Browning in Buckskin

by Peter Corris

  Coral was ecstatic. 'He's great,' she gasped. 'See the way he moves. Like a dancer. And I'll bet those punches sting.'

  'He won't know what hit him if Jones connects,' I grunted. 'He's giving away more than twenty pounds.'

  Coral was on the edge of her seat. 'Let's see. Here we go.'

  The bell rang and the pattern of the first round was repeated – rush and swing, dance and jab. Sailor caught the negro on the ribs; the smack of the punch was like a pistol shot.

  'Cracked ribs,' I said. 'He's gone.'

  'No!' Coral yelped. 'No, he's not!'

  She was right. Honey Clinton tucked his right arm in over the ribs, kept the fist cocked but protective, and jabbed the Sailor silly with his left. The crowd was on its feet at the end of the round because it looked as if the Sailor might go down like someone stung by a hundred bees. But he stayed upright, staggered to his corner and spat blood into the bucket.

  Coral jabbed me in the ribs. 'Who's got who now, huh? Wise guy. Wanna little bet?'

  That was when I first noticed the looks. A few glances only, from the seats on either side, eyeing Coral in her yellow silk, and me, sweating somewhat, in grey flannel. A few words were said, but I couldn't catch them. I wasn't paying that much attention; I was too interested in the fight.

  Clinton decked the Sailor with a left hook in the third. It wasn't a hard punch, but it was classically timed to catch the heavier, slower man off balance. Jones went down with a thud and a rush of air from his tense, surprised body.

  Coral jumped to her feet. 'Kill 'im!' she screamed. 'Go in an' kill 'im!'

  I heard hostility all around, expressed in the clinking of money, low curses, angry puffs on cigars and cigarettes, and then it hit me. There were a lot of negroes in the stadium, maybe a third of the audience was black, but there were none at ringside. The only black men within fifty feet of us were Honey and his two corner men. I glanced around and saw that blacks and whites were seated in separate sections further back and above. Coral was one of about a dozen white women close to the ring. She was the only white person cheering for Honey Clinton. I pulled her back onto her seat.

  'Shut up,' I hissed. 'You're in the south, and you're cheering for a darkie.'

  'I don't give a damn,' she said. 'Twenty bucks on Honey. Any takers?'

  A fat man in a white suit sitting in the row in front turned around slowly and looked at me with sagging, bloodhound eyes. 'If'n you can't keep her quiet, son,' he drawled, 'I think y'all better leave.'

  'I'm not leavin'!' Coral yelled, but the bell and an explosion of action in the ring drowned her out. The Sailor rushed across the canvas apparently determined to end things quickly. Blood spurted from his mouth as he started his first punch, a looping right delivered from an almost erect stance. The negro swayed back, perfectly balanced, and made the Sailor miss; he took a small step forward and let go the right he'd kept cocked since he'd been hit in the ribs. It was one of those moments at a fight when you see everything very clearly and in slow motion. I could see the agony on Honey's face as he threw the punch; the pain from the ribs must have been incredible. But he threw it and with all his weight behind it. Sailor was like a buffalo running smack into a .303 bullet. The punch connected with his upthrust jaw, and you could almost see the message travel along the bone to his brain. His legs crumpled and he pitched forward onto his face. Honey had to skip out of his way to give him room to fall.

  'Whoopee,' Coral screamed. 'Whatta punch!'

  There was a lot of noise in the crowd among the blacks, who were cheering their man and slapping each other on the back and showing each other exactly what the sweet moves had been. Things were pretty quiet at ringside. They lifted the Sailor off the floor and got him moving in a minute or so by using smelling salts. He got a bit of a cheer as he left the ring, heavily supported by his handlers. Honey Clinton lifted the ropes fastidiously and stepped through them.

  'Yes, sir,' Coral yelled. 'Honey is sweet!'

  A man sitting a few places along from me spat tobacco juice on the sawdust-covered floor. He stood, leaned across and shoved his face close to mine. His breath stank like a swamp, and his voice had a whine like a power saw stuck in hardwood. 'Mistuh, I wouldn't keep a woman like that in the backyard on a chain.'

  The colour drained from Coral's face as she looked at me. I looked at the man; he was shorter than me and a good deal lighter. I took a chance and threw a left hook at his stubbly chin.

  All hell broke loose at ringside; men started punching and shoving and women were screaming and clawing. One woman flew at Coral with her hands out like talons. Coral yanked at her hair and swung her around like a mop in a bucket. I was hit in the stomach by the tobacco juice spitter and went down. I took a boot in the head and almost lost interest in the proceedings. I could hear words like 'nigger' and 'coon' being shouted, and there was the sound of clothing being torn and fists smacking into faces. I don't know how I got out, Coral must have helped, but eventually I found myself outside the stadium in the heavy, moist, scent-laden air.

  'Can you walk, Nick, honey?' Coral said.

  'I guess so.' I wobbled for a few steps until I got the hang of it. 'What happened?'

  Coral chuckled. In the streetlight I could see that her dress was torn, and some white flesh and oyster pink satin were showing. It was the sort of thing that usually made an impact on me, but just then I wasn't in the mood. Whistles were blowing and car engines were roaring. 'Isn't it exciting,' Coral said. 'Three Cedars is going to seem a mite dull after this.' She supported me as we turned away from the commotion and made off down a street where the lamplight shone brightly through thick clusters of frangipani.

  'Coral, what happened?'

  'Didn't you see? Some 'a those people around the ring weren't white at all. They were light-coloured. What do they call the women?'

  'High yellers,' I said.

  'Right. High yellers. You know what I did, Nick? I started a race riot!'7

  4

  For someone with capital, there were a lot of business opportunities in New Orleans after the crash. Saloons, cafes and even small hotels were going pretty cheap, and Coral, with experience in these lines of work, plus her ability to run a low- key whorehouse, could have made a killing. I tried to persuade her to sell Three Cedars and make the move.

  'No chance, honey. There's no one there with money to buy.'

  'Come on,' I said, 'Judge Brennan could buy you out with his small change, and some of those San Diego cops must be looking for investments.'

  She had no answer to that, but she wouldn't budge.

  I made a last try after she'd paid the bill – a pretty hefty one it was too – and we were loading up the car. You see, I reckoned that the width of the American continent between me and my first wife's legal representatives was about the right distance. A little adjustment northwards wouldn't have hurt either. 'Let's point this thing north, Coral,' I said.

  'What?'

  She was wearing a smart travelling dress, a little tight over her bottom, which had spread a bit as a result of the good living. I gave her rump a friendly pat. 'I've got a yen to see New York. Let's take a trip up there now, look around a bit. You might feel different about going back to Three Cedars after you've seen New York. I hear they're going to put a building there more than a hundred stories high.'8

  Coral twitched away from my slap. She snatched the keys from me, marched around the car and got in behind the wheel. 'I'm goin' back to Three Cedars,' she said. 'You can go to New York if you like. Send me a postcard, if you can raise the price of a stamp.'

  Well, put like that, what could I do? I got in beside her and we started back west. I have to say that she was her usual good-natured self within a mile or two, but I never felt quite the same about her after seeing her yelling for blood at ringside and that snappish exchange. I began to wonder about her background as the Caddy ate up the miles. The stuff about me on the marriage licence was a pack of lies: what about nee Smith, Denver, Colorado, and the rest of
it? I resolved to do a little digging when we got back to California.

  The trip back was quieter than the one across. We had a few crates of champagne and some good liquor aboard, but somehow we didn't seem to be in the mood for it, and we mostly drank beer in the places we stopped. We made love pretty energetically but less often. We listened to the radio a lot – the Minstrels, Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee . . . [Browning hums tunelessly at this point. I have played the tape to experts on the popular music of the period, but they have been unable to identify the melody. Ed.] Truth is, we both had things on our minds.

  Nothing had changed in Three Cedars except that the weather had got a little colder. Pop's grain store still turned out the best bootleg whisky in the state; the general store acted as a drop for the dirty money that changed hands in the county and, well, you know what went on at the auto camp. It wasn't quite a closed system; the road through the town branched and went north to the southern reaches of the Grand Canyon and south to El Paso in Texas, where everything and everybody was for sale. Both places were holes in the ground as far as I was concerned, but there was some interesting through traffic. Sitting in the diner, I met stockbrokers on their way to Mexico; high-class whores headed in the same direction for abortions (sometimes these two categories linked up); virginal couples on their way to honeymoon at Lake San Carlos and trekkers planning to walk the length of the canyon.

  They had stories to tell about other places and often left newspapers behind. I learned from an LA paper that Hell's Angels had finally been finished early in the new year, and that it was due for release in about six months. There was no movie house in Three Cedars. None of the residents would see me defying death in the air for a year at least. The economy was in collapse, and it looked like Schmelling was going to fight Sharkey.

  Most of the travellers were too wrapped up in their own affairs to be curious about me, but one evening I got a fright. I'd been holding forth on some subject or other, wine perhaps, when this English accent stopped the flow.

  'I say, Mr Brown, what d'you think of this chap Bradman?'

  Bow-tie, hornrims, tweed jacket and as English as a pork pie. Not worth worrying about. I shrugged and said, 'Who?'

  'Bradman, the Australian batsman. You're Australian, aren't you? They're expecting great things from him in England this summer.'

  The two or three other people around the table didn't know what he was talking about so they looked to me for a response. I cleared my throat; normally I fancied I spoke with a sort of mid- Atlantic accent, a bit like, though I hate to admit it, Errol Flynn's. Now I tried to give it as much Californian flavour as I could. 'Spent a bit 'a time there – when I was a young 'un.'

  'Really. I'm a student of languages, accents, that sort of thing. I'd have said . . .'

  'The gentleman's talking about cricket, boys,' I said hastily. 'It's a game they play in the rain in England.'

  I got a bit of a laugh with that and a few more when I explained the rules of cricket. The Englishman took himself off in a huff and the moment passed. But you can see how careful a thoroughgoing liar has to be. It's hard work.

  I've never played much cricket or followed it very closely. There was the time when David Niven blackmailed me into a match. That bastard Flynn was in on it . . . [The recording on this tape ends here. It is possible that Browning continued with this anecdote on another tape and put it in chronological sequence. In any event, the next cassette resumes where he left off. Ed.]

  By and large though, I've always enjoyed the sort of one-off meetings I had with folks in the diner. It's the people who hang around or come back later to screw you that worry me. Anyway, I spent a pleasant few weeks back at Three Cedars. I drove the La Salle around the back roads, saying I was looking for property investments, but really just enjoying the speed and handling of the car. I did a little hunting in the woods with an old .22 rifle I found around the place and bringing home neatly drilled rabbits boosted my prestige. I was well fed by day, tucked up warm with Coral at night and looking for a way to put together a travelling stake when the time came to move on. The most promising course of action was to put the squeeze on one of the public notables who came to the auto camp to play around. It wouldn't have been too hard to get a photograph or perhaps a cashed check, something of the kind. The trouble was, I lacked the nerve to do it.

  One night, maybe six weeks into the new year, Walter MacMurray blew into town. He took a shack for the night and came into the diner for a meal. He out-talked, out-ate, out-drank and out-stayed everyone else in the place. I was feeling bored and restless by this time and I kept pace with him, at least as far as the drinking was concerned. Coral went to bed leaving me to close up. Walter opened another bottle and poured a big slug for us both. We were the best of pals by this time.

  'Nick, ol' buddy, I c'n see you got plenty on your mind.'

  'Don't know about that,' I said. 'Like what?'

  Walter winked. 'Bottoms up. You're fixin' to leave, but you don't know how.'

  I glanced around sharply to make sure that the door to our living quarters was closed. No, it probably wasn't a sharp glance, more of a slow, un-focussed stare. 'What're you talking about, Walter?'

  'Life,' MacMurray said. 'You're a young man, an' you're trapped here in this nowhere town.'

  'Gotta wife,' I muttered. 'House . . .'

  'Her house, not yours.'

  'Well . . .'

  'Lissen,' MacMurray put his arm over my shoulders and pulled my ear close to his face. 'I'm not a bad guy, Nick.'

  I tried to pull away. 'No, no, of course not.'

  'Never did anything like this before, but I need the dough.'

  'Dough? Did what? I don't understand.'

  'How would you like to collect on that insurance policy?'

  'Collect? I'd have to be dead, ten thousand's no good to me dead.'

  'Twenty thousand, fifteen for you, five for me.'

  'Eh?'

  MacMurray finished his drink. I drank too, although I was already pretty drunk. Trouble was, I could feel sobriety wrapping itself around me like a cold, wet sheet. He chuckled as he refilled the glasses. 'Put one over on little ol' Coral there. Signed you up for twenty grand without her noticing.'

  'Oh.' The thought that I was worth twenty thousand dead and not twenty cents alive almost completed the sobering process.

  "S right. Gotta play all the angles in this game. All over the country there's people insured for they don't know how much. Some of 'em don't even know they's insured at all.'

  'Very careless,' I said.

  'Yep. Now ol' Walt Mac, he's not careless. No, sir. He's careful. Very careful an' . . .'

  I was pretending to be drunker than I was by now. I prodded him in the chest and was surprised to feel the hard muscle and sinew stretched over the bone. 'Then how come you need dough, like you say you do?'

  MacMurray sighed. 'Woman trouble. Story of my life. Jus' between you 'n me, I got a wife in Texas an' one in California an' damn me if they didn't get together an' hire themselves a hot-shot Jew lawyer. If I can't come up with ten grand real quick I'm gonna be eatin' tortillas for the rest of my life or rotting in gaol.'

  'You said you'd get five thousand.'

  He grinned, thinking, I'll bet, that he had me. 'I got five, Nick; I need another five to make ten.'

  What I've learned, over a long, disreputable life, is that con men love to talk. It's how they make their living, and when they're with a mark who doesn't know what's going on, they can weave a magic spell with their tongues. But if you suspect them from the start, and then let them talk, why, it's child's play to see through their scheme and avoid it. (The trouble is, in my case, I've been on both sides of the fence, and I've let myself run off at the mouth and see the scepticism cloud over people's eyes . . . ) Anyway, that night in Three Cedars, I let MacMurray talk.

  'Everyone knows you drive that Caddy like a bat out a' hell, Nick. Right?'

  I shrugged. It's essential to keep as quiet as possible yourself
in this manoeuvre.

  'Roads round here'r bad. Wouldn't surprise anyone if you 'n it was found wrapped round a tree one day.'

  'Guess not.'

  'Damn right. Now it so happens I've been writing policies for a company that's building a bridge an' highway south of here. Maybe you know about it?'

  I did. I'd driven in that direction and seen the massive construction – a span across a deep ravine and half a mountain being blasted away to allow a road to go directly west instead of looping fifty miles south. I nodded.

  'Between you 'n me and this bottle, I can tell you that they're hiring any riff-raff that comes along on that job, and there's some riff-raff around, believe me. City guys, men who've never worked construction before, rummies, guys a shingle short of a roof, know what I mean?'

  'Sure, but . . .'

  They're dying, Nick. Dying steady – they're falling, getting blown up, being run over. Violent deaths. We're trying to work out an accident insurance plan, but it's hard to do on account of the work conditions're so piss-poor.'

  'I still don't see what it's got to do with me.'

  'Look, some of those bodies aren't getting all the care and attention you'd wish for your grey-haired mother. See?'

  'No.'

  'Don't be dumb. They're dumping them. Hiding them. I guarantee that within a week I could come up with a dead white male, 'bout your size and age, no questions asked.'

  I stared at him. 'You mean . . . ?'

  'Caught on at last? I knew you would. You're not what you make yourself out to be, Nick. For one thing, you're not no twenty-eight-year-old. I got experience at these things and if you're not thirty-three or thirty-four, I'm a virgin. I've seen you clean your shoes and handle a rifle. You were in the service. Maybe the British army, maybe not, but you're not a limey. I heard talk about a professor was through here. Reckoned you was from South Africa or some such place. I don't think Coral'd take too kindly to being deceived like that. Women got their strange pride, y'know.'

  I poured another big drink and didn't say anything.

  'No skin off my ass, buddy. We guys who live by our wits gotta stick together. Here's the deal – you keep driving the La Salle the way you do, maybe bang her up a little. I get hold of a John Doe. The car hits a tree and burns with John Doe inside. Doc Parsons identifies you. You hide out someplace. American Western pays off and we all collect.'