by Savanna Sage
Even so, things could be worse. The day his heels slid across the threshold with two deputies yanking on his aching arms, he couldn’t see through either eye. The Emperor hit him hard enough to swell them shut with a mighty display of stars exploding behind his damaged eyelids. He would rather have Cinderella as the last face in his memory than the Emperor’s.
Staring into the abnormally tall Chinaman’s eyes triggered a hitch in Adam’s gut, a foreboding the likes of being trapped in the cave of the Forty Thieves without Aladdin’s password or magic lamp. As the Chinaman’s furious eyes focused on his chest, Adam shivered. He wanted to call the fight off, no matter what it did to his career. What was the Chinaman trying to do, anyway? Glare him to death?
“Not for you!” The Emperor stabbed an accusatory finger at the dragon coin Adam wore on a piece of string. The hole punched through the dragon’s ribs, if dragons had ribs. Perhaps they were more like worms. Adam didn’t know. Spud cautioned Adam against wearing the coin, but since it came from his father, Adam counted it as lucky.
Until now.
Something about the coin enraged the Chinaman. Recognizing an advantage, the Smasher pulled his fist back and delivered a punch solid enough to send his opponent flying back home to China. But like some magical jinn, the Emperor simply swayed on his feet. Then he lunged forward in an oddly sinuous move with a smack to his head that sent Adam flying sideways.
“C’mon, Smasher, you can do better than that!” Spud screamed.
He was right. Adam focused on his self-trained method of reading the glances of his opponents to anticipate attacks, but the Emperor’s foreign eyes were dark, secret slants, his supple moves strange. Was he using kung fu training mixed with boxing? Adam didn’t know how to anticipate that. The only thing he could think of to counter this opponent was to restart his mind as if it were the beginning, setting aside all expectations of what a fight should be.
It’s my first time fighting, Adam told himself. This is brand new. I’ve never fought before.
The Emperor’s unusual technique made the lie true. As Adam repeated the words, his senses sharpened, he recognized patterns in the Emperor’s strategy, bruises piled on from strikes delivered with heels of the hand propelled by bent wrists.
At last he made a feint as if to avoid one of those particularly sharp jabs, but rounded and swung on the Emperor, satisfied to see the narrow eyes widening in surprise when the Salt Lake Smasher delivered a solid hit.
The Chinaman hit back, focusing on Adam’s face, snaking past the Smasher’s raised fists until both Adam’s eyes were fairly useless for seeing. Sightlessness makes running from the law difficult. Being laid out on the ground adds twice the difficulty to escape, which is why Adam was behind bars.
His opponent had slipped away in the dark, along with Spud and most of the spectators. Illegal boxing matches were usually fought under cover of night, unless staged on a floating barge or island where jurisdiction was questionable. There weren’t enough barges or islands in the western territories to make a difference, so fighting out of town under the stars by torchlight was common. The Kansas fight was uncommon, with Cinderella showing up afterward. He regretted that he hadn’t thought to check the edge of the woods for a slipper left behind that he could return. Would he ever see her again?
He couldn’t blame her for running away. He didn’t blame anyone in Colorado for running from the law, either. Being locked up with someone else wouldn’t make the circuit judge get here any faster. The judge was already too late to rule in the distribution of the betting pool.
The night he was dragged in here, Adam had forced one eye open to a slit in order to keep from tripping. It was just enough to see the bag of wagered money tossed onto the sheriff’s desk, the clink of coins muffled by crumpled bills.
“Looks like fighting pays better than being a deputy,” one of the men said. Laughter followed.
The next morning, the bag was gone. The lawmen had gotten themselves a nice bonus, without bothering to pay the hefty share meant for the winner of the match.
Adam rubbed his healing knuckles and shifted his weight on the board that served as his bed. The two blankets issued weren’t thick enough to soften his bed much, but they smelled as if they’d been washed since the last criminal used them. Now that his bruises had healed some, he was able to get a little sleep instead of turning over and over in search of a place on his body that didn’t hurt.
Spud said that fighting is what Adam was best at. Was it true? What if he could fight openly, with enough advertising to genereate high stakes winnings he could put toward getting into another profession? What would he do? He considered all the working men he knew, then suddenly punched a fist into his open hand. He didn’t have education or an inheritance to draw from. Maybe Spud was right, and Adam would be a fighter the rest of his life, but he sure could do without sitting in a jail cell. Why did the government care if guys wanted to pound on each other? It’s true that some of the fighters didn’t live, which was a shame, but they were the guys who should have been storekeepers or train engineers instead.
Adam got to his feet and paced the length of his cell. He hadn’t killed anyone, at least, not that he knew of. Is that something Spud would keep from him?
He might.
After another glance into the empty Sheriff’s office, Adam pushed a finger inside his right cheek and pulled out his dragon coin, pleased that he’d had the presence of mind to jerk the string hard enough to break against his neck and tuck the coin in the space between his cheek and gum before the deputies got their hands on it. Lawmen may have stolen the bets, but they weren’t going to profit from the strange coin Adam had first seen at seven years old.
Adam was a curious boy, and the only child of a brusque mother and crippled father. Their dog, Punch, was crippled, too, with a twisted hind leg. The dog loved Papa best, and Adam thought it was because they were both lame. As far as Adam knew, Papa came into the world with his right leg as long as his left, but only half as big around, and scarred rough like an old log, making Papa tip sideways, with a halting gait. It wasn't until after his father gifted him the dragon coin that he learned the truth.
One day when Punch limped into Papa’s bedroom, Adam followed, mimicking the dog’s walk. He wasn’t very good at it. Punch darted under the bed after a mouse, and Adam fell against the small, scratched night stand with a single drawer just wide enough for Papa’s Bible.
A faint clatter made Adam turn and see the mysterious coin that had fallen from the stand. The snake-like creature stamped in the warm golden metal had a lizard-looking head and feet, with a single fin floating above a hole drilled in the center of the creature. Frustrated that the image was marred by the hole, he wondred if that was a swimming fin, or one that helped the creature to fly? When he flipped the coin over, he saw serious eyes staring back at him. The man didn’t seem happy to have a hole drilled through his face. Adam turned the coin back over to the far more interesting snake. That’s when he got the idea to take the creature for a ride.
Poking a twig inside the hole for an axle, he rolled the coin around on the floor like a wheel as he imagined searching all across the land for a real winged snake lizard creature. Caught up in imagination, Adam paid no attention to the size of the cracks in the wooden floor planks until the coin escaped the wobbling twig and slipped through one of them.
Adam pressed his little hand against the crack, trying to push his fingers through to the fallen coin, but they wouldn't fit. As he desperately thought for a way to get the lizard coin back, the floor vibrated beneath him with an uneven step that let him know his father was coming.
Roland Quinn’s gaze moved from his nightstand to his son. From the floor, Adam’s perspective gave his father massive height. “Do you know where the dragon coin is, son?”
Adam pointed at the floorboards, trying to determine if his father’s voice held disappointment or anger. He’d said the unfamiliar word, “Dragon” The winged snake lizard creature was a
dragon?
“Ah,” Roland sighed, gazing down at the space between the boards. To Adam’s relief, his father didn’t sound angry, or disappointed, but serious. “My friends destroyed me, Adam. My enemy saved me.”
Adam nodded, even though his father’s words made no sense to him.
“Now a bridge has been broken, and you must help repair it.”
Adam didn’t see a broken bridge anywhere. Even if he had, how was he supposed to rebuild one? He didn’t know how.
Papa limped out of the room and returned carrying a long metal crowbar he used for work. Fitting the crows foot end into the space between the boards, Roland gave the bar a mighty pull. Adam jumped when the wood split with a loud crack.
“Mercy!” Coretta cried, appearing in the doorway, a hand pressed to her chest. The concern on her face slipped into anger when she saw her husband force the bar further into the crack and pull back with all his strength.
“Have you lost your senses?” she yelled above the sound of breaking wood.
“The boy lost the dragon,” Roland replied. “He must help me find it.”
“It’s not worth tearing up the house!” Coretta cried.
“It’s worth everything.”
Coretta dropped her hands and became very still, her eyes losing their spark. “Ever since the war, you’ve gotten more and more peculiar, Roland. Working on the railroad only made you worse. That blast must have damaged your head as well as your leg.”
Wood cried out as it broke in pieces. The tortured sound cracked through Coretta’s stillness, like breaking a coating of ice. Striding to the wardrobe, she yanked out her two dresses. Adam looked from his mother throwing clothing into a satchel without even folding it to his father, studiously prying up boards. “Come, Adam,” Coretta said, holding the satchel in one hand and stretching her other one toward her son.
“Mama?”
“We’re going to Granny’s house.”
“Why?”
Coretta made an impatient sound with her tongue. “We can’t live in a house with no floor.”
“But I lost it,” Adam said, tears rising in his eyes. “It’s my fault.”
Coretta dropped her hand, gazing at her son as boards screamed. Roland let the crowbar clatter to the floor and bent over the gap, eyes scanning the dusty interior.
In the sudden silence, Coretta asked, “Are you coming with me, or staying with your father?”
Adam’s breath caught. “If we leave, who will look after Papa?”
“He’ll have to look after himself,” Coretta replied. “I’m not living with a mad man in a house without a floor.”
“Ah,” Roland said, bending lower and stretching his hand down into the dark space.
Intrigued, Adam bent over the gap in the floor to see his father pointing at a disc of metal in the midst of a nest of cobwebs. “You get it,” Roland said.
Flopping onto his stomach, Adam reached down and grabbed the dragon coin. “I got it, Mama!” he cried, rolling over and sitting up. “Now we can fix the floor.”
Adam held the coin toward the doorway, but his mother was gone. She hadn’t said goodbye, given him a hug, or said she would miss him. She hadn’t packed any of Adam’s things, either.
So Adam stayed.
Chapter 4
Stella focused on the picture of a shirtless young man on page three of the Hugoton Hermes newspaper Papa held open on his lap. Uncombed hair plastered itself to the man’s forehead as he stared, unsmiling, out at Stella. His head was tipped down as if ready to charge the photographer. Why did his eyes look so familiar? His vague appeal made her wonder if she’d had a marvelous dream about him that she couldn’t remember. Her gaze slid from his eyes to his broad, naked shoulders.
“Have we got any cabbage?”
Stella jumped as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t. But the picture was right there in the newspaper, plain for anyone to see. Did her father guess that she’d been wondering how the arms attached to those muscled shoulders might feel wrapped around her in a loving embrace? Would it feel very different from Papa’s hugs?
“Yes, we have some.”
Stella dropped her gaze to the caption beneath the picture, identifying the man as, “The Salt Lake Smasher.” Salt Lake Smasher? What a strange name. He’d been arrested in Pueblo, Colorado for illegal boxing, a “most vicious sport,” according to the article. Stella’s gaze slid back over the photo, searching for signs of viciousness.
“Do you suppose we could have spiced red cabbage for supper, Princess?”
Stella looked up at her father’s thin face with a stab of guilt. “I’m afraid we’ve only green cabbage, Papa.” She didn’t explain that she’d returned to the spring in the light of day a few times instead of going shopping. She didn’t expect to find the ogre sitting there with his feet in the water. Not really. She knew he couldn't really be an ogre, but curiosity pulled her back to the last place she’d seen him. All she’d found was a burned out torch sticking out of the riverbank, as if it had grown there by some enchantment.
“Fit for a king,” Papa said, turning the page so that the Salt Lake Smasher’s brooding face disappeared.
With a curious mixture of relief and disappointment, Stella got up, walked into the kitchen, and made spiced green cabbage and fried sausage. When they sat down to eat, Papa said, “Thank you. You make me feel like royalty.”
“You are to me,” Stella replied.
“The Cabbage King is lucky to have Princess Cabbage Head living in his golden castle.”
Stella smiled and took a bite of food.
“Not only did Princess Cabbage Head have soft dark hair and eyes as green as cabbages, she also had the magical ability to cook the most delicious cabbage in the whole kingdom.”
“Which you aren’t eating,” Stella said, pointing to her father’s plate with her fork.
Papa stabbed at his pile of cabbage and continued, “It pleased the Cabbage King that she was so magical, she could make cabbage soup, cabbage salad, pickled cabbage, cabbage chicken, even cinnamon cabbage, chocolate cabbage, and cabbage cake.”
Stella giggled.
“One day her father went on a long trip, but the princess kept getting new recipe ideas, cooking cabbage in more and more delicious ways. She had so much that she shared with everyone in the castle, who shared with their families in the village. Once the townspeople got a taste of the princess’s cooking, only the horses in the kingdom would eat plain cabbage anymore. Everyone else wanted the princess's cabbage delights. They demanded more and more exotic flavors from her, becoming so persistent that they finally locked her in the castle kitchen. The demand for cabbage fritters, cabbage dumplings, cabbage tea, and cabbage crumpets just kept coming. The princess was so busy cooking she didn’t have time to eat for herself. She longed for her father’s return so he could save her.”
Stella was so interested in Papa’s fairy tale that she didn't bother reminding him that he still hadn’t eaten anything.
“To her surprise, she soon got so thin that she escaped by sliding out beneath the door. In the middle of the night, with everyone else asleep, a bright magical sky filled with millions of sparkling stars gave Princess Cabbage Head enough light to hurry into an enchanted wood to hide.”
Since Papa knew Stella loved stars, she gave him an appreciative smile for this detail.
“Yet she was still in danger. Startled by a woodcutter chopping wood under a dark canopy of leaves, she tripped and fell, knocking herself unconscious. The woodcutter heard a noise and turned around, but he didn’t see anyone. In the darkness, he mistook the woefully thin princess for a stick. Picking her up, he added her to his bundle of wood and carried her home.
“She awoke on a lumpy pile of hard sticks next to a cold fireplace. She sat up. No one was in sight. Her stomach rumbled, so she stood and wandered to the stove, but saw nothing to cook. Then she stumbled over a handle on the floor that was connected to a trapdoor leading to a cellar full of cabbages.
“Joyously, she began cooking one of her favorite dishes, plain boiled cabbage. When it was ready, she sat down and ate the whole head. Still hungry, she cooked more cabbage and ate it. She was cooking her tenth cabbage when the woodcutter opened his bedroom door, stretching and yawning. His mouth stayed open when he saw her standing in his kitchen, stirring something in a pot. He didn’t see a stick figure anymore. The cabbages had filled her up and filled her out to her own beautiful self.”
Stella smiled and shook her head, dark hair sliding over her shoulders nearly to her waist.
“‘That smells so good,’ the woodcutter said when he found his voice. ‘May I have some?’”
“‘Certainly. It’s your cabbage.’”
“He gave her a charming smile. ‘Well, then, since you’ve eaten so many, does that mean you’re my cabbage, too?’”
“She laughed. ‘Perhaps.’”
After eating more cabbages together, the princess decided she would be very happy married to the good-natured woodcutter. Not only was he strong enough to protect her from the cabbage-hungry villagers, but he loved her so much that he told her she didn’t need to cook cabbage anymore unless she wanted to.
“When the princess finally got a message to the king, the king sent her a reply sealed with golden wax, saying he was happy for her, and could hardly wait to see her again.
“So the princess was content to grow cabbages in the woods with the woodcutter, happier than she’d ever been living in the golden castle. The End.”
Warmth spread through Stella at the simple, happy ending of his fanciful tale. “Thank you, Papa. Now would you like me to reheat your supper for you?”
She would never offer to reheat Uncle Owen’s supper. If it was up to her, they’d never see him again. But her father believed in family ties, to the point of taking ten-year-old Stella to New York to visit his sister, Felicity Maxwell.
Aunt Felicity’s husband was the grumbling sort, but their fifteen-year-old daughter, Emily, made the trip worthwhile. She cheerfully let her younger cousin try on her hats. With Alton as chaperone, Emily acted as tour guide for the sights of New York City. Stella stared up in wonder at the high rise buildings, making Emily laugh by asking how many of these castles there were in New York.