‘How long do I have?’ Horace said and got up.
‘Maybe an hour at the most. You should be warming up. Where’s Ruiz?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Horace.
‘Well, I better leave before he comes. He’ll blow a gasket if he sees me. He called two days ago, drunk, and forbid me to be around you today.’ He laughed. ‘So I won’t see you after the fight, but I’ll call you soon. Good luck, Hector. Don’t go toe-to-toe with him. And start warming up, okay?’
Horace nodded and Diego left the room. He used the toilet, dunked his head in the sink, did a long series of stretches and began shadow-boxing while looking in the mirror. He broke a sweat and then changed into his trunks and put on his boxing shoes. A few minutes after, Ruiz came into the dressing room. ‘I’ve been looking all over for you,’ he said, out of breath.
‘Don’t say that. I’ve been right here,’ Horace said.
Ruiz had spaghetti stains on his shirt and he smelled of beer and garlic. ‘We don’t have a lot of time and we have a lot of work to do.’ He opened a satchel with his supplies. ‘You know, there’s no parking close to the casino. I had to walk a half a mile. You’d think they’d have special parking for us, but they don’t. I bet you Figueroa’s people got a stack of parking passes.’ Ruiz began taping Horace’s hands. ‘You nervous?’
‘Some.’
‘You’ll be alright. Just don’t get wrapped up in a brawl with him and it’ll be a good fight.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Did you eat?’
‘A couple hours ago.’
‘Good,’ Ruiz said. ‘You’re a tough kid. Raymundo Figueroa is gonna get his head handed to him a few times.’
‘You really think so?’ Horace said.
‘Sure,’ Ruiz replied. ‘He’ll find out.’
*
When he walked into the auditorium, it was nearly full. People were coming and going from their seats and music boomed from the loudspeakers. He entered the ring and no one seemed to notice or care, and then, minutes later, Raymundo Figueroa entered wearing a glittery black robe with silver trim. People cheered and yelled things in Spanish. His hair was short and black, he was dark-skinned and handsome, and he wore black-and-silver trunks. He kneeled in the corner of the ring, crossed himself and prayed. Ruiz put in Horace’s mouth guard and Horace began bouncing around.
‘Calm down!’ Ruiz yelled from the corner. ‘Hector, you gotta calm down.’
But he couldn’t calm down. His heart raced with more adrenaline than he could ever remember having. And then Raymundo Figueroa’s corner man put in his mouth guard, the referee called the boxers together, their names were announced, and the fight began.
Within the first minute Horace was against the ropes getting hammered with combinations. Figueroa’s punches came with such speed that Horace couldn’t see them, he could only feel them. He tried to get away but couldn’t, and when he attempted to counter he’d miss and Figueroa would nail him in the opening. The round went by in a flash. It was all too much. But what became clear as Horace sat on the stool was that Raymundo Figueroa’s punches didn’t hurt – he didn’t have power.
The second round came and again Figueroa pressured. He hit Horace with a half-dozen clean body shots and then connected four hard shots to Horace’s face, re-injuring his right eye. But Horace continued to move and tried to counter. And then, finally, with thirty seconds left in the round, he got off two combinations that surprisingly shook Figueroa. The whole auditorium erupted.
The bell rang and Horace walked back to his corner, his right eye closing and his ribs again hurting. Raymundo Figueroa’s punches didn’t bother him one by one – it was just that he threw so many of them, and so quickly. It was taking its toll. Ruiz stood over him, yelling and putting Vaseline on his face. He gave him water and checked his injured eye, all the while chewing Nicorette gum.
The third round began and again Horace was overwhelmed. Two minutes in, he’d only thrown six punches, all of them missing. Figueroa cornered Horace and attacked his head. But Figueroa was growing sloppy and overconfident, and Horace caught him with a kidney shot that was as hard a punch as he’d ever thrown. Figueroa stumbled back and Horace pressured and landed two more in the same area, and with those he could feel Figueroa starting to slow, he could feel Figueroa becoming wary of him.
In the fourth, Figueroa caught him with a hard shot to his bad eye. Horace took the punch and countered with a body shot that nearly dropped Figueroa. In the fifth, he took nothing but punishment and Figueroa’s punches began to hurt. In the sixth, Figueroa cornered Horace and unloaded a barrage of combinations, but Horace didn’t freeze, he just got himself out of trouble and waited, and then got Figueroa with two hard body shots, and Figueroa barely survived the round. In the seventh, he took nothing but shot after shot and he couldn’t find an opening anywhere. Even Ruiz thought of ending the fight. Horace’s right eye was nearly shut and the referee said if he didn’t start throwing punches, he’d call the bout.
Ruiz screamed at him when he sat down before the eighth. ‘You’re gonna lose this fight if you don’t knock him out! Goddamn it, Hector, you can do this!’
The eighth began and he took more shots, always looking to counter. Figueroa hit him continuously and always he went after Horace’s damaged right eye. Horace felt his nose break again and then he felt something go wrong inside his hurt eye, but still he waited and countered and finally caught Figueroa with a shot to the head that was so hard Figueroa suddenly crumbled to the ground. With ten seconds left in the fight Figueroa stood up, wobbly and unsteady. He was dead on his feet. Horace pressured him, and Figueroa covered and retreated. But it was too late. The fight ended.
When the old white referee came to the middle of the ring, Horace could barely see. His right eye was nothing but blurs and streaks of light and his left eye wouldn’t focus. The two fighters stood on each side of the referee and the winner was announced. Raymundo Figueroa by unanimous decision.
Horace was led to his dressing room and examined by the ring doctor, who called for an ambulance. Ruiz chewed Nicorette gum and sweat poured down his face. Diego came into the room and spoke briefly to Horace and then took Ruiz aside and they split the money. Ruiz took Horace’s cut and put $2,500 into Horace’s duffel. Diego left and then Ruiz assisted a near-blind Horace into the shower. He helped dry him off and dress, and they walked out a side door to the waiting ambulance.
‘You’re as tough as any fighter I’ve ever seen. I’ll meet you at the hospital,’ said Ruiz. ‘I have to get my car but I’ll be right behind you.’
Horace lay on his back and the ambulance rushed down the highway to Tucson. He was now completely blind, his head wrapped in bandages across his eyes. His whole body began to hurt, the pain in his ribs flared with every bump and shake of the road, his shattered nose bled down his lips, his right hand seized in pain, and he had a growing worry that he had lost his vision forever.
*
In the hospital there were long moments of waiting and then the rush of a doctor and then more waiting. When Horace woke in the morning, he was in a room by himself. He was told he had a broken nose, a fractured cheekbone, three fractured ribs, a fractured right hand and a detached retina in his right eye. He was scheduled for surgery that afternoon. The day passed and Ruiz came, visited for an hour and then left.
Horace came out of surgery to find they’d been unable to reattach the retina properly. It was too damaged and most likely he would lose at least some sight in his right eye. He was told by the doctor that he wouldn’t be able to fight again because of it. After that, he collapsed into sleep. It was late in the night when he woke. He lay by himself and cried for a long time before a nurse came into the room.
‘Will the tears make my eye worse?’ he whispered to her. There was a thick patch over his damaged eye and tears streamed down from his good one.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about that, Hector.’
‘Do you need anything?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘How would you rate your pain on a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘So not much pain?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘I have to admit something.’
‘What’s that, Hector?’ she asked.
‘It’s hard to admit.’
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘I’m a liar,’ he whispered. He looked at her. ‘I’m not Hector Hidalgo. I’m not Mexican. My real name is Horace Hopper.’
*
Ruiz visited the next day and stayed watching TV and talking. He wore dirty sweats and looked haggard and hung over.
‘I almost stopped the fight three times,’ Ruiz said as he rubbed two-day stubble on his chin. ‘Now I know I should have.’
‘I wanted to keep going,’ Horace whispered.
‘Of course you wanted to keep going. But I should have known better. I just thought you had him, and you almost did have him. Another minute and you’d have flattened that son of a bitch.’
‘Maybe.’
‘It was a great feeling to be back in that situation. In a real battle between two warriors. I haven’t been to a fight like that in a long time. I bet you Figueroa won’t be able to get out of bed today. I bet he’ll be pissing blood for a week.’ Ruiz laughed and kept his eyes on the TV. ‘Remember, Hector, you’ll heal. In no time at all we’ll be back at it. Healing and patience, that’s all it takes. You know, I used to be so goddamn impatient about healing that I always fought hurt. I remember this one time I had a fight in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was driving by myself and had my car in the parking lot. But I got so beat up during the fight that the doctor had someone take me to the hospital. I’d fractured my wrist, busted my nose and cheek. But worst of all, I couldn’t see straight. I got throttled about two dozen times in the melon, and this guy, a black spick from Detroit, hit like a bulldozer. He won that night, but he didn’t put me down. Not even close. I was at the hospital all night waiting to get patched up, and then finally I did and afterward I got a ride back to my car. It was five in the morning. I had a cast on one hand, my whole face was swollen and I was getting these dizzy spells. I got the car started and I was about halfway through downtown when I realized I couldn’t see anything. Everything was hazy. So I pulled over and parked and fell asleep. I woke up a few hours later and got out of the car and found a restaurant. My head was pounding like someone was whacking it with a sledgehammer. I hurt all over. My ribs were about what yours are, probably. Like someone’s squeezing you with barbed wire every time you move. I went in and ate and everyone there stopped and looked at me ’cause of two strange things: I’m Mexican and I’m all beat to hell.’ He laughed and put a piece of Nicorette gum in his mouth. ‘But luck was with me. I sat at the counter next to these two homeless-looking hippies. Each one of them had a suitcase and one had a guitar. They were trying to get to California and I told them I’d get them as far at Tucson if they drove. They agreed, and so I sat in the back and drank beer and popped painkillers. My head felt like it was in a vice for days and my eyes were seeing tracers and bolts of light all through Texas and New Mexico, but they drove good, and the one guy could play pretty decent guitar …’
Ruiz continued to ramble and Horace fell in and out of sleep, half-listening.
The next day came and Ruiz picked him up in the minivan. Horace had a bandage and patch over his right eye, a swollen and discoloured nose, black eyes, wrapped ribs and a cast on his right hand. They drove through town in silence and Horace realized that Ruiz had been up all night and was still drunk.
‘Stop by when you get healed up,’ Ruiz said when he’d parked outside of Horace’s aunt’s house.
‘They say my eye will never get better,’ Horace admitted. ‘That I won’t be able to fight again.’
‘You can’t believe any of their horse shit,’ Ruiz said, and coughed, then drank from a bottle of Coke. ‘They always told me that, but I kept going.’
Horace nodded and got out.
Ruiz smiled. ‘Call me after you get rested up.’
Horace nodded again and shut the car door. He carried his gym bag over his shoulder and made his way to the guest house.
He never saw Ruiz again.
22
Three semitrucks came in the early morning and loaded 1,210 ewes in three stock trailers. The sheep, nervous and worried, bleated in a constant chorus and the dogs barked and paced outside the holding pen. Whitey and Jip, the Anatolians, stayed locked in a horse stall in the barn, unseen but barking continuously, and Mrs Reese stood on the porch watching, tears streaming down her face.
Over twelve hundred sheep soon loaded and gone.
Ely and Little Lana sat at Mrs Reese’s feet watching obsessively as Tiny, Wally and Little Roy went back and forth around Mr Reese. It was past 10 a.m. when they finished and Mr Reese was handed the paperwork. He shook the men’s hands and watched as the three trucks drove off, leaving a trail of dust a quarter-mile long behind them.
Mrs Reese came down from the porch and met him in the drive and held his hand.
‘It’s a hard feeling,’ he said quietly.
‘It is,’ she said.
‘I don’t know what to do now.’
‘You’ll figure it out.’
He took off his cowboy hat and ran his hands through his hair. ‘I was thinking maybe we should go into town. Maybe eat Mexican and have a beer or two. Maybe a margarita. I have a feeling I’ll be nothing but glum if we don’t get out of here for a bit. Try and make a celebration out of this.’
‘I can make burritos here, if you’d like,’ she said.
He nodded slowly and looked at her. ‘Let’s go somewhere, even if we just dip our feet in Pine Creek. Let’s just get out of here.’
She squeezed his hand. ‘Why don’t you just go. I’ll make your favourite dinner tonight – chicken piccata and roasted potatoes. I’ll even make ice cream.’
He nodded again. ‘I’m not going to argue with you and I won’t force you, but you’re sure? Just for an hour or two.’
She nodded.
‘Well, alright.’
She squeezed his hand, waited a moment and then said, ‘Where are you gonna go?’
‘I’m not sure yet.’
‘I’ll make you a lunch.’
He nodded and Mrs Reese, Little Lana and Ely disappeared back into the house.
The old man went across the drive into the barn and Wally, Tiny and Little Roy followed behind. He filled the water trough, threw each of the horses and donkeys a flake, checked on Whitey and Jip and then walked back to the porch to see Mrs Reese with a paper-sack lunch and a small cooler.
‘You know what sounds good to me for dinner?’
‘What’s that?’ he said as he climbed the steps.
‘Brook trout.’
He smiled. ‘You figured out something for me to do.’
She nodded and winked. ‘I don’t want you to come home unless you get enough.’
He took the sack and a small six-pack cooler and kissed her goodbye. He set the cooler in the cab, the lunch in the toolbox in the bed of the truck and grabbed his fishing gear from the barn, and, for the first time since they were pups, Wally, Tiny and Little Roy were let in the cab: three dogs as passengers. Mr Reese got in after them, started the truck and left.
As he rode down the drive, he turned on the radio and Buck Owens came through the old speakers. ‘At least they’re playing a good song,’ he said as he leaned over to the cooler on the floor and found a beer. He opened it, took a long drink and sighed.
*
Pine Creek campground was empty and Mr Reese parked at the edge of it. He and the three dogs walked for nearly a mile into the mountains along the strong-flowing creek. They came to a deep pool surrounded by boulders on one side and aspen trees on the other. It was a place that he and his father had fished, he and his daughters, and most recently he and Horace. The dogs stood next to him impatiently, alw
ays looking at him for instructions. As he tried to tie a hook to his fishing line, they bumped into his legs and walked around his feet.
Mr Reese looked down at them and laughed.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said and finished tying the hook. He leaned the fishing pole against a tree, picked up his lunch and cooler and found a small patch of meadow grass, and slowly and painfully sat down.
‘Well, things are changing,’ he said to the dogs as they stood in front of him. ‘First off, we’re just friends now. What that means is you’ll be spending your nights in the house. Mrs Reese will throw a fit at first but you guys deserve it. In the summer we’ll put you on the screened back porch, but in the winter you’ll be inside next to the woodstove. You’ve all earned that. You’ll also get to ride in the cab if you want from here on out. The downside is you don’t get to work anymore. That’s gonna be hard on all of us. It will take adjusting for both you guys and me.’ He called for Wally and the dog moved right next to him, and Mr Reese began to pet him. ‘Also, we’re gonna be more affectionate from here on out. No more business. We’re retired. So it’s all fun and easy times now. Wally and Tiny, you’re only a couple years away anyway, but, Little Roy, you’ll have to figure out how to be retired as a kid. I hope you’re able. I’ll try and keep us as busy as I can, but I won’t be able to promise anything and I’m sorry about that.’ He then called for Little Roy and hugged and pet him and soon all three were in his arms.
Mr Reese took another beer from the cooler and opened it. He took a drink and then found a stick and threw it in the creek’s pool. Little Roy went after it first and jumped in. He was followed by Wally and only Tiny stood at the bank, unwilling to get wet. She barked and paced back and forth. Wally brought the stick to Mr Reese and he threw it again and laughed as they all chased it, this time Tiny running too fast and unable to stop in time. She slid on the dirt until she fell off the bank into the cool water.
23
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