Story of the Phantom (16 page)

The Champ gritted his teeth. They were all pulling for that smart college kid. And besides, the champion was always presented last, not first. "This is a workout for the Champ and his coming match," said the coach. "Let's hope he takes mercy on our own Kit, we need him." The crowd laughed, the others cleared the ring, and someone rang a bell, also causing a laugh.

The Champ eyed his opponent carefully. He was big and powerful, but so were most heavyweights.

And he moved well. Okay, he told himself. Let's go. They sparred easy. Kit had no intention of making a fight of it. This was a favor, a workout for the professional fighter. The cameras were on them. The Champ noted this as he circled Kit. He suddenly lashed out, a sharp blow that Kit only partially blocked. Then another, knocking him against the ropes. The manager chewed his cigar nervously. What was his Champ trying to prove with a college boy? The crowd watched, not yet realizing this fight was for real. Kit wasn't quite sure about that either. But in a clinch, the Champ hit him viciously just below the belt and muttered, "Come on, college boy." Kit reacted instantly. He broke away, but began to weave and circle, blocked a hard block, and hit the Champ hard. The Champ shook his head and grinned. "Is that all you can do college boy?" He sneered, and slammed hard at Kit, knocking him toward the ropes. Kit danced away. This man was tougher than anyone he had ever faced. The World Champion. But he had a feeling that amazed him. He felt he could handle this man. He hit back, and they began to slug at each other, toe-to-toe in the ring.

The crowd began to roar. The manager yelled from the sidelines. But there was no stopping the Champ. He realized now that this college boy was no easy mark. He was tough and strong and skillful. So was the Champ. He belted Kit again, and during a quick clinch, muttered an obscenity in his ear. It had to do with his mother. Kit remained cool. He could control the killer in himself now.

But his fists exploded on the Champ's jaw and the Champ staggered to his knees. As the manager tried to break through to the ropes to stop them, several collegians barred the way. "He wants a fight," they yelled. "Let them fight."

It was rare for this champion even to have one knee on the mat, and the fact was duly recorded by all the television and newspaper reporters. But that was not all. He bounded to his feet, determined to finish this college upstart. Kit belted him hard in the stomach, a tremendous blow that could be heard all the way to the botany lab, and the crowd groaned with it. As the Champ doubled up in pain, Kit landed three times on his jaw, his fists moving like trip-hammers. The Champ fell like one of the tall oaks Kit had chopped the previous summer. He hit the canvas with a loud thump. There was a silence in the big gym. No one had ever knocked the Champ down, much less out. And out he was.

Kit helped the panicked manager and others carry him over the ropes from the ring. Then he waited while a campus doctor hurriedly examined the unconscious Champ in silence. The Champ opened his eyes and growled. The doctor talked to him. He was groggy, but okay. Kit, waiting anxiously at the ropes, smiled at that. The watching crowd now broke loose. If sound waves could really raise the rafters, the roof would have flown off that day. They roared and screamed and screeched and yelled.

Also, they laughed. Their own Kit had beaten the Champion of the World, beaten him good!

79

The nation's television viewers watched the short match in sixty million living rooms that night. The world press reported the event, with full pages of action photos.

When Kit came out of the shower in the locker room, the manager was waiting for him, with a contract. The Champ's coming match was to be postponed until he recovered from this workout. As for Kit, the sky was the limit, the manager assured him. He could make millions. Kit thanked him, but said he wasn't interested in a professional career of that sort. Before the Champ left the gym, he insisted upon seeing Kit. All watched this meeting anxiously. Kit was wrapped only in a towel.

Photographers were at hand, recording every moment. Microphones listened, television cameras watched. The Champ's face was bruised and his jaw was swollen.

"Sam says you turned down his offer," he said, glancing at the nervous manager at his side. "I don't know why, but I'm glad of that. You're too much," he grinned, and put out his hand. Kit smiled and shook his hand, and the crowd shouted its approval.

The publicity of the fight worried Kit. He hoped it would not reach his father in the Deep Woods, and give the Twentieth the idea that he was forgetting his books.

CHAPTER 12

Spring is beautiful almost everywhere. This spring was especially beautiful for Kit. His senior year, his last spring at Harrison. It was the time for spring dances, for young lovers to walk hand in hand in the shaded campus groves. Diana, still at girls' school in the east, came to Harrison several times to see Kit. Now almost eighteen, her early promise of beauty was fulfilled. She had grown into a magnificent young woman with hair like a black cloud. And she loved this young hero of Harrison.

And Kit loved Diana. She still had four years of college ahead of her, but when she spoke lightly of the future, as a girl in love might, Kit became troubled and avoided the subject.

As the son of the Phantom, he could make no normal plans for the future. Sometimes he daydreamed about it. Diana in the Skull Cave-that seemed impossible, this girl from a rich family, beautiful clothes, private schools, European vacations, devoted to opera, concerts, theater, and achieving a place for herself in this world of athletics as an Olympic diver-Diana in the Skull Cave? Not only impossible. Ridiculous. So he never told her about the Cave, only the jungle. His reticence troubled her, but she trusted him. He must have a good reason.

But the spring was bringing more than graduation and proms to Kit. The huge stadium that had been built near the campus, largely through the prominence he had brought to Harrison, was now completed. And the university and students announced plans to honor their All-American star with a special "Kit Walker Day" in the new structure. Among the invited guests would be the state's senators and congressmen; twelve high-school marching bands; assorted mayors, judges, and other dignitaries; and fifty thousand friends and relatives. The great day came a week before final examinations began and would be the climax of his four-year career at Harrison. Diana came from the East, Aunt Bessie, Uncle Ephraim and a contingent of friends came from Clarksville; old classmates from Clark came, including Jackson; everybody who had met or known this extraordinary boy from the jungles of Bangalla came, even the Champ, with his retinue, to honor the "college kid"

who had knocked him out.

By now, Uncle Ephraim was as proud of Kit as if he had been his own son. And Diana had stars in her eyes. It seemed the whole world loved her hero. What would happen after this month remained vague to Kit. He put it all out of his mind. Diana was with him, and that was all that mattered. Not quite all. Naturally, "Kit Walker Day" excited and pleased him, once it became a reality. He had tried 80

to call off the event, but his pleas were ignored. Harrison U., no longer tiny, was determined to honor her favorite son.

The night before the big day, Kit was at the senior prom with Diana who floated like a dream in white chiffon across the polished dance floor-this was in the big gym, now decorated with flowers and streamers, where Kit had fought the heavyweight champion. That day had been tremendous. The small town was filled with strangers; hotels had to turn away people; private homes took them in.

People slept in their cars, in buses, or on the grass. There was no room in the small town for the crowds that had come to honor Kit Walker.

After dinner with Diana, Bessie and Ephraim at the hotel, and the prom with Diana, which aunt and uncle attended as spectators, he bade them all good-night. There was a big day ahead for him. He walked Diana along the quiet campus walk to the women's dormitory, kissed her good-night-not once but many times-and raced back to his room, his head filled with her delicate perfume. Then he Sat and stared at the walls. A panorama of the years sped through his mind. The ship, Clark, Harrison, Diana. What now?

There was a sound at his second-floor window. Then another. He shook himself out of his reverie and went toward the window. Someone was throwing pebbles lightly against the glass. A fellow student? A fan? He looked out to the shadowy lawn below. A small figure was looking up at him. A child? No. A black man in a suit that was ridiculously large for him-hanging over his hands and shoes. Guran of the pygmy poison people.

CHAPTER 13

"Guran," Kit called, leaning out of the window. The little man nodded, satisfied he had come to the right place. Kit was about to tell him to wait, and to go down to meet him, but Guran didn't wait.

There was a drainpipe on the wall, and he quickly climbed up to Kit's window. He came into the room and the two faced each other.

Ten years had passed since they'd seen each other. A full decade. Guran, now thirty-two (Kit figured rapidly), seemed unchanged, a stocky little figure whose head barely reached above Kit's waist.

Guran looked up at Kit. He had left a slim boy. He now faced a powerful young giant. They looked at each other awkwardly. Kit's first impulse had been to embrace his old friend. But Guran seemed stiff and formal, and, at a second glance, had changed. He was heavier, his face lined, and more mature. In the brief moment before Guran spoke, Kit had a sinking feeling of apprehension. Why was he here?

"I bring you a message from the Deep Woods," said Guran in his simple pygmy tongue. "Your father asks that you return at once."

"Is he sick?" said Kit, trying to read the stolid face.

"He is dying," said Guran. Like all his people, he did not mince words. He came to the point. Dying?

His father, the Twentieth? As strong as an oak, as solid as granite? It was not possible. His legs suddenly felt weak. He sat in a chair.

"Dying. How Soon?" he asked.

"Soon. He waits for you," said Guran.

81

"What is it? Disease, accident?" asked Kit.

"Knife-wounds," said Guran. "Bandits."

There was no time for further details now. That would come later. Kit must leave at once. Now.

"Now?"

To Guran the pygmy, "now" was not tomorrow, not in four hours or ten minutes. Now was right now.

Kit's mind raced. Tomorrow-Kit Walker Day. Exams. Graduation. Diana. Father dying. Now.

It was now because a small chartered plane was waiting at the local airport. It was necessary to leave in the plane at once to reach the scheduled flight in the large overseas plane that made the direct trip to Bangalla. If they missed that plane, there was no other direct flight for another week. That might be too late.

Kit was too confused at that moment to wonder how Guran had made all these arrangements. He learned later that old Doctor Axel, summoned from his Jungle Hospital to the Skull Cave, had done it all. Kit grabbed his toilet articles and threw them into a little old duffel bag. It didn't occur to him at that moment that it was the same duffel bag he had brought to America. He looked at his closet full of clothes, trousers, sweaters, team uniforms; his bureau full of shirts, and socks, and all the rest; shelves of books, notebooks, and photos. A large framed photo of Diana was on his desk. He put it in the duffel bag. Everything else would be useless in the Deep Woods. One last look at his room. He started toward the door, then stopped. There were friends in the halls. No one must see him leave. He went to the window and slid down the drainpipe, Guran following him.

It was late at night, few people were out, most of the college was asleep. Kit and Guran moved quickly to some bushes.

"Wait here," he said.

"Must leave now," said Guran flatly.

"There is one thing I must do. Wait," repeated Kit. He left the duffel bag with Guran and moved across the campus lawn, keeping behind trees and bushes to avoid being noticed by the few couples still enjoying the mild spring night. He reached the women's dormitory. He knew in which room Diana was sleeping. There was no drainpipe handy, but the large granite blocks of the wall gave him a foothold and he climbed high to the third floor. Diana's window was open and the room dark.

"Diana," he whispered. "Diana."

There was a frightened intake of breath from the dark room, a pause, then the soft low voice.

"Is that you Kit?"

"Yes, I must talk to you."

A rustle of silk, and she came to the window, her hair hanging below her shoulders.

"Oh Kit," she said in alarm, "You shouldn't have climbed up. Please come in. You'll fall."

"No time, Diana, darling, I must say good-bye," he said.

Good-bye? Was she dreaming? Or had Kit gone mad?

82

Or was he drunk? But he never drank alcohol of any kind.

"Good-bye?" she said faintly.

"I can't explain. I will someday. But I must go home. At once. My father is dying," he said.

His father dying? Part of the mystery he would never speak about. Now the mystery was suddenly real, big and dark, coming between them.

"I'm sorry," she said, not knowing what else to say. Then. .. "Will you come back?"

"I don't know. But I will write you," he said.

"Kit Walker Day?" she said, suddenly remembering.

"I can't wait. Diana, please tell them nothing. You haven't seen me tonight. I'll write later to Aunt Bessie and Ephraim. But I want no one to know."

"What will they think?" she asked.

He was sitting on the windowsill in the darkness. There was a half-moon low in the sky, and Diana's lovely face was white in the moonlight.

"I don't know what they'll think, but I'm late now. I had to come to say good-bye."

She put her hands on his shoulders, suddenly frantic that he was leaving.

"How did you know about your father? What happened?" she asked.

"A messenger came. He is waiting. I can stay no longer," he whispered. "Diana. I love you."

He kissed her lightly on the lips, then on the forehead.

"Good-bye."

"Oh Kit . . ."

But he was already on his way down. She leaned out, watching fearfully as he climbed down a story, then dropped to the lawn. He waved from the dark ground, then rushed off. She stared in the darkness, following his retreating figure.

He disappeared among some bushes. Then, she vaguely saw his figure, followed by a small figure, disappear into the night. Was the smaller figure a child? Her mind raced back a decade. Kit and Guran the pygmy, on the banks of the swimming hole. Was that the messenger? She watched the moon move behind dark clouds. Then she stretched out on her bed, and wept into the pillow. It had all been so unreal. Maybe it was a dream, a nightmare. When she awoke in the morning, he would be waiting for her at the foot of the broad stairs. But the hollow feeling inside told her it was no dream.

CHAPTER 14