Caleb (19 page)

Caleb raised his eyes reluctantly. “Yes, Marse.”

“Well, I am going to wear it out on you if you are not up in that ring in about ten seconds. Now, get moving.”

As if on strings, Caleb turned and slouched through the parting crowd. Jardine followed a step behind him, slapping the riding crop rhythmically on his open hand. When he got into the ring, Caleb stripped off his shirt and sat down to allow one of Moran’s men to lace up his gloves. When the man had finished, Jardine, who was standing outside the ring on the apron, whispered to Caleb.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I think so, Master,” Caleb said with his eyes intent upon the lounging Mott.

When Moran finished reminding the crowd of the terms of engagement, the bell sounded. Caleb got up slowly and looked around as if he didn’t know where he was.

“For Christ’s sake,” hissed Jardine. “Here he comes.”

As with the white boy he had just dismissed, the professor came at Caleb with a whirring blur of punches. But realizing that he had a round less to prove his point, Mott did not waste the punches on the air. He immediately began a brisk tattoo on Caleb’s body. The satisfying thump of leather hitting torso was greeted by cheers from the crowd.

To the professor’s surprise, Caleb did not react. Cowering behind his arms and gloves, Caleb soaked up the blows without lowering his arms, ignoring the rattle of punches as if they were flea bites. The professor increased his speed, but the effect was the same. He simply could not lure Caleb either into punching back or lowering his defenses. No matter how fast Mott danced around him, Caleb managed to deny him a vulnerable target. Caleb had yet to throw a single punch.

Realizing that he was in danger of looking silly, Mott redoubled his efforts and danced around Caleb like a mosquito looking for a soft place to sting, trying at the same time to make it look like an exhibition. Half the crowd marveled at his speed; the other half at Caleb’s apparent cowardice.

“Come on, fight him, you booger!” shouted a local wit. Others started booing. “Knock him out, Prof!” came from several quarters.

When, reluctantly, Moran rang the bell signaling the end of the first round, Mott, for the first time, sat down on the stool in his corner. “I can’t hit the black son of a bitch,” he panted. “And he won’t fight.”

“You better hit him,” muttered Moran. “That’s my two hundred dollars on the line. Do anything you have to. Just put him down!”

In Caleb’s corner, Jardine told him, “You’re looking pretty silly out there, Caleb. They all think you’re a coward.”

“Isn’t that what we want, Master?” Caleb asked.

“But don’t those punches hurt?”

“Not two hundred dollars’ worth,” Caleb answered as the bell rang.

In the second round, Professor Mott came out just as fiercely, wasting no time trying to get past Caleb’s defenses. Still dancing, he faked a left to the head and followed up with a low right that landed with a painful thump several inches below Caleb’s belt. Only by a slight twist of his hips did Caleb escape the full effect of the foul blow.

A gasp went up from the crowd, and Jardine shouted angrily as Caleb, his face reflecting agony, lowered his guard for a fraction of a second. But before Mott could follow up, the slave slowly crumpled to the canvas-covered boards. Mott stood back with satisfaction, and Moran rushed out to begin the count.

“Serves him right, the damned sissy,” called a boy from the crowd, but all around him boos started ringing out at the brazen nature of the foul. “Coward!” shouted a woman at Mott, but the professor just stood there with his eyes fixed on his writhing victim.

“Three, four, five,” Moran counted.

Jardine started to climb into the ring, but Caleb, through his pain, shook his head in warning.

“Six, seven, eight,” Moran continued, not even bothering to rush the count, as he would have if he had been in doubt. The crowd was now yelling angrily, but he ignored them. He had weathered too many irate crowds over the years to be much bothered by this one.

“Nine,” Moran started to reach for Mott’s hand, but Caleb was suddenly on his feet and back into his defensive shell. The crowd surged forward around the ring, and a score of hands grabbed hold of the apron and began to shake it. The sudden movement nearly threw Moran from his feet.

Racing for his speaking trumpet, Moran raised it to his mouth.

“Due to the danger of riot, I declare this bout—”

But now the whole crowd was chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Their efforts were making the ring rock like the deck of a ship in a storm.

Moran dropped the speaking trumpet, raised both arms in surrender, and shouted, “Fight on, gentlemen!”

Caleb just stood there, but Mott leaped into a frenzy of action as he launched desperate punches at the big man. But nothing he did could get his punches through to Caleb’s head, and Mott dared not try another foul punch. He knew that the crowd was too aroused for that.

“Fight, you black bastard!” Mott gritted through his teeth, but Caleb might have been a tree for all the response he got.

Finally, when the round had gone well over three minutes, people in the crowd began to chant, “Time! Time! Time!” Several men held up their timepieces and gesticulated angrily.

Ringing the bell, Moran waded into the ring, waved Mott off, raised Caleb’s hand, and shouted, “Due to a foul blow in the second round by Professor Mott, I declare Caleb the winner!”

The crowd exploded with cheers, the ring stopped rocking, and Jardine was quickly over the rope and holding out his hand for the two hundred dollars.

The rest of the evening’s card of fights—blacks against blacks, whites against whites—were exciting enough, but none of them could eclipse the spectators’ wonder at the cowardice of the slave Caleb and the dirty fighting of the white Professor Mott. Many of the whites felt that it didn’t matter if the professor cheated. Awarding the victory—and the prize money—to Caleb, they reckoned, would give
their
blacks the wrong idea.

40

For the next couple of days, Caleb and Jardine lay low. Caleb, discovering that Professor Mott’s punches were not as painless as they had seemed the night before, spent an entire day in a straw bed over the stables with Caesar bringing food and unsought advice.

“Had been me, Caleb,” Caesar said, “I’d have walloped that professor, white man or not.”

“Sure you would have, Caesar,” Caleb said. Even though Mott had got nowhere near his jaw, it hurt Caleb even to eat. He could only lie there and wish that he’d thought to bring a book from Three Rivers. Finally, as much to get rid of Caesar as anything, Caleb sent him out to scour Shreevesville for a newspaper some white visitor might have thrown away. Caesar came back with six, though he had to run half the way back to escape a crowd of white boys who accused him of stealing the papers.

With his stomach full—if still painful—Caleb lay back and read the papers in the light streaming through the high opening where hay was hoisted into the loft. A big headline in a week-old copy of the
New Orleans Picayune
proclaimed, “Politicians Desperately Seek to Avoid Coming Civil War.”

Jardine, as befitted a man whose fighter has disgraced himself even while winning two hundred dollars, stayed well away from the hotel and taverns where the boxing crowd congregated. He didn’t see the
Picayune
headline, but talk among the locals and visitors from the fair was about little else. Most still thought that war could be avoided and were counting on support from England and other European powers to allay the Yankee taste for confrontation.

Toward the end of the second day, Jardine was walking down the plank sidewalk of Shreevesville’s main street when Colonel Moran hailed him. Allowing himself to be dragged into a hotel bar, Jardine sat sipping at a brandy and water while the colonel got to the point.

“The long and the short of it, sir,” Moran said at last, “is that I want to buy that Negro of yours. That is, if you can bring yourself to set a reasonable price. I will not try to bamboozle you, sir. That performance he put on the other night was first-rate. That boy has a future in the ring. The professor is not the same man he was before he tangled with your slave.”

“But,” Jardine protested, “Caleb never touched him.”

“Exactly,” said the colonel. “He had free access to the boy, but Mott could neither strike a vital place, nor put him down by legitimate blows to the body.”

“Yes,” Jardine observed, “that low blow your man landed was not very sporting.”

“But paid for, sir,” Moran reminded him briskly, “handsomely and from
my
pocket. Thanks to your—”

“Caleb.”

“Yes, Caleb,” the colonel said. “My concession, though not completely unrewarding, is drawing neither the crowds nor the profits I have come to expect from this county fair year after year. But,” he said with emphasis, “if I had your Caleb, I could not only redress that little matter, but give poor Stanley a chance to regain some of his self-esteem.”

“Well,” said Jardine, “I hate to disappoint you, Colonel, but aside from the fact that Caleb is one valuable slave, the boy has his heart set on being free.”

“Free!” Colonel Moran reacted as if Jardine had challenged his most precious principles. “Whatever for? If there is one thing I cannot abide, Mr. Jardine, it is a free black. My experience with that species has been too protracted and painful to discuss, but I would rather have no blacks in my show than a single free black. They are nothing but trouble.”

“I feel the same way, Colonel,” Jardine said.

“And good riddance to them, sir,” said the colonel fervently. “But may I take the liberty of inquiring whether your man’s activities in the ring have proved as rewarding as you’d hoped?”

“Not quite, Colonel,” Jardine said. “The fact is that we are still some three hundred dollars short of our target. And, as you know, Shreevesville is the last event of any size until next spring.”

“All too true,” agreed the colonel. “Three hundred dollars, you say?” Colonel Moran hunched closer to Jardine. “Perhaps,” he said, “we can find a way to come to an accommodation.”

The next morning, giant posters all over town and outside Colonel Moran’s boxing tent announced:

S
PECIAL
G
ALA
E
VENT!!!

R
EMATCH
B
ETWEEN
P
ROFESSOR
M
OTT AND
C
ALEB,
THE
S
LAVE OF
M
R.
B
OYD
J
ARDINE
OF
T
HREE
R
IVERS
P
LANTATION
.

T
ONIGHT IN THIS
T
ENT AT
8 P
M.

P
LUS:
S
PECIAL
I
NVITATIONAL
C
HALLENGE
W
ITH A
P
RIZE OF $500!!!

C
OME
O
NE,
C
OME
A
LL!

Caleb, who had recovered except for a slight tenderness in the kidney area, asked Jardine, “Are you sure this is going to work, Master?”

“No, frankly, I am not,” Jardine answered. “But we’ve got Moran’s three hundred dollars that, with his other two hundred, puts us over our goal. Why? Are you worried?”

“Of course I’m worried, Master,” Caleb said. “I can still feel his punches from the other night. I’m glad to have the money, but that professor is a very tough little man.”

“And you, Caleb,” Jardine said, “are a very tough—and strong—big man, with very little to lose except a reputation as a coward. Of course, if you’d rather I gave Colonel Moran back his money—”

“Oh, no, Master,” Caleb said hurriedly. “I’ll fight, but I can’t help worrying.”

That night Moran’s big tent was full to bursting by seven thirty, and scores of the disappointed milled around outside in hopes of a miracle that would make more room. Several local bravos engaged in impromptu boxing matches just to get rid of excess energy.

Inside the tent in a concealed compartment, Caleb waited to be called. The butterflies in his stomach had gone and had been replaced by the certainty that he was going to earn the rest of his freedom money that night. That afternoon Moran and Mott had spelled it out for him. Still, Caleb reckoned, the price he was paying for freedom was not too high.

But before Caleb could get to that part of the evening, he had to get through Colonel Moran’s bright idea of inviting any
two
local fighters to challenge Mott or Caleb. The winning challengers would share the five-hundred-dollar prize if they could knock down either of Moran’s boxers within three rounds. Caleb didn’t like the idea of this very much, but he was encouraged by Moran’s confidence in him. Mott, the old professional, didn’t seem to be bothered at all by the unusual conditions of these bouts.

Moran, of course, saved the rematch until last, but he warned the professor and Caleb not to wear themselves out on the challengers. He wanted them fresh for the main event of the evening. In all, there were eleven sets of challengers, six white and five black, carefully handpicked by the colonel.

Since Mott had the extra bout, he went first. As the crowd yelled encouragement, his opponents, two toughs from the Shreevesville stockyards, smirked at their friends and whispered hurried tactics for defeating the little man. Alas, the tactics were not enough, and the professor danced between the hulking youths, hitting each in turn until, in just over a minute, both were laid out in a rough figure
X
in the middle of the ring.

Then it was Caleb’s turn. His opponents were a couple of big but green field hands who had been rounded up and carted into town the minute their owner heard about the five-hundred-dollar prize. Neither had ever had gloves on before, nor did they want to fight. Caleb put them out of their misery within seconds, allowing each youth a half-hearted punch and then tapping each on the chin with a sharp right. Their owner might not be pleased, but the slaves would have something to tell people in the quarter that night.

And so it went. At least partly due to the fact that two unskilled boxers were as much of a menace to each other as they were to the professionals, none of the pairs even came close to winning the five hundred dollars. Moran would have been extremely disappointed—to put it lightly—if they had.

Mott’s final pair of opponents—a giant butcher and a wizened little man who worked at one of the stables—were so mismatched that the crowd, which was getting bored seeing challengers hit the floor with such regularity, cheered up and rooted for the locals with renewed fervor. The professor disposed of them quickly by picking up the stable hand, placing him gently into the butcher’s arms, and then tapping the larger man lightly but sharply on the chin. Wisely, both stayed down.

Mott and Caleb’s hands were jointly raised by Moran, and they were about to go to the back of the tent and rest a bit for the main event, when a white man, a small farmer who worked a few acres outside of town, shouted, “It seems to me that the nigger owes us a fight.” The audience around him quieted down. “And I’ve got one for him. I don’t have two fighters, so I can’t enter for the five hundred dollars, but I’ll put my man up against this Caleb for a stake of two hundred fifty dollars. If my man loses, Mr. Jardine can have him, a fine field hand, free and clear.” As the crowd murmured its approval, the farmer put his fingers to his mouth and whistled sharply. Pompey appeared from the crowd of blacks at the back of the tent.

Though it hadn’t been that long since Caleb defeated him at that first fair, Pompey had clearly been through some hard times. Besides his uneven gait, Pompey now carried one shoulder low, and his right eye looked to be permanently half-closed. Already stripped to the waist, Pompey was still in splendid physical shape, but there was something slack about the way his powerful arms hung at his sides. His good eye was watching the path to the ring.

“I’m very sorry,” Moran began to say, “but the challenge portion of this evening’s attractions is now complete. Ladies and gentlemen—”

But the crowd, wrathful at being denied something extra for its money, began to shout and clap and boo. “Let them fight!” came a voice from the rear. “Caleb’s afraid of him. Look at him shake!”

The crowd roared its approval for over a minute until Moran, with raised hands, silenced them. “All right,” he said with a glance over at Caleb, “but if you want extra, you have to pay extra. My men will pass the hat among you for contributions—generous contributions—to a pot to be awarded to the winning fighter.”

Quickly, Moran’s roustabouts were up in the stands shaking their hats in front of faces and refusing to move along until nickels, dimes, or quarters had been thrown in. “Pay up,” they demanded. Within minutes, they were back at ringside, their hats sagging with coins.

“Just a damn minute,” Jardine protested from behind Caleb on the ring apron. “I’ll be damned if I am going to risk my man against that slab of meat. I don’t much want him anyway.”

“Master,” said Caleb. “Please. I’ll fight him. Please.”

Jardine looked at his slave closely. “I don’t know what you’re up to, Caleb, but if you lose, the money comes out of your share. You understand that?”

“I understand,” Caleb said.

Pompey climbed into the ring, and one of Moran’s men worked his corner. The crowd murmured as Pompey stood up even before the bell rang.

Moran gained the center of the ring and announced, “One round to a conclusion, my friends, between Caleb and Pompey. Go to it!” Then came the bell, and Caleb moved forward to meet Pompey, beginning with a series of showy punches. Then he moved in close, tied up the big man, and whispered, “What you want, Pompey?”

“Nothin’,” Pompey grunted, “just to get away from that cracker. He treats slaves worse than animals.”

“Okay,” Caleb said. “You chase me until I catch you. Understand?”