The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (43 page)

K
IP WAS CLIMBING
into the ring the night of the Blucher fight when Race Malone reached over and caught me by the coat. He pulled me back and spoke confidentially.

“What’s this dope about Morgan dreaming his fights? Before he fights ’em, I mean?”

“Where’d you get that stuff?” I asked. “Whoever heard of such a thing?”

Race grinned.

“Don’t give me that. Doc Van Schendel let the kitten out of the bag. Come on, pal, give. This is a story.”

“Can’t you see I got a fight on?” I jerked a thumb toward the ring. “See you later.”

Morgan went out fast in the first round. He was confident, and looked it. Blucher feinted and started to throw a right, but the kid faded away like a shadow. It was just like he was reading Blucher’s mind. The German tried again, boring in close, but for everything he tried, the kid had an answer. And Morgan kept that jarring, cutting left, making a mess of Blucher’s features.

Honest to Roosevelt, it was just like he’d rehearsed it, and, of course, that’s what he’d done. What the kid had, I was hoping, was a photographic memory. He’d see a guy fight a couple of times, and he’d remember how he got away from every punch, how he countered, and what he did under every condition. It was instinctive with him, like Young Griffo slipping punches. Tunney got the job done as thoroughly, only he did it by hard work and carefully studying an opponent.

There’s only a certain number of ways of doing anything in the ring, and a fellow fighting all the time falls in habits of doing certain things at certain times. Morgan thought about that, remembered every move a man made, and knew what to do under any circumstance. It was a cinch. Or would be until he met some guy who crossed him up. Some of them you could never figure—like Harry Greb. He made up his own style each time and threw them from anywhere and everywhere.

Blucher stepped in, taking it cautiously, and hooked a light one to the ribs. The kid stabbed a left to the mouth, then another one. Blucher threw a right, and the kid beat him to the punch with a hard right to the heart. Then Morgan put his left twice to the face, and sank a wicked one into the solar plexus. Blucher backed away, covering up. Kip followed him, taking his time. Just before the bell rang, Morgan tried a right to the body and took another left hook.

Glancing down between rounds, I saw Race Malone looking at the kid with a funny gleam in his eye…which I didn’t like. Put that dream stuff in the papers, and it would ruin the kid. They’d laugh him out of the ring.

The second round started fast. Morgan went out, then dropped into a crouch and knocked Blucher into the ropes with a terrific left hook that nearly tore his head off. Blucher bounded back and tried to get in close, but the kid danced away. Then he came back with that flashy left jab to Blucher’s mouth, feinted a right to the heart, and left his head wide open.

Blucher bit, hook, line, and sinker. Desperate, he saw that opening and threw everything he had in the world on a wide left hook aimed for the kid’s chin!

It was murder. Morgan had set the German right up by taking those other left hooks, and when that one came he was set. He stepped inside with a short right to the chin, and I’m a sun-kissed scenery-bum if Blucher’s feet didn’t leave the floor by six inches! Then he hit the canvas like somebody had dropped him off a building, and the kid never even looked down. He just turned and walked to his corner and picked up his towel. He
knew
Blucher was out.

The payoff came in the morning. I crawled out of the hay rubbing my eyes and walked to the door. When I picked up my paper, it opened my eyes quick enough.

DREAM FIGHTER KAYOS BLUCHER

Morgan Fights According to Dream Plan.

Blucher Completely Out-Classed.

I walked back inside and read the rest of it. Race had been getting around. He’d picked up a statement from Van Schendel, whom I’d not asked to keep still, and then had found two or three other guys who knew something about it. Here and there the kid had mentioned it before I took him over. Then Race went down the line of his fights and showed how the kid had won—and how I’d called the round on Charlie Gomez.

It made a swell yarn. There was no question about that. I could see papers all over the country eating it up. Good stuff, if you just wanted to make a couple of bucks, but the wrong kind of publicity for a champ.

Champ? Yes, that’s what I figured. I’d been figuring on it ever since the kid took Gomez. This dream stuff didn’t mean a thing to me. I was banking on the kid’s boxing and his punch. And down in the corner of the sports sheet I saw something else…

DEADY MCCALL TO RETIRE

Contender to Marry

That left Kip Morgan the leading contender for the world’s heavyweight title. That put Kip in line for a fight for the world’s championship, and it had to be within ninety days. I knew the champ, Steve Kendall, had signed with Bid Kerney to defend his title. And Bid had a contract that made the kid his for one more fight in that same period. We had the champ, and we had Bid, and there was no getting away from that.

T
HAT DREAM STUFF
built the fight up beautifully, and everything went fine until about four days before the battle. I dropped around to the dressing room after the kid’s workout. He was sharp, ready to go. I’d never seen him look better. His body was hard as iron, and he’d browned to a beautiful golden tint that had all the girls in camp oohing and aahing around. But he looked worried.

“What’s the matter, Kip?” I asked him. “Working too hard?”

He shook his head.

“No. I’m worried though. I slept like a log last night—and never dreamed a bit! I was just dead from the time I hit the bed until I woke up this morning.”

“So what?” I said, shrugging. “You got four nights yet.”

He nodded, gloomily. We talked awhile, and then I went outside. Stig Martin was a hanger-on around the fight game I’d picked up to rub the kid. Maybe he knew his way around too well. But he was an A-1 rubber. He grinned at me.

“How’s the kid? Dreaming any?”

“Listen, Duck-Bill,” I told him. “You lay off that stuff, see? That dream business is a lot of hooey, get me? Now forget it.”

I turned away, but when I got to the door, I glanced back. Stig was standing there with a sarcastic grin on his face that I didn’t like. I was about to go back and fire him when Race Malone came up. So I postponed it. Which only goes to show what a sap I was.

R
ACE TOOK ME
back to town to get some publicity shots of me signing articles to guarantee that the kid would defend his title against Kendall if he beat him, and it was the next morning before I saw Morgan or Stig again. The minute I saw the kid, I knew something was haywire.

“What’s eatin’ you?” I asked him, gripping his arm. “You feel all right, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Only I haven’t dreamed about this fight. I dreamed last night, but it was all a confused mess where nothing got through. Only sometimes I’d think about punches, and I’d hear them saying how I was getting beat. That I was blood all over, that I couldn’t take it. Over and over again.”

I frowned, pushing my hat back on my head. Stig Martin was standing on the edge of the porch, smoking a cigarette. He was grinning. It made me sore.

“Listen, you,” I said. “Take a walk. I’m sick of seeing your face around. Walk around someplace and keep out of the way.”

He pouted, and walked off. Something didn’t smell right about this deal.

“Listen, kid,” I said. “You never mentioned hearing voices before. Before it was all like a motion picture, you said.”

He nodded.

“I know. But now I don’t see anything. I just hear a lot of confused stuff about me getting whipped.”

I could see he was worried. His eyes looked hollow, and his face was a little yellow. I decided to get hold of Doc Van Schendel.

W
HEN
I
DROVE BACK
to the camp with Van Schendel the next day, I saw the kid sitting on the steps, twisting his hands and cracking his knuckles nervously. His face was drawn, and he looked bad. Just as we got out of the car, I heard Stig Martin speak to him.

“What of it, kid? Everybody has to lose sometime. You’re young. You couldn’t expect to take the belt the first time out.”

“What’s that?” I snapped at him. “Where’d you get that stuff, talking to my fighter like that? Listen, you tramp! Morgan’s going to knock the champ loose from his buttons, an’ don’t forget it!”

Stig got up, sneering.

“Yeah? Maybe. But not if he doesn’t have the right dream. He’s got to be ready for that…got to be ready to lose. If he goes in without his dream, he’s going to get beat to a pulp! Right, Kip? For your own good, I suggest you duck this one.”

Well, I haven’t hit a guy since I used to hustle pool around the waterfront, but I uncorked that one with the works on it. Stig Martin hit the ground all in one bunch. He wasn’t out, but he had a lot of teeth that were. He got up and stumbled away, mumbling through mashed lips, and I walked over to the kid, rubbing my knuckles, and hustled him inside. I came out to get Doc and found him looking at Stig’s retreating back.

“Who iss dese man?” he asked, curiously. “I see him talking mit Steve Kendall undt Mister Johnson.”

“What?” I yelled. “You saw Stig—!” I backed up and sat down cussing myself for a sap. I should have known Martin was a plant. And here I was feeling so good about getting the champ, worrying about dreams and everything, that I let something like that happen. Why, if Doc hadn’t seen—

“Hey, wait a minute!” I shouted, scrambling up again. “Where did you see Kendall and his pilot?”

Doc turned, looking at me over his glasses. “Vhy, they was oop to my office. They were asking me questions about zose articles in de newspaper. Vhy, iss it nodt all right?”

Then I just let go everything and sat down. I sat there with the Doc staring at me, kind of puzzled. Finally, I get up courage enough to take it.

“All right,” I said. “Tell me. Tell me all about it. What did they ask you, and what did you tell them?”

“They asking me aboot dreams, undt vhat vould happen if he don’t dream at all.”

The Doc rambled on into a lot of words I didn’t understand, and a lot of talk that was all a whistle in the wind to me, and if Race Malone hadn’t come up I never would have got it figured out.

“It’s simple enough,” Race said. “They went to the Doc to find some way of getting your boy’s goat. They decided to keep him from dreaming, and they found out dope might do it. If you look into it, I’ll bet you find Stig Martin has been slipping the kid something to make him sleep, and sleep heavily.”

Then the Doc had told them some people were subject to suggestion when asleep or doped, so (I found this out later) Stig evidently gave the kid a riding all night a couple of times, telling him over and over that he’d lose, that he didn’t have a chance. He kept it up even when the kid was awake, and they were together.

After listening to all of this Race shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s a lousy stunt, and the nuttiest thing I ever heard of, but it’ll make a swell story.”

I got up.

“Listen,” I said, trying to be calm. “If one word of this ever makes the paper I’ll start packing a heater for you, and the first time I see you I’ll cut you down to the curb, get me? Those stories of yours spilled the beans in the first place!”

Race promised to say nothing until after the fight, and I walked inside with Doc Van Schendel to look the kid over. We didn’t let on about Stig, Kendall, or Johnson. I had a better idea in mind. I asked the Doc to stick around the camp with us, and, feeling guilty for his part in all this, he agreed to help.

W
HEN WE WENT
into town for the fight, I was feeling much happier. The kid was looking pretty good and rarin’ to go, with a nervousness that’s just right and natural.

I was still pretty nervous myself. This fight wasn’t going to be a cinch, by no means. But when the kid crawled into the ring, I was in a much better frame of mind than I had been some days before. Stig Martin contributed his little share to my happiness, too. When I saw him in the hall near the dressing room, I licked my lips.

He didn’t see me until I was within arm’s length of him, and then it was too late to duck. I slammed him into the wall, then hit him again. He slid down the wall and sat there, blood streaming from his nose.

A big cop looked around the corner, came over, frowning.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded.

“I am,” I returned cheerfully, and went.

I
T WILL BE
a long time before they have a crowd like that again, and a long time before they see two heavyweights put on such a fight. When we walked down to the ring, the ballpark was ablaze with lights, and there was a huge crowd stretching back into the darkness, a sea of faces that made you feel lost. Then the lights went out, and there was only the intensely white light over the ring, and the low murmur of voices.

Kip Morgan was wearing a blue silk dressing gown, and he crawled into the ring, walking quickly over to the resin box. The champ took his time. I saw him take in the kid’s nervousness with a sleepy smile. Then he rubbed his feet slowly in the resin and walked back to his corner.

Then I was talking to the kid, trying to quiet him down, trying to get him settled when I was so jittery that a tap on the shoulder would have set me screaming. I’d been handling scrappers a long time, but this was my first championship battle, and there, across the ring, was the Big Fellow, the world’s heavyweight champion himself, the guy we’d been reading about, and seeing in the newsreels. And here was this kid that I’d brought up from the bottom, the kid who was going out there to fight that guy.

I’m telling you, it was something. I saw the champ slip off his robe and noticed that hard brown body, the thick, sloping shoulders, the slabs of muscle around his arms, watched him dancing lightly on his toes, moving his arms high. He was a fighter, every inch of him.