Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  “Where is he?” she cried desperately. “Where is Mike? I must see him!”

  “He’s asleep now,” I said shortly, and added in my cruel bitterness: “You’ve done enough to him already. He wouldn’t want you to see him like he is now.”

  She cringed as from a blow. “Oh, let me just look in from the door,” she begged, twining her white hands together — and I thought of how often Mike’s hands had been bathed in blood for her— “I won’t wake him.”

  I hesitated and her eyes flamed; now she was the primal woman.

  “Try to stop me and I’ll kill you!” she cried, and rushed past me into the room.

  * * *

  6. — A CINCH TO WIN!

  THE girl stopped short on the threshold. Mike muttered restlessly in his sleep and turned his blind eyes toward the door, but did not waken. As the girl’s eyes fell on that frightfully disfigured face, she swayed drunkenly; her hands went to her temples and a low whimper like an animal in pain escaped her. Then, her face corpse-white and her eyes set in a deathly stare, she stole to the bedside and with a heart-rending sob, sank to her knees, cradling that battered head in her arms.

  Mike muttered, but still he did not waken. At last I drew her gently away and led her into the next room, closing the door behind us. There she burst into a torrent of weeping. “I didn’t know!” she kept sobbing over and over. “I didn’t know fighting was like that! He told me never to go to a fight, or listen to one over the radio, and I obeyed him. Why, how could I know — here’s one of the few letters in which he even mentioned his fights. I’ve kept them all.”

  The date was over three years old. I read: “Last night I stopped Jack Maloney, a foremost contender. He scarcely laid a glove on me. Don’t worry about me, darling, this game is a cinch.”

  I laughed bitterly, remembering the gory wreck Maloney had made of Mike before he went out.

  “I’ve been doing you an injustice,” I said. “I didn’t think a man could keep a girl in such ignorance as to the real state of things, but it’s true. You’re O.K. Maybe you can persuade Mike to give up the game — we can’t.”

  “Surely he can’t be thinking of fighting again if he lives?” she cried.

  I laughed. “He won’t die. He’ll be laid up a while, that’s all. Now I’ll take you to a hotel—”

  “I’m going to stay here close to Mike,” she answered passionately. “I could kill myself when I think how he’s suffered for me. Tomorrow I’m going to marry him and take him away.”

  After she was settled in a spare room, I turned to Spike: “I guess you’re responsible for this. You might have waited till Mike was out of bed. That was a terrible shock for her.”

  “I intended it should be,” he snarled. “I wrote and told her did she know her boy Mike Flynn was really Mike Brennon which was swiftly bein’ punched into the booby-hatch? And I gave her some graphic accounts of his battles. I wrote her in time for her to get here to see the fight, but she says she missed a train.”

  “Let him fight,” Spike spat. “Costigan will kill him, if they fight. I’ve seen these iron men crack before. I was in Tom Berg’s corner the night Jose Gonzales knocked him out, and he died while the referee was countin’ over him. Some men you got to kill to stop. Mike Brennon’s one of ‘em. If the girl’s got a spark of real womanhood in her, she’ll persuade him to quit.”

  Morning found the battered iron man clear of mind, his super-human recuperative powers already asserting themselves. I brought Marjory to his bedside and before he could say anything, I left them alone. Later she came to me, her eyes red with weeping.

  “I’ve argued and begged,” she cried desperately, “but he won’t give in!”

  All of us surrounded Mike’s bedside. “Mike,” I said, “you’re a fool. The punches have gone to your head. You can’t mean you’ll fight again!”

  “I’m good for some more big purses,” he replied with a grin.

  Marjory cried out as if he had stabbed her. “Mike — oh, Mike! We have more money now than we’ll ever use. You haven’t been fair to me. I’d have rather gone in rags, and worked my fingers to the bone in the lowest kind of drudgery than to have you suffer!”

  His face lighted with a rare smile. He reached out a hand, amazingly gentle, and took one of the girl’s soft hands in his own.

  “White little hands,” he murmured. “Soft, as they were meant to be, now. Why, just looking at you repays me a thousand times for all I’ve gone through. And what have I gone through? A few beatings. The old-timers took worse, and got little or nothing.”

  “But there’s no reason for your crucifying yourself — and me — any longer.”

  He shook his head with that strange abnormal stubbornness which was the worst defect in his character.

  “As long as I can draw down a hundred thousand dollars a fight, I’d be a fool to quit. I’m tougher than any of you think. A hundred thousand dollars!” His eyes gleamed with the old light. “The crowd roaring! And Iron Mike Brennon taking everything that’s handed out, and finishing on his feet! No! No! I’ll quit when I’m counted out — not before!”

  “Mike!” the girl cried piercingly. “If you fight again, I’ll swear I’ll go away and never see you again!”

  His gaze beat her eyes down, and her head sank on her breast. I never saw the human being — except one — who could stand the stare of Mike Brennon’s magnetic eyes.

  “Marjory,” his deep voice vibrated with confidence, “you’re just trying to bluff me into doing what you want me to do. But you’re mine, and you always will be. You won’t leave me, now. You can’t!”

  She hid her tear-blinded face in her hands and sobbed weakly. He stroked her bowed head tenderly. A failure in the ring perhaps, but outside of it Brennon had a power over those with whom he came in contact that none could overcome. The way he had beaten down the girl’s weak pretense was almost brutal.

  “Mike!” snarled Ganlon, speaking harshly and bitterly to hide his emotions; for a moment the hard-faced middleweight with his two hundred savage ring battles behind him, dominated the scene: “Mike, you’re crazy! You got everything a man could want — things that most men work their lives out for and never get. You’re on the borderline. You couldn’t whip a second- rater.

  “Costigan’s as tough as you ever were. If I thought he’d flatten you with a punch or two, I’d say, go to it. But he won’t. He’ll knock you out, but it’ll be after a smashin’ that’ll ruin you for life. You’ll die, or you’ll go to the bughouse. What good will your money, or Marjory’s love do you then?”

  Mike took his time about replying, and again his strange influence was felt like a cloud over the group.

  “Costigan’s over-rated. I’ll show him up. He never saw the day he could take as much as I can, or hit as hard.”

  Spike made a despairing gesture, and turned away. Later he said to the girl and me: “No use arguin’. He thinks it’s the money, but it ain’t. The game’s in his blood. And he’s jealous of Mike Costigan. These iron men is terrible proud of their toughness. Remember how Van Heeren fought?”

  “Win or lose, ten rounds with Costigan means Mike’s finish. Each is too tough to be knocked out quick. It’ll be a long, bloody grind, and it may finish Costigan, but it’ll sure finish Mike. He’ll end that fight dead, or punched nutty. At his best, Brennon would likely have wore Costigan down like he did Van Heeren. But Mike’s gone away back, and Costigan is young — in his prime — which in a iron man is the same as sayin’ you couldn’t hurt him with a pile-driver.”

  Mike Brennon trained conscientiously, as always. I discharged his sparring partners and had him punch the light bag for speed, and do a great deal of road work in a vain effort to recover some of the former steel spring quality of his weakening legs. But I knew it was useless. It was not a matter of conditioning — his trouble lay behind him in the thousands of cruel blows he had absorbed. A clever boxer may get out of condition, lose fights and come back; but when an iron man slips there is no come
back.

  In the four months which preceded the Costigan fight, an air of gloom surrounded the camp which affected all but Mike himself. Marjory, after days of passionate pleading, sank into a sort of apathy. That he was being bitterly cruel to the girl never occurred to Mike, and we could not make him see it. He laughed at our fears as foolish, and insisted that he was practically in his prime. He swore that his fight with Slade, far from showing that he had slipped, proved that he was better than ever! For had he not beaten Slade, the most dangerous man in the ring? As for Costigan — a few rounds of savage slugging would send him down and out.

  Mike was aware of his fistic faults; he frankly admitted that any second- rater who could avoid his swings could outpoint him; but he sincerely believed that he was still superior in ruggedness to any man that ever lived. And deep in his heart, I doubt if Mike really believed he would ever be knocked out.

  One thing he insisted on; that Marjory should not see the fight. And she made one last plea for him to give it up.

  “No use to start all that,” he answered calmly. “Think, Marjory! My fourth hundred-thousand-dollar purse! That’s a record few champions have set! One hundred thousand with Flash Sullivan — Gonzales — Slade — and now Costigan! Thousands of tickets sold in advance! I’ve got to go on now, anyhow. And I’m a cinch to win!”

  * * *

  7. — FRAMED

  AS if it were yesterday I visualize the scene; the ring bathed in the white glow above it; while the great crowd that filled the huge outside bowl swept away into the darkness of each side. A circle of white faces looked up from the ringside seats. Farther out only a twinkling army of glowing cigarettes evidenced the multitude, and a vast rippling undertone came from the soft darkness.

  “Iron Mike Brennon, 190 pounds; in this corner, Iron Mike Costigan, 195!”

  Brennon sat in his corner, head bowed, a contrast to the nervous, feline- like picture he had offered when he had paced the floor in his dressing-room. I wondered if he was still seeing the tear-stained face of Marjory as she kissed him in his dressing-room before he came into the ring.

  When the men were called to the center of the ring for instructions, Mike, to my surprise, seemed apathetic. He walked with dragging feet. However, in front of his foe he came awake with fierce energy. Iron Mike Costigan was dark, with tousled black hair. Five feet eleven, and heavier than Brennon, what he lacked in lithe ranginess he made up in oak and iron massiveness.

  The eyes of the two men burned into each other with savage intensity. Volcanic blue for Costigan; cold steel gray for Brennon. Their sun-browned faces were set in unconscious snarls. But as they stood facing each other, Brennon’s stare of concentrated cold ferocity wavered and fell momentarily before Costigan’s savage blue eyes. I realized that this was the first man who had ever looked Mike down, and I thought of Corbett staring down Sullivan — of McGovern’s eyes falling before Young Corbett’s.

  Then the men were back in their corners, and the seconds and handlers were climbing through the ropes. I hissed to Mike that I was going to throw in the sponge if the going got too rough, but he made no reply. He seemed to have sunk into that strange apathy again.

  The gong!

  Costigan hurtled from his corner, a compact bulk of fighting fury. Brennon came out more slowly. At my side Ganlon hissed: “What’s the matter with Mike? He acts like he was drunk!”

  The two Iron Mikes had met in the center of the ring. Costigan might have been slightly awed by the fame of the man he faced. At any rate he hesitated. Brennon walked toward his foe, but his feet dragged.

  Then Costigan suddenly launched an attack, and shot a straight left to Brennon’s face. As if the blow had roused him to his full tigerish fury, Mike went into action. The old sweeping haymakers began to thunder with all their ancient power. Costigan had, of course, no defense. A sweeping left-hander crashed under his heart with a sound like a caulking mallet striking a ship’s side; a blasting right that whistled through the air, cannon-balled against his jaw. Costigan went down as though struck by a thunderbolt.

  Then even as the crowd rose, he reeled up again. But I was watching Brennon. As though that sudden burst of action had taken all the strength out of him, he sagged against the ropes, limp, cloudy-eyed. Now sensing that his foe was up, he dragged himself forward with halting and uncertain motions.

  Costigan, still dizzy from that terrific knockdown, was conscious of only one urge — the old instinct of the iron man — bore in and hit until somebody falls! Now he crashed through Brennon’s groping arms and shot a right hook to the chin. Brennon swayed and fell, just as a drunken man falls when a prop against which he has been leaning is removed.

  Over his motionless form the referee was counting: “Eight! Nine! Ten!” And the ring career of Iron Mike Brennon was at an end. A stunned silence reigned, and Iron Mike Costigan, new king of all iron men, leaned against the ropes, unable to believe his senses. Mike Brennon had been knocked out!

  Around the ring the typewriters of the reporters were ticking out the fall of a king: “Evidently Mike Brennon’s famous iron jaw has at last turned to crockery after years of incredible bombardings...”

  We carried Mike, still senseless, to his dressing-room. Ganlon was muttering under his breath, and as soon as we had Mike safe on a cot with a physician looking to him, the middleweight vanished. Marjory had been waiting for us and now she stood, white-faced and silent, by the cot where her lover lay.

  At last he opened his eyes, and instantly he leaped erect, hands up. Then he halted, swayed and rubbed his eyes. Marjory was at his side in an instant and gently forced him back on the cot.

  “What happened? Did I win?” he asked dazedly.

  “You were knocked out in the first round, Mike.” I felt it better to answer him directly. His eyes widened with amazement.

  “I? Knocked out? Impossible!”

  “Yes, Mike, you were,” I assured him, expecting him to do any of the things I have seen fighters do on learning of their first knock-out — weep terribly, faint, rave and curse, or rush out looking for the conqueror. But being Mike Brennon and a never-to-be-solved enigma, he did none of these things. He merely rubbed his chin and laughed cynically.

  “Guess I’d gone farther back than I thought. I don’t remember the punch that put me out; funny thing — I’ve come through my last fight without a mark.”

  “And now you’ll quit!” cried Marjory. “This is the best thing that could have happened to you. You promised you’d quit if you were knocked out, Mike.” Her voice was painful in its intensity.

  “Why, I wouldn’t draw half a house now,” Mike was beginning ruefully, when Ganlon burst in, eyes blazing.

  “Mike!” he snarled. “Steve! Don’t you two boneheads see there’s somethin’ wrong here? Mike, when did you begin feelin’ drowsy?”

  Brennon started. “That’s right. I’d forgotten. I began feeling queer when I climbed in the ring. I sort of woke up when the referee was talking to us, and I remember how Costigan’s eyes blazed. Then when I went back to my corner I got dizzy and drunken. Then I knew I was moving out in the ring and I saw Costigan through a fog. He hit me a hummer and I woke up and started swinging and saw him go down. That’s the last I remember until I came to here.”

  Ganlon laughed bitterly. “Sure. You was out on your feet before Costigan hit you. A girl coulda pushed you over, and that’s all Costigan done!”

  “Doped!” I cried. “Costigan’s crowd — or the gambling ring—”

  “Naw — Mike’s been crossed by the last person you’d think of. I been doin’ some detective work. Mike, just before you left your dressin’-room, you drunk a small cup of tea, didn’t you? Kinda unusual preparation for a hard fight, eh? But you drunk it to please somebody—”

  Marjory was cowering in the corner. Mike was troubled and puzzled.

  “But Spike, Marjory made that tea herself—”

  “Yeah, and she doped it herself! She framed you to lose!”

  Our eyes turn
ed on the shrinking girl — amazement in mine, anger in Ganlon’s, and a deep hurt in Mike’s.

  “Marjory, why did you do that?” asked Mike, bewildered. “I might have won—”

  “Yes, you might have won!” she cried in a sudden gust of desperate and despairing defiance. “After Costigan had battered you to a red ruin! Yes, I drugged the tea. It’s my fault you were knocked out. You can’t go back now, for you’ve lost your only attraction. You can’t draw the crowds. I’ve gone through tortures since I first saw you lying on that cot after your fight with Slade — but you’ve only laughed at me. Now you’ll have to quit. You’re out of the game with a sound mind — that’s all I care. I’ve saved you from your mad avarice and cruel pride in spite of yourself! And you can beat me now, or kill me — I don’t care!”

  For a moment she stood panting before us, her small fists clenched, then as no one spoke, all the fire went out of her. She wilted visibly and moved droopingly and forlornly toward the door. The wrap which enveloped her slender form, slid to the floor as she fumbled at the door-knob, revealing her in a cheap gingham dress. Mike, like a man awakening from a trance, started forward:

  “Marjory! Where are you going? What are you doing in that rig?”

  “It’s the dress I was wearing when you first met me,” she answered listlessly, “I wrote and got back my old job at the cafe.”

  He crossed the room with one stride, caught her slim shoulders and spun her around to face him, with unconsciously brutal force. “What do you mean?” he said.

  She collapsed suddenly in a storm of weeping. “Don’t you hate me for drugging you?” she sobbed. “I didn’t think you’d ever want to see me again.”

  He crushed her to him hungrily. “Girl, I swear I didn’t realize how it was hurting you. I thought you were foolish — willful. I couldn’t see how you were suffering. But you’ve opened my eyes. I must have been insane! You’re right — it was pride — senseless vanity — I couldn’t see it then, but I do now. I didn’t understand that I was ruining your happiness. And that’s all that matters now, dear. We’ve got our life and love before us, and if it rests with me, you’re going to be happy all the rest of your life.”