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

by Robert E. Howard

  “They brought him to the hang-out and we searched him, but he didn’t have the ruby on him and he wouldn’t tell what he’d done with it. We did worm it out of him that he was on his way to the Alley of Rats in answer to the note he got, when a stoker on his ship met him and warned him to keep away. While we were getting ready to make him talk, one of my boys brought me word that he’d just seen you on the streets, and I thought I’d settle the score between us. I’m sorry; I’ll never try it again. What are you going to do with me?”

  “How do I know you’re tellin’ the truth?” I asked.

  She shuddered. “I’d be afraid to lie to you. You’re the only man I ever saw that I was afraid of. Don’t be angry — but I saw a gorilla kill six or seven niggers on the West African Coast once, and, when you were fighting those China-boys, you looked just like him.”

  I was too offended to say anything for a second, and she kind of whimpered: “Please, what are you going to do with me? Please let me go!”

  “I’m goin’ to let you take me to where you got Jack Ridley,” I growled, mopping the blood off my cut arm, and working it so it wouldn’t get stiff. “I got a account to settle with the big cheese — and you ain’t goin’ to torture no Americans while I can stand on my two feet. Lead the way!”

  Well, I’d of been in a jamb if she’d refused, because I don’t know what I coulda done to make her — it just ain’t in me to be rough with no women — but my bluff worked. She didn’t argue at all. She led me out of the courtyard, down three or four narrow, deserted streets, across a bunch of back alleys, and finally through a narrow doorway.

  Here she stopped. The room was very dimly lighted by a street lamp that burned just outside and through the cracks in the wall I could see they was a light in the room beyond.

  I had my hand on her arm, just so she wouldn’t try to give me the slip, but I guess she thought I’d wring her neck if she crossed me, because she whispered: “Ridley’s in there, but there’s a gang of men with him.”

  “How many and who all are they?” I whispered.

  “Smoky and Squint-Eye and Snake and the Dutchman; and then there’s Wladek and—”

  Just then I heard a nasty voice rise that I recognized as belonging to the said Smoky — a shady character but one which I hadn’t known was mixed up in the Tigress game: “Orl right, you bloody Yank, we’ll see wot you says after we’ve touched yer up a bit wiv a ‘ot h’iron, eh, mates?”

  I let go the girl’s arm and slid to the door, soft and easy. And then I found out the Tigress wasn’t near as scared as she’d pretended, because she jumped back and yelled: “Look out, boys!”

  Secrecy being now out of the question, the best thing was to get in the first punch. I hit that door like a typhoon and crashed right through it. I had a fleeting glimpse of a smoky lamp in a bracket on the wall, of a rope-wrapped figure on a bunk and a ring of startled, evil faces.

  “Ow, murder!” howled somebody I seen was the Cockney. “It’s that bloody sailor again!” And he dived through the nearest window.

  In that room they was a Chinee, a Malay, a big Russian and six thugs which was a mixed mess of English, Dutch and American. As I come through the door, I slugged the big Russian on the jaw and finished him for the evening, and grabbing the Chinee and the Malay by their necks, I disposed of them by slammin’ their heads together. Then the rest of the merry men rose up and come down on me like a wolf on the fold, and the real hilarity commenced.

  It was just a whirlwind. Fists, boots, bottles and chairs! And a few knives and brass knuckles throwed in for good measure. We romped all over the room and busted the chairs and shattered the table, and it was while I was on the floor, on top of three of them while the other three was dancing a horn- pipe on me, that I got hold of a heavy chair-leg. Shaking off my assailants for a instant, I arose and smote Dutchy over the head with a joyous abandon that instantly reduced the number of my foes to five. Another swat broke Snake’s arm, and at that moment a squint-eyed yegg ran in and knifed me in the ribs. I give a roar of irritation and handed him one that finished him and the chair- leg simultaneous.

  At this moment a red-headed thug laid my scalp open with a pair of brass knuckles, and Smoky planted his hob-nailed boots in my ribs so hard it put me on my back again, where the survivors leaped on me with howls of delirious joy. But I was far from through, though rather breathless.

  Biting a large hunk out of the thumb a scar-faced beachcomber tried to shove in my eyes, I staggered up again. Doing this meant lifting Smoky too, as he was on my back, industriously gnawing my ear. With a murmur of resentment, I shook him off and flattened him with a right-handed smash that broke three ribs; and, ducking the chair Scar- Face swung at me, I crashed him with a left that smashed his nose and knocked out all his front teeth.

  Red-Head was still swinging at me with the brass knuckles, and he contrived to gash my jaw pretty deep before I broke his jaw with a hay- making right swing. As the poem says, the tumult and the clouting died, and, standing panting in the body-littered room, I shook the blood and sweat outa my eyes and glared around for more thugs to conquer.

  But I was the only man on his feet. I musta been a sight. All my clothes was tore off except my pants, and they wasn’t enough of them left to amount to anything. I was bleeding from a dozen cuts. I was bruised all over and I had another black eye to go with the one McCoy had give me earlier in the evening. I looked around for Ridley and seen him lying on the bunk where he was tied up, staring at me like he’d never seen a critter like me before. I looked for the Tigress but she was gone.

  So i went over and untied Ridley, and he never said a word; acted like he was kinda stunned. He worked his fingers and glanced at the victims on the floor, some of which was groaning and cussing, and some of which was slumbering peaceful.

  “Gettin’ the circulation back in your hands?” I asked, and he nodded.

  “All right,” said I, “Put up your mitts; I’m goin’ to knock you into the middle of Kingdom Come.”

  “Good Lord, man,” he cried, “you’ve saved my life — and you mean you want to fight me?”

  “What the hell did you think?” I roared. “Think I come around to thank you for jobbin’ me out of a rightful decision? I never fouled nobody in my life!”

  “But you’re in no shape to fight now!” he exclaimed. “You’ve just whipped a roomful of men and taken more punishment than I thought any human being could take, and live! You’re bleeding like a stuck hog. Both your eyes are half- closed, your lips are pulped, your scalp’s laid open, one of your ears is mangled, and you’ve got half a dozen knife cuts on you. I saw one of those fellows stab you in the ribs—”

  “Aw, it just slid along ‘em,” I said. “If you think I’m marked up, you oughta seen me after I went fifteen rounds to a draw with Iron Mike Brennon. But listen, that ain’t neither here nor there. You ain’t as big as I am, but you got the reputation of a fighter. Now you put up your mitts like a man.”

  Instead, he dropped his hands to his sides. “I won’t fight you. Not after what you’ve just done for me. Do you realize that you’ve burst into the secret den of the most dangerous crook in China — and cleaned up nine of her most desperate gangmen, practically bare- handed?”

  “But what about that foul?” I asked petulantly.

  “I was wrong,” he said. “I was standing behind McCoy and didn’t really get a good look at the blow you dropped him with. Honestly, it looked low to me, and when McCoy begun to writhe around on the canvas, I thought you had fouled him. But if you did, it wasn’t intentional. A man like you wouldn’t deliberately hit another fighter low. You didn’t even hit these thugs below the belt, though God knows you had every right. Now then, I apologize for that foul decision, and for hitting you, and for what I said to you. If you want to take a swing at me anyway, I won’t blame you, but I’m not going to fight you.”

  He looked at me with steady eyes and I seen he wasn’t afraid of me, or handing me no bluff. And, somehow, I was satisfi
ed.

  “Well,” I said, mopping the blood off my scalp, “that’s all right. I just wanted you to know I don’t fight foul. Now let’s get outa here. Say — the White Tigress was here with me — where’d she go, do you reckon?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t want to know. If I don’t see her again, it will be soon enough. It must have been she who sent me that note earlier in the night.”

  “It was. And I don’t understand, if you was goin’ to do what it said, why it took you so long. You shoulda been at the Alley of Rats before the stoker had time to find you and give you my warnin’.”

  “Well,” he said, “I hesitated for nearly an hour after getting the note, as to whether I’d go or not, but finally decided I would. But I left the To Yan ruby with the captain. On the way, the stoker met me and gave me your tip, which he didn’t understand but thought I ought to know nevertheless. So I didn’t go to the Alley of Rats, but later on a gang jumped me, tied me up and brought me here. And say, how is it that you’re mixed up in all this?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said, as we come out into one of the politer streets, “and—”

  “And just now you need those cuts and bruises dressed. Come with me and I’ll attend to that. You can tell me all about it while I bandage you.”

  “All right,” I said, “but let’s make it snappy ‘cause I got business.”

  “Got a girl in this port, have you?”

  “Naw,” I said. “I think I can find the promoter of the Waterfront Fight Arena at his saloon about now, and I want to ask him to get Red McCoy to fight me at the Arena again tomorrow night.”

  * * *

  THE TNT PUNCH; OR, WATERFRONT LAW; THE WATERFRONT WALLOP

  First published in Action Stories, January 1931. Also published as “Waterfront Law” and “The Waterfront Wallop”

  THE first thing that happened in Cape Town, my white bulldog Mike bit a policeman and I had to come across with a fine of ten dollars, to pay for the cop’s britches. That left me busted, not more’n an hour after the Sea Girl docked.

  The next thing who should I come on to but Shifty Kerren, manager of Kid Delrano, and the crookedest leather-pilot which ever swiped the gate receipts. I favored this worthy with a hearty scowl, but he had the everlasting nerve to smile welcomingly and hold out the glad hand.

  “Well, well! If it ain’t Steve Costigan! Howdy, Steve!” said the infamous hypocrite. “Glad to see you. Boy, you’re lookin’ fine! Got good old Mike with you, I see. Nice dawg.”

  He leaned over to pat him.

  “Grrrrrr!” said good old Mike, fixing for to chaw his hand. I pushed Mike away with my foot and said to Shifty, I said: “A big nerve you got, tryin’ to fraternize with me, after the way you squawked and whooped the last time I seen you, and called me a dub and all.”

  “Now, now, Steve!” said Shifty. “Don’t be foolish and go holdin’ no grudge. It’s all in the way of business, you know. I allus did like you, Steve.”

  “Gaaahh!” I responded ungraciously. I didn’t have no wish to hobnob none with him, though I figgered I was safe enough, being as I was broke anyway.

  I’ve fought that palooka of his twice. The first time he outpointed me in a ten-round bout in Seattle, but didn’t hurt me none, him being a classy boxer but kinda shy on the punch.

  Next time we met in a Frisco ring, scheduled for fifteen frames. Kid Delrano give me a proper shellacking for ten rounds, then punched hisself out in a vain attempt to stop me, and blowed up. I had him on the canvas in the eleventh and again in the twelfth and with the fourteenth a minute to go, I rammed a right to the wrist in his solar plexus that put him down again. He had sense enough left to grab his groin and writhe around.

  And Shifty jumped up and down and yelled: “Foul!” so loud the referee got scared and rattled and disqualified me. I swear it wasn’t no foul. I landed solid above the belt line. But I officially lost the decision and it kinda rankled.

  So now I glowered at Shifty and said: “What you want of me?”

  “Steve,” said Shifty, putting his hand on my shoulder in the old comradely way his kind has when they figger on putting the skids under you, “I know you got a heart of gold! You wouldn’t leave no feller countryman in the toils, would you? Naw! Of course you wouldn’t! Not good old Steve. Well, listen, me and the Kid is in a jam. We’re broke — and the Kid’s in jail.

  “We got a raw deal when we come here. These Britishers went and disqualified the Kid for merely bitin’ one of their ham-and-eggers. The Kid didn’t mean nothin’ by it. He’s just kinda excitable thataway.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I growled. “I got a scar on my neck now from the rat’s fangs. He got excitable with me, too.”

  “Well,” said Shifty hurriedly, “they won’t let us fight here now, and we figgered on movin’ upcountry into Johannesburg. Young Hilan is tourin’ South Africa and we can get a fight with him there. His manager — er, I mean a promoter there — sent us tickets, but the Kid’s in jail. They won’t let him out unless we pay a fine of six pounds. That’s thirty dollars, you know. And we’re broke.

  “Steve,” went on Shifty, waxing eloquent, “I appeals to your national pride! Here’s the Kid, a American like yourself, pent up in durance vile, and for no more reason than for just takin’ up for his own country—”

  “Huh!” I perked up my ears. “How’s that?”

  “Well, he blows into a pub where three British sailors makes slanderous remarks about American ships and seamen. Well, you know the Kid — just a big, free-hearted, impulsive boy, and terrible proud of his country, like a man should be. He ain’t no sailor, of course, but them remarks was a insult to his countrymen and he wades in. He gives them limeys a proper drubbin’ but here comes a host of cops which hauls him before the local magistrate which hands him a fine we can’t pay.

  “Think, Steve!” orated Shifty. “There’s the Kid, with thousands of admirin’ fans back in the States waitin’ and watchin’ for his triumphal return to the land of the free and the home of the brave. And here’s him, wastin’ his young manhood in a stone dungeon, bein’ fed on bread and water and maybe beat up by the jailers, merely for standin’ up for his own flag and nation. For defendin’ the honor of American sailors, mind you, of which you is one. I’m askin’ you, Steve, be you goin’ to stand by and let a feller countryman languish in the ‘thrallin’ chains of British tyranny?”

  “Not by a long ways!” said I, all my patriotism roused and roaring. “Let bygones be bygones!” I said.

  It’s a kind of unwritten law among sailors ashore that they should stand by their own kind. A kind of waterfront law, I might say.

  “I ain’t fought limeys all over the world to let an American be given the works by ’em now,” I said. “I ain’t got a cent, Shifty, but I’m goin’ to get some dough.

  “Meet me at the American Seamen’s Bar in three hours. I’ll have the dough for the Kid’s fine or I’ll know the reason why.

  “You understand, I ain’t doin’ this altogether for the Kid. I still intends to punch his block off some day. But he’s an American and so am I, and I reckon I ain’t so small that I’ll let personal grudges stand in the way of helpin’ a countryman in a foreign land.”

  “Spoken like a man, Steve!” applauded Shifty, and me and Mike hustled away.

  A short, fast walk brung us to a building on the waterfront which had a sign saying: “The South African Sports Arena.” This was all lit up and yells was coming forth by which I knowed fights was going on inside.

  The ticket shark told me the main bout had just begun. I told him to send me the promoter, “Bulawayo” Hurley, which I’d fought for of yore, and he told me that Bulawayo was in his office, which was a small room next to the ticket booth. So I went in and seen Bulawayo talking to a tall, lean gent the sight of which made my neck hair bristle.

  “Hey, Bulawayo,” said I, ignoring the other mutt and coming direct to the point, “I want a fight. I want to fight tonight — right now. Have you got any
body you’ll throw in with me, or if not willya let me get up in your ring and challenge the house for a purse to be made up by the crowd?”

  “By a strange coincidence,” said Bulawayo, pulling his big mustache, “here’s Bucko Brent askin’ me the same blightin’ thing.”

  Me and Bucko gazed at each other with hearty disapproval. I’d had dealings with this thug before. In fact, I built a good part of my reputation as a bucko-breaker on his lanky frame. A bucko, as you likely know, is a hard- case mate, who punches his crew around. Brent was all that and more. Ashore he was a prize-fighter, same as me.

  Quite a few years ago I was fool enough to ship as A.B. on the Elinor, which he was mate of then. He’s an Australian and the Elinor was an Australian ship. Australian ships is usually good crafts to sign up with, but this here Elinor was a exception. Her cap’n was a relic of the old hellship days, and her mates was natural-born bullies. Brent especially, as his nickname of “Bucko” shows. But I was broke and wanted to get to Makassar to meet the Sea Girlthere, so I shipped aboard the Elinor at Bristol.

  Brent started ragging me before we weighed anchor.

  Well, I stood his hazing for a few days and then I got plenty and we went together. We fought the biggest part of one watch, all over the ship from the mizzen cross trees to the bowsprit. Yet it wasn’t what I wouldst call a square test of manhood because marlin spikes and belaying pins was used free and generous on both sides and the entire tactics smacked of rough house.

  In fact, I finally won the fight by throwing him bodily offa the poop. He hit on his head on the after deck and wasn’t much good the rest of the cruise, what with a broken arm, three cracked ribs and a busted nose. And the cap’n wouldn’t even order me to scrape the anchor chain less’n he had a gun in each hand, though I wasn’t figgering on socking the old rum-soaked antique.