by Jack Tunney
“When's it gonna be?” the blacksmith asked.
“They're setting up the ring now,” Judd said, “next to that grove of trees at the edge of town.”
***
Stark wasn't sure how many people lived in Bandera, but it looked like most of them had turned out for the prizefight that evening. All the businesses in town were closed down until the fight was over, even the Red Top Saloon.
Posts had been pounded into the ground and ropes strung between them to form the ring, which was actually a rough square. Blazing torches had been set up as well, and lanterns hung from tree limbs. Garish light washed over the scene of upcoming battle.
Men crowded around the ring, clamoring for the action to start. Wagons had been pulled up at the back of the crowd so people could stand on them and look over the heads of their fellow spectators. Women clustered on the edges to gossip, and Stark figured that although most of them would be loath to admit it, they were looking forward to seeing the fight, too. Kids and dogs ran around, enjoying the unexpected festivities. Cowboys rode in from the surrounding ranches, eager to get in on the betting. Word of the fight had spread quickly through the county.
Stark had taken off his hat and suit coat, but he still had the LeMat on his hip. He stood beside the ring with Marshal Judd and Mayor Kendall, waiting for Amos Delevan and Buddy Whitson. In a slightly worried tone, Kendall asked, “Have you ever actually refereed a prize fight, Judge?”
“Nope,” Stark said. “But I've seen several of them. I know what I've got to do.” He spotted the bartender from the Red Top in the crowd nearby and waved the man over. “Are all the bets accounted for, Mr. Dupont?”
“Yes, sir, Your Honor, locked up nice and tight in my safe.”
“I guess all the locals are betting on Whitson.”
“Well, most of 'em,” Harvey Dupont said. “A few folks have put their money on Delevan. That fella Jasper Gordon is covering most of the bets on Buddy, though.”
“So he'll be out a lot of money if Delevan loses,” Stark mused.
“Yes, sir, but he's from out of town, so I don't reckon most folks will care,” Dupont said with a grin.
A cheer went up then from the crowd. They parted to let Buddy Whitson through. The blacksmith wore a work shirt and canvas trousers and didn't look very impressive except for his size.
Amos Delevan appeared behind him, to a chorus of boos and catcalls from the crowd. He wore tight whipcord trousers and was stripped to the waist, and the physique he revealed was muscular and intimidating. He waved and grinned arrogantly, and the Texans continued booing.
Stark looked around and spotted Jasper Gordon on the other side of the ring. Delevan headed toward that corner while Whitson went to the opposite one.
Stark leaned over to Judd and said so quietly that no one else could hear over the excited hubbub around the ring, “Marshal, something's going to happen in a minute, and when it does, I want you to make sure Jasper Gordon stays right where he is, even if you have to pull a gun on him. Understand?”
Judd frowned at him in confusion. “Judge, what are you—”
“You'll know when the time comes,” Stark said. “Just hang on to Gordon. You might want to start working your way around to him now.”
“All right,” Judd said. “But I'll be damned if I know what's going on here.”
“You will soon,” Stark promised, then he spread the ropes apart and climbed into the ring. He went to the center of the area of hard-packed dirt and motioned for the two fighters to join him.
Delevan looked as smug and cocky as ever. Whitson just looked like he would have rather been almost anywhere else, but he was determined to go through with it for the sake of the school – and the schoolteacher.
“All right, you two, we're going to have a clean fight here,” Stark said. “The rounds will be five minutes, and Mayor Kendall is going to serve as timekeeper.”
Kendall raised his hands and waved as if to acknowledge the crowd's acclaim, but there wasn't really much of it.
“The fight will continue in that fashion until a winner is determined, either by knockout, failure to answer the bell, or if, in the judgment of the referee, one fighter is in too bad a shape to continue. There'll be no dirty fighting, no biting, gouging, or hitting below the belt. Do both of you understand these instructions?”
Both men nodded, Whitson clearly with more reluctance than Delevan.
Stark had taken his time with the remarks as he watched Marshal Judd move through the crowd until he was behind Jasper Gordon. Satisfied the lawman was in position, Stark gave Judd a little nod and then said, “All right, both of you wait here in the center of the ring until I get back.”
“Get back?” Delevan exclaimed. “Where the hell are you going? The fight's about to start!”
“Not just yet,” Stark said. He turned to the crowd and waved his arms in the air, calling out, “Whoop it up, folks! Make a lot of noise!”
Given the celebratory mood—and the amount of Who-hit-John already consumed by many of the spectators – Stark didn't have to ask them twice. They might have been confused by the delay, but they howled and cheered anyway.
Stark ducked through the ropes and bulled his way through the press of people. He glanced back and saw Marshall Judd standing there with a hand clamped firmly on the shoulder of Jasper Gordon, who suddenly looked very nervous.
Amos Delevan didn't look happy, either. In fact, he looked like a man who wanted to cut and run, but there was nowhere to go.
Stark headed for the Red Top as the commotion continued behind him. He cut down the alley next to the closed saloon and drew his gun as he reached the back of the building. He wasn't a bit surprised to see that the rear door was partially open and a faint light glowed inside.
Silently, especially for a man of his bulk, Stark moved through the door and the storeroom on the other side, then followed the light through another door into the saloon's main room. The long mahogany bar was to his left. A man stood behind it holding up a lantern with the flame turned low. Stark could barely see the top of another man's head as that second man knelt behind the bar.
Down the street, the crowd continued to carry on. But Stark's voice was plainly audible in the saloon as he said, “Elevate, boys. It's over.”
The man with the lantern ripped out a curse and twisted toward Stark as he clawed with his other hand at the gun on his hip. He had just cleared leather when Stark fired. The .42 caliber slug from the LeMat lanced into the man's shoulder and knocked him against the backbar. Bottles fell and shattered. The lantern slipped from his hand and crashed to the floor behind the bar.
Flames whooshed up as some of the spilled liquor ignited. It caught the clothes of the second man on fire. He whooped in fear and pain and hopped around madly, eventually vaulting over the bar and rolling around in the sawdust on the floor until the fire was extinguished. The wounded man crawled away from the flames, too, and as he emerged from behind the bar Stark was there to kick him in the head and knock him out.
The fire hadn't spread very far yet, but it was about to hit a big puddle of whiskey. Stark grabbed a bar rag and stomped and slapped out the flames before they could catch hold enough to doom the saloon and turn it into an inferno. His heart slugged hard in his chest. Everything else had gone pretty much as he hoped it would, but he hadn't figured on the near-conflagration. Like most frontiersmen, he feared fire more than just about anything.
But both men were down and didn't have any more fight in them. Stark dragged them into the middle of the room and tied them up using their own belts. The wounded man wasn't losing enough blood for the injury to be fatal, so Stark left him there along with his well-scorched confederate.
The crowd had quieted down some by now. Folks would only yell for so long when they didn't know what they were yelling about. But cheers went up again when they saw Stark coming. A path opened for him.
Jasper Gordon was pale as a sheet when Stark ducked through the ropes back into the ring. Amo
s Delevan didn't look much better.
“Sorry for the delay,” Stark said. “By the way, Delevan, yours and Gordon's partners won't be getting away with the money in the saloon safe. I got there while the safecracker was still trying to get it open.”
“What?” Gordon squawked. “I...I don't know what you're talking—”
“Don't waste your time denying it,” Stark said. “That's what the two of you were setting up all along. Get a lot of big bets down, have somebody local hold the money, then your friends steal it while everybody's attention is focused on the fight. I wonder how many times you've pulled that little trick.”
The crowd had fallen silent while Stark was talking, but now angry mutters began welling up. One man called, “You say you caught two men tryin' to steal the stakes, Judge?”
“That's right,” Stark said.
“We'll tar and feather 'em!”
That got the crowd plenty worked up again. Several men called for the same treatment to be given to Delevan and Gordon.
Delevan glared at Stark and said, “You can't prove I had anything to do with any robbery. Hell, I don't even know that little pipsqueak over there!” He waved a hand toward Gordon.
“Pipsqueak!” Gordon said. “At least I'm not an iron-headed ignoramus like you! If I could count on you to win your fights—”
“I could win every one of them, and you know it!” Delevan bellowed back at him. “The only time I lose is when I take a dive so you can clean up on your side bets!”
Stark held up his hands and shouted, “All right, that's enough! Settle down, settle down!” His first impulse was to ask for order in the court, but that didn't really apply here. He would deal out justice to the plotters in all due time. For now, he had another idea. “The circumstances have changed, but I don't see why this fight can't continue.”
“Now hold on a minute,” Delevan said.
Buddy Whitson surprised Stark by saying, “I'm willin', Judge.” He turned a baleful eye toward Delevan. “This fella and his partners wanted to hurt the town—and take away that money from the school. He deserves a whippin'.”
Delevan couldn't help but sneer at him. “You're not big enough to give it to me, country boy.”
“We'll see about that,” Whitson said as he clenched his fists and lifted them.
Stark grinned and backed away, dropping his arms and saying, “Fight, gentlemen!”
The cheers were so loud it seemed like they ought to be heard all the way down in San Antonio as Whitson bounded forward and threw a punch at Delevan's head. Delevan dodged it and counterpunched, landing a left jab on Whitson's jaw. The blow rocked the blacksmith's head back, but didn't seem to do any real damage. Whitson set himself and slung a roundhouse left at Delevan.
As Stark watched, it quickly became obvious Delevan, in addition to being a crook, actually was a trained boxer. He moved well, light on his feet for such a big man, and his punches snapped out with speed and precision and power. He hit Buddy Whitson five times for every time Whitson hit him.
Whitson's punches had an awesome amount of strength behind them, however. He tagged Delevan with a right to the chest that sent Delevan flying back against the ropes. When he bounced off, Stark thought he was going to go down, but Delevan stayed on his feet and peppered more swift punches to Whitson's body and face. Whitson's mouth was bloody, and the area around his eyes was starting to swell.
Stark worried that if the fight continued for too long, Delevan would cut Whitson's face to ribbons. Mayor Kendall hadn't rung the bell to end the round, probably because he was too excited to remember his job, and anyway, everybody could tell this had turned into a fight to the finish.
Stark didn't want to be responsible for the blacksmith being injured, perhaps seriously. He had persuaded Whitson to take part in the fight because he knew that was the only way to draw out the other members of the gang, but once they were in custody he could have called off the rest of it.
He hadn't because he didn't like Delevan and wanted to see the man defeated, not just arrested. But maybe he hadn't had any right to rope Buddy Whitson in on that.
Whitson had no footwork, no speed of any kind, really. Strategy was foreign to him. All he could do was stand and absorb punishment and launch howitzers of punches that would be devastating if they landed – but they seldom did.
Delevan was starting to smirk again. He'd be going to jail – Stark had no doubt all the members of the gang would turn on each other like the hydrophobia skunks they were – but right now that didn't matter. The only things that were important to the fighters were the enemy in front of them and the cheers of the crowd.
Then a female voice cut through the tumult, clear as a bell, crying, “Buddy!”
Whitson's head jerked toward the sound, and Delevan stepped in and hit him in the jaw with a pile-driver right that knocked him off his feet and made him skid halfway under the bottom rope on the far side of the ring. A young woman pushed her way through the crowd and dropped to her knees beside him. From the way she called his name and cradled his bloody head in her lap, she had to be Emily Thompson, the schoolteacher Whitson was sweet on, thought Stark.
He went over to them as Emily was saying, “Buddy, you promised me you'd never fight anybody again. I come back early from San Antonio because I missed you, and I find you like this!”
Thickly, through his swollen lips, Whitson said, “They...they promised they'd fix up the school...if I fought that fella.”
“Really?”
“And...And buy more supplies...and I bet on myself...'cause I thought I could win enough money for us to get married.”
Gingerly, she touched his bruised and swollen face and said, “Oh, Buddy...”
Stark leaned over and put his hands on his knees. “Do I call the fight off, Whitson?” he asked.
The blacksmith tried to focus on the pretty face of the woman above him and asked, “Does he...Emily?”
She hesitated, then said, “Can you beat that brute?”
“Sure I...can.”
“Then all right. But this is the last time.”
Even as puffy and bloody as his lips were, there was no mistaking the grin that appeared on Whitson's face.
Stark straightened and turned as Delevan protested, “He's been down a hell of a lot longer than a ten-count, Judge!”
“We're fighting Texas rules, not Marquis of Queensbury,” Stark said. “Get back in your corner!”
Buddy Whitson crawled out from under the ropes and staggered to his feet. Muttering curses, Delevan charged him, figuring to finish him off while Whitson was weakened and off-balance. His first two punches drove Whitson against the ropes again, but then the blacksmith sank a left in Delevan's belly. Delevan turned pale and started to double over. Whitson's big right fist came whistling in an uppercut that lifted Delevan completely off his feet and dumped him on his back, out cold.
Stark grabbed Whitson's right wrist and lifted that arm in the air. “The winner!” he shouted. The loudest cheers of all filled the hill country air over Bandera.
Judd dragged Jasper Gordon along outside the ring. He called, “Some of you boys pick up that varmint and carry him to the jail. Doc Carson can patch him up there once he's behind bars.”
“The doc will have some more work waiting for him,” Stark said. “There are a couple of them tied up in the saloon, and one of them has a bullet hole in his shoulder.”
“I thought I heard a shot,” Judd said, “but with all the commotion goin' on, I couldn't be sure. I would have come to check, but you told me to keep hold of Gordon...”
“You did the right thing,” Stark said. “We cleaned up this bunch of crooks, and the town got some entertainment out of it.”
“Damn right,” Judd said, grinning. “Best fight I've seen in a long time!”
Stark looked around to where Emily was comforting Whitson and using a handkerchief to wipe away some of the blood on his face, and he said, “I've got a hunch it's the last time you'll see that old boy d
oing any brawling, unless it's with his wife!”
Marshal Judd shook his head and said, “He won't stand a chance.” Then he jerked Gordon along with him and added, “Come on, you little rat. I got a nice cell just waitin' for you!”
JAMES REASONER
Spur Award nominee James Reasoner is one of the most prolific and in-demand Western writers working today, with more than 200 books to his credit, both under his own name and under various pen-names. He was a contributor to Bantam's New York Times bestselling Wagons West series. In the mystery field he is best known for the novel Texas Wind, which has achieved legendary status as a collectible paperback.
For several years early in his career, he wrote the Mike Shayne novellas in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine under the famous pseudonym Brett Halliday. Under his own name in recent years he has written a ten-book series of historical novels set during the Civil War and several historical novels about World War II. He lives in Texas with his wife, award-winning mystery novelist Livia J. Washburn.
ON THE WEB
http://www.jamesreasoner.net/
ROUND 3
FLASH
LOREN D. ESTLEMAN
Midge was glad he'd put on the electric-blue suit that day. He could use the luck.
Mr. Wassermann didn't approve of the suit. At the beginning of their professional relationship, he'd introduced Midge to his tailor, a small man in gold-rimmed glasses who looked and dressed like Mr. Wassermann, and who gently steered the big man away from the bolts of shimmering sharkskin the concern kept in stock for its gambler clients and taught him to appreciate the subtleties of gray worsted and fawn-colored flannel. He cut Midge's jackets to allow for the underarm Glock rather than obliging him to buy them a size too large, and made his face blush when he explained the difference between dressing left and dressing right.
The tailoring bills came out of Midge's salary, a fact for which he was more grateful than if the suits had been a gift. He was no one's charity case. The distinction was important, because he knew former fighters who stood in welfare lines and on street corners, holding signs saying they would work for food. Back when they were at the top of the bill, they had made the rounds of all the clubs with yards of gold chain around their necks, girls on both arms, and now here they were, saying they would clean out your gutters for a tuna sandwich, expecting pedestrians to feel guilty enough to buy them the sandwich and skip the gutters. Mr. Wassermann never gave anyone anything for nothing – it was a saying on the street, Midge had heard him confirm it in person – and the big ex-fighter was proud to be able to say in return that he never took anything from anyone for nothing.
