Men without women
could have stood it. Jack put the left in his face. There was such a
hell of a lot of yelling going on. They were right in front of us.
Walcott hit him twice. Jack’s face was the worst thing I ever saw,—the
look on it! He was holding himself and all his body together and it all
showed on his face. All the time he was thinking and holding his body in
where it was busted.
Then he started to sock. His face looked awful all the time. He started
to sock with his hands low down by his side, swinging at Walcott.
Walcott covered up and Jack was swinging wild at Walcott’s head. Then he
swung the left and it hit Walcott in the groin and the right hit Walcott
right bang where he’d hit Jack. Way low below the belt. Walcott went
down and grabbed himself there and rolled and twisted around.
The referee grabbed Jack and pushed him toward his corner. John jumps
into the ring. There was all this yelling going on. The referee was
talking with the judges and then the announcer got into the ring with
the megaphone and says, “Walcott on a foul.”
The referee is talking to John and he says, “What could I do? Jack
wouldn’t take the foul. Then when he’s groggy he fouls him.”
“He’d lost it anyway,” John says.
Jack’s sitting on the chair. I’ve got his gloves off and he’s holding
himself in down there with both hands. When he’s got something
supporting it his face doesn’t look so bad.
“Go over and say you’re sorry,” John says into his ear. “It’ll look
good.”
Jack stands up and the sweat comes out all over his face. I put the
bathrobe around him and he holds himself in with one hand under the
bathrobe and goes across the ring. They’ve picked Walcott up and they’re
working on him. There’re a lot of people in Walcott’s corner. Nobody
speaks to Jack. He leans over Walcott.
“I’m sorry,” Jack says. “I didn’t mean to foul you.”
Walcott doesn’t say anything. He looks too damned sick.
“Well, you’re the champion now,” Jack says to him. “I hope you get a
hell of a lot of fun out of it.”
“Leave the kid alone,” Solly Freedman says.
“Hello, Solly,” Jack says. “I’m sorry I fouled your boy.”
Freedman just looks at him.
Jack went to his corner walking that funny jerky way and we got him down
through the ropes and through the reporters’ tables and out down the
aisle. A lot of people want to slap Jack on the back. He goes out
through all that mob in his bathrobe to the dressing-room. It’s a
popular win for Walcott. That’s the way the money was bet in the Garden.
Once we got inside the dressing-room Jack lay down and shut his eyes.
“We want to get to the hotel and get a doctor,” John says.
“I’m all busted inside,” Jack says.
“I’m sorry as hell, Jack,” John says.
“It’s all right,” Jack says.
He lies there with his eyes shut.
“They certainly tried a nice double-cross,” John said.
“Your friends Morgan and Steinfelt,” Jack said. “You got nice friends.”
He lies there, his eyes are open now. His face has still got that awful
drawn look.
“It’s funny how fast you can think when it means that much money,” Jack
says.
“You’re some boy, Jack,” John says.
“No,” Jack says. “It was nothing.”
A SIMPLE ENQUIRY
OUTSIDE, the snow was higher than the window. The sunlight came in
through the window and shone on a map on the pine-board wall of the hut.
The sun was high and the light came in over the top of the snow. A
trench had been cut along the open side of the hut, and each clear day
the sun, shining on the wall, reflected heat against the snow and
widened the trench. It was late March. The major sat at a table against
the wall. His adjutant sat at another table.
Around the major’s eyes were two white circles where his snow-glasses
had protected his face from the sun on the snow. The rest of his face
had been burned and then tanned and then burned through the tan. His
nose was swollen and there were edges of loose skin where blisters had
been. While he worked at the papers he put the fingers of his left hand
into a saucer of oil and then spread the oil over his face, touching it
very gently with the tips of his fingers. He was very careful to drain
his fingers on the edge of the saucer so there was only a film of oil on
them, and after he had stroked his forehead and his cheeks, he stroked
his nose very delicately between his fingers. When he had finished he
stood up, took the saucer of oil and went into the small room of the hut
where he slept. “I’m going to take a little sleep,” he said to the
adjutant. In that army an adjutant is not a commissioned officer. “You
will finish up.”
“Yes, signor maggiore,” the adjutant answered. He leaned back in his
chair and yawned. He took a paper-covered book out of the pocket of his
coat and opened it; then laid it down on the table and lit his pipe. He
leaned forward on the table to read and puffed at his pipe. Then he
closed the book and put it back in his pocket. He had too much
paper-work to get through. He could not enjoy reading until it was done.
Outside, the sun went behind a mountain and there was no more light on
the wall of the hut. A soldier came in and put some pine branches,
chopped into irregular lengths, into the stove. “Be soft, Pinin,” the
adjutant said to him. “The major is sleeping.”
Pinin was the major’s orderly. He was a dark-faced boy, and he fixed the
stove, putting the pine wood in carefully, shut the door, and went into
the back of the hut again. The adjutant went on with his papers.
“Tonani,” the major called.
“Signor maggiore?”
“Send Pinin in to me.”
“Pinin!” the adjutant called. Pinin came into the room. “The major wants
you,” the adjutant said.
Pinin walked across the main room of the hut toward the major’s door. He
knocked on the half-opened door. “Signor maggiore?”
“Come in,” the adjutant heard the major say, “and shut the door.”
Inside the room the major lay on his bunk. Pinin stood beside the bunk.
The major lay with his head on the rucksack that he had stuffed with
spare clothing to make a pillow. His long, burned, oiled face looked at
Pinin. His hands lay on the blankets.
“You are nineteen?” he asked.
“Yes, signor maggiore.”
“You have ever been in love?”
“How do you mean, signor maggiore?”
“In love—with a girl?”
“I have been with girls.”
“I did not ask that. I asked if you had been in love—with a girl.”
“Yes, signor maggiore.”
“You are in love with this girl now? You don’t write her. I read all
your letters.”
“I am in love with her,” Pinin said, “but I do not write her.”
“You are sure of this?”
“I am sure.”
“Tonani,” the major said in the same tone of voice, “can you hear me
talking?”
There was no answer from the next room.
“He can not hear,” the major said. “And you are quite sure that you love
a girl?”
“I am sure.”
“And,” the major looked at him quickly, “that you are not corrupt?”
“I don’t know what you mean, corrupt.”
“All right,” the major said. “You needn’t be superior.”
Pinin looked at the floor. The major looked at his brown face, down and
up him, and at his hands. Then he went on, not smiling, “And you don’t
really want—” the major paused. Pinin looked at the floor. “That your
great desire isn’t really—” Pinin looked at the floor. The major leaned
his head back on the rucksack and smiled. He was really relieved: life
in the army was too complicated. “You’re a good boy,” he said. “You’re a
good boy, Pinin. But don’t be superior and be careful some one else
doesn’t come along and take you.”
Pinin stood still beside the bunk.
“Don’t be afraid,” the major said. His hands were folded on the
blankets. “I won’t touch you. You can go back to your platoon if you
like. But you had better stay on as my servant. You’ve less chance of
being killed.”
“Do you want anything of me, signor maggiore?”
“No,” the major said. “Go on and get on with whatever you were doing.
Leave the door open when you go out.”
Pinin went out, leaving the door open. The adjutant looked up at him as
he walked awkwardly across the room and out the door. Pinin was flushed
and moved differently than he had moved when he brought in the wood for
the fire. The adjutant looked after him and smiled. Pinin came in with
more wood for the stove. The major, lying on his bunk, looking at his
cloth-covered helmet and his snow-glasses that hung from a nail on the
wall, heard him walk across the floor. The little devil, he thought, I
wonder if he lied to me.
TEN INDIANS
AFTER one Fourth of July, Nick, driving home late from town in the big
wagon with Joe Garner and his family, passed nine drunken Indians along
the road. He remembered there were nine because Joe Garner, driving
along in the dusk, pulled up the horses, jumped down into the road and
dragged an Indian out of the wheel rut. The Indian had been asleep, face
down in the sand. Joe dragged him into the bushes and got back up on the
wagon-box.
“That makes nine of them,” Joe said, “just between here and the edge of
town.”
“Them Indians,” said Mrs. Garner.
Nick was on the back seat with the two Garner boys. He was looking out
from the back seat to see the Indian where Joe had dragged him alongside
of the road.
“Was it Billy Tabeshaw?” Carl asked.
“No.”
“His pants looked mighty like Billy.”
“All Indians wear the same kind of pants.”
“I didn’t see him at all,” Frank said. “Pa was down into the road and
back up again before I seen a thing. I thought he was killing a snake.”
“Plenty of Indians’ll kill snakes to-night, I guess,” Joe Garner said.
“Them Indians,” said Mrs. Garner.
They drove along. The road turned off from the main highway and went up
into the hills. It was hard pulling for the horses and the boys got down
and walked. The road was sandy. Nick looked back from the top of the
hill by the schoolhouse. He saw the lights of Petoskey and, off across
Little Traverse Bay, the lights of Harbour Springs. They climbed back in
the wagon again.
“They ought to put some gravel on that stretch,” Joe Garner said. The
wagon went along the road through the woods. Joe and Mrs. Garner sat
close together on the front seat. Nick sat between the two boys. The
road came out into a clearing.
“Right here was where Pa ran over the skunk.”
“It was further on.”
“It don’t make no difference where it was,” Joe said without turning his
head. “One place is just as good as another to run over a skunk.”
“I saw two skunks last night,” Nick said.
“Where?”
“Down by the lake. They were looking for dead fish along the beach.”
“They were coons probably,” Carl said.
“They were skunks. I guess I know skunks.”
“You ought to,” Carl said. “You got an Indian girl.”
“Stop talking that way, Carl,” said Mrs. Garner.
“Well, they smell about the same.”
Joe Garner laughed.
“You stop laughing, Joe,” Mrs. Garner said. “I won’t have Carl talk that
way.”
“Have you got an Indian girl, Nickie?” Joe asked.
“No.”
“He has too, Pa,” Frank said. “Prudence Mitchell’s his girl.”
“She’s not.”
“He goes to see her every day.”
“I don’t.” Nick, sitting between the two boys in the dark, felt hollow
and happy inside himself to be teased about Prudence Mitchell. “She
ain’t my girl,” he said.
“Listen to him,” said Carl. “I see them together every day.”
“Carl can’t get a girl,” his mother said, “not even a squaw.”
Carl was quiet.
“Carl ain’t no good with girls,” Frank said.
“You shut up.”
“You’re all right, Carl,” Joe Garner said. “Girls never got a man
anywhere. Look at your pa.”
“Yes, that’s what you would say,” Mrs. Garner moved close to Joe as the
wagon jolted. “Well, you had plenty of girls in your time.”
“I’ll bet Pa wouldn’t ever have had a squaw for a girl.”