Collection 1999 - Beyond The Great Snow Mountains (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  Marge was my girl. We met right after I mustered out, when I first returned to Zenith. She was singing at the Rococo, and a honey if there ever was one. We started going together, became engaged, and were going to marry in the summer.

  I had to take the fight. That was more the truth of it.

  I went over to Lanning’s. Duck Miller was there. We talked.

  “Then,” Lanning said, smiling his greasy smile, “there’s the matter of an appearance forfeit.”

  “What d’you mean?” I asked. “Ever know of me running out on a fight?”

  He moved one pudgy hand over to the ashtray and knocked off the gray ashes from his expensive cigar. “It ain’t that, Danny,” he said smoothly, “it’s just business. Van’s already got his up to five thousand dollars.”

  “Five thousand?” I couldn’t believe what I heard. “Where would I get five thousand dollars? If I had five thousand you would never get me within a city block of any of your fights.”

  “That’s what it has to be,” he replied, and his eyes got small and ugly. He liked putting the squeeze on. “You can put up your car an’ your stock from the ranch.”

  For a minute I stared at him. He knew what that meant as well as I did. It would mean that come snakes or high water, I would have to be in that ring to fight Ludlow. If I wasn’t, I’d be flat broke, not a thing in the world but the clothes on my back.

  Not that I’d duck a fight. But there are such things as cut eyes and sickness.

  “Okay,” I said, “I’ll put ’em up. But I’m warnin’ you. Better rig this one good. Because I’m going to get you!”

  I wasn’t the bragging kind, and I saw Duck Miller looked a little worried. Duck was smart enough, just weak. He liked the easy dough, and the easy money in Zenith all came through Mark Lanning. Lanning was shrewd and confident. He had been winning a long time. Duck Miller had never won, so Miller could worry.

  The thing was, Miller knew me. There had been a time when Duck and I had been broke together. We ran into some trouble out West when a tough mob tried to arrange one of my fights to make a cleanup. I refused to go along, and they said it was take the money or else.

  Me, I’m a funny guy. I don’t like getting pushed around, and I don’t like threats. In that one, everybody had figured the fight would go the distance. This guy was plenty tough. Everybody figured me for the nod, but nobody figured he would stop me or I’d stop him. The wise boys had it figured for me to go in the tank in the sixth round.

  I came to that fight all rodded up. They figure a fighter does it with his hands or no way. But these hombres forgot I’m a western man myself, and didn’t figure on me packing some iron.

  Coming out of the Arizona Strip, the way I do, I grew up with a gun. So I came down to that fight, and when this Rock Spenter walked out of his corner I feinted a left and Rock threw a right. My right fist caught him coming in, and my left hook caught him falling. And at the ten count, he hadn’t even wiggled a toe.

  I went down the aisle to the dressing room on the run, and when the door busted open, I was sitting on the rubbing table with a six-shooter in my mitt. Those three would-be hard guys turned greener than a new field of alfalfa, and then I tied two of them up, put the gun down, and went to work on the boss.

  When I got through with him, I turned the others loose one at a time. Two of them were hospital cases. By that time the sheriff was busting down the door.

  That old man had been betting on me, and when I explained, he saw the light very quickly. The sure-thing boys got stuck for packing concealed weapons, and one of them turned out to be wanted for armed robbery and wound up with ten years.

  I’m not really bragging. I’m not proud of some of the circles I’ve traveled in or some of the things I’ve done. But I just wanted you to know what Duck Miller knew. And Duck may have been a loser, but he never lost anything but money. So far, he was still a stand-up guy.

  When I had closed the door I heard Duck speak. “You shouldn’t have done it, Mark,” he said. “He won’t take a pushing around.”

  “Him?” Contempt was thick in Lanning’s voice. “He’ll take it, and he’ll like it!”

  Would I? I walked out of there and I was sore. But that day, for the first time in months, I was in the gym.

  The trouble was, I’d been in the service, spent my time staring through a barbed-wire fence in a part of Korea that was like Nevada with the heat turned off, and during that time I’d done no boxing. Actually, it was over three years since I’d had a legitimate scrap.

  Van Ludlow had a busted eardrum or something and he had been fighting all the time. It takes fights to sharpen a man up, and they knew that. Don’t think they didn’t. They wanted me in the tank or out of the picture, but bad. Not that Van cared. Ludlow, like I said, was a fighter. He didn’t care where his opponent came from or what he looked like.

  Marge was waiting for me, sitting in her car in front of the Primrose Cafe. We locked the car and went inside and when we were sitting in the booth, she smiled at me.

  Marge was a blonde, and a pretty one. She was shaped to please and had a pair of eyes you could lose yourself in. Except for one small thing, she was perfect. There was just a tiny bit of hardness around her mouth. It vanished when she smiled, and that was often.

  “How was it?” she asked me.

  “Rough,” I said. “I’m fighting Van in ninety days. Also,” I added, “he made me post an appearance forfeit. I had to put it up, and it meant mortgaging my car and my stock on the ranch.”

  “He’s got you, hasn’t he?” Marge asked.

  I smiled then. It’s always easy to fight when you’re backed in a corner and there’s only one way out.

  “No,” I said, “he hasn’t got me. The trouble with these smart guys, they get too sure of themselves. Duck Miller is a smarter guy than Lanning.”

  “Duck?” Marge was amazed. “Why, he’s just a stooge!”

  “Yeah, I know. But I’ll lay you five to one he’s got a little dough in the bank, and well, he’ll never wind up in stir. Lanning will.”

  “Why do you say that?” Marge asked quickly. “Have you got something on him?”

  “Uh-uh. But I’ve seen his kind before.”

  Like I say, I went to the gym that day. The next, too. I did about eight rounds of light work each of those two days. When I wanted to box, on the third day, there wasn’t anybody to work with. There were a dozen guys of the right size around, but they were through working, didn’t want to box that day, or weren’t feeling good. It was a runaround.

  If I’d had money, I could have imported some boys and worked at the ranch, but I didn’t. However, there were a couple of big boys out there who had fooled with the mitts some, and I began to work with them. Several times Duck Miller dropped by, and I knew he was keeping an eye on me for Lanning. This work wasn’t doing me any good. I knew it, and he knew it.

  Marge drove out on the tenth day in a new canary-colored coupe. One of those sleek convertible jobs. She had never looked more lovely. She watched me work, and when I went over to lean on the door, she looked at me.

  “This won’t get it, Danny,” she said. “These hicks aren’t good enough for you.”

  “I know,” I said honestly, “but I got a plan.”

  “What is it?” she asked curiously.

  “Maybe a secret,” I told her.

  “From me?” she pouted. “I like to know everything about you, Danny.”

  She did all right. Maybe it was that hardness around her mouth. Or put it down that I’m a cautious guy. I brushed it off, and although she came back to the subject twice, I slipped every question like they were lefthand leads. And that night, I had Joe, my hand from the ranch, drive me down to Cartersville, and there I caught a freight.

  The Greater American Shows were playing country fairs through the Rocky Mountain and prairie states. I caught up with them three days after leaving the ranch. Old Man Farley was standing in front of the cook tent when I walked up. He took one look an
d let out a yelp.

  “No names, Pop,” I warned. “I’m Bill Banner, a ham an’ egg pug, looking for work. I want a job in your athletic show, taking on all comers.”

  “Are you crazy?” he demanded, low voiced. “Danny McClure, you’re the greatest middleweight since Ketchell, an’ you want to work with a carnival side-show?”

  Briefly, I explained the pitch. “Well,” he said, “you won’t find much competition, but like you say, you’ll be fightin’ every night, tryin’ all the time. Buck’s on the show, too. He’d like to work with you.”

  Almost fifteen years before, a husky kid, just off a cow ranch in the Strip, I’d joined the Greater American in Las Vegas. Buck Farley, the old man’s kid, soon became my best pal.

  An ex-prizefighter on the show taught us to box, and in a few weeks they started me taking on all comers. I stayed with the show two years and nine months, and in that time must have been in the ring with eight or nine hundred men.

  Two, three, sometimes four a night wanted to try to pick up twenty-five bucks by staying four rounds. When I got up twenty-five bucks by staying four rounds. When I got better, the show raised it to a hundred. Once in a while we let them stay, but that was rare, and only when the crowd was hot and we could pack them in for the rest of the week by doing it.

  When I moved on, I went pro and had gone to the top. After three years, I was ranking with the first ten. A couple of years later I was called the uncrowned champ.

  “Hi, Bill!” Buck Farley had been tipped off before he saw me. “How’s it going?”

  Buck was big. I could get down to one sixty, but Buck would be lucky to make one ninety, and he was rawboned and tough. Buck Farley had always been a hand with the gloves, so I knew I had one good, tough sparring partner.

  That night was my first sideshow fight in a long time. Old Man Farley was out front for the ballyhoo and he made it good. Then, I don’t have any tin ears. My nose has been broken, but was fixed up and it doesn’t show too much. A fighter would always pick me for a scrapper, but the average guy rarely does, so there wasn’t any trouble getting someone to come up.

  The first guy was a copper miner. A regular hardrock boy who was about my age and weighed about two hundred and twenty. The guy’s name was Mantry.

  When we got in the ring, the place was full.

  “Maybe you better let me take it,” Buck suggested, “you might bust a hand on this guy.”

  “This is what I came for,” I said. “I’ve got to take them as they come.”

  * * *

  THEY SOUNDED THE bell and this gorilla came out with a rush. He was rawboned and rugged as the shoulder of a mountain. He swung a wicked left, and I slid inside and clipped him with two good ones in the wind. I might as well have slugged the side of a battleship.

  He bulled on in, letting them go with both hands. I caught one on the ear that shook me to my heels and the crowd roared. Mantry piled on in, dug a left into my body and slammed another right to the head. I couldn’t seem to get working and circled away from him. Then I stabbed a left to his mouth three times and he stopped in his tracks and looked surprised.

  He dropped into a half crouch, this guy had boxed some, and he bored in, bulling me into the ropes. He clipped me there and my knees sagged and then I came up, mad as a hornet with a busted nest. I stabbed a left to his mouth that made those others seem like brushing him with a feather duster and hooked a right to his ear that jarred him for three generations. I walked in, slamming them with both hands, and the crowd began to whoop it up.

  His knees wilted and he started to sag. This was too good to end, so I grabbed him and shoved him into the ropes, holding him up and fighting with an appearance of hard punching until the bell rang.

  Mantry looked surprised, but walked to his corner, only a little shaky. He knew I’d held him up, and he was wondering why. He figured me for a good guy who was taking him along for the ride.

  When we came out he took it easy, whether from caution or because I’d gone easy on him, I couldn’t tell. I stabbed a left to his mouth that left him undecided about that, then stepped in close. I wanted a workout, and had to get this guy back in line.

  “What’s a matter, chump?” I whispered. “You yella?”

  He went hog wild and threw one from his heels that missed my chin by the flicker of an eyelash. Then he clipped me with a roundhouse right and I went back into the ropes and rebounded with both hands going. He was big and half smart and he bored in, slugging like crazy.

  Mister, you should have heard the tent! You could hear their yells for a half mile, and people began crowding around the outside to see what was going on. Naturally, that didn’t hurt the old man’s feelings.

  Me, I like a fight, and so did this Mantry. We walked out there and slugged it toe-to-toe. What I had on him in experience and savvy, he had in weight, strength, and height. Of course, I’d never let old Mary Ann down the groove yet.

  The crowd was screaming like a bunch of madmen. I whipped a right uppercut to Mantry’s chin and he slumped, and then I drove a couple of stiff ones into his wind. The bell rang again and I trotted back to my corner.

  The third was a regular brannigan. I dropped about half my science into the discard because this was the most fun I’d had in months. We walked out there and went into it and it would have taken a smarter guy than any in that crowd to have seen that I was slipping and riding most of Mantry’s hardest punches. He teed off my chin with a good one that sent up a shower of sparks, and when the round ended, I caught him with two in the wind.

  Coming up for the fourth, I figured here is where I let him have it. After all, Farley was paying one hundred bucks if this guy went the distance. I sharpened up in this one. I didn’t want to cut the guy. He was a right sort, and I liked him. So I walked out and busted him a couple in the wind that brought a worried expression to his face. Then I went under his left and whammed a right to the heart that made him back up a couple of steps. He shot two fast lefts to the head and one to the chin, then tried a right.

  I stepped around, feinted with a left, and he stepped in and I let Mary Ann down the groove. Now you can box or you can slug but there’s none out there that can do both at once. A fighter’s style is usually one or the other. Boxing will win you points and it’ll keep you from getting hit too much, but slugging puts them on the canvas. The only problem is you have to stop boxing for an instant and plant your feet to do it. It’s in that instant that you can get hit badly, if your opponent is on the ball. Mantry took the feint, however, and that was the end of him.

  It clipped him right on the button and he stood there for a split second and then dropped like he’d been shot through the heart.

  I walked back to my corner and Buck looked at me. “Man,” his eyes were wide, “what did you hit him with?”

  When the count was over, I went over and picked the guy up.

  “Lucky punch!” one of the townies was saying. “The big guy had it made until he clipped him!”

  When Mantry came around, I slapped him on the shoulder. “Nice fight, guy! Let’s go back an’ dress.

  “Pop,” I said when we were dressing, “slip the guy ten bucks a round. He made a fight.”

  Pop Farley knew a good thing when he saw it. “Sure enough.” He paid the big guy forty dollars, who looked from me to Pop like we were Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. “Why don’t you come back an’ try it again?” Pop suggested.

  “I might,” Mantry said, “I might at that!”

  That was the beginning. In the following sixty days, I boxed from four to twelve rounds a night, fighting miners, lumberjacks, cowpunchers, former Golden Glove boys, Army fighters, anything that came along. Mantry came back twice, and I cooled him twice more, each one a brawl.

  Those sixty days had put me in wonderful condition. I was taking care of myself, not catching many, and tackling the varied styles was sharpening me up. Above all, every contest was a real fight, not practice. Even an easy fight keeps a man on his toes, and a fighte
r of strength can often be awkwardly dangerous if he knows a little. And every one of these men was trying.

  Buck knew all about my troubles. He was working with me every day, and we had uncovered a good fast welter on the show who had quit fighting because of a bad hand. The light, fast work was good for me.

  “It won’t go this easy,” Buck told me. “I heard about Mark Lanning. He’s dangerous. If he intends to clear the way to the title, he’ll not rest until he knows where you are, and just what you’re doin’.”

  Later, I heard about it. I didn’t know then. Buck Farley had voiced my own thoughts, and in a different way, they were the thoughts of Mark Lanning and Duck Miller.

  “Well,” Lanning had said, “if he’s taken a powder he’s through. Might be the best way at that, but I hate to think of him gettin’ away without a beatin’, and I hate to think of blowin’ the money we’d win on the fight.”

  “He ain’t run out,” Duck said positively. “I know that guy. He’s smart. He’s got something up his sleeve. What happened to him?”

  “We traced him to Cartersville,” Gasparo said. Gasparo was Lanning’s pet muscle man. “He bought a ticket there for Butte. Then he vanished into thin air.”

  It was Marge Hamlin who tipped them off. I found that out later, too. I hadn’t written her, but she was no dumb Dora, not that babe. She was in a dentist’s office, waiting to get a tooth filled, when she saw the paper. It was a daily from a jerkwater town in Wyoming.

  Carnival Fighter to Meet Pat Daly

  Bill Banner, middleweight sharpie who has been a sensation in the Greater American Shows these past two months, has signed to meet Pat Daly, a local light-heavyweight, in the ten-round main event on Friday’s card.

  Banner, a welcome relief from the typical carnie stumblebum, has been creating a lot of talk throughout the Far West with his series of thrilling knockouts over local fighters. Pop Farley, manager and owner of Greater American, admits the opposition has been inexperienced, but points to seventy-six knockouts as some evidence. One of these was over Tom Bronson, former AAU champ, another over Ace Donaldson, heavyweight champion of Montana.