A Moment in the Sun

by John Sayles

  Runt! the boys are immediately shouting, Runt! for although in civilian life I go by Alfie this is the moniker they hang on me. Tell us Runt, they query, what is the tilt on this contest?

  Now this Atkins has got arms like hawser cables, the kind of grabbers your hard-rock miners often carry, but this is one large Indian he is set to tangle with. The redskins I know from Pueblo, mostly characters from Little Raven’s aggregation, are middling-sized and, since they are frequenting the same type of establishments I am, likely to be overly fond of belting the barleycorn. But this Chief is no Arapaho, instead issuing from some tribe of titans in the north woods, and has never once been observed, at least by my searching peepers, to sample the local beeno. A sober Indian is difficult to factor in.

  I will hold your wagers, I tell my fellow volunteers, because I am known as a reliable hand in matters concerning cards, dice, or creatures that race on four legs, and am expected to do something. But I cannot yet assess the odds.

  There is not much time for the rumors to percolate, but I hear some ripe ones in the day that precedes the bout.

  The Red Man in general is known for his thick skull, it is said by one expert, and for his weak chin. The Indian has not been born who can take a pop on the kisser without his knees go to water.

  On the other hand, counters a different enthusiast, this redskin has caused the demise, through his superior marksmanship, of more rebel googoos than any one-striper in all the volunteer outfits. He is a natural man-killer.

  And it is also common knowledge, adds another, that the rock-knocker calling himself Atkins is only just now bounced from solitary and before that the clap shack and has picked up a nail that cannot be pried loose, being presently on death’s front door and shot full of arsenic by the croakers.

  But do not forget, confides another, from the same company as the combatants and therefore privy to superior dope, that this is the Atkins who goes toe-to-toe with Joe Choynski in the Yukon and lives to tell the tale before he causes the sudden demise of some Swede in a barroom with a single punch and is forced to don the khaki and blue to make his escape.

  Rumors feed action, and there is soon a throng rattling their coins and waving their paper in my kisser. I refuse all markers, pointing out that as the smallest member of the regiment I am the last person able to strongarm a welsher. Cash only, I inform them, and scribe each wager in a notebook purloined from the company clerk as the cocoanuts pile up, the action on one slugger instantly covered by the action on the other, there being a balance between the believers in the White Man’s Destiny versus the believers in if you get hit by a guy as big as a shunt locomotive, no matter what color hide he wears, you will eat the canvas. I am of the second religion.

  There is not much percentage in such a role when the odds are so close, so I extract a Mexican silver peso per transaction as banker, which keeps the pikers and small-change artists at bay, and inform the multitudes that wagering will continue during the contest at odds adjusted for the circumstances. This gives me what I judge will be less than three rounds to snag, before their champion is pounded into jelly, the last of those who profess their inability to bet against a fellow Anglo-Saxon. I am not an individual prone to take risks when hunches of a sporting nature are being wagered upon a contest, but am not opposed to it when the conclusion is of the forgone variety.

  In business dealings of this sort one must be firm and fearless, but I am mildly ruffled when the rock-knocker comes to me the morning of the event and wishes to lay down a bundle the size of which will choke an Army mule.

  On himself.

  To win.

  Save your cocoanuts, I say to him, and protect your chin.

  Alfie, he comes back to me, calling me thus because we are acquaintances from before the Runt moniker is applied, Alfie, he says, I need to improve my financial standing in the world. While the rest of you are feeding the fish over the side of the bucket that takes you home, I may remain back here with other ones to fry.

  Now most of the boys have been faithful visitors to the knock shops and sporting houses that we of the Provost are charged to regulate, and a few have lined up permanent Margaritas for themselves, fronting the scratch for improved lodgings or the latest rags and perfumes, but the brass give us the glare about it and it is greatly discouraged to get in any deeper with these dolls. A little jiggy-jiggy is one matter, shipping a googoo in a grass skirt with a gold link on her pointer back to Mom and Dad in Prairie Junction is another. And so it grieves me to see Atkins standing before me with a wad in his mitt, hinting he will throw it away for the sake of some yellow frail looking for a meal ticket.

  Private Atkins, I say, calling him this because in business it is best to remain formal even with acquaintances who know your real handle, Private Atkins, I say, if that scalp-lifter hits you a clean punch he will not only kill you but do serious harm to your friends and relations in the far off hills of the Treasure State. You can knock a hole through the side of Admiral Dewey’s big white bucket sooner than you will put a dent in that redskin.

  I understand, he says to me, and hangs his head a little like he is already reading his own obituaries. I understand, which is why I am hoping you can give me odds.

  Here I am forced to confess to a certain amount of guilt, being the party who steers Atkins and some of the other boys to one of the knock shops we have recently regulated, and while I am laying about slightly poleaxed by a few glasses of the high-class Spanish beeno they keep on hand in such establishments, Atkins picks up the nail that sends him into the clap shack and the clutches of this china doll he is currently attempting to blow all his cocoanuts on.

  Odds? I say. Nobody is getting odds.

  As you suggest, he replies, all puppy-eyed and resigned to his fate, I do not hold the chance of a snowball in Hell in this contest, but if some miracle should happen could you cover me at two to one?

  If you were the favorite, I commiserate, you could profit by a plunge into the tank. However, unless the Indian is willing to—

  Do not mention the name of that heathen savage to me again, says Atkins. I mean to whip him on the fair and square.

  Guilt, like the clap, is extremely difficult to shake loose of, so I accept his entire bundle and write it into the notebook at two to one. I judge that he is tossing his bankroll to the wind anyhow, so he may as well believe the payoff is worth the risk.

  On the evening of the contest my sergeant, who is of the Swedish persuasion and is monikered the Blond Bear, comes to me with a further proposition.

  Runyon you sorry sack of shit, he informs me, always one to forgo nicknames and use the proper address, Captain Sturdevant from the Colorados wants you in the riding ring. Put your worthless backside in motion.

  It seems that somebody has fingered me to the captain as wise to the fight game, and he enlists me to help supervise the wrapping of the mitts, each man and his second peeping the process to make sure there is no plaster in the bandages or roll of Liberty Head dimes clutched in anyone’s pointers to better bash the skull of their opponent with. It all looks jake to me and I share this opinion with the captain, who is serving as referee and both judges for the scrap.

  No need to keep track of points, says he. This one lasts till one of the sluggers does not return to his feet.

  A platform is built in the middle of the old indoor riding ring where in earlier times the Dago cavalry prance their nags and the brass practice their swordwork, for all the good it does them when Uncle Sammy’s boys come strolling up the beach. There is canvas underfoot and real ropes and turnbuckles the captain ships over from Denver that I can tell have seen some action by the blood dried black on them, and wood bleachers are thrown up all around for everybody in the two outfits not on duty to park their keisters. The brass wander in last and plop down on rattan sitters in the front and one of the regimental bands bangs out Marching Through Georgia and there is a considerable racket when the sluggers step out between the bleachers and climb up on potato crates to duck u
nder the ropes and take their corners. The band stops then and the racket dips into the kind of mumble you only hear after fatal house fires and lynchings, as none of the assembled throng besides myself and the other characters in the dressing room has seen the Indian’s naked torso before. He does not resemble the cigar-store variety so much as something along the Greek model, chiseled in stone, Hercules or Atlas or some such personality with shoulders you could hitch a wheat thrasher to and legs like pillars of oak. They do not feature any follicles on the chest, your noble savage, which adds to the Chief’s sculptured appearance, and his neck is just as wide as his hat-holder, a phenomenon seen in large bears and squarehead sergeants. I am surrounded by volunteers wishing to hedge their bets.

  That will be an American eagle per wager, I say to them, doubling the ante, and the tilt is no longer even. Just to cover the play I start at three to two for the Indian, and by the time the crowd thins I am up at five to one with only the most diehard of Anglo-Saxons still taking the miner without a hedge.

  The boys begin to stomp their feet for action, quieting only when Captain Sturdevant struts to the middle of the squared circle, looking raw without his swagger stick, and raises his mitts for silence.

  It goes dead quiet, only Atkins’s boxing brogans, also shipped from Denver by the captain and a size too big for the rock-knocker’s feet, shuffling nervous on the canvas while he throws little jabs and rolls his shoulders in preparation of having his block knocked off of them, molesting the silence. The Chief stands with his knuckles dragging on the floor, still as a mountain and nearly as big.

  This fight, announces the captain without raising his voice, will continue until one man is unable to answer the bell. Throws will be allowed, but gouging, biting, low blows, obnoxious use of hands and elbows, and lollygagging in the ring will be punished—and here he pauses to gander meaningfully at each of the sluggers—will be punished by time in the stockade. I want a show from both of you fellows—come out fighting and may the best man win.

  The bit about the throws is a raw deal and I stifle the urge to give it the hoot. Throws have not been allowed since Pegasus was a two-year-old, and it dawns on me that maybe the brass have their own pool going, with the captain down heavy favoring the Chief. I have seen a referee tackle a slugger in Idaho Springs once because he was in the satchel and concerned about his percentage, but tonight I am covered, I am in fact sitting pretty with a pile of Mexican silvers and American eagles already bagged and nothing riding on the outcome.

  The bonger is tapped and the melee commences. Atkins steps out sharp, throwing leather in flurries and putting lots of mustard on it, with relish on top, but the Indian covers with his big slabs of arm and the assault does not amount to much. The volunteers are on their feet and shouting in the way of all suckers, thrilled to witness a contest of skill and science and probable slaughter. Atkins wears himself out by the end of the round and just before the bonger sounds again the big redskin decides he is crowding too close and lifts him up under the arms and tosses him halfway across the ring. The rock-knocker lands on his keister and the boys all give this the hoot while the Chief circles around the ropes hollering a war whoop strictly from Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Extravaganza. This gets a rise out of the more fervent of the Anglo-Saxons in the crowd and between rounds a few of them come to me and double their bets, which more than covers the five-to-one play on the Chief.

  Corporal Grissom is the Chief’s second, assigned to the duty by Captain Sturdevant, and he is absent without leave, leaning with his back to the ropes and jawing with a pal up in the cheap seats while his fighter plops on the stool.

  Private Neely is busy in the other corner spitting water in Atkins’s kisser and then greasing it with lard and yapping strategy at him, though the only strategy available is the one adopted by El Supremo Aguinaldo and his outfit and this Atkins cannot implement because the captain will plug him before he gets halfway to the door. What Private Neely knows about boxing I know about flower arrangement, if you do not count what wreath to choose when a fellow sporting man is planted, and Atkins is not paying mind to him, only peeping across the ring at the Chief like a spring hen peeps a butcher with a meat cleaver in his mitt.

  The second and third go pretty much like the first, the lead miner throwing and the redskin catching where it does not sting, only there is no mustard left on Atkins’s punches now, arm-weary already or maybe the croakers really did pump some poison into him which they say is the only way to kill the French ache if the quicksilver does not kill you first. In the fourth the Indian goes finally on the warpath, swinging haymakers left and right, sidearm jobs that no matter how Atkins tries to block with his elbows still nearly knock him crabwise off his feet, the boys up and hollering for blood and they will see some only the Chief needs to raise his artillery a notch, happy to bat his former pal around the ring till Atkins ducks when he should not duck and catches one on the side of his noggin that puts him on one knee. The Chief seems confused and backs off, looking around at all the volunteers who have cocoanuts riding on him screaming to finish the job, even the captain waving him in for the kill, but he only frowns like he suddenly does not savvy the white man’s tongue and then Atkins is saved, or perhaps doomed, by the bell.

  A dozen chalk-eaters crowd me then, desiring to hedge their previous indiscretions and get on the Indian at five to one, but I inform them that the bank is closed. The fifth begins with the rock-knocker looking like his pins are not completely beneath the rest of his corpus and suddenly there is Private Neely pulling at my coat with his mitts full of scratch and wearing a face that will make a hangman weep.

  He makes me promise, says Private Neely. He wants to blow the rest of this at whatever the tilt is.

  On himself? I query, judging that the whack on the noggin has relieved the miner of what little sense he possesses to begin with. Let us remember that this is an individual who tumbles for a doll he meets in the clap shack.

  He makes me promise, explains the second, on my mother’s grave.

  Inform him that your mother is still living.

  Please, he counters, waving the rock-knocker’s boodle under my nose. Now this is paper money, the green variety that Uncle Sammy puts the ink on, the variety that is accepted in the sort of San Francisco sporting houses I shall soon be a patron of, the kind that spends plenty but does not wear a hole in your pockets the way a pile of golden eagles will. The miner has been a stalwart companion to me as far back as Denver and I am as sentimental as the next character, crying at weddings of dolls I have a yen for, the christening of screaming infants and the planting of dear friends who die owing me cocoanuts—but this waving green I cannot resist.

  It is five to one, I announce, snatching the cabbage.

  Could you crank that up to six? queries the second. My slugger is on his last legs out there.

  This is not an exaggeration, as I have not removed my peepers from the ring, where Atkins is being pounded like a boardinghouse steak, the Indian unloading with both paws into his barely protected middle, the rock-knocker staggering backward without throwing a counter, the boys hollering their lungs raw and Sturdevant, hands folded behind his back, strolling around them with a little smile on his kisser like he is admiring the roses. I will sit through an evening of Manila googoo chicken fights before I stay put for a mismatch, but I am holding the bank and have my own pile of cocoanuts riding on it now, so I cover the play six to one in the notebook and hold my water.

  Private Neely hurries back to the corner and I see Atkins look over to him after he dives into a clinch with the big Indian hoisting him clear off his toes and squeezing the wind out of him, and the second gives Atkins the thumbs up as if to give him heart. As if heart can help a cornered coon against a grizzly bear.

  The Chief tries to throw Atkins clear out of the ring and nearly makes the point, the miner snatching the ropes to keep himself out of the laps of the Company D Minnesotas and then sprawling onto the canvas. While he crawls back onto his pin
s the Chief goes into his war dance again, whooping and chopping one hand down like it is the hatchet he will bury in Atkins’s skull. It does not appear to be a good night for Anglo-Saxon progress.

  Atkins gets himself steady and when the redskin turns they exchange a look I have seen before on the front range between a timber wolf and a very old fleabag of a buffalo, a look that says This is the curtain, buster, and the miner even nods slightly, as if saying I understand, thus reads the rule of claw and fang, and then the Indian lumbers in.

  He lumbers in cocking his sleepmaker behind him but the little worn-out rock-knocker quicksteps forward and whips an overhand right like a base-ball hurler flush on the redskin’s beezer, crowding to follow it with an uppercut he starts from the toes, planting it square on his opponent’s chin, and then staggers back as if that is all he has.

  The Chief’s peepers roll up in his head and he totters this way and that and then somebody from the Colorados hollers “Timberrrrrrr!” and he goes down on his face like a hundred-year-old redwood. It is quiet for a moment, all of us as stunned as a catfish on an ice wagon, and then the bell rings and the true-blue Anglo-Saxons start to whoop and holler and stomp on the boards, celebrating the ineffable march of the white man and calculating their haul. Mostly I am hearing the clink of all those silvers and golds I collected rattling down the shitter, the sound of greenbacks flapping out of my pocket, and the Indian does not stir.

  He does not stir as a detail of the boys carry his carcass into the back where Major Ruckheimer, our company croaker, slaps his kisser and dumps a bucket of water on him and jams a stick in his jaws so he should not swallow his tongue, does not stir until after the mittens have been untied and yanked off and Atkins has been helped in, looking beat to hell but relieved he is not dead and has earned so many hundreds of cocoanuts to blow on his china doll.