Drum (39 page)

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Calinda? And when he was bom was his father happy? Was he as proud of his son as he himself was of Dnimson?

He would take his son up in his big hands as gingerly as he might have picked up one of Madame's Dresden bibelots, fearful lest he break one of the child's tiny arms or legs. Then he would study the baby carefully, discerning in him certain traces of himself and certain of Calinda. The shape of the ears was hers; the shape of the lips was his as was the downy hair on his head and the well formed nose and the narrow nostrils. The color of its skin bothered him a bit for this Drumson was neither as light as his father nor as dark as his mother. Of course any child of Calinda's could not be as bright-skinned as himself. He, Drum, was a gri§e, but his son, being the offspring of a griQe and a Negress, was a sacatron, only one-eighth white. Yet it seemed to Drum that the child was far lighter than any sacatron he had ever seen before. Its down of hair was soft and straight, its nostrils not flattened and its lips not thick. Perhaps, he thought, it was because Calinda was a Jaloff, whose blood had contributed much to the famous beauty of the New Orleans quadroons.

But the color of his son did not worry him too much. The child was not pure black and would have a certain standing in the slave aristocracy. SuflBcient to Dnun was the miracle that had produced him. He wished he could know on what particular occasion Drumson had been conceived and if at that moment of conception any unusual thought had crossed his mind. Had it? He could not remember. Surely an event of such importance must have presaged itself in his mind. But he could recall nothing. Nothing . , , except the usual feeling of pride he always had when he acquitted himself like a man. Yes, pride, and now he was proud of his son, proud even of his son's name for he felt it to be a good omen that as the drumstick beats the drum, so would this Drumson beat this Drum. He wanted his son to be better than himself. He hoped that Drumson would be something more than a fighter. He hoped. ... He didn't know what he hoped. Perhaps being a fighter wasn't too bad after all. It was a hell of a lot better than being a canefield worker. To be champion of New Orleans was something, ManI The women sure turned aroimd to look at him. See how easy it had been to get Veronique and Jeanneton. He was champion!

Indeed, Drum was champion and his championship stood.

Although it was becoming increasingly difficult, Dominique You still managed to schedule matches for him. Every young blood in New Orleans and every plantation owner up river wanted to own the fighter that would lick Drum. The odds were high, fifty to one, and the long odds were tempting. But even more of an inducement was the prestige that would come from owning the fighter who could lick Drum. What Marigny had tried, others attempted, some from a purely mercenary motive, others for prestige. But Jemmy's; training was sound. Drum had been a faithful student and in a day of catch-as-catch-can, no-rules, nothing-barred fighting, Drum's scientific knowledge stood him in good stead against a procession of black brutes who were out to best him.

Sometimes Drum attributed his success to the little silver box he always wore around his neck. Once he had opened it, prying the cover off with his fingernail, and was disappointed to find nothing inside but a soiled rag. He had re-' membered Madame Alix sniffing at it, but when he placed it to his nose, he could smell only his own sweat The bit of rag had been sewn up with tiny stitches. Drum's curiosity impelled him to rip it open. Inside he found only a caked bit of dirt, nothing more, but although it seemed a worthless nothing, he had Calinda sew it back into the soiled rag which he replaced in the silver case. It had never been separated from him since the day Alix had given it to him. Gradually he came to think of it as his protector.

It remained for Pablo Hernandez to produce Drum's most formidable contender. Pablo Hernandez—he of the long black patillos, the slack mouth and the moist red lips—had discovered his man in the Calabozo, or as it was more familiarly called, now that New Orleans was American, the calaboose—the old Spanish-built prison. A friend of Pablo's, one Othon St. Denis, of a prominent but impoverished Creole family, searched all of New Orleans late one night in a humid downpour to find Pablo and finally when he located him at the Academy of Music, he managed to convince Alix with his last ten-dollar bill that his message for Pablo was of sufficient importance to warrant his breaking in on him.

Othon dashed up the stairs to the third floor, where he knocked on the door behind which Pablo was supposed to be. He was rewarded by hearing Pablo's voice through the closed door.

"What in hell do you want?" Pablo was in no mood to be disturbed.

"It's Othon, Pablo, Othon St. Denis, and I have most important news for you."

"Nothing is more important than what I am doing now. Can't it wait another half-hour?"

"Another half-hour would be ruinous." Othon tried the door but it was locked. "Soon all of New Orleans will be at the calaboose and I want you to get there first."

"Go away." Pablo was disgusted. "The calaboose! What do I want with that hell-hole? If all New Orleans wants to go there, that's their business. I'll stay here in bed." His voice lowered, "Turn over, cherie."

"But let me talk with you, Pablo. I swear, if you do not, you'll regret it the rest of your life."

There was a movement inside the room and a key grated in the lock. The door swimg open and Othon entered. By the light of a single candle on the stand beside the white mosquito-Z>a/re-draped bed, he saw a girl, sheet hastily thrown around her, scuttle back into the transparent tent, and then saw Pablo's face emerge, the black sidewhiskers strangely masculine in contrast to the diaphanous fabric.

"What is this, a joke or something?" Pablo was not pleased at being interrupted.

"No, Pablo, no! I've just seen the best fighter that ever landed in New Orleans. Better even than Drum."

"Better than Drum? Go away! There's no one better than Drum."

"This one is, I swear it. I just saw him lay out six men and it took another six to get him to the calaboose. In another hour it will be all over town. If you get there first you can get him."

"Six men, you said?" Pablo parted the mosquito baire and thrust his legs out.

"Six men," Othon nodded.

Deaf to the entreaties of Titine, for it was she who was the other occupant of the bed, Pablo leaped out, reached for his pants and with Othon's help dressed himself hurriedly.

Pablo stopped in the salon only long enough to toss a gold eagle into Alix' lap and together the two of them were down the stairs and out into the street. It had stopped raining but the steamy heat, rising from the accumulated dirt and offal in the street, enveloped them with a miasmic putrescence. New Orleans was a dirty city and a rainstorm,

instead of cleaning it, only seemed to make it dirtier. Pablo whistled for his coachman and the light barouche drove up. Without waiting for the coachman to get down to open the door, Pablo opened it himself and jumped in, pulling Othon in beside him.

"The Calabozo, and quick." Pablo turned to Othon. "Unless this is true, amigo mio, I'm going to challenge you to a duel, come morning. One does not leave the arms of Titine on a fool's errand."

"It's true, Pablo. Listen—" and to corroborate his claims, Othon related the events of his evening.

For several weeks, he had been madly enamored of a placee, a celebrated quadroon, whose aging white lover had set her up in a little cottage on the Rue des Ramparts. On the nights when her lover was vmable to come, she lighted a candlestick and placed it in the window at the left of the door, in anxious expectation of the young and virile Othon. If the old man was there, she placed the candle in the window at the right. This night, it happened that as Othon was passing, as he did regularly each night, the candle was in the right-hand window. Knowing, however, that the protector of the pretty quadroon was a man of limited capabilities and that his visits seldom lasted long, Othon decided to return later and wandered down Rampart Street to Congo Square. There the sudden downpour had forced him to seek shelter in a tavern frequented mainly by free men of color and Negroes. There he had waited for the rain to let up so that he might stroll past the house of his bien-aimee again to see if the candle had been shifted. The rain became worse so he stayed in the tavern, where he was treated with considerable deference, being given a table and chair and receiving the welcome attentions of an attractive mulatto: wench.

While he was sitting there, an enormous Negro, decently dressed in the wide-bottomed trousers and striped jersey of a sailor, came in and took his place at the rou^ bar. He was already drunk but desirous of becoming more so. He spoke English with a West Indian accent and when the bartender, who spoke only French and Gombo, failed to understand him, he became argumentative and quarrelsome. In their desire to quiet him, one or two of the men in the tavern approached him, speaking to him in English, but the man was now drunkenly belligerent. He grabbed a bottle from the bar and broke it over one man's head, whereupon a free-for-all

started. Othon managed to get out the door with his girl, and from the vantage point of a dark doorway across the street, shielded from the rain, they indulged in. making love while they watched the carnage on the banquette La front of the tavern. The huge Negro, his back to the wall, fought off all comers, felling them one by one. According to Othon, he could have kept on winning had not a policeman —still called by the old Spanish name of sereno —happened along. Witnessing the battle, he left hurriedly, soon to return with another sereno. By this time the burly black was completely out of control, and as the serenos were not armed it would have been suicidal for them to try to arrest him. However they enlisted the services of some of the free men of color who were there and six of them managed to overpower the black, but not until, according to Othon, six others had been laid out cold on the sidewalk. The serenos managed to tie the black's hands behind him and march him off to the jail. Othon, having completed his dalliance with the mulatto girl in the doorway, was now in no mood to care which window the quadroon's candle might be in. The prowess of the black had impressed him and he followed the procession to the calaboose to see the big Negro safely locked up.

Othon St. Denis desired a fighter of his own more than any other young blood in the city but he knew he would never be able to afford one. If he could get Pablo to purchase this man, he thought he might wangle a share of him, for Pablo not only greatly wanted a fighter who could whip Drum, but he was also notoriously rich and generous. It was this combination of Pablo's sporting blood, his wealth and his generosity, plus their friendship, which had impelled Othon to tramp the streets of the city in the driving rain in search of him.

Now the Hernandez carriage arrived at the Calabozo and the two men jumped out. The door of the prison was closed but the chain which hung beside it rang a bell inside and after it had clanged dismally several times, the door opened. An obese, bald man, his naked suet-white shoulders gleaming in the light of the lantern he held aloft, peered out. "I am Pablo Hernandez of Veinte Robles plantation."

"And what if ye are?" The man was not impressed.

"Perhaps this will help you to recognize me." Pablo held up a silver dollar.

The man's manner changed. He became instantly obsequious.

"Not the great Pablo Hernandez?"

"The same."

"And what can I do for sich a fine gentleman?"

"You have a prisoner here."

"By the saints, we have many, y'r honor."

"But one particular one who was admitted only an hour or so ago—a big black who was in a fracas up at Congo Square."

"That black devil?"

"We would see him."

"Ay, y'r honor, 'tis hardly safe. We've got him chained up."

"Then he could scarcely harm us." Pablo passed the silver through the bars and the man winked, unlocked the gate and let them through.

"The bastard's a Jamaican," the jailer explained. "Saysj he's owned by the captain of a Jamaican ship that put into ' port today. We got that much out o' him and we've sent for his master. Thought you might be him when ye rang the bell. Can't keep the bastard here, we can't. Got to rid ourselves of him quick." Carrying the lantern, he led Pablo and Othon across a dirty courtyard smrounded by barred cells. On the opposite side, he stopped before a heavy grille and thrust the lantern inside.

"He's the one," Othon cried.

He was answered by a rattle of chains. Pablo looked in., The man was sitting on the floor of the cell. Most of his clothes had been ripped off. His arms were stretched outi sideways, chained to hooks in the wall, and his feet were in heavy leg irons. The light of the lantern was reflected in the eyes which glared back at them. I

"Open the lock," Pablo told the jailer. J

"He's a wicked vm," the jailer cautioned. I

"I'll take my chance. He's chained."

The jailer fumbled with a big ring of keys at his belti selected one and turned the lock, and the door swung openj Pablo took a step inside, straddled the chained legs and. reaching down, grabbed the Negro's face in both hands. "They tell me you're a fighter," he said. ;

"I fights when I gets drunk, suh. Fights like a hellion.i suh. But never fights when I'se sober, suh." Evidently the effects of the rum were passing off for the man seemed coherent.

"How'd you like to be my fighter?" Pablo asked.

"What yo' mean fighter, suh?"

"Just what I said. Fight for me. Fight another man for me. Whip him and I'll set you free."

"Gotta buy me fust, suh. Cap'n Jenkins he don' want to seU Big'un."

"Is that your name?" Othon asked.

"Yes, suhl Tse Big'un. 'Cause I'se bigger'n anyone else. Cap'n Jenkins allays take me to sea wid 'im."

The outside bell rang again and the jailer, torn between his duty to remain with the white men and to answer the bell, hesitated. Pablo pointed in the direction of the door and the fat man lumbered away, to return in a few minutes with a dandified little man, who minced across the courtyard, two steps to the jailer's one. He disregarded Pablo and Othon and looked into the cell.