by Jack Tunney
It was a lonely feeling, being left behind with the beautiful daughter who didn’t really know I existed. I stood there with an empty plate and fidgeted, hoping her eyes didn’t mow me down while we waited. She finally did the right thing and excused herself before any of my awkwardness could rub off on her.
General Slaughter led the two cadets a few steps away, to a secluded spot beside the fireplace. He spoke to them for a short moment, giving side-nods toward his daughter and using his hands a lot. Both cadets looked on in the singularly rapt attention you give a three-star. At length, the general stepped away to speak with some passing dignitary – and that’s when things got animated. Santini did most of the talking with Hunt listening and nodding like a dutiful subordinate. But I knew Nick and could tell from the way he kept his right foot cocked back a little that he was envisioning punching Santini in the beak.
“What was that all about?” I asked when Hunt made his way back.
“She likes us,” he said.
“Both of you?”
“Yep,” Hunt said. Apparently, he’d used up most of his words for the night.
“She wants both of you to take her to the dance?”
“No.” Hunt chuckled, shaking his head. “Just one.”
“And the general wanted to make sure you behave like gentlemen?”
“Exactly.” His gaze followed Brooke as she moved, stalked really, across the crowded room to disappear through a side door into the Slaughter’s private residence.
If my hair wasn’t already short I would have started pulling it out. “How are you going to decide who gets to go with her?”
Hunt’s eyes darted back to me, looking as if the answer was all so obvious.
“In the ring,” he said.
My hopes for Hunt to win a date with the general’s daughter fell like a sack of bricks. “Man oh man, have you seen Santini fight?”
“Of course,” Hunt said, yawning a little.
“Why couldn’t you decide this with something simple like Rock, Paper, Scissors?”
Hunt grinned. “Didn’t think of it,” he said, speaking his last words of the evening.
#
At weigh-in for the Friday Night Fights, Scott Santini tipped the scales at 176 to Hunt’s 177 – both nudging the top end of their light heavyweight class. Weigh-in here at the Blue Zoo is absent the media circus of a professional event, but it still provides ample chance for trash talk. Of course, you have to actually talk for that to occur, so I didn’t expect much from Hunt.
Santini stepped off the scale, sneering as only an upperclassman can sneer. “Seriously? They’re billing you as Nick ‘The Specimen’ Hunt?” he scoffed, throwing a towel around his shoulders. “Sounds like a cup of piss.”
“And vinegar.” Hunt grinned, unruffled. Combatants now, he dispensed with the formalities of rank.
Santini smirked. “Three rounds, two minutes each…” His high forehead wrinkled. Gray eyes glared below the superman curl. If he were a dog it would have been a snarl. “That’ll be plenty of time.”
“Indeed,” Hunt said.
Geez, I wanted to be as cool as this guy when I was an old man like him.
Santini shook his head like some teenager who’d been assigned to pick up dog crap in the yard. “Let’s get this done.”
Our coach, Air Force Captain Johnny Rodriquez, gave Hunt a few last minute pointers while the cadet announcer introduced the fighters.
Unlike professional bouts, collegiate boxers wear jerseys and headgear – though the chin and beak still offer prominent targets. Santini was in white – I started calling him Cadet Captain Satan in my head. Hunt wore Academy blue.
It was hit or miss with Friday Night Fights. We usually had decent showing of cadets and maybe a handful of other spectators. Santini and Hunt were the third event of the evening – unofficially billed as a grudge match between an upperclassman and a freshman – Firstie versus Smack. The bleachers were packed, mostly with doolies, who hoped to see their tormentor pummeled into the canvas.
As the Superintendent’s daughter, Brooke Slaughter got one of the folding chairs as close to ringside as you could get in the East gym. Golden hair pulled back over one ear, she looked even better than the night before. I wondered if she knew these guys were fighting over her. She’d seemed appropriately enthralled and shocked with the two earlier contests, covering her eyes to peek from between splayed fingers, but never turning away. For some reason General Slaughter was absent – which was understandable. He did have an academy to run.
Brooke clapped for Santini when he entered the ring but when Nick stepped through the ropes she stood and shouted something. The cheers of hundreds of doolies along the wall drowned out any noise she could make. It was easy to see who her champion was, but if either fighter noticed, they didn’t show it.
I once tried to explain to my mom how boxing could go hand in glove with engineering and other academic studies here at the Academy. How the sweet science was more like chess than most people realized… I’m glad my mom didn’t get to watch this particular fight.
Santini danced out of his corner from the bell, pressing a more sedate Nick around the ring. As much as I didn’t like the firstie, I had to admit, Santini was fast. I counted three jabs that caught Nick square in the face within the first ten seconds of the round. Nick faded back a hair with each punch, rolling but not quite getting out of the way. His punches were powerful things, but were a fraction of a second too slow to catch the bobbing and weaving Santini.
Santini stung Nick good with a half a dozen more jabs and a couple of pretty decent right crosses before the end of first round. Nick Hunt had a chin like an anvil, but a good chin wouldn’t matter if the other guy outscored him. Santini was well ahead in points at the bell and still dancing around like he was trying to wear out his shoes.
“What are you doing out there, son,” Coach Rodriquez said after I’d put the stool in the ring and Nick sat down. “You’re standing like some Rock-em-Sock-em Robot while he’s flitting around like Ali!”
Nick’s shoulders rose and fell. He took a sip of water, but as per usual, didn't waste his breath on words. Across the ring, Santini sat back on his stool, grinning like he’d already won.
I got the warning and tapped Nick on the elbow. He stood, arms down, waiting for the bell.
Santini skipped in quickly and started dishing out wicked jabs in chapter two of the same damn book. Nick got some good licks in and scored a few points. I held my breath when I saw him set up Santini for a good uppercut that would have knocked his headgear into the rafters, but the upperclassman saw it coming and turned his body to let the blow slip by, just a whisker in front of his face. In close now, Santini followed up with a quick series of machine gun punches to the body like he was working the heavy bag. Nick was able to pummel him back, but not without catching an overhand left hook in the side of the head that wobbled him good.
“Nickie!” Brooke screamed, her voice barely audible above the collective moan of the disappointed freshmen.
Seriously? Had she just called my friend Nickie?
Nick heard her and turned ever so slightly to catch another two jabs in the beak from Santini. He was able to cover up and avoid the worst of it, but Santini still loaded up the points. My heart sank, not so much because Nick wouldn't get the girl – she’d just called him Nickie, after all. That seemed pretty forward since they had exchanged no more than two-dozen words – and two of those were “oopsie.” Like every freshman in the room, I was just hoping to see Cadet Captain Santini get a little spoonful of comeuppance at the hand of Grandpa Nick Hunt. It would have made all the pushups and corrections easier to bear.
Nick took a seat on the stool at the next bell, staring at the mat while the coach offered half-hearted advice. Santini had him by more than double the points.
When the break was nearly over, Nick held up a glove and looked over his shoulder at the coach. He was flushed and glistening with sweat. A bruise had started to form u
nder his left eye. His face was passive, a stone wall.
“He’s never been in a real fight,” Nick said.
“Maybe so, son,” Rodriquez chuckled, “but he’s done this a time or two and he happens to be kicking your ass in points.”
Nick breathed deeply. “Ninety seconds,” he said.
I got the warning and slipped the mouthpiece back in Nick’s teeth.
“What’s ninety seconds?” I muttered, more to myself than anything.
He looked over his shoulder as the bell rang. “A real fight,” he said around the mouthpiece then charged out to meet Santini.
Nick got two good left-right-left combos in before Santini realized he was fighting a completely different man. Rather that standing still and throwing powerful punches that hardly ever connected, Nick Hunt took his fight on the road, chasing Cadet Captain Santini around the ring with a flurry of hooks and crosses that had the same effect as holding the other fighter’s head underwater.
I couldn’t help thinking that Nick had been a lump of stone during the first two rounds, but Santini had knocked enough rock to sculpt a perfect boxer by ten seconds into Round Three.
The freshman in the crowd went crazy – like they were about to graduate or something. I could hear Brooke Slaughter screaming “Nickie!” from ringside, among chants of “Gramps! Gramps! Gramps!”
And the beat down continued. Hunt went from two rounds as a slow George Foreman to ninety seconds of Rocky Marciano on a double espresso. He swarmed over a retreating Santini, showering him with solid crosses and hooks. It must have felt like a never-ending car wreck. Santini covered his body so Hunt attacked the head. When he covered his head, Hunt pounded his body, driving the wind from his lungs and thumping him with a powerful hook to the heart. Staggered, Santini dropped his guard enough that Nick sent him a following uppercut. It lifted the firstie off his feet.
Santini landed on his butt – then fell sideways, doing a little Curly Shuffle on the mat while he tried to stand with only one functioning leg.
I found myself wishing Santini would get up so Nick could hit him for a few more seconds. But he was done. Once the ref made sure Santini was no worse for wear, he held Nick’s hand in the air, declaring him the winner.
“Where’d that come from?” I draped a towel around my friend’s shoulders. “Never mind,” I said. “I don’t care. You can take Brooke Slaughter to her dance now, get married someday and make lots of blond babies.”
Gramps Hunt took a sip of water. “I’m not the one taking her out,” he said between heavy breaths.
“But you won.”
Hunt nodded. “I did,” he said. “That’s why I’m not taking her out. Santini’s correct. I don't have time for dances and he doesn’t either.”
“Ah,” I said, finally letting it sink in. “But who can say no to the general’s daughter…”
“Yep,” Hunt said.
“Does General Slaughter know about your arrangement?”
Hunt cringed. “I hope not.”
I looked over at a dejected Santini – our captain, our leader, our mentor, the mean kid with the magnifying glass burning our butts under the sun.
“He’s gonna be pissed,” I said. “And he’s gonna take it out on us.”
“Yeah,” Nick Hunt said, uncharacteristically gabby. An ocean of adoring freshman had flooded the gym floors, pressing against the ring. Thankfully, they kept Brooke Slaughter at bay. He leaned in close so only I could hear him. “But he has to go to a dance with a girl that spent the last six minutes screaming my name.”
MARC CAMERON
Marc Cameron is a retired Chief Deputy US Marshal and 29-year law enforcement veteran. His short stories have appeared in BOYS’ LIFE Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post.
Time of Attack, fourth in his USA Today Bestselling Jericho Quinn Thriller series, is his latest release from Kensington February of 2014.
Marc lives in Alaska with his beautiful bride and BMW motorcycle.
ON THE WEB:
www.marccameronbooks.com
http://www.facebook.com/MarcCameronAuthor
ROUND 9
COWBOY IN THE RING
NIK MORTON
CHICAGO, 1927
Hollis Twyford sat on the stool in his corner of the ring, glistening sweat streaming off his body, his auburn hair dark and lank. Sammy’s wafting of the towel was ineffective, as was his advice: “Watch his left hook, Holly. It’s claimed ten wannabes this year already.”
“Thanks, Sammy, I’ll remember that.” Hollis shook his head. Mountain Morgan kept coming, no matter how hard he landed his punches. The guy must be made of concrete. At least his feet were, judging by his slow plod across the canvas, so maybe my punches were having some effect, after all.
The bell rang. Sammy re-inserted the mouth-guard. Seconds out.
Hunched shoulders, chin into chest, gloves up, Hollis approached the center of the ring.
Morgan moved slowly, ponderously. The crowd was going berserk, swearing at him to get a move on, yet he ignored them, his narrowed dark eyes focused on Hollis. Killer’s eyes. He’d brain-damaged two opponents and hospitalized three more, one of whom subsequently died.
It had been a mountain to climb to get this far, Hollis reflected. Now he was facing the mountain – the last bout before he’d get a crack at Seamus O’Donnell. That was the big one, the big purse. That one got him in the record books.
When it came, Morgan’s left hook was telegraphed and Hollis easily ducked it. Too late, he realized it was a blind, while the right connected viciously with his cheek-bone, sent him staggering to the ropes. Covering up, elbows in, hands held high to protect his head, Hollis felt the blows hammer into his gloves and forearms, each one like an iron rod slamming his bones, threatening to break them. His next opponent’s nickname was “The Bone Grinder” – maybe they’d got mixed up at the weigh-in?
Damn the crowd, they loved it. Cheered and jeered. No prizes for guessing who they jeered.
Where the hell was the ref?
He was used to pain, but this was too much all at once. It shouldn’t be happening on the ropes. For a fleeting lucid moment, Hollis wondered if the ref was bought. That made felling this mountain even tougher.
Finally, after Hollis reckoned he’d been hit a good ten times – with each stonewalling fist – the referee broke them apart, and gave Hollis a count of eight to get his breath back. Actually, it wasn’t his lungs he was worried about, it was his heart. It was pumping so hard, he feared it would burst. If Morgan had connected with his chest or ribs, he reckoned it would’ve been all over. Fight stopped on the ropes in the fifth.
The referee signaled for the contest to continue.
Only thing for it was to attack, use speed.
The fickle crowd cheered him as his piston jabs slammed into Morgan’s temple, ribs, shoulders, and nose. At each counter-attack, Hollis danced out of the way, with seconds to spare, sensing the rush of air past his face as those massive gloves missed by fractions of inches.
Now he was worried about his lungs. His ribs and chest ached. He needed good clean air, not the muck that filled the ring. Cigar and cigarette smoke and stale sweat clogged his nostrils. He eyed his opponent and smiled. The dark red trickle signified that Morgan’s nostrils were also clogged, but with blood. That nose hit had done some damage.
Morgan came close a couple of times, tried to get him in a clinch, but Hollis shrugged him off and delivered a devastating blow in retaliation. Morgan’s knees looked unsteady. A few more punches and–
The bell.
Returning to his corner, Hollis rotated his arms and unkinked his shoulder muscles. By rights, he reckoned he should be ahead on points. He sat, let Sammy remove his mouth-guard and then he guzzled the proffered water from a bottle; the liquid hardly touched the sides of his throat.
“You can’t rely on points, Holly, old son. You’ve gotta go for the knockout.”
Hollis nodded. “I need a bulldozer, not these fists.”
> Sammy ran a hand over his head. “He’s gettin’ weak at the knees, you see that?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Well, plant a Holly and an Ivy on him and he’ll buckle.”
Holly and Ivy – Sammy’s names for his quick left-right to the head. “Yeah, why didn’t I think of that, Sammy?”
Sammy thrust the mouth-guard in. “Because I’m your trainer and you’re the pug, son.”
Hollis stood, ready to do some planting.
***
Sitting behind the radio commentators’ desk, Logan Reid jotted notes in his pad. He’d divested himself of his jacket and tie and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He never got used to the heat of this place. Too many bodies crushed into a confined space. Too much smoke when he was trying to give up the weed. Sure, he would write an unbiased report, but he was really rooting for Twyford. He’d done his research on the twenty-two-year-old boxer and thought it would make a good story – after the guy had defeated Seamus O’Donnell. For now, he must sit tight on it and wait to see how this bout panned out. He cringed as Morgan landed a right fist against Hollis Twyford’s rib-cage. He saw Hollis’ eyes start. That must have hurt real bad.
But then Hollis seemed to switch gear and counter-attacked, landing a thick flurry of left-right hooks.
The crowd was deafening.
Two successive punches, left then right jarred against Morgan’s chin and the mountain toppled.
Logan’s hearing went walkabout. Mouths moved, but he heard nothing. His pulse raced. His heart was somewhere in his gullet. He didn’t care.
Against the odds, Hollis Twyford had defeated Mountain Morgan!
***
“You know we don’t talk to the press straight after a fight, Mr. Reid,” Little Sammy said, his bulk blocking the locker room doorway.
Little Sammy was six-two and weighed in at three hundred pounds. Go figure. Some kind of Robin Hood joke, Logan suspected. Probably wore a mite thin for big guys like Little Sammy. Still, that was his problem.