Minuet

by Joan Smith

  “I think you are taking advantage of this situation, Degan,” he said in a cold tone when he had joined them. “There is no audience for you to play to now. You can remove your arm from Minou’s chair.”

  “We have a small but select audience, Henri,” Sally answered, indicating the two men in the corner. She rushed on to ask, “Did you hear anything in the village? Any fresh word from Paris?” She noticed that Degan did not remove the offending arm, but left it there, looking pointedly at Henri the whole time. There was going to be some trouble between them; she knew it.

  “No, apparently no one has had time to get here yet today. There is one newcomer to town whose arrival will be of interest to us all, however. The Butcher of Lozère is in town. Close to seven feet tall, with a face like a baboon, and a body like an elephant. We want to shake the dust of this place from our heels before he finds out we’re here and forces a match on us.”

  “Come, we must go at once,” Sally said.

  “Go how?” Henri asked her. “The carriage won’t be ready for an hour. You have lost track of time, you two lovebirds. It is only eleven o’clock.”

  “We’ll wait in our rooms,” she insisted.

  “I want to talk to you, Minou,” Henri said in a commanding voice.

  She felt Degan’s fingers tighten on her shoulder, feared he was going to object, to start some foolish row with Henri. “Would you mind waiting for us upstairs?” she asked Degan in a polite voice that he could not refuse. He arose with a hard stare at Mérigot.

  “I am happy to oblige you, my dear,” he answered and left. That “my dear” was said to provoke Henri.

  “This won’t do,” Henri said. “I don’t want that fellow taking advantage of you every time my back is turned. Was he trying to make love to you?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” she answered, but with a certain unaccustomed shyness and flush that made him suspicious.

  “I won’t have it, Minou. You keep him in line, or I shall be obliged to do it myself. You understand?”

  “I understand you take a great deal on yourself,” she answered pertly. “I managed without you the last seven years and cannot feel I need your interference at this time.”

  “You shall have it, quand même. If he touches you again— unnecessarily, I mean—I shall call him out. This was a wretched idea, dressing you up and pretending you are his mistress. It puts ideas in his head.”

  “Henry, this is no time to be—”

  “Bear it in mind, my dear. And I would prefer that you call me Henri, as you were accustomed to do before meeting Degan.”

  “Is that the end of your lecture, sir? If so, I would like to leave, before the baboon butcher arrives.”

  “A word to the wise is sufficient. I trust this will be the end of your carrying on,” he answered, and, arising, he punctiliously drew her chair, took her arm, and went upstairs to their room, where she was careful to keep her distance from Degan, and bestow not a smile on him that could goad Mérigot into fulfilling his promise, as she knew too well he would happily do. Her prim demeanor put Degan into an uncertain mood, but she felt him to have the more controllable temper of the two.

  When Henri went to check on the carriage forty-five minutes later, he said, “You will come with me, Minou. And I suggest, Degan, that you stay in the room if you wish to avoid Le Boucher.”

  “I am rather curious to get a look at him,” Degan answered unconcernedly. “I haven’t met the man I can’t lick.” He directed a level and meaningful stare on Mérigot as he spoke. He didn’t know what the fellow had said to Sally, but he knew it had had the effect of quelling her spirits. There was a contest between the two men, and with so many avenues of proving his superiority closed due to their situation, Degan was being driven to the primitive extreme of actual physical combat.

  “You will be sure to meet him if you go on the streets,” Mérigot warned him. “But of course if you wish to risk having your features rearranged, you must not let me prevent you.” There was a taunting smile on Mérigot’s handsome face, and a sardonic gleam in his dark eyes. “Better lock yourself in the room, where you’ll be safe.” Mérigot laughed.

  “I find the air a little close in this room. I’ll await you belowstairs,” Degan replied.

  “Degan, I wish...” Sally began to caution him.

  “Come along, ma mie,” Henri ordered, and taking her by the arm, walked her to the door, with a challenging eye to Degan, who followed them out and down the stairs, but went into the common room when they went on out to the street.

  It would be foolish to go looking for trouble with the Butcher, of course, especially at such a crucial time, when getting to Paris was of the utmost urgency. But really he was ready to indulge in violence with someone. This truckling to Mérigot was damaging to his self-esteem. It flew in the face of animal instinct to be forever deferring to one’s sexual rival. He ordered a glass of wine and considered this point, with more passion than reason. He was still considering it when the floor began to shake under his chair, and glancing up, way up, he saw the face of a baboon floating past.

  The Butcher was a veritable giant of a man, hardly human at all. He looked a foot taller than himself. From a pair of massive, bull-like shoulders two arms as big as legs hung loosely, terminating in twin hams of hands. The man had a stupid-looking face, reddish-blond hair, all disheveled, and a broken nose. He knocked over two chairs before he reached his chosen table, in the very center of the room. Whether this was done through sheer clumsiness or arrogance was not clear, for while the face was decidedly stupid, it had as well an expression of pride.

  The man smote the table and hollered for wine. The waiter ran like lightning, which did not save him from a shaking when he placed the bottle before the bruiser, within thirty seconds. The Butcher held the bottle up to his lips and filled his mouth, then spat it in the waiter’s face contemptuously. Degan’s fingers curled into fists with the desire to strike him, but he held his seat. This was no time to let personalities erupt. Any minute Henri would be back, and they must leave at once.

  But Henri didn’t come back. The Butcher spoke in a loud, bragging voice of his prowess—how many bones he had broken, four noses and three jaws. He had killed a man as well in Lyons, and sounded proud of it. Degan was on the edge of his chair, wanting to challenge him. For ten minutes he sat looking and listening, while the man became quarrelsome. Had the Butcher cast a single aspersion on himself, he was ready to stand up and fight, but the boxer was more interested in impressing the simple local folk. He was not one of those boxers with any pretension to fashion or show, like Malraux. He wore an old fustian shirt and rough breeches. He ignored Degan completely.

  Glancing out the window, Degan saw Henri and Sally approaching, and arose to go out in the hall and meet them. This called the Butcher’s attention to him. “Who is this fellow?” he asked, looking Degan up and down with a sneer on his baboon’s face. The waiter told him.

  “This is the coward who fights midgets?” the Butcher demanded. “This is the jack dandy who beats up my friend, petit Malraux? Is that right, citoyen?”

  “That’s right, citoyen,” Degan replied, feeling his blood pounding. He didn’t know whether he was more frightened or angry, but he had a pretty good premonition he wasn’t going to get out of the room without a fight. The Butcher spat on the floor, missing his boot by an inch.

  Degan looked at it, then raised his eyes to see the creature laughing. “I do not limit myself to midgets, however,” he added.

  The Butcher’s eyes narrowed at the accent he heard. “He speaks like a lord, this one. Where do you learn such fancy French, citoyen?”

  “Not in the gutter, where you learned yours,” Degan answered, resuming his leavetaking. He was more alarmed at the question than the man’s size.

  “You accuse the Butcher of Lozère of being underbred?” he asked arising to his startling height, and raising his voice. Degan stopped and turned back.

  “No, citoyen. I think you are a very
highly bred baboon,” he replied.

  There was a hush in the room, the silence stretching from table to table as the insult was relayed by the patrons.

  “You call the Butcher of Lozère a baboon?” he howled, in accents not so very different from one.

  “My apologies—to the baboons,” Degan answered with a bow.

  A savage smile descended on the giant’s face. The stupidity was replaced by some animal lust that was terrible to see. At the same time his loose hands folded into fists as big as cabbages, the muscles in his arms bulging taut against his shirt. Involuntarily, Degan took a step backward. His frustration and anger, as much with Mérigot as with the Butcher, goaded him on, but reason whispered he was badly outclassed.

  He knew Henri and Sally were only seconds away; at that instant they entered, their eyes widening at what sight met them. “What’s going on?” Henri asked in deep alarm. In a few quiet words Degan told them.

  “Come, we go,” Sally said, taking Degan’s hand and heading for the door.

  “The midget beater runs?” the Butcher howled after him.

  “If you wish a match with my boy, I’ll arrange it with you,” Henri said, approaching the giant, but with a quailing heart. He had, of course, no intention of keeping any appointment, but thought this might ease their exit.

  “No time like the present. We meet this afternoon at two,” the Butcher replied, with a gloating, hungry smile at Degan.

  “We’re busy this afternoon,” Sally said, pulling to a stop.

  “We go to Rouen for another match,” Henri added, to lend an air of verisimilitude to this excuse.

  “Come, we leave,” Sally whispered to Degan, but he held back, waiting to hear the outcome. “He’ll kill you,” she warned. “He broke a man’s jaw, remember, and killed someone last year.” These reminders did not increase Degan’s wish to fight, yet he felt his blood rushing again at the bold way the damned baboon ogled Sally.

  “A good excuse. Your boy is a coward, in other words,” the Butcher said in a loud, jeering voice, glancing around to the patrons for admiration.

  Henri, eager to appease the menace, answered affably, “Not a coward, surely, to be afraid to meet the Butcher of Lozère.”

  “I’m not afraid to meet him!” Degan heard himself say.

  “Bah, how does this milksop rate a pretty whore like the redhead?” the baboon laughed.

  Henri readied himself for more appeasement of the giant, but soon realized he had a more pressing diplomatic chore on his hands to appease Degan. He was pulling free from Sally’s hands that tried to hold him, and was rapidly advancing to demand satisfaction for this insult, though it had been intended as no insult, nor did any of the patrons read one into it.

  “You will apologize to the lady,” Degan announced in a quietly menacing voice. The dread word “lady” stood Henri and Sally’s hair on end. Add to it the fact that his French was bad enough to raise doubts in the most unsuspicious of ears, and they could fairly feel the guillotine fall on their necks.

  “Come, Philippe,” Henri said, pulling his arm.

  “Oui, mon chou, we do not bother with this one,” Sally said, trying to convey by her tone both her lack of offense at the word and her eagerness to be off.

  “Why do you bother with this dull one, my little whore?” the Butcher asked her, letting his eyes rove over her slowly, from head to toe. “I, Antoine Laurier, the Butcher of Lozère, will be honored to replace him, and prove a better lover too.”

  While Antoine was still leering at her, Degan shot a hard blow to his mouth, its force somewhat diminished of course by the fact that he could barely reach it. The Butcher threw back his head and laughed, a great roaring bellow that shook the glasses on the table, and revealed to the room several gaps where once teeth had resided. Degan hit him in the stomach. It was like hitting a sandbag. The hand went in a quarter of an inch, and was stopped dead by a solid wall of muscle. The jar of hitting that firm flesh sent a tremor up the whole length of his arm. The Butcher was unaffected, except in his temper.

  He turned a red, wrathful eye on this David, and began swinging wildly, knocking over tables, chairs and glasses. If he had possessed an atom of coordination, Degan wouldn’t have lasted two seconds, but all these fine punches were rained on furniture and empty air.

  “Come, we go,” Sally said, running and pulling Degan by the hand. But he was sufficiently riled by this time that he had no wish to go, before he gave the monster some punishment. He shook her off.

  “Henri, do something!” she begged.

  “The ox has no science. He won’t hurt your precious Degan.”

  “You want him to get hurt!” she cried, and stamped her foot in vexation. “Stop them at once!”

  “It would take the Dragoons to stop them at this point, ma mie,” he answered amiably, and elbowed past another watcher to get a better view. He was just in time to see the Butcher land a telling punch on Degan’s chin.

  “Oh my God, his jaw is broken!” Sally moaned, taking a quick peep from behind her fingers, which she had raised to protect her eyes from the battle.

  Degan staggered against a table, shaking his head. Blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. The Butcher made a lunge at him, but he rolled aside just in time to avoid it. His attacker turned quickly, issuing a banshee of a wail that raised some doubts as to his precise origins. Degan continued to sneak punches in as best as he could, but even when he connected with all his force, they had no effect. For full ten minutes they battled, then some enterprising watcher suggested it was a round, and while Henri wiped the blood from Degan’s face, the patron began taking bets. He was giving odds of ten to one in the Butcher’s favor, and finding even with those odds very few takers.

  “Make them stop!” Sally begged. “Degan, is your jaw broken?”

  “Le Taureau’s jaw is not broken,” Henri told her in a significant tone. “Go for the stomach, Taureau. You can’t reach his jaw. Try to knock the wind out of him. It is your only chance.”

  The break was over, and they were back at it, with the Butcher lunging wildly and awkwardly, while Degan ducked for his life, concentrating when possible on the stomach. He landed a few telling punches that had the Butcher breathing hard, but he was nearly completely winded himself. The Butcher, on to his tactic, caught him off guard and hit him hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Degan crumpled to the floor, gasping. The bet-taker called another round, and raised the odds from ten to fifteen in favor of the Butcher.

  “That’s enough. We throw in the towel,” Henri decided, when his best efforts gained no more than a rolling, unseeing eye from his boxer.

  “Not yet,” Degan said, shaking his head and struggling to his feet.

  “Yes, you stop now!” Sally commanded in her fiercest accents. “Degan, if you don’t stop this minute I’ll never speak to you again.”

  “Taureau, darling,” Henri reminded her in a low voice. “And if he stops now, we will have some fancy footwork to get out of here without leaving you behind, chérie.”

  “What do you mean?” Degan asked, shaking his head and frowning.

  “You are unaware of the French custom, Philippe? This is no ordinary boxing match. The Butcher challenged you for Sally—you heard what he said. You accepted the challenge when you struck him. Winner takes all.”

  “What are you talking about?” Degan asked, incredulous.

  “It is understood by every man in the room—except yourself, apparently. There is no purse to be won; you fight for Sally, the Butcher and you. But I won’t let him take her, of course. When he finishes you, I shall have to challenge him myself.”

  Degan narrowed his eyes, and directed such a stare on his manager that Mérigot half feared it was Degan he must fight, rather than the Butcher. Degan struggled to his feet, and the Butcher advanced to resume the battle. Both were showing the strain, puffing, but each was determined to do the other in.

  Degan shook his head and settled down to a strategy at last. Fright a
nd anger had left him. He was fighting a large, dumb animal, and it was cunning that must save him. He was more careful than before to avoid being hit, for another blow from those hams was likely to finish him. He saved his energy, not beginning any blows that were unlikely to connect. He hit seldom but hard, always in the pit of the stomach, then quickly danced out before the blow was returned. His tactic appeared to be working. The Butcher was huffing like a tired bull, but he seemed to be impossible to knock down. He was too big, too strong, too stubborn. He took blow after blow, and kept coming back for more.

  Degan was the underdog this time, thus the favorite of the crowd. He heard the cheers when he landed a punch, felt the sympathy of the mob with him. His senses seemed to be more alive to such sensations, almost as though a sense hitherto unpossessed had formed within him. The Butcher was an evil force that must be exterminated, and he was the man chosen from among men to do it. A sense of strange joy filled him; he became intoxicated with it, enjoyed hitting the man, which was a thing he had never foreseen.

  The exhilaration was short-lived, however. One of the Butcher’s wicked punches landed over his left eye, and the blood began to flow down over his face, till he was literally seeing red. He looked with his one good eye at this animal that had the temerity to think he was going to win Sally, and with the last of his strength wound up and hit him again in the stomach. He hit the crucial, tender spot, and the great hulk of flesh folded up with a grunt, shaking the floor with his weight when he hit it. The onlookers waited impatiently to see if he could get up. Unwilling to take any chances, Sally darted onto the floor and grabbed Degan’s arm, to pull him away.

  Henri turned to join them. “Stay and talk him out of another round,” Sally said. She put Degan’s arm over her shoulder, and half carried him up the stairs, bearing a good part of his weight. His legs were like rubber; his eye ached and his mouth stung, and most of all he felt as if he had a bucking horse inside him, but he was perfectly happy. “I beat the bastard,” he said.

  “How did you get mixed up with him?” she scolded. “Why couldn’t you stay in the room as Henri told you to? This will hold us up for hours. You should be beaten, Degan.”