. “Then it’s impossible?”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m saying that only one challenger in a hundred from the crowd ever lasts four rounds to pick up his ten bucks. As for winning against a booth fighter, I’d have to take in a machine gun.”

  He sat down and sipped his beer. “First question, who referees?”

  “Colonel Cranston, the man who umpired today. He was army light heavy champion.”

  “That’s the first good news I’ve heard,” said Morgan. He paused. “Second question. Where can I get some gloves and a sparring partner?”

  Hugh felt as if he had been hit in the face with a club. Morgan circled round him, crouching, his left constantly breaking through Hugh’s guard as if hi
s arms were made of marshmallow. Hugh swung at Morgan with his right, hitting air, and received in return the full force of Morgan’s left in the stomach. Gasping, he went down on one knee.

  Dixie banged the tin drum that was serving as a gong and rushed to Hugh’s side. He struggled to his feet and staggered to his stool, followed by Morgan.

  “Had enough?” said Morgan, fingering the wound high on the scalp which he had sustained in the race.

  Dixie answered for him. “Three rounds,” she said. “That’s enough.”

  Morgan ruffled Hugh’s hair. “You did well,” he said. “Landed some good ones. Hell, let’s have a beer.”

  Hugh had been the only Trans-American willing to spar with Morgan, as the other runners saw it as a certain exit from the race. He had fought before, not with gloves but bare-fisted, during his time as a miner at Shotts. It had never been clear to him why the fights had begun, but once they had been they were fought with savagery and bitterness.

  It was odd. The miners would always insist that a winner should “finish” his man. “He’s entitled to the ground,” they would say. He was glad that he had never met Morgan on such terms. Even three rounds with gloves with him had left his head ringing.

  20

  The Big Fight

  General Honeycombe had been right, thought Flanagan, as he stood surveying the crowds milling around him on Coogan’s Flats, just outside Springfield, Illinois. Hugh, Dixie and Kate stood at his side.

  The appearance of the Trans-Americans at Honeycombe’s fair had probably doubled the attendance. Flanagan wrinkled his nose and frowned. He should have held out for more back in St Louis, he knew that now. But it was too late for tears; in less than an hour Morgan would face Professor Anderson’s fighter and Flanagan again felt that sick, empty feeling that he had experienced back in St Louis when Thurleigh had staggered off after Silver Star on the final lap.

  He nodded to Hugh. “See you at the booth in half an hour. Don’t forget you’re acting as second for Mike. We got a lot riding on this.”

  Flanagan left them to wend his way through the crowds towards the booth.

  Kate Sheridan nibbled at her candy floss, her left arm loosely round Dixie’s shoulder. That morning a crowd of over ten thousand people had watched a programme of handicap foot-races and novelty events featuring the Trans-Americans and local athletes and civic dignitaries. Kate herself had run a six-minute mile, beating a burly local sheriff on the post on the rough track improvised in the field beside the fairground.

  Now the thousands attracted by the appearance of the Trans-Americans had transferred their attentions to the fair, and over in a grassy natural bowl outside the main fairground area, picnicking families were already beginning to assemble to hear Doc Cole’s Chickamauga spiel later in the evening.

  Hundreds of sun-blackened Trans-Americans, easily identifiable in their running vests and shorts, threaded their way through the vast crowds, signing autographs for eager children as they walked. Others held court to clusters of ethnic groups, French, German, Finnish and Chinese, gesticulating and jabbering in their native tongues. Yet others delivered impromptu talks from the stages of shows as varied as Ching the Elastic Man and the Octopus People of the China Sea.

  Turning, Dixie saw Carl Liebnitz approaching them, accompanied by Pollard, and smiled her recognition. Liebnitz could respond only with a half-smile. His day’s intake of root beer, ice cream and popcorn, three rides on the roller-coaster and two on the Krazy Train, had been sufficient to convince him that the days, if not the desires, of his youth were over.

  “You reckon Doc Falconer’s got some Selzer stowed away somewhere?” he asked.

  Dixie pointed behind her to the Trans-America caravan a hundred yards away.

  “The Doc’s back there,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll have some handy, Mr Liebnitz.”

  The journalist touched his hat and gave a weak grin before making his way towards the caravan.

  “Looks like Mr Liebnitz isn’t too well,” she observed.

  “No,” said Pollard, interrupting his demolition of a giant raspberry ice-cream cone. He removed from his head a paper hat which bore the request “Hold me, honey” and used it to fan his face. “I reckon Carl’s finding that a sixty-year-old stomach won’t quite take the sort of garbage he’s been pouring into it today.”

  “I hope he’ll manage to make the fight,” said Dixie anxiously.

  Pollard nodded and bit into the wafer of his cone.

  “I hope so too,” he said. “Me, I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

  Hugh was standing a few yards off, still absorbed in the tumult of the fair. He had never seen anything like it. He had experienced the fairgrounds which followed the Scottish Highland Games, but those were tame compared with this vast, blaring whirl. The fat woman of Katmandu; Dr Faustus; the Syrian fire eater; the two-headed pig; Martha, the world’s hairiest lady; Faido, the India Rubber Man: all were on show in a noisy, vulgar, dazzling display. Dominating the carnival, at its centre, was the boxing booth, a massive, grease-cloth frontage featuring grotesque coloured paintings of gloved men embroiled in ludicrous battle. In front of the booth was a railed wooden balcony and there the barker, a stout little man in blue blazer, white flannels and sailing cap, was exhorting his audience to bring forth their champions.

  “Four rounds!” he cried into an ancient-looking microphone. “Any man who stays on his feet for four rounds with any one of my boys” – he half-turned to give the crowd a better view of the line of boxers standing impassively behind him – “will win himself ten dollars. And any man who wins, under Queensberry Rules” – he stressed the word “Queen” as if it had royal connotations – “will take away the prize of one hundred – I repeat one hundred – silver dollars.” The man, who proceeded to announce himself as Professor Anderson, held up a cloth purse, shook it, then poured out its contents on to the table beside him.

  Anderson’s boxers were a rugged bunch, all bearing the flat noses and cauliflower ears which were the marks of their trade. None of them looked fit, being puffy around the waist and short of hard muscle in the thighs. They were men who had long since seen their best days, men journeying towards a blurred and alcoholic middle-age. However, though many of the reflexes of youth had gone, thousands of rounds of boxing lived behind those scarred eyebrows, and they were more than a match for the eager young farmhands whom they faced daily.

  There was never any lack of takers, for these were hard times. The crowd, already cheering its heroes, had poured all day into the ramshackle tented booth. It was essential that each audience be given its money’s worth, and Professor Anderson’s men always provided the local boys with a few moments of glory. Occasionally the novices were allowed to make solid contact with the pug’s bodies, although usually only around the arms and chest. These contacts were greeted by Professor Anderson with “My, you good people have a veritable champion here, another Jack Dempsey!” or some other such phrase. It was generally enough.

  In the first two rounds the “contenders” were permitted to exhaust themselves, to the baying of the crowd, as the pugs swayed away easily from their wild swings, occasionally answering with an eye-watering poke to the nose. But what the crowd had really come to see was big men being hurt, men who were the terror of Main Street being humiliated by experienced fighters. They came for that moment when a local big-boy would be hit solidly for the first time in his life, to see the look in his eyes when he realized that this time it was he who would be on the end of a hiding.

  And by the third round all was ready. First some hard thumps to the waist to lower the novice’s guard: most men had never felt blows of such force, and they usually dropped their arms to protect their stomachs. This was immediately followed by a stiff, hard left to the chin to measure them, and finally by a clubbing right cross. Many men went down after the first punch; few survived the second. Some less fortunate souls, senses scrambled, blood pouring from mouth and nose, staggered about like stricken bulls, s
till encouraged by their supporters to hit back. One more clout and it was all over, and a bucket of cold water was sloshed over the now horizontal “Dempsey” of the town, while Anderson asked the crowd for a “big hand for such a worthy challenger”, and passed on to the next.

  Morgan had seen it all before, and was quietly taking it all in when he was joined by Hugh and Flanagan at the back of the crowd outside the booth. Morgan saw no one in the group of boxers on the platform whom he could not handle, for all of them looked about the same weight as himself. His main worry was about his legs; and deep inside he knew that he was ring-rusty. It was nothing to do with fitness; everything to do with timing, reflexes, sheer aggression. Anderson’s men were daily putting leather to opponents, but whatever abilities Morgan had once possessed were furred over by months of distance-running. He was going to have to rediscover his skills before he could use them, and by that time it might be too late. Four rounds would be an eternity with a skilful pug wrestling, elbowing and kneeing, or grinding a bony head into his eyes.

  No, it was always a hard time in that small square ring for those who did not daily live and breathe in it, no matter what one’s strength and fitness. Occasionally a strong and nimble lad might last four rounds, but Morgan had never seen a challenger come out the victor.

  As for his fight, Flanagan had put on a side bet of $5,000 at three to one with Levy that Morgan could stay on his feet for four rounds, so Anderson would also be into another slice of the action if his man could put the Trans-American out early. And there was bound to be more money on the line when he put up his challenge.

  At a nudge from Hugh, Morgan put up his hand. “A challenger!” shouted the Professor, and all heads turned towards Morgan. “Come right up, young fella!” Morgan and Hugh made their way through the crowd, up the steps on to the stage. There Anderson shook Morgan’s hand before turning him towards the crowd.

  “Your name, sir?” he asked, still holding his microphone to his mouth. Morgan duly answered.