Cockfighter (28 page)

I followed the old man out of the barn.

Professional cockers frequently pay off their gambling debts with gamecocks instead of cash. But this kind of pay-off is normally agreed upon before a fight—not afterward. I had no objection to taking gamecocks, instead of money, this late in the season. Some hard-hitting replacements would be useful before we entered the Milledgeville Tourney, and I was on the high side of the hog when it came to settling up with Peeples.

On the way to the coop walks, Peeples stopped at the watering trough to light his pipe and to do some preliminary dickering.

“Now you seen them three Grays I fit this afternoon, Mr. Mansfield. Aces every one. You take them, and any five more of the lot and we'll be fair and square. Countin' the cash I gave you already, you're gettin' the best end and you know it.”

Giving Peeples more credit than he probably deserved, I figured his gamecocks were worth about fifty dollars a head. According to my arithmetic I would be short about two hundred and fifty dollars if I only took eight cocks. Even if I took all of them I would be one hundred and fifty dollars short of the thousand dollars he had bet me. I shook my head with a positive-negative waggle.

Feet pounded on the hard-packed ground behind me. I turned. Less than twenty feet away Tom Peeples was charging toward me with a hatchet brandished in his upraised right hand. His red face was contorted and his angry blue eye was focused on infinity.

Without taking time to think I jumped toward him instead of trying to dodge his rush, twisted my body to the left, and kicked hard at his right shinbone. Tripped neatly, he sprawled headlong in the dirt. The hatchet flew out of his hand and skittered for a dozen yards across the bare ground. Before he could recover himself I had a handgrip in his thick hair and another hold on his leather belt. With one jerk as far as my knees, followed by a short heave, Tom Peeples was in the water trough. I shifted my left hand from his belt to his hair and held him beneath the water with both hands. His legs thrashed the scummy water into green foaming milk, but he couldn't get his head up. I watched the popping bubbles break at my wrists and held him under until his feet stopped churning.

“You'd best not hold his head under too long, Mr. Mansfield,” his father said anxiously. “He'll be drownded!”

That was true enough. I didn't want to drown the man. I only wanted to cool him off so I could complete my business with Mr. Peeples and get back to Cook's Hollow. When I let go of Tom's head, he broke free to the surface, blubbering. He had lost the bandage in the water, but both eyes were closed. He took handholds on both sides of the tin-lined trough and brought his body up to a crouched position. He stayed that way, half in the water, and half out, his chin on his chest, weeping like a child. But he wasn't a child. He was at least twenty-two years old, and he had tried to kill me.

Mr. Peeples and I continued our walk toward his chicken runs. Although the old cockfighter complained, he helped me put the seven mature cocks into narrow traveling coops that were in the runs, and brought the three Grays that were already in coops over to my station wagon from his old car. It was easy to catch Icky, who was scratching in a horse stall. After cutting off the heels, I put him back in his coop.

“I suppose you're goin' to tell Vern Packard how you beat me,” Mr. Peeples said, as I slipped behind the wheel and slammed the door.

Looking him directly in the eyes, I nodded my head.

“If you do, Mr. Mansfield,” he begged, “me or Tom neither'll be ashamed to show our faces down to the pit for two or three years.”

I shrugged, and let out the clutch.

As I drove out of the barn lot, Tom Peeples was still hunkered down dejectedly in the water trough like an old man washing his privates in a bathtub.

On the return drive to Vern Packard's house I missed one of the turns and had to redouble twice before I found the way back to the main road. It was dark when I wheeled into his driveway. Vern switched on the yard lights and came outside to meet me

“Who won?” he asked excitedly, as I got out of the station wagon.

I handed him the fragment of rosin, took the wad of bills out of my pocket and counted off one hundred dollars. Grinning, I pushed the hundred dollars into his hand. He kissed the bills, and returned the sliver of rosin.

“You keep it, Frank,” he said happily. “You paid me enough for it. Come on inside and eat. I was looking for you to get back an hour ago, but I've been waiting supper on you. It's still warm though.”

As soon as I was seated at the kitchen table, Vern served the plates and turned the burner up higher under the coffee to reheat it. There were rolls, baked ham and candied sweet potatoes. Vern put enough food on my plate for three men, but I dug into it.

As he poured the coffee, Vern said jokingly, “What do you carry, Frank? A rabbit's foot, a lucky magnet or do you wear a bag of juju bones around your neck?”

I stopped eating and looked at him.

Vern laughed. “Your partner telephoned about twenty minutes after you left. Mr. Baradinsky. First, he wanted to know how you made out, and I told him. Then he had some news for you about the Chattanooga derby in the Southerner Hotel.”

I put my knife and fork down and waited, trying to hide my impatience at the way he was dragging out the story.

Again Vern laughed. “No,” he said, “it isn't what you're thinking, Frank. They weren't raided. The pit was hijacked, and the thieves got away with about twenty-five thousand bucks, according to your partner. He got the information secondhand, and it won't be in the papers. No chickens were lost, but everybody there—cockers, gamblers and even Mr. Reed himself—lost their pants. There were three holdup men, all with shotguns, and they knew exactly what they were doing. They made everybody take off their pants and throw them in the middle of the pit. Then one of them filled up a mattress cover with all the pants and they left the hotel suite. They didn't fool with rings or watches. Just the pants.”—Vern laughed heartily—“but the
money
was in the pants! That closed the Chattanooga meet. I'll bet Fred Reed has a tough time getting an okay from Senator Foxhall for a S. C. derby next year!”

I pursed my lips thoughtfully, nodded my head, and started eating again. My swollen temple was throbbing, and I wanted to put an ice pack on it.

The next morning I left Cook's Hollow to join Omar in Biloxi, with a standing invitation to fight at Vern Packard's game club any time I felt like it. I had added $902 to my bankroll and ten purebred fighting cocks to our stake in the S. C. Tourney. But no matter what Vern Packard thought, I wasn't lucky.

At long last, my experience and knowledge of cock-fighting were beginning to pay off. That, and the fact that I was using the good sense God gave me.

I HAVE BACK ISSUES
of all five game-fowl magazines covering the Southern Conference derbies held at Biloxi, Auburn and Ocala, but I don't have to dig through them to find the results. I remember them, all of them, perfectly.

In Biloxi, we fought in the cockpit established in a warehouse near the waterfront, and we won the derby 6-3, plus three thousand five hundred dollars in cash. Icky also won his fourth hack at Biloxi over a Hulsey two-time winner entered by Baldy Allen from Columbus, Georgia. Omar, who was spelling me on handling in the pit from time to time, was awarded a wristwatch by the pit officials as the Most Sportsmanlike Handler in the Biloxi derby. My partner was as pleased with this award as I was, but he wouldn't admit it. I knew that Omar was proud of the award because he put his Rolex away, and, from that day forward, wore the wristwatch he was given at Biloxi—a cheap, $16.50 Timex.

My partner didn't attend the Alabama meet with me. The meet at Auburn on January 29 coincided with his wife's annual visit to Florida. I never met the woman, but I had seen a half-dozen snapshots she had mailed to him that had been taken at Fire Island. In the photos, all six of them taken in a crocheted bikini, she looked brittle, thin and febrile-eyed. She didn't look particularly sexy to me, but inasmuch as it was costing my partner more than twelve thousand a year to keep her in New York City, I couldn't begrudge him a week in bed with her. He was entitled to that much, I figured.

Johnny Norris of Birmingham won the Auburn derby, and I came in third. Four of my Allen Roundheads were killed during the meet, but I won two thousand five hundred dollars. A carload of arsenal employees drove over from Huntsville, Alabama, and I won most of my money from them. When it came to cockfighting, these rocket makers didn't know which way was up. In a post-derby hack, I pitted Icky against an Arkansas Traveler that ran like a gazelle in the second pitting.

Our veterans took every fight in the February 24 Ocala derby. They fought in the familiar pit as though they were defending their home territory and hens against invaders from outer space. Out of fourteen pit battles, I only carried out one bird. In order to get bets, Omar was forced to give three-to-one odds on every fight, but we still made eighteen hundred dollars on the Ocala derby and hacks.

As the weeks passed, I kept as busy as possible. My personal life, perhaps, may have seemed dull, but I loved the way I lived. On my way home at night, after a day of conditioning at Omar's farm, I often selected a book out of my partner's library. Like a lot of businessmen in New York, he had always wanted to read books, but never had enough time. When he moved permanently to Florida, he ordered a complete set of the Modern Library, including the Giants. Starting at the lowest number, I was gradually working my way through them. By March, I was up to
The Plays of Henrik Ibsen.

Not only did I get up with the chickens, I went to bed with them as well, but I still had time for reading and for playing my guitar. My partner had asked me to stay at his house, but I declined. I liked Omar, everybody did, but we were together all day, and that was enough. Both of us were entitled to privacy, and I think he was relieved when I decided to sleep at my own farm.

Omar Baradinsky, like any man who has strong opinions, liked to talk about the things he was interested in. This was understandable, and most of the time I enjoyed the insight he revealed on many subjects. However, to listen to him every night, especially when he got a little high on John Jameson, was too much. Unable to talk back, I had to grit my teeth sometimes to prevent myself from setting him straight when he got off track.

Against the day when my voice was over and I could talk again, I made little entries in a notebook. Someday, Old Boy, I thought, I'm going to set you straight on every one of these topics. If we hadn't separated every evening, our partnership probably wouldn't have lasted the entire season. As it happened, we were still friends after more than five months. Because we were friends, I was worried. We were leaving the next morning and I didn't want to hurt my partner's feelings or interfere in any way with his individuality. But when it came to the Milledgeville Tourney, Omar had a serious problem, and it was up to me to explain it to him.

On the afternoon of March 13 we sat across from each other at the big oak table in Omar's living room going over the ledger and our accumulated records in preparation for the tourney. We had received a telegram the week before from Senator Foxhall reconfirming our joint entry in the tournament and acknowledging receipt of our five-hundred-dollar fee. The wire also told us that there would only be eight entries instead of the ten originally scheduled. Two entries had forfeited.

“It's going to make a big difference, Frank,” Omar said, rereading the telegram for the tenth time that day. His initial delight over our joint-acceptance—which in my mind had never been in doubt—had gradually turned to concern about whether we would win the tourney or not.

“I know we won't need as many cocks as we figured on,” he continued, “but neither will the other seven entries. Every cock in the tourney will be a topflight Ace.”

I nodded understandingly. Omar's concern was justified. With only eight entries instead of ten the competition would be a lot stiffen In comparison with a derby, a major tournament is a complicated ordeal. The matchmaker for a tourney has a compounded headache. In setting up the matches for a derby, the matchmaker only has to match the cocks to be shown at the closest possible weights.

In a tournament, every entry must meet each other at least once. Not only is the matchmaking more complicated, each tourney entry must have an Ace for every weight—that is, if he expects to win.

I wanted to win the tourney just as much as Omar did, but this was my fifth try against my partner's first, and I refused to worry about winning. There was nothing more either one of us could do except pray. We had to fight the gamecocks we had, and they were in the peak of condition. To worry needlessly about winning was foolhardy.

“Do you think we've selected the right cocks?”

I nodded.

“That's it, then,” Omar closed the ledger. “I'm not taking our entire bankroll, Frank. Four thousand is in the bank, and I'm leaving it there. That way, if we lose, we'll still have two thousand apiece to show for the season. I'm taking eight thousand in cash to the tourney, and I'm going to lay it fight by fight instead of putting it all down on the outcome. No matter what happens, we'll still have a fifty-fifty chance of coming home with a bundle. Now, just in case we win the tourney, how much do we stand to win?”

I wrote the information on a tablet, and shoved it across the polished table.

Not counting our separate bets —

If I win the Cockfighter of the Year Award, that'll be another $1, 000-

Omar dragged a hand through his beard as he looked at the figures. “Doesn't Senator Foxhall take a percentage of the entry fees like the derby promoters?” he asked.