Caleb

by Charles Alverson

  As they said good-bye, Drusilla asked Caleb, “Do you think you’ll make it?”

  “I have to,” Caleb said. “I can’t be a slave for another year. Master says this time next year there will be a war on with the North.”

  “Maybe that will free you,” Drusilla said.

  “Maybe it won’t,” Caleb said. “I’m not going to wait to find out.” He kissed her. “Got to go now. I’ll bring you a pretty.”

  “You just bring me back Caleb in the same shape he’s in now,” Drusilla said, “and you can keep your pretties.”

  When they got to Shreevesville, the county fairground was all set up and beginning to come to life. Compared to the other fairs and shows they’d been to, it was a vast metropolis of tents. At night it came ablaze with lamps and torches. The boxing ring, a custom-built affair that traveled all over the southern states, was in a huge tent at the end of the fair’s main thoroughfare. It was there that Jardine and Caleb planted themselves to wait for opportunities to add to their poke. Jardine spotted Barney Kingston at the beer tent and greeted him jovially.

  “I’m not sure I’m talking to you,” Barney growled, “after what your boy did to my Pompey and how you misrepresented him. You still got those outsized clothes on him?”

  “I’ll tell you what, Barney,” Jardine said, taking a long swig of beer, “we’ll give you a rematch, and I won’t ask for odds this time.”

  “You’re too goddamned kind, Jardine,” Barney said. “That Caleb of yours won’t be fighting Pompey no more because Pompey ain’t mine. He wasn’t worth a damn after that fight, and I sold him.”

  “You got anybody else?” Jardine asked keenly.

  “I might and I might not,” said Kingston. “Are you buying the beer?”

  The entire day passed without so much as a nibble. Not wanting to seem too eager, Jardine contented himself with talking to acquaintances and buying a few drinks, seldom bringing up the topic of Caleb or boxing. But that night, when illumination spread through the fairgrounds like a prairie fire and the boxing tent became the center of attention, things began to liven up. The boxing show at Shreevesville was a much bigger operation than Hogan’s. The poster outside boasted that it featured nine boxers, five white and four black. They all looked like professionals.

  Jardine paid admission for the three of them to the boxing tent, and when they got inside, the nine boxers were parading around inside the ring like a pride of lions. The boss, a dwarf-sized man who called himself Colonel Moran, was extolling their virtues from the center of the ring, his foghorn voice amplified by a speaking trumpet.

  “Every one a champion, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, mothers and sons,” Moran chanted, “back here in beautiful Shreevesville to introduce to you the science of pugilism at its highest level.” The colonel paused and raked his beady black eyes challengingly across the crowd. “And to offer the brave hearts among your menfolk a chance to display their manliness and win a nice piece of money at one and the same time.”

  Moran lowered the speaking trumpet, and at his signal all of the boxers but one white man suddenly turned toward the ropes and vaulted from the ring like a troupe of prize horses. Left in the ring with Moran was a squat boxer wearing shiny red satin tights and boots dyed the same color. He was of only average height and his legs seemed spindly, but above the waist he suddenly bulged out in a plinth of pure muscle topped with hardly any neck and a round head that looked as hard as a cannonball. He slowly raised his arms like a giant pair of horns, and his biceps bulged alarmingly.

  “Folks,” said Moran through the speaking trumpet, “I have the honor to introduce to you Professor Stanley Mott, the finest scientific boxer of his or any day. Just to start the evening off with a bang and spread some of my money around, I am going to offer to any gentleman in this audience one hundred dollars in gold just for staying in this ring with Professor Mott for only three short rounds. One hundred Federal dollars, gentlemen, in your hand! You don’t even have to hit the professor. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t! And he might not hit you. But the professor can hardly show his amazing pugilistic skills without an opponent, now can he?” The colonel looked around the ringside in a friendly manner.

  “Now who wants to earn one hundred dollars gold and show his lady friend his courage and skill?” he asked. “How about you, sir?” Moran’s finger snaked out and pointed at a large country boy wearing a cap and holding tight to a pretty blonde in a ground-sweeping dress. The girl looked up at him inquiringly, but the boy was already moving toward the ring, unbuttoning his collar as he went.

  “Now there’s a brave young man,” announced the colonel. “Give him a hand, everybody.”

  By the time the applause petered out, the country boy was stripped to the waist and sitting on a stool in one corner of the ring wearing boxing gloves. He’d already started looking not so happy to be there. In the opposite corner, Professor Mott leaned back against the ropes and steadily observed him.

  “Remember the rules now, young man,” Moran told him and the audience. “All you have to do is stay on your feet for a mere three rounds, and you will walk out of this ring with a hundred dollars to spend on your fair lady. Ready?”

  The country boy nodded uncertainly, and the bell sounded. Before the boy could even get to his feet, Mott was in the center of the ring in the classic boxing stance, set and waiting like a terrier outside a mouse hole. The bell rang again insistently, and someone from the crowd bawled, “Kill ’em, Jem!” The boy awkwardly got to his feet, raised his arms protectively, and shambled toward the professor.

  Mott waited alertly until their gloves nearly touched, and then sprang into action. As if sparring by himself, he danced all around the boy, throwing a brisk flurry of punches so fast that his gloves were a blur. Mott moved so speedily and so gracefully around the stone-still boy that the audience began to laugh. “Slow down, Jem!” cried a rowdy. “He can’t see you!” Color crept up Jem’s face, and just then—like a hummingbird hovering in front of an ox—the boxer came to a sudden halt in front of the boy. He leaned his chin tantalizingly close to Jem’s boxing gloves and smiled invitingly. Eventually, the impulse got from Jem’s brain to his arm, and he launched a roundhouse right. But Mott was suddenly gone, and Jem, thrown off balance by the velocity of his punch, nearly fell to the canvas-covered wooden platform. The crowd laughed, and Jem’s girl covered her face.

  It’s a good thing she did, because Professor Mott, tiring of punching plain air, began to repeat his display, this time using the boy as a target. In a sequence too rapid to calculate, his gloves beat a tattoo on the boy’s arms, shoulders, and chest that sounded like distant rain. They weren’t painful punches, but they were annoying, frustrating, and embarrassing. Jem couldn’t seem to do anything to stop them. If he put his gloves up, the professor beat on his stomach like a drum. If he dropped them, Mott delivered a rapid flurry of punches to the chest and shoulders that brought angry red blotches to his pale trunk. Jem was still thinking of what to do about this when the bell sounded.

  Moran had to lead him by the arm to the stool in the corner while Mott returned to his corner and leaned casually on the ropes. He was not even breathing hard.

  During the break, Jem got more advice from his friends in the crowd than he really needed. At the bell, he jumped up as if stung by a bee and raced toward the center of the ring, but Mott, without seeming to hurry, got there first. He waited for the boy like a matador would a bull. Paying no attention to the windmilling of Jem’s arms, the professor launched a rocket-straight right that met the boy’s onrushing chin with a crack.

  The boy stopped as if he’d hit a wall. His arms dropped, and his body seemed to sag in sections until his knees hit the canvas and threw his body forward, where he skidded to a halt, face down. The professor stood waiting, but there was nothing to wait for. Moran looked down at the prostrate boy with benign curiosity and then raised Mott’s arm without
bothering with the count.

  “In three seconds of the second round,” he announced, “another triumph by Professor Stanley Mott!” As the dazed boy was dragged from the ring, Moran inquired, “Any more challengers, ladies and gentlemen? Step right up!” The only answer was an abundant shaking of heads and a shuffling of feet as potential gladiators sought to rule themselves out as candidates.

  “I’m shocked, ladies and gentlemen, that there are no other local champions willing to test the skills of Professor Mott. I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll raise the prize money to two hundred dollars and lower the requirement to two rounds only. Surely I can do no more than that?” He looked keenly around the crowd. Temptation showed on a lot of faces, but no hand was raised.

  “I am disappointed,” Moran announced. “I thought better of Shreevesville and its mighty men.” He shook his large head sadly, but then, as if struck by inspiration, he said, “Tell you what, unless there are serious objections, I will open Professor Mott’s challenge to men of the African race.”

  A murmur ran through the crowd. “No nigger can face him!” called out a voice.

  The colonel’s eyebrows raced toward his hairline. “No?” he challenged. “Shall we just see? Are there any slave owners in the crowd willing to determine—for a prize of two hundred dollars, remember—whether one of their darkies can withstand the fistic talents of Professor Mott for a mere two rounds? Two short rounds.”

  Jardine and Caleb exchanged looks. Caleb shrugged, and Jardine’s arm shot up like a tollgate. “I’ve got a boy here!” he shouted.

  The crowd muttered doubtfully, but Moran jumped in. “Have you, sir? Well, send him up here.”

  “I will!” Jardine said loudly. “Caleb, get yourself up in that ring!”

  To Jardine’s surprise, Caleb responded in an equally loud but sullen voice, “Nossir! That little feller will kill me!”

  At that, the crowd took up hooting and hollering. “Kick his black ass up there!” someone suggested. “I’ll do it!” shouted another. All eyes were turned toward Jardine as the crowd wondered how he would handle this disobedience. The tent was suddenly hushed.

  “Caleb,” said Jardine sternly. “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes, Marse,” Caleb said, not meeting his eye. He stood with his head down and his shoulders hunched.

  “Do you see this crop? Do you?” Jardine’s voice was relentless as he raised his riding whip.

  Caleb raised his eyes reluctantly. “Yes, Marse.”

  “Well, I am going to wear it out on you if you are not up in that ring in about ten seconds. Now, get moving.”

  As if on strings, Caleb turned and slouched through the parting crowd. Jardine followed a step behind him, slapping the riding crop rhythmically on his open hand. When he got into the ring, Caleb stripped off his shirt and sat down to allow one of Moran’s men to lace up his gloves. When the man had finished, Jardine, who was standing outside the ring on the apron, whispered to Caleb.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “I think so, Master,” Caleb said with his eyes intent upon the lounging Mott.

  When Moran finished reminding the crowd of the terms of engagement, the bell sounded. Caleb got up slowly and looked around as if he didn’t know where he was.

  “For Christ’s sake,” hissed Jardine. “Here he comes.”

  As with the white boy he had just dismissed, the professor came at Caleb with a whirring blur of punches. But realizing that he had a round less to prove his point, Mott did not waste the punches on the air. He immediately began a brisk tattoo on Caleb’s body. The satisfying thump of leather hitting torso was greeted by cheers from the crowd.

  To the professor’s surprise, Caleb did not react. Cowering behind his arms and gloves, Caleb soaked up the blows without lowering his arms, ignoring the rattle of punches as if they were flea bites. The professor increased his speed, but the effect was the same. He simply could not lure Caleb either into punching back or lowering his defenses. No matter how fast Mott danced around him, Caleb managed to deny him a vulnerable target. Caleb had yet to throw a single punch.

  Realizing that he was in danger of looking silly, Mott redoubled his efforts and danced around Caleb like a mosquito looking for a soft place to sting, trying at the same time to make it look like an exhibition. Half the crowd marveled at his speed; the other half at Caleb’s apparent cowardice.

  “Come on, fight him, you booger!” shouted a local wit. Others started booing. “Knock him out, Prof!” came from several quarters.

  When, reluctantly, Moran rang the bell signaling the end of the first round, Mott, for the first time, sat down on the stool in his corner. “I can’t hit the black son of a bitch,” he panted. “And he won’t fight.”

  “You better hit him,” muttered Moran. “That’s my two hundred dollars on the line. Do anything you have to. Just put him down!”

  In Caleb’s corner, Jardine told him, “You’re looking pretty silly out there, Caleb. They all think you’re a coward.”

  “Isn’t that what we want, Master?” Caleb asked.

  “But don’t those punches hurt?”

  “Not two hundred dollars’ worth,” Caleb answered as the bell rang.

  In the second round, Professor Mott came out just as fiercely, wasting no time trying to get past Caleb’s defenses. Still dancing, he faked a left to the head and followed up with a low right that landed with a painful thump several inches below Caleb’s belt. Only by a slight twist of his hips did Caleb escape the full effect of the foul blow.

  A gasp went up from the crowd, and Jardine shouted angrily as Caleb, his face reflecting agony, lowered his guard for a fraction of a second. But before Mott could follow up, the slave slowly crumpled to the canvas-covered boards. Mott stood back with satisfaction, and Moran rushed out to begin the count.

  “Serves him right, the damned sissy,” called a boy from the crowd, but all around him boos started ringing out at the brazen nature of the foul. “Coward!” shouted a woman at Mott, but the professor just stood there with his eyes fixed on his writhing victim.

  “Three, four, five,” Moran counted.

  Jardine started to climb into the ring, but Caleb, through his pain, shook his head in warning.

  “Six, seven, eight,” Moran continued, not even bothering to rush the count, as he would have if he had been in doubt. The crowd was now yelling angrily, but he ignored them. He had weathered too many irate crowds over the years to be much bothered by this one.

  “Nine,” Moran started to reach for Mott’s hand, but Caleb was suddenly on his feet and back into his defensive shell. The crowd surged forward around the ring, and a score of hands grabbed hold of the apron and began to shake it. The sudden movement nearly threw Moran from his feet.

  Racing for his speaking trumpet, Moran raised it to his mouth.

  “Due to the danger of riot, I declare this bout—”

  But now the whole crowd was chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Their efforts were making the ring rock like the deck of a ship in a storm.

  Moran dropped the speaking trumpet, raised both arms in surrender, and shouted, “Fight on, gentlemen!”

  Caleb just stood there, but Mott leaped into a frenzy of action as he launched desperate punches at the big man. But nothing he did could get his punches through to Caleb’s head, and Mott dared not try another foul punch. He knew that the crowd was too aroused for that.

  “Fight, you black bastard!” Mott gritted through his teeth, but Caleb might have been a tree for all the response he got.

  Finally, when the round had gone well over three minutes, people in the crowd began to chant, “Time! Time! Time!” Several men held up their timepieces and gesticulated angrily.

  Ringing the bell, Moran waded into the ring, waved Mott off, raised Caleb’s hand, and shouted, “Due to a foul blow in the second round by Professor
Mott, I declare Caleb the winner!”

  The crowd exploded with cheers, the ring stopped rocking, and Jardine was quickly over the rope and holding out his hand for the two hundred dollars.

  The rest of the evening’s card of fights—blacks against blacks, whites against whites—were exciting enough, but none of them could eclipse the spectators’ wonder at the cowardice of the slave Caleb and the dirty fighting of the white Professor Mott. Many of the whites felt that it didn’t matter if the professor cheated. Awarding the victory—and the prize money—to Caleb, they reckoned, would give their blacks the wrong idea.

  40

  For the next couple of days, Caleb and Jardine lay low. Caleb, discovering that Professor Mott’s punches were not as painless as they had seemed the night before, spent an entire day in a straw bed over the stables with Caesar bringing food and unsought advice.

  “Had been me, Caleb,” Caesar said, “I’d have walloped that professor, white man or not.”

  “Sure you would have, Caesar,” Caleb said. Even though Mott had got nowhere near his jaw, it hurt Caleb even to eat. He could only lie there and wish that he’d thought to bring a book from Three Rivers. Finally, as much to get rid of Caesar as anything, Caleb sent him out to scour Shreevesville for a newspaper some white visitor might have thrown away. Caesar came back with six, though he had to run half the way back to escape a crowd of white boys who accused him of stealing the papers.

  With his stomach full—if still painful—Caleb lay back and read the papers in the light streaming through the high opening where hay was hoisted into the loft. A big headline in a week-old copy of the New Orleans Picayune proclaimed, “Politicians Desperately Seek to Avoid Coming Civil War.”

  Jardine, as befitted a man whose fighter has disgraced himself even while winning two hundred dollars, stayed well away from the hotel and taverns where the boxing crowd congregated. He didn’t see the Picayune headline, but talk among the locals and visitors from the fair was about little else. Most still thought that war could be avoided and were counting on support from England and other European powers to allay the Yankee taste for confrontation.