The Bruiser (19 page)

A wave of shadow passed over the crowd. A cloud slipped in front of the sun. It slanted downward with heat-shriveling force.

Airplanes, carrying trailers of advertising, droned overhead.

A subdued silence went over the mighty throng. A prolonged rumbling followed, like breakers on the sea.

“Here they are,” a perspiring man shouted.

Neither fighter looked at the other, as he crossed to scrape his shoes in the resin.

The ring was crowded. The radio announcer talked hurriedly in the microphone. Every now and then his words were interspersed with the name of the firm that had given a fortune for the privilege of announcing the fight. Scores of newspaper writers greeted each other.

Over the audience, at fifty dollars a seat in the first hundred rows, were scattered the leaders in their different worlds.

Eight priests sat in a row, their benign faces in startling contrast to the turbulent, sun-scorched scene about them.

A battalion of huge, black and white clouds moved slowly up from the west and completely obscured the blazing sun for a moment. It burned through them,
more appallingly hot than ever. A sprinkle of rain, not dried by the blazing sun, fell over the audience of a hundred and fifty thousand.

A box containing the new gloves was brought into the ring. The bandages were adjusted.

Managers and chief seconds handed them from one to the other. Sully's second took a pair and twisted them about, then stopped to wipe his face with a handkerchief. He quickly put the piece of linen in the neck of his collarless jersey shirt, and jammed his right hand into the glove. Taking his hand out and twisting the glove again, he fitted it on Sully's outstretched paw.

“Now's your chance,” said Blinky Miller.

Tim Haney crossed the ring.

“Take the iron out quick—there'll be no fight till you do.”

The chief second's eyes darted murder at Miller, who grinned.

Sully slumped on his chair, while manager and seconds crowded around him.

“Not getting away with the iron'll confuse 'em,” Blinky whispered to Silent Tim.

The fighters posed for pictures. A dozen cameras clicked.

Shane looked defiantly in the champion's eyes. Sully met his gaze.

On the toss for corners, Shane got the one with the sun in his eyes.

Introductions over, the ring was quickly cleared.

Shane looked without seeing at the white mass of human faces.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer's words thundered through immense trumpets in the wide roofless enclosure, “in this corner Dapper Dan Sully—heavyweight champeen of the world.” He pointed dramatically. The roar of applause died away. “In this corner, Roaring Shane Rory—undisputed challenger-Marquis of Queensbury rules—fifteen rounds to a decision and the title.”

Men and women stood on seats, yelling and clapping their hands.

“Down in front,” came from many throats.

“Watch that Rory,” a two hundred and fifty pound man confided to the stranger seated next to him. “When he begins to zoom them—boy—they zoom— Sully'll find it's just like slappin' a wolf in the face when he cracks him.”

“Sully can zoom some too,” the stranger cut in.

The fat man looked at him with polite scorn. He wiped his forehead with a large blue handkerchief, and did not talk for a moment. Instead, he began to drum wide knees with pudgy fingers.

The tension carried him away again. “Eventually Rory'll make Sully bring his guard down—and then his punches'll go zoomin' in like cannon balls shot by lightnin'.” He looked sideways at the stranger, anticipating a dispute— “He's got fists that go so fast no one can see 'em— Did you see him drop Jones?” The stranger did not answer. “Well, I did—right then I said to myself, I said, ‘Me for this fighter—he can knock a lion out with a pillow on his hands.'”

“You mean on the lion's hands?”

“No—I don't mean on the lion's hands—you know who I mean.”

A band blared a fast tune.

“Good Lord, what a time for music—there's people who'd laugh at a weddin'.” The fat man gazed scornfully in the direction of the noise.

“What's your name?” the stranger asked the fat man.

“Me—I'm Jeremiah Dodge—Chairman of the Maas Brewing Company. Here's my card.”

“Thanks—I'm Joe Slack—one time middleweight champeen.” The speaker grinned proudly.

The fat man looked in alarm. “Is that so—I remember—you were
some man.”

“Yeap—we never got the millions in my day these fellows'll get—and we had to fight too—they were men in them days.”

The fat man was now less certain of himself— “Now, of course, a man like you knows fights and fighters—and I wouldn't presume to talk to you like I would a stranger—why my father always said,—‘There'll never be another Joe Slack'— Now what do you think, Mr. Slack?”

“Well, I'll tell you—it'll be a dinger for a while—but Sully'll git him—Rory's fightin' things in there he can't hit—”

“He's mighty fast when he begins to zoom, though.” The fat man was again reassuring.

“But you can't hit ghosts—I know—I've tried— Your fists go right through them.”

The fat man looked surprised.

Joe Slack said no more. Putty ears, a flat nose, squirrel eyes, and a twisted mouth, he was known in the vernacular of the ring as “a good man in his day.”

He stared at the ring.

Uneasy laughter, mingled with incessant low murmuring, could be heard.

“Just think,” said a heavily dressed fellow, in spite of the weather, “this vast assemblage will all have passed from the earth in a hundred years.”

“If this heat keeps up it'll be less'n that,” was Jeremiah Dodge's rejoinder.

A silence of breathless expectancy followed. The stillness of dawn, a momentary hush, it lasted but a minute.

As if jerked in unison by a wire, three hundred thousand eyes turned toward the ring.

Hot and Cold Daily waved at Berniece, seated across from him.

All became tense. The click of typewriters stopped at the ringside. Hands still ready to form words, the reporters looked upward at the fighters.

The referee called them to the center of the ring. They were formidable men. Sully was taller than Shane. As they now stood, with feet close together, they widened toward the shoulders in the shape of the letter V. Sully's hair was clipped close. Shane's was cut shorter than usual to keep it from his eyes. Each had several days' growth of beard.

Instructions given, their gloves touched. Standing, with muscles taut, they waited the gong in their corners.

Each fighter went forward when it rang.

Sully crouched and charged into Shane with lightning fury. He landed a right above Shane's eyes. It opened to the bone. He went down as though dropped from the sky. He got up at eight, still dazed, his body red with dripping blood.

The audience became tense. The referee's count could not be heard.

“Did you watch that glove?” Tim asked Blinky.

“It's okeh,” answered Blinky, his eyes on Shane.

As Shane wobbled, another terrible right caught him high on the cheek. He went down again. His
strong brain drove his body. With jaws firm set, he was up at seven.

Sully charged again.

Then came the mightiest transformation of all time in all rings. Like a master fencer, firm on his feet, his eye streaming blood, the left side of his face purple where Sully's blows had struck, the majestic bruiser sizzled rights and lefts with the deadly precision of machine-gun fire.

“My God—what a man!” A sports writer put his hands to his eyes.

“Cover, cover,” shouted Wilson. Sully bounded from the ropes.

The huge audience roared.

Berniece clenched her hands.

Sully's brain raced.

Shane went down again from a short right to the wounded eye. The referee counted.

Shane did not move.

Sully rushed with swinging fists to answer the gong for the next round.

Wilson looked at Shane, then anxiously squinted at the slanting sun.

A powerful astringent congealed the blood above Shane's eye.

“Don't let 'em stop it,” groaned Shane.

“Keep to his left,” Silent Tim said, “Bury your jaw.”

Blood-covered, lips puffed, eye half closed from Sully's terrific bombardment, Shane again pleaded with Silent Tim, “Don't let 'em stop it.”

“I'll kill 'em if they do,” snapped Silent Tim.

The gong rang. The champion rattled Shane's jaws with one-twos. He then worked downward to the stomach.

Shane doubled under the tornado of pain. The champion's jaw rested on his shoulder. Shane stepped back and quickly brushed the streaming blood out of his eyes. His blow traveled about eight inches and crashed. Sully zigzagged backward.

The gong rang in roars of applause.

Shane had one great advantage as a pugilist. His eyes were set deep in his head. The projecting forehead above, the high cheek-bones below, protected them. The blood stopped flowing above his eyes.

Silent Tim and Blinky Miller were in their element now. Not a move was wasted.

Blinky's hands worked rapidly over Shane's muscular legs, then his arms and shoulders, then up and down the back of his rope-like neck until his entire body was covered in the minute rest between rounds.

Another second swished a large towel in zigzag fashion, while Shane's enormous chest inhaled the freshly made air.

Silent Tim talked very low, his mouth close to Shane's ear. When the ten second bell rang, all made ready to clear the ring.

Shane looked across at his adversary.

Jack Gill leaned over Tim.

“Let me swing the towel next round.”

“All right, Jack-thanks.”

The gong rang. Shane decided to “play for his head.”

He held his guard high and made no move until Sully moved. The audience screamed. Shane paid no attention. Each time the champion led he was beaten to the punch. Sully rushed while Shane was in midair. Shane fell from a right cross in a sickening crescendo of noise.

When he returned to his corner, Silent Tim said, “Work to his left, Shane—then go into your shell—don't let him outsmart you.”

He smiled wearily at Jack Gill.

The champion was in Shane's corner before he had completely risen.

The fingers of the right hand stung from the impact, as his gloves swished with thudding pain. The champion crouched. Shane slammed him on the side of the head.

Unmindful of pain, the torturing sun on his naked body, and the fight-mad champion in front of him, he fought with grim set lips.

Shane countered two of Sully's now terrible drives with zipping uppercuts, and a jolt to the head.

They fell into a clinch. Shane's fists were everywhere—now on Sully's jaws, now battering his body. The champion swayed under the terrible pounding.

“Keep away,” Wilson shouted, “keep away! Good Lord, keep away!”

“Move in, Shane—remember Wichita,” pleaded Jack Gill.

They broke free. Sully, his nose now split, his face
blood-bespattered, grinned for a brief second. Then his body became taut, lightning quick, to meet an even more terrible attack.

Torpedo Jones, watching, alert as a panther stalking his prey, moved his shoulders at each impact.

Their heads were now together. A looping right caught Shane on the temple. He staggered back and fell into a clinch before Sully could get set for a finishing blow.

In a wild flurry, Sully slipped and fell across the second rope of the ring. Shane, attacking with furious speed, stepped back until Sully was balanced. A thunderous roar followed the sudden act of courtesy in the midst of the mauling pain. Before it subsided, Sully was inside Shane's guard.

Standing flat-footed, his left as a jaw-protector, by some miraculous movement, Shane “tied Sully into knots” and left him helpless. The referee broke them.

They now began to counter.

Shane shifted suddenly. Toe to toe, they traded rights. Shane's left foot moved. Sully missed. Shane landed. Sully went back, his guard down.

They worked in different positions and stood waiting for counter punches at the bell.

“It's anybody's fight,” Bangor Lang said to his companion.

Joe Slack's eyes were more narrow now. He was living over again the days of his vanished glory.

He nudged the fat man.

“These men were babies when I was in there,” he said.

“Yeap—it's funny—babies then—think of it.”

Shane's broad back glistened with water.

“For a man hittin' ghosts—he's landin' pretty often,” said Jeremiah Dodge. “That Gill's nobody's fool either.”

Joe Slack did not hear. He stared at the ring.

Shane advanced at the bell, slightly crouched, his left shoulder drawn up to protect his jaw from Sully's murderous right.

Sully was on his toes, his left feinting, his right ready for an attack.

He sprang in, but missed. Shane caught him going back and rocked him dizzily. With rapid brain, Sully maneuvered himself out of danger.

“He's not a champion for nothin',” said Jeremiah Dodge.

“They never are,” commented Joe Slack, as Sully threw a thudding right against Shane's jaw. His entire body shook.

He fell for a split second on the ropes, dizzy with defeat had he been a lesser man. The kill in sight, Sully crashed in, snapping lefts and rights.

The audience stood screaming. A mad moment followed, when swift as an angry leopard leaping, Shane met Sully's attack. The amphitheatre was soon stunned into silence.

Uncountable blows, the neighbors of death, followed.

“He's zoomin' them now,” screamed the fat man.

“Shut up, will you?” snapped Joe Slack.

Sully stepped back. Shane moved in.

In the number of blows landed with terrible and thudding accuracy, the next minute was unsurpassed in all the mad and bloody history of the ring.

Two men who could have stood against any other two of all time were whaling away at the summit of their mighty careers.

Jack Gill watched, like a runner ready to spring at the gong.

Each sensed a climax. They must withstand each other's blows without breaking. The champion dared not break ground under the withering bombardment of leather. Neither did Shane. It was such a moment that he who hesitated ever so briefly, unless it were for an overwhelming advantage, would know in his heart that, barring his delivering an accidental knockout, he was ultimately and forever defeated.

It was the final test. Each brain, each heart, every nerve and sinew of each was bent on the other's destruction. Mingled with hope of victory was the hatred engendered in former vicious fights. It was no longer the business of the two mightiest bruisers on earth battling for the greatest of pugilistic goals. It was something more—the epic struggle of young giants in the twilight of a weakened civilization. “I slugged Jerry Wayne crazy—I'll do the same for Rory.” The words had once been ripped from Sully by Silent Tim Haney's taunts. Vivid as lightning, they were burned in Shane's brain.

Zip, zip, went their blows in close.

Silent Tim whispered to Jack Gill.

Shane shot an uppercut. Seeing it would miss and
expose him to Sully's attack, he stopped it in mid-air by a tremendous effort of will. His fist crashed on top of Sully's head.

The blow was forceful enough to loosen the brain in the champion's head. His knees sagged. His attack was, if possible, more vicious.

Without missing, as regular as maniacs pounding at a drum, each landed time and time again. One had to go to the canvas if sheer strength and fury would put him there. Brains and bodies trained for years in masterful coördination were giving all they had. Blows whistled like sharp winds. Each instinctively felt that hard blows, and not science, would win.

Sully's manager had a tense expression.

Blinky Miller's hands grasped the projecting edge of the ring. Like Gill, he was hunched over, ready to jump between the ropes at the gong.

“Rory's a great fighter,” the fat man panted.

“They're both great,” admitted Joe Slack.

The merciful gong ended the round.

Water splashed furiously on the determined gladiators. Silent Tim held a sponge at the back of Shane's head. Blinky Miller put smelling salts to his nose. Shane brushed it aside.

Typewriters clicker furiously. An airplane, droning unseen, slid a long shadow of wings across the ring.

Silent Tim whispered, “God's in your corner, lad, and me, and Jack and Blinky.”