The Giant

by Jonathan Mary-Todd

  Text copyright © 2014 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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  Cover and interior photographs © iStockphoto.com/Steve Krumenaker (brick background); © iStockphoto.com/tomograf (paper texture); © iStockphoto.com/Abomb Industries Design (woodrat); © iStockphoto.com/ankur patil (fist).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.

  Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mary-Todd, Jonathan.

  The giant / by Jonathan Mary-Todd.

  pages cm. — (Bareknuckle)

  Summary: In 1874 Manhattan, Luc, sixteen, at nearly seven feet tall and seemingly impervious to pain, has become a local boxing star but when kangaroos are introduced to the ring, Luc’s tender heart leads him to run away to save a joey.

  ISBN 978–1–4677–1457–0 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978–1–4677–2411–1 (eBook)

  [1. Boxing—Fiction. 2. Kangaroos—Fiction. 3. Self-reliance—Fiction. 4. Size—Fiction. 5. Circus—Fiction. 6. New York (N.Y.)—History—1865–1898—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M36872Gi 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013020526

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 12/31/13

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-2411-1 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-4010-4 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-4009-8 (mobi)

  CHAPTER ONE

  Luc let the thin man hit his face two times, then a third blow. The man would tire himself out this way. The sharp, familiar taste of blood filled Luc’s mouth.

  The other man was shorter and thick around the waist. His fists couldn’t quite reach Luc’s face, so he hit Luc low, jabbing beneath Luc’s ribs.

  “Come on now, Luc!” Mr. Chilton shouted. “Enough games, let them have it!”

  Luc held a fist out, keeping the two fighters at arm’s length. The shorter man swatted at the air. The fight’s enforcer, Oakley, stalked the edge of the circle, keeping clear of the fighters inside.

  Mr. Chilton shouted again, leaning over the painted line. “You’ve put the fear in them, Luc! Let’s hurry up.”

  Oakley turned to face Mr. Chilton, and Chilton stepped away.

  The thin man swung at Luc again, a right cross, same as before. Luc batted the man’s hand away and drove a fist between his eyes.

  As the thin man sunk to the floor, his partner moved toward Luc, shuffling right and left. Luc heard Oakley start the ten count for the first man.

  Luc had to reach down to hit the short man, and his swing was clumsy. The short man tipped his head, sinking it into Luc’s white belly. Luc let the man strike him again and then grabbed the man’s shoulders, lifting him off his small feet and throwing him to the floor.

  Once Oakley had finished the second ten count, Mr. Chilton ran to pat Luc’s back.

  “The Boy Giant of the North, gentlemen!” Chilton said. “The strength of two men is no match for his might!”

  Chilton walked from the circle toward the bar, and Luc walked behind him. The Woodrat Club’s owner, Mr. Mayflower, raised a glass to them.

  “A fine fight, Lew, wouldn’t you agree?” Mr. Chilton said.

  “Fine enough,” Mayflower said. A man on a stool slid Mayflower a coin, and Mayflower refilled his mug.

  Chilton bent against the bar. “And if I may be vulgar enough to raise the matter of tonight’s prize…”

  “We’ll put it toward your tab,” Mayflower said. He spat in a spit bucket by his feet.

  “Of course, Lew. Good. Very good.”

  Mr. Mayflower turned away and reached into a coin jar. He set a coin in Chilton’s hand, moving his eyes to Luc. “For the boy. You see he gets something to eat. We want him here next week. Maybe a fight with the Irishman next time.”

  “Unsavory sorts, those two men tonight. Most unpleasant,” Mr. Chilton said, moving his lower lip over his moustache. “Very unsavory. As if two men against one weren’t a favorable situation! If that Oakley looks the other way on a headbutt one more time, I’ll have half a mind to intervene myself!”

  Chilton took another bite from the loaf of soda bread and broke off a piece for Luc. When he turned, he was surprised to see that Luc was two heads back. The streets of the Bowery were often crowded, and Luc had a hard time walking through.

  Luc took bread and started to chew it, but his mouth was still raw from the fight. He pulled the chunk in two. One part would sit in his mouth until it softened. The other part Luc would save for the birds.

  “These men are jealous, Luc. That’s all,” Chilton said. “It’s only a matter of time until you and I are the kings of Manhattan! You’ll see. No more living in that flophouse. When I found you, I knew. This was a golden opportunity for both of us.”

  Mr. Chilton had found Luc splitting logs in Quebec. That was in 1870, Chilton said. Luc had been twelve or thirteen, his best guesses. Four years later, Luc’s English was better, but he still spoke just a few words at a time. With Mr. Chilton, Luc often could simply nod and keep silent. Mr. Chilton was a confident man and showed his education when he talked. In any case, Luc liked the excuse to keep quiet.

  Mr. Chilton sounded frustrated when he spoke about the flophouse. Mrs. Maxwell, the owner, would get upset when Chilton called it a flophouse at all. Soon they’d live someplace more refined, Mr. Chilton would say. But Luc liked the place. He had his own room there, and Luc had not had that before. The bed was too short for him to lie on all the way, but if he moved the bed frame sideways he could hang his feet off of the end.

  Sometimes Mrs. Maxwell’s daughter Molly would bring ice from the kitchen for Luc’s face, but not that night. She wasn’t in her quarters down the hall.

  Luc smiled when he looked in the oval mirror next to his sink. His bruises reminded him of a peeled potato, but bruises would always go away.

  Luc did not like to fight very much. It bothered him to think about the men who hadn’t won—he wondered what they thought about when they looked in the mirrors next to their sinks. But he liked to see Mr. Chilton happy. And it was rare to find your way to something you were truly good at, Mr. Chilton said. Luc agreed that this was true.

  After Luc had rinsed his mouth out, he remembered the rest of the bread. He took it from his pocket and crumbled it carefully along the windowsill.

  Mr. Chilton had asked once why the windowsill was so white with bird droppings. Chilton would have thought it was silly to save food for birds to eat. So Luc had said he didn’t know.

  No birds came to the windowsill before Luc went to bed, but it was already nightfall. Luc would see them the next morning. He licked his thumb and snuffed out a candle, smudging the wax with his thick fingers.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Irishman Killpatrick was not taller than Luc, but he was a very tall man. He stood nearly six and a half feet tall, even taller than Oakley.

  Mr. Chilton began cheering as Oakley rang the bell, spilling suds onto the floor from his mug.

  Killpatrick moved fast for a big man. Faster than Luc. He struck Luc twice in the kidney and then danced backward, wiping strands of red hair from his forehead.

  “Focus now, Luc!” Mr. Chilton shouted.
“Confidence!”

  Killpatrick swung again, into the center of Luc’s chest. The wind left Luc, but he leaned forward with a right hook, catching the Irishman in the jaw. Killpatrick was tall enough to hit without crouching.

  Luc tried to grab Killpatrick and lift him, but Killpatrick cursed and wriggled in Luc’s arms. Too early. The two fighters tumbled outside the circle and into a table nearby. Mugs shattered, covering the sticky ground with a new layer of beer.

  Oakley ordered the drunks nearby to clear a path and then shoved himself between Luc and Killpatrick, yelling up at them to get back to where the fights were held. Luc went first, not turning his back on the Irishman. His heart thundered like cannon fire.

  Killpatrick ducked left and came up quick, jabbing Luc above his doughy cheek. Luc groaned again and brought a hand to his face. Killpatrick had drawn blood. Luc raised his fists and stepped closer to the Irishman, then doubled back. The man held broken glass between his knuckles.

  Luc looked to Oakley but couldn’t find the words to speak. Killpatrick stayed close. He moved Luc around the circle with a series of feints. Luc tried to look not at the pointed glass but at Killpatrick’s shoulders, his feet, to see how the man would move next. The Irishman flailed, trying for a haymaker. Luc caught his fist with both hands and began to squeeze.

  Luc wanted to let go when he heard the first pop but he knew that he could not. Even when Oakley began to yell and pull at Luc’s wrists, Luc held on. Even when he heard the glass crack. Only when Luc saw Killpatrick’s eyes close did he know he could stop.

  Oakley pointed for Luc to leave the circle as Mr. Chilton hopped the line and slid between them.

  “Disqualified, Chilton,” Oakley said.

  “Now, now, now—just look at the boy,” Chilton said. “Clearly this is nothing more than a misunderstanding. Certainly, next time, now that Luc is very clear that we do not finish our matches this way, I agree that—”

  “No prize, Chilton. And I’m prepared to toss you and the boy out of here.”

  Mr. Chilton pointed to the shards of glass by accident, waving for Oakley to listen. They lay in Killpatrick’s mangled palm. Oakley shook his head, rang the bell, and raised Luc’s hand.

  At the bar, Chilton let an arm fall gently against the counter and opened his own palm.

  “If you would be so kind, Lew,” he said.

  Lew Mayflower took a stack of bills and split it in two. “Half for you, half for your tab. You’re a lucky idiot, Chilton.”

  “Thank you, Lew,” Chilton said flatly. He turned to Luc. “And well done, of course, Luc. As I say, focus is key. A vigilant eye. You could’ve cost yourself the match, there, when you let that brute grab the glass, but you regained your focus…”

  Luc felt sad and tired. Embarrassed too.

  A murmur came to him from across the club. Many men’s voices at once.

  “My word,” Chilton said. “Luc, I believe we’re about to see something extraordinary.”

  A man in a maroon suit wheeled a cart through the crowd. An animal stood on top.

  “Oakley!” Mayflower shouted. “The creature’s here. If this gets messy, you get it out of the building.”

  “There will be no need for that, I assure you,” the man said. He left the cage by the fighters’ circle, then stepped to the bar and took a bow. “H. Thomas Hardt. You must be Mr. Mayflower.”

  Mayflower nodded. “The arrangement’s the same as I said in the letter. You wanna let that thing fight? Fine. The house gets fifty percent.”

  “Very well,” Hardt said. He turned to face the Woodrat Club. The men’s eyes were already on him. “Gentlemen! My name is H. Thomas Hardt. And I am about to present you with a very rare opportunity. Direct from that cage, from across the ocean, is the cunning, the dangerous, the kangaroo of South Australia!”

  A couple of the men clapped, and Hardt waved them silent.

  “Who will test his mettle against this creature? Only a modest fee is required. Knock it out and you’ll double your money. But if Genghis knocks you outside the ring, well,”—Hardt laughed—“you won’t have been the first, my friends!”

  “Marvelous!” Mr. Chilton whispered to Luc. “Really, marvelous!”

  Luc watched Mr. Hardt’s trainer unwrap the kangaroo’s binds as a few men lined up outside the circle. The trainer could not have been much taller than his animal. He wore a faded cowhide vest, with what looked like scars or burns or both crawling out from underneath it, all across the man’s skin. The kangaroo twitched and looked in every direction in the club’s dim light.

  As the first Woodrat man entered the circle, the kangaroo bounded toward him before Oakley could ring the bell. It struck the man twice with its arms as the bell clanged and booted him, stumbling, outside the border before the clanging stopped.

  The kangaroo did the same to the next man, and then the next, until Oakley stopped using the bell. Luc looked away anytime one of the men swung his fist. He wanted to go home. But as the kangaroo’s trainer put its binds on again, Mr. Chilton thrust a glove out to the man in the maroon suit.

  “Mr. Hardt? Randall Chilton,” he said. “And what an honor it is to make your acquaintance.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Luc held himself still as the cleaning boy, Silas, stitched closed the wound on Luc’s cheek. Silas had been mopping up spilled beer and broken glass, and his arms were tired. Both boys had to be careful.

  Mr. Hardt and Mr. Chilton clinked mugs at the table behind Luc. Hardt’s trainer had taken the kangaroo away, and Mr. Chilton had many questions about the man.

  “Ian?” Mr. Hardt said. “Hah! He’s something of a grotesque, I know. All those years wrangling wild beasts. Got himself all chewed up. But he’s excellent help! Keeps those creatures in line …”

  Silas pulled the needle away from Luc and snipped off the rest of the thread. Before Luc could say thank you, Hardt snapped his fingers at the boy. “Another round, young man!”

  “You heard him, Silas!” Mr. Chilton said, his face flushed. “Hurry now!” He turned back to Mr. Hardt. “And you, my good man—how did you come to own such a remarkable creature?”

  “I’m what you might call a globetrotter,” Mr. Hardt said. He tugged at a stained maroon lapel. “This silk—you see it? Direct from the Orient!”

  Mr. Chilton nodded many times. “Yes, yes, very fine. Very fine indeed.” He prodded Luc’s shoulder. “Do you see the man’s jacket, Luc? The Orient!”

  Luc nodded.

  “My trade is the exotic,” Hardt said, grabbing the next round from Silas’s tray. “For a time, it was imports. All kinds. Then, during a visit to the Australian outback, I met Ian and his animals. And I told Ian, ‘My friend, we have a fortune waiting for us …’”

  “A kangaroo,” Chilton said, shaking his head. “I can still scarcely believe it.”

  “Ah-ha! Kangaroos,” Hardt replied. “Come, let me show you something.”

  The two men stood up, then grabbed the backs of their chairs for balance. Luc caught Mr. Chilton’s empty mug as it tumbled from the table.

  Mr. Chilton was shocked to hear that Mr. Hardt and his trainer were also staying at the Maxwell flophouse.

  “But really!” Chilton said. “A man of your refinement! It’s—Luc and I won’t be here long either, you see. Only temporary. But a fellow like you—”

  “One of the burdens of being a man of the world,” Hardt said. “Most of my assets are tied up elsewhere.”

  Mr. Chilton nodded thoughtfully and then began to hiccup.

  Hardt clapped his hands together as they reached the outside of the flophouse. “Here we are!”

  He led Luc and Mr. Chilton around back, where Ian the trainer was sharpening a large blade against a smooth black rock. Ian nodded to Hardt but said nothing. Behind him were two cages—one for the kangaroo Luc had seen earlier, another for an animal one-third its size. Luc thought it might be a rabbit at first. When he looked closer, he saw that it was another kangaroo.

  “We
used to bring the mother along, too,” Hardt said. “Drove costs up, but it helped keep Genghis settled. The other one passed away at our last stop, regrettably. Even Ian’s not sure why.”

  He rapped his knuckles on the bars of the adult kangaroo’s cage.

  “Genghis has been agitated ever since. Not that it hurts him in the ring, mind you. And his mate was kind enough to give us this young one before she fell ill. They keep the young inside a pouch, did you know? It’s bizarre. The joey left the pouch only a couple weeks before the mother died. Looks to be a future prizefighter himself, if I may say so.”

  Luc squatted down before the joey’s cage. He met the kangaroo’s black eyes for a moment and smiled. As he began to poke a finger through the bars, a sudden clanging drove him back and sent the joey to the far side of its pen. Genghis rattled against the walls of the cage next door.

  “Luc!” Mr. Chilton barked. “Behave yourself.”

  Luc slunk backward. The trainer, Ian, stopped sharpening his knife and fixed on Luc with a glare.

  “Sorry about that, Tommy,” Chilton said to Mr. Hardt.

  “No matter, no matter,” Hardt said. “Ian, if Genghis acts up like that again, make sure he gets a good prodding, understand?”

  Ian nodded and began sharpening his knife again.

  Luc stayed far away from the kangaroo cages. He sat down against a couple of crates stacked in the alley behind the flophouse and began to drift in and out of sleep.

  Mr. Chilton and Mr. Hardt continued to talk. Mr. Hardt had ideas far beyond his kangaroos, he said, and all he needed was the money of a few bold investors. They would all be wealthy men down the line. Chilton was honored by the offer, and he was sure that with a little time he would be able to find the funds somewhere. It shouldn’t be a problem. Ian said very little, but Luc continued to hear the scrrrtch of his knife against the rock throughout the first hours of the morning.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mrs. Maxwell’s daughter Molly smiled shyly as she set down biscuits for Luc and Mr. Chilton, then turned pale when she saw Luc’s new stitches. Luc put his head down and began to eat.