POE MUST DIE (49 page)

He screamed and screamed and the sound of his voice remained as trapped in the small, hellish prison, as did Poe himself.

*     *     *     *

Thor was confused. He frowned, licked the blood from his lips and charged once more. Waiting until the last second, Figg sidestepped to his left, hooking his left fist into the Negro’s rib cage, then driving his right, arm fully extended, into the same spot. Thor’s eyes became all whites. He staggered backward.

For the past few minutes the Englishman had been hitting him in the same spot, the right rib cage and the pain was growing. All of the white man’s blows had been concentrated there, nowhere else and Thor was feeling it. What Thor hated most of all was that the white man had knocked him down three times and the last time, Thor had found himself getting up slowly.

The Negro, more cautious now, flicked his bloodied left fist at Figg’s face. The Englishman stayed out of reach, continuing to circle to his left. Two more swings by Thor and again, they missed and when the Negro was leaning forward, slightly off-balance, Figg flicked a small jab at his face. The blow stung.

Widdershins.

Every man in the cellar was on his feet, shouting, cursing, encouraging. Some who had been against Figg were now for the squat, bulldog-faced Englishman. His courage had impressed them, his ability to absorb punishment and not quit had won their fickle allegiance. A worried Hugh Larney chewed his tiny lower lip as Figg faked right with his head, drawing a reaction from an anxious Thor, then stepped left, punching on the move, hooking his left fist under the Negro’s heart.

Thor staggered backward, surprised, but he didn’t go down. He’d never seen a man punch and move at the same time. Most boxers planted both feet, then swung from a firm stance. Suddenly the old man in front of him was running all over the ring, hitting while he ran and the blows were hurting Thor.

Thor was angry. He wasn’t going to lose a fight to this old white man, this man who could not walk without dragging a foot behind him, this man with scars on his face and body. Thor was going to kill him and not just for the $100 in gold. He was going to kill him because he now hated him more than he’d hated anyone in his life.

Figg felt strong, confident. He gave no thought as to how that had come about. That it had come about was all that mattered. If he was a part of a tradition that had lived long before Christ and was still alive in the hills and dark woods of England, then so be it. All he was certain of was that now it was a different fight between him and the blackamoor. A very different fight.

He noticed something. The Negro kept his right side farther back than before. It must be painin’ him. Didn’t want any more taps on it. But keeping his right side far back had thrown Thor’s stride off. His stance was too narrow; both feet were one behind the other instead of being wide apart for a firmer grip on the earth. A weak stance meant a weaker punch even from a man as big as him.

Thor jabbed with his left, shuffling forward cautiously, keeping his right side away from Figg, who moved quickly to his right, forcing Thor to lean after him.

Then Figg changed directions. Counterclockwise. As Martin and Tully, two of Thor’s opponents, had said: He cannot move sideways too well. Figg took a chance. He lunged, leaping forward and swinging his left in a wild roundhouse at Thor’s right side. He connected. The blow was one of Figg’s strongest of the fight and drove the big man across the ring. The crowd roared.

Thor was against the ropes and Figg was on him. The Englishman’s hands reached for the Negro’s throat, squeezing, digging in, weakening him. Backing off, Figg hooked to the body with both hands. Again, again, digging his fists into the Negro’s flesh. Thor leaned off the ropes, hands reaching for Figg, who backed off and stepped left, hooking a left into Thor’s temple. Then a right cross and the crowd shrieked, stomped its boots on the damp, black earth. Thor fell forward on his face and Figg staggered backward.

Thor’s seconds dragged him back to his corner. Barnum’s squeaky voice cut above the shouting crowd. “Start counting, timekeeper! Count, I say!” Barnum had $10,000 in gold bet on Figg.

Figg sat on Barnum’s knee, his head flopped back against the ring post, eyes on the moon.
Widdershins.
They were all congratulating him. Barnum, Bootham. Merlin. The Englishmen sitting at ringside. The cheers, the screams, the yells. It was something from an old tribal rite, it was. Nothing’s changed, thought Figg. Nothing at all. We are them and them is we. The old ones, the new ones. We are all the same.

He looked across the ring. Thor was leaning backward, trying hard to breathe. One of his seconds gently touched the Negro’s right side and he cried out, shaking his head from side to side.

“Time
!”

Figg was on his feet, limping forward, reaching the line before Thor.

Thor came up to it slowly, doubled over, left side facing Figg, left hand pawing the air. In adopting the cautious, defensive posture, the Negro had reduced his height. His chin was where Figg wanted it to be. Jes’ keep it there for a while longer, mate. Jes’ a while longer.

They circled each other, Thor with his right side back to protect it. Figg was moving to his left, looking for that opening, that opportunity to end the fight. He knew he could end it, he knew he could win.
Be it as your faith. The old and the new are as one, for nothing has ever changed in this world save the eyes of those who view it.

Figg charged, stopped. Thor backed up, then stood confused. Someone booed and shouted. “Hey Larney, yer nigger wants to go home!” Laughter.

Again Figg charged, stopped. Again Thor backed up. More boos, all aimed at the Negro. He looked around, his bloodied face confused, with only the remnants of pride left in it.

Alright, white man. You come again and Thor will not run. Not this time. This time Thor will run to meet
you.

Figg faked a charge, two steps, then stopped. Thor lowered his head and charged him and Figg swung a right uppercut that began almost at the ground. The blow caught the Negro on the move, half in the throat, half under the jaw and lifted him in the air and into the ropes.

As Thor bounced off the ropes, Figg stepped to his own left and hooked his left fist into the Negro’s temple. Thor fell forward into the dirt and didn’t move.

The cellar erupted with cheering, roaring, yelling men. There were no boos, no jeers. They had seen what they had come to see.

They’d seen a fight.

Back in his corner, Figg, surrounded by cheering Englishmen, Barnum, Bootham and Merlin, breathed deeply through his open mouth. His face was bloodied, swollen, as were both fists. His back was to Thor, now being dragged back to his corner by his seconds. Figg knew there would be no more fight tonight.

There wasn’t.

“Time!”
The timekeeper could barely be heard above the cheering, yelling crowd.

“Time!”

Thor’s seconds frantically worked on reviving him. But the Negro was unconscious, blood pouring from his nose and mouth.

And now the ring was filled with men, almost all of them English, desperate to be a part of Figg’s victory, to touch him, speak to him, listen to him. There would be no raising of Figg’s hand in victory by an umpire. The umpire couldn’t get through the crowd.

As men fought to be near him, Figg pushed his way to Barnum, and when he was close to the showman, Figg whispered in his ear. A jubilant Barnum nodded vigorously. “It will be done, Mr. Figg, exactly as you asked. You have my word on it.”

Barnum looked down. “Merlin? You have work to do.” A delighted Barnum picked up the dwarf in his arms and kissed him on the cheek.

The Englishmen picked up Figg and carried him triumphantly from the ring.

FORTY-FIVE

I
N THE
ABANDONED barn
, a proud and arrogant Jonathan spoke to the freezing winds raging around him. “Soon, the woman will be here.”

“Sacrifice her,” replied Asmodeus, “and you are forever free from me.”

Jonathan, eyes closed, spoke to the demon king with this thoughts. “But you will
never
be free from me.
Never.
You will serve
me
as I wish. You will serve
me
forever, for soon I shall hold dominion over you.”

The howling winds suddenly disappeared. He fears me, thought Jonathan.
He fears me.

Jonathan remained seated, eyes closed. He waited. It was less than three hours to midnight on the ninth and final day.

*     *     *     *

Holding Dearborn’s hand tightly, a nervous and bitter Hugh Larney hurried from the doctor’s small clapboard house and rushed down the stairs towards his carriage. Thor was still bleeding from the nose and mouth and he couldn’t talk. That last punch in the throat had crushed something and Larney didn’t know or care what it was. Let the doctor worry about it. Larney was concerned with Figg. The Englishman was alive and the smartest thing Larney could do was flee to his small farmhouse and hide there.

Figg. Damn him, damn him, damn him! He’d cost Larney $100,000
and
the best prizefighter in New York; Thor would never be the same man again, no matter what the doctor did for him. And what bothered Larney more than anything else was the loss of prestige, to have this defeat occur in front of his friends.

Jonathan had been correct. Beware Poe and Figg. Well, little Poe was no longer a bother to anyone, not where he was at the moment. Lying in a coffin, in an unmarked grave, perhaps still drugged by wine, perhaps screaming and begging to be let out. Perhaps dead from fright by now. He deserved it, the snivelling little bastard. Larney was not going to be humiliated by the likes of a shabby, dirt poor writer who lacked even the money to bet on the man who was taking his place in the prize ring. Larney had money, position. Poe had none of these things, so why should he be proud? He had nothing to be proud of. Let him now be proud in his coffin let him parade and boast in front of the worms who would soon be drilling holes in his sallow flesh.

Larney had left two men with Thor, to bring the Negro back to the farm when the doctor said he could travel. Jacob Cribb was waiting in Larney’s carriage to drive him out of Manhattan, away from Figg. It would be wise to get as far away from Figg as possible.

At the carriage, Larney lifted Dearborn up, then climbed inside himself.

His jaw dropped.

Figg, in the seat across from him, rasped, “I’m here to get yer congratulations, Mr. Larney. You left without sayin’ ’well don, Mr. Figg.’ ”

Larney looked at the horrible dwarf who stood on the seat beside Figg, a flintlock aimed up at the back of Jacob Cribb, who sat outside on the driver’s seat.

“How, how did you—?”

“Find you, Mr. Larney? Little Merlin ‘ere, ‘im and another one of Mr. Barnum’s friends followed you and one of ’em comes back and tells me. Little fella like ‘im must be hard to see at night.”

Figg leaned forward. “And now you are goin’ to tell me, mate. Where is Mr. Poe and where is Jonathan?”

“I do not—”

Figg leaned over and backhanded a slap in his face. Larney fell to the side and lay there, whimpering.

Dearborn said softly, “They took Mr. Poe to the cemetery and left him there.”

Figg grabbed Larney’s hair, jerking him upright again. “If Poe is dead, you will lie beside him, me promise on that. Merlin!”

The dwarf jammed Figg’s flintlock into Jacob Cribb’s back. The carriage jerked forward, pulling away into the night.

*     *     *     *

“Sweet Jesus,” muttered Figg.

He, Dearborn and Merlin stood beside the open grave as a disheveled, dirt-covered Hugh Larney and Jacob Cribb, pulled the cover from the coffin with bloodied hands.

Poe lay curled on his side. He didn’t move.

“Take ‘im out you two and pray to God ‘e ain’t dead, ‘cause if ‘e is, then you two will be as well.”

Larney and Cribb supported Poe between them. Was he breathing? Figg watched him carefully. Poe’s head snapped up and his eyes widened in his pale face. There was dirt on his wide forehead and on his mustache.

Figg grinned. “Evenin’ squire.”

“Mr., Mr. Figg. You, you do not look well, sir.”

“You ain’t no ‘angin’ tapestry yerself. Glad to see you, I am.”

“And I you, sir. And I you.”

“Little Miss Dearborn ‘ere, she tells me she saw you twice tonight. Sees you drive off with Miss Rachel, and quick after that she sees you tied up in Mr. Larney’s carriage. She is the one what told me you were ’ere in this awful place.”

“The-the duel, Mr. Figg. Did you—”

“We were victorious, Mr. Poe.”

Poe’s smile was weak. “I am delighted, sir. I am extremely delighted and pleased beyond measure.”

Pushing himself clear of Larney and Cribb, Poe staggered forward, found his balance and straightened up. “Wine, that bane of my existence, in essence saved me, for through its drugged mercies, I slept much more than I screamed and clawed at the coffin lid. Even now, I am not entirely in control of my mental faculties, but soon I shall be. Soon. I never imagined myself as ever being grateful to alcohol, but it was that which gave me welcomed sleep. Welcomed sleep.”