Caleb (18 page)

38

Well rested but as stiff as a plank door, Caleb was waiting in the wagon when Jardine walked down the wooden steps of the Camden Hotel at seven o’clock the next morning.

“You look rough,” Jardine told Caleb. “About as rough as I feel. I ran into some old boys with a bottle and a deck of cards last night. They insisted that I try both.” When he saw alarm in Caleb’s eyes, Jardine added quickly, “Oh, don’t you go worrying. I’ve got two pockets, Caleb. One holds
my
money, and the other holds
our
money. I never reached into the second one.”

“Besides,” he added as he climbed up on the wagon and Caleb slipped into the back, “I won. We didn’t need those old boys’ deck because the hotel had a brand new one, and I opened it myself. You don’t expect a share of my poker winnings, do you?”

“No, Master.”

“And,” Jardine added as he backed up the horses, “I don’t imagine that there’s anything left of that dollar I gave you, either.”

“No, Master,” Caleb said.

“I didn’t think so,” Jardine said. “Let’s go home.”

When they got to Three Rivers, Drusilla was bursting with curiosity, but didn’t ask a single question. One look at Caleb told her that he hadn’t fared too badly, and she knew that he was as eager to tell as she was to hear. That night as they were lying in the double bed that Caleb had brought down from the attic, she went over his body in detail, admiring his fine collection of bruises. Caleb did his best to tell her exactly how each had been earned. She pushed hard on several of them just to hear him cry out.

“That’s cheating, isn’t it?” Drusilla asked when Caleb had finished telling her about his match with Prince Zulu.

“I suppose so,” Caleb said, “but it’s cheating white men, and nobody told those fools they had to bet against a professional boxer. I’m not sorry for any of them, especially the one who spat on me.”

“The one I feel sorry for is Pompey,” Drusilla said. “What did he get out of being beaten up?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t suppose you even bought him a beer out of that money Marse Boyd gave you.”

“Nope. I didn’t see him.”

“Did you go looking for him?”

“No.”

“You’re a hard man, Caleb,” Drusilla announced. “Or maybe you’re only determined. I bet you’ve still got that dollar.”

“Sure do.”

“How much winnings does that add up to?”

“Sixty-five dollars,” Caleb said.

“And you didn’t buy me anything?”

“No,” said Caleb, but he wished he had thought of it. He made a vow he would next time.

“You trust Marse Boyd?” Drusilla asked.

“That’s what Cass—Prince Zulu—asked,” Caleb said.

“Well?”

“I have to,” Caleb said. “I got no choice.”

39

Almost every weekend for the rest of the summer, Jardine and Caleb traveled to the fairs and shows within a thirty-mile radius of Three Rivers in order to take advantage of the boxing craze that was sweeping the county. After a couple weeks of Caesar’s begging, Jardine finally let him go along as Caleb’s corner man and boy of all work.

Sometimes Caleb fought. Sometimes he didn’t. As word got around in the small world of county boxing, Caleb became well-known. He could no longer pose as a shambling oaf who could take on the Pompeys and even be offered odds. Many slave owners took one look at him and went searching for easier matches for their boxers. The fact that he had lost to Prince Zulu was a plus. Caleb couldn’t look too good. Some of the more gullible became convinced that Caleb
was
Prince Zulu. Some rash owners even offered their slaves to fight Caleb for nothing, just for the honor involved. Jardine wisely turned down these opportunities. Caesar, on the other hand, declared he would fight anybody for anything and privately began calling himself Prince Caesar.

With careful choice of opponents and judicious betting, Jardine and Caleb’s winnings piled up. By the end of August, they had just over seven hundred and fifty dollars in the pouch, and Caleb had salted away twenty-seven dollars of his own. The fair season was ending, and both men knew that there wouldn’t be many more opportunities to reach Caleb’s target that year. The county fair at Shreevesville looked like a chance to get it over with in one go. Because the fair was a week long, the three men left Three Rivers on Monday morning and didn’t plan to return until the following Sunday.

As they said good-bye, Drusilla asked Caleb, “Do you think you’ll make it?”

“I have to,” Caleb said. “I can’t be a slave for another year. Master says this time next year there will be a war on with the North.”

“Maybe that will free you,” Drusilla said.

“Maybe it won’t,” Caleb said. “I’m not going to wait to find out.” He kissed her. “Got to go now. I’ll bring you a pretty.”

“You just bring me back Caleb in the same shape he’s in now,” Drusilla said, “and you can keep your pretties.”

When they got to Shreevesville, the county fairground was all set up and beginning to come to life. Compared to the other fairs and shows they’d been to, it was a vast metropolis of tents. At night it came ablaze with lamps and torches. The boxing ring, a custom-built affair that traveled all over the southern states, was in a huge tent at the end of the fair’s main thoroughfare. It was there that Jardine and Caleb planted themselves to wait for opportunities to add to their poke. Jardine spotted Barney Kingston at the beer tent and greeted him jovially.

“I’m not sure I’m talking to you,” Barney growled, “after what your boy did to my Pompey and how you misrepresented him. You still got those outsized clothes on him?”

“I’ll tell you what, Barney,” Jardine said, taking a long swig of beer, “we’ll give you a rematch, and I won’t ask for odds this time.”

“You’re too goddamned kind, Jardine,” Barney said. “That Caleb of yours won’t be fighting Pompey no more because Pompey ain’t mine. He wasn’t worth a damn after that fight, and I sold him.”

“You got anybody else?” Jardine asked keenly.

“I might and I might not,” said Kingston. “Are you buying the beer?”

The entire day passed without so much as a nibble. Not wanting to seem too eager, Jardine contented himself with talking to acquaintances and buying a few drinks, seldom bringing up the topic of Caleb or boxing. But that night, when illumination spread through the fairgrounds like a prairie fire and the boxing tent became the center of attention, things began to liven up. The boxing show at Shreevesville was a much bigger operation than Hogan’s. The poster outside boasted that it featured nine boxers, five white and four black. They all looked like professionals.

Jardine paid admission for the three of them to the boxing tent, and when they got inside, the nine boxers were parading around inside the ring like a pride of lions. The boss, a dwarf-sized man who called himself Colonel Moran, was extolling their virtues from the center of the ring, his foghorn voice amplified by a speaking trumpet.

“Every one a champion, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, mothers and sons,” Moran chanted, “back here in beautiful Shreevesville to introduce to you the science of pugilism at its highest level.” The colonel paused and raked his beady black eyes challengingly across the crowd. “
And
to offer the brave hearts among your menfolk a chance to display their manliness and win a nice piece of money at one and the same time.”

Moran lowered the speaking trumpet, and at his signal all of the boxers but one white man suddenly turned toward the ropes and vaulted from the ring like a troupe of prize horses. Left in the ring with Moran was a squat boxer wearing shiny red satin tights and boots dyed the same color. He was of only average height and his legs seemed spindly, but above the waist he suddenly bulged out in a plinth of pure muscle topped with hardly any neck and a round head that looked as hard as a cannonball. He slowly raised his arms like a giant pair of horns, and his biceps bulged alarmingly.

“Folks,” said Moran through the speaking trumpet, “I have the honor to introduce to you Professor Stanley Mott, the finest scientific boxer of his or any day. Just to start the evening off with a bang and spread some of my money around, I am going to offer to any gentleman in this audience one hundred dollars in gold just for staying in this ring with Professor Mott for only three short rounds. One hundred Federal dollars, gentlemen, in your hand! You don’t even have to hit the professor. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t! And he might not hit you
.
But the professor can hardly show his amazing pugilistic skills without an opponent, now can he?” The colonel looked around the ringside in a friendly manner.

“Now who wants to earn one hundred dollars gold and show his lady friend his courage and skill?” he asked. “How about
you
, sir?” Moran’s finger snaked out and pointed at a large country boy wearing a cap and holding tight to a pretty blonde in a ground-sweeping dress. The girl looked up at him inquiringly, but the boy was already moving toward the ring, unbuttoning his collar as he went.

“Now there’s a brave young man,” announced the colonel. “Give him a hand, everybody.”

By the time the applause petered out, the country boy was stripped to the waist and sitting on a stool in one corner of the ring wearing boxing gloves. He’d already started looking not so happy to be there. In the opposite corner, Professor Mott leaned back against the ropes and steadily observed him.

“Remember the rules now, young man,” Moran told him and the audience. “All you have to do is stay on your feet for a mere three rounds, and you will walk out of this ring with a hundred dollars to spend on your fair lady. Ready?”

The country boy nodded uncertainly, and the bell sounded. Before the boy could even get to his feet, Mott was in the center of the ring in the classic boxing stance, set and waiting like a terrier outside a mouse hole. The bell rang again insistently, and someone from the crowd bawled, “Kill ’em, Jem!” The boy awkwardly got to his feet, raised his arms protectively, and shambled toward the professor.

Mott waited alertly until their gloves nearly touched, and then sprang into action. As if sparring by himself, he danced all around the boy, throwing a brisk flurry of punches so fast that his gloves were a blur. Mott moved so speedily and so gracefully around the stone-still boy that the audience began to laugh. “Slow down, Jem!” cried a rowdy. “He can’t see you!” Color crept up Jem’s face, and just then—like a hummingbird hovering in front of an ox—the boxer came to a sudden halt in front of the boy. He leaned his chin tantalizingly close to Jem’s boxing gloves and smiled invitingly. Eventually, the impulse got from Jem’s brain to his arm, and he launched a roundhouse right. But Mott was suddenly gone, and Jem, thrown off balance by the velocity of his punch, nearly fell to the canvas-covered wooden platform. The crowd laughed, and Jem’s girl covered her face.

It’s a good thing she did, because Professor Mott, tiring of punching plain air, began to repeat his display, this time using the boy as a target. In a sequence too rapid to calculate, his gloves beat a tattoo on the boy’s arms, shoulders, and chest that sounded like distant rain. They weren’t painful punches, but they were annoying, frustrating, and embarrassing. Jem couldn’t seem to do anything to stop them. If he put his gloves up, the professor beat on his stomach like a drum. If he dropped them, Mott delivered a rapid flurry of punches to the chest and shoulders that brought angry red blotches to his pale trunk. Jem was still thinking of what to do about this when the bell sounded.

Moran had to lead him by the arm to the stool in the corner while Mott returned to his corner and leaned casually on the ropes. He was not even breathing hard.

During the break, Jem got more advice from his friends in the crowd than he really needed. At the bell, he jumped up as if stung by a bee and raced toward the center of the ring, but Mott, without seeming to hurry, got there first. He waited for the boy like a matador would a bull. Paying no attention to the windmilling of Jem’s arms, the professor launched a rocket-straight right that met the boy’s onrushing chin with a crack.

The boy stopped as if he’d hit a wall. His arms dropped, and his body seemed to sag in sections until his knees hit the canvas and threw his body forward, where he skidded to a halt, face down. The professor stood waiting, but there was nothing to wait for. Moran looked down at the prostrate boy with benign curiosity and then raised Mott’s arm without bothering with the count.

“In three seconds of the second round,” he announced, “another triumph by Professor Stanley Mott!” As the dazed boy was dragged from the ring, Moran inquired, “Any more challengers, ladies and gentlemen? Step right up!” The only answer was an abundant shaking of heads and a shuffling of feet as potential gladiators sought to rule themselves out as candidates.

“I’m shocked, ladies and gentlemen, that there are no other local champions willing to test the skills of Professor Mott. I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll raise the prize money to
two
hundred dollars and lower the requirement to
two
rounds only. Surely I can do no more than that?” He looked keenly around the crowd. Temptation showed on a lot of faces, but no hand was raised.

“I am disappointed,” Moran announced. “I thought better of Shreevesville and its mighty men.” He shook his large head sadly, but then, as if struck by inspiration, he said, “Tell you what, unless there are serious objections, I will open Professor Mott’s challenge to men of the African race.”

A murmur ran through the crowd. “No nigger can face him!” called out a voice.

The colonel’s eyebrows raced toward his hairline. “No?” he challenged. “Shall we just see? Are there any slave owners in the crowd willing to determine—for a prize of two hundred dollars, remember—whether one of their darkies can withstand the fistic talents of Professor Mott for a mere two rounds? Two short rounds.”

Jardine and Caleb exchanged looks. Caleb shrugged, and Jardine’s arm shot up like a tollgate. “I’ve got a boy here!” he shouted.

The crowd muttered doubtfully, but Moran jumped in. “
Have
you, sir? Well, send him up here.”

“I will!” Jardine said loudly. “Caleb, get yourself up in that ring!”

To Jardine’s surprise, Caleb responded in an equally loud but sullen voice, “Nossir! That little feller will kill me!”

At that, the crowd took up hooting and hollering. “Kick his black ass up there!” someone suggested. “I’ll do it!” shouted another. All eyes were turned toward Jardine as the crowd wondered how he would handle this disobedience. The tent was suddenly hushed.

“Caleb,” said Jardine sternly. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes, Marse,” Caleb said, not meeting his eye. He stood with his head down and his shoulders hunched.

“Do you see this crop? Do you?” Jardine’s voice was relentless as he raised his riding whip.