“Git up, Mr. Bill! De bossman say fer you to git up!”
But Bill slept on. Zodono laughed.
“Bring your dominant mind to bear upon his subjective consciousness,
Conko,” he grinned.
Conko grabbed Bill on each side of his face, glared into his eyes, and
howled:
“Hey, Bill; git up! Don’t you hear me tellin’ you? Wake up!”
While this was going on, Zodono asked the girl:
“What is your name?”
“Dey calls me Goldie,” she answered, staring at Conko Mukes.
“All right, Goldie. Be sure to bring the curtains back to-morrow.”
But Goldie was not listening. She was watching Conko struggling with
the inert form of Bill.
Finally Conko stood up and strode toward the exit, his ugly black face
frightened and uneasy.
“What’s the matter, Conko?” Zodono called. “Going?”
“Yes, suh. I’s gwine, Mr. Jimmy,” Conko answered nervously. “I--I--done
got dat white man hypped, an’ I--I--cain’t unhyp him!”
Without waiting for a reply, Conko passed out of the theater, trotted
down the crooked alley, and hastened to the Hen-Scratch saloon.
“Skeeter!” he boomed. “If you got any money to bet, you bet it on me!
I’s gwine to pull a stunt on dat Hitch Diamond dis atternoon whut’ll
make all de coons in Tickfall think I done borrered de debbil’s own
knockout draps!”
A short distance from Tickfall where the Dorfoche Bayou widened into
a small lake, and where pine-trees grew thick and shady upon a sandy
plain was the negro baseball park and picnic grounds.
Hundreds of negroes had assembled here to witness the prize-fight
between Hitch Diamond, the Tickfall Tiger, and Conko Mukes, the Georgia
Cyclone. The women were as numerous as the men, and all were betting
wildly on the result.
Skeeter Butts, backing Conko Mukes, was in a blue funk.
He had bet forty dollars, and called that the limit until Conko
informed him that he possessed a hoodoo-stunt which would decide the
contest in his own favor; then Skeeter had hazarded sixty dollars more.
He found takers so readily that he had lost all courage and enthusiasm
for his pugilist. He considered his money as good as gone.
A rude, squared ring had been roped off on the edge of the little
lake by the simple process of stretching the rope from one sapling
to another as a woman fixes a clothes-line. The ground, rising from
the edge of the water presented a natural amphitheater for the
accommodation of the spectators.
Many a prize-fight had occurred at this spot, in most of which the
whites had taken a prominent part, being interested spectators and
extravagant gamblers. But to-day no white people were on the ground.
When Hitch Diamond emerged from the plum-thicket which had served for
a dressing-room, his seconds behind him, and stalked through the crowd
to the ring, a wild burst of greeting and applause went up from his
waiting fellow townsmen, all of whom, except Skeeter Butts and Figger
Bush, had backed him to the limit at any odds.
Hitch bowed right and left, waved his giant arms at the people on the
edge of the crowd, and listened with hungry ears to their pleas:
“We’re bettin’ on you, Hitch; don’t make us lose our money!”
“Knock him out, Hitchey! Den us’ll all be rich!”
Hitch ducked through the ropes and walked to his corner, where he sat
down upon a folding stool.
Vinegar Atts, the referee, came over and shook Hitch by the hand. Atts
was a broken-down pugilist whom the Lord had called to preach after his
last K. O., and he and Hitch were great friends.
“How you feelin’, Hitchey?” Vinegar wanted to know.
“Feel as sweet as a fly in a vat of merlasses,” Hitch grinned.
“Don’t let yo’ knock-out punch git sour,” Vinegar grinned. “I got all
my loose change on you.”
There was another roar of applause, and Conko Mukes emerged from his
plum-thicket and came through the crowd, his knotty, shaved head
shining in the sun like a block of ivory. His scarred and villainous
face, with its mashed lips and broken nose and iron jaw, glowed with
excitement and enthusiasm.
The mob applauded without partizanship as he climbed through the ropes
and sat down in his corner.
Each pugilist eyed the other curiously, but neither could see much, for
both were swathed in horse-blankets.
Prince Total and a scar-faced negro named Possum, Hitch Diamond’s
seconds, slipped on Hitch’s gloves and laced them tight, while Skeeter
Butts and Figger Bush performed the same office for Conko Mukes.
Then the seconds removed the heavy woolen horse-blankets, and the
two fighters stood forth in their ring costumes, visible in all
their fighting strength for the first time to the crowd--both men
deep-chested, heavy-thewed, with muscles which moved like live snakes
under their black-satin skins, their bodies acrawl with life and brutal
power.
The two men advanced and touched gloves.
Then something happened which would make old John L. Sullivan laugh
till he dislocated his iron jaw.
You who follow the fistic combats of Jess Willard and other white hopes
and hopelessnesses, know that for months before the combatants meet in
the ring their press-agents are busy informing the public what each
pugilist says he expects to do to his opponent.
In the negro prize-fights in the South, the pugilist, lacking the
press-agent, demands the right to make a speech before each round of
the fight, in which he tells his friends and backers what he expects to
do to his opponent in the next round.
Can you beat that?
So, in accordance with this custom, after the two fighters had touched
gloves, Hitch Diamond went back to his corner and sat down.
Conko Mukes stepped to the middle of the ring and bellowed:
“I’s de great unwhupped Tuskeegee Cyclome. I fights any nigger whut
misdoubts my words! I’s de brayin’ jackass of Georgia, an’ no nigger in
Tickfall cain’t comb my mane!”
He sprang up, cracked his heels together, waved his gorilla-like
arms in the air, and uttered a piercing whoop which echoed like a
steam-whistle far down the Dorfoche Bayou.
Thereupon Hitch Diamond sprang to his feet and howled:
“I fights any nigger in the worl’ fer two bits, fer a chaw terbaccer,
fer a watermillyum rind, fer de tail of a tadpole!”
He jumped three feet in the air, cracked his heels together like two
clapboards, and shrieked:
“I’s de Tickfall Tiger, an’ I kin curry dat Georgia jackass fo’ inches
under his hide!”
Then the seconds clattered out of the ring with their folding stools,
and the two men advanced and took their fighting attitudes.
Pap Curtain picked up a baseball bat and struck a large wagon-tire
suspended from a tree on the edge of the bayou. This was the gong.
[Illustration:
Drawn by E. W. Kemble
“I’se de braying jack-ass of Georgia, an’ no nigger in Tickfall cain’t
comb my mane.”]
“Time!” the referee shouted.
“Go fer his stomick, Conko!” Skeeter Butts squealed. “Hit an’ duck!
It’s de best thing you kin do!”
Conko hit and ducked; and Hitch Diamond was jarred to the very marrow
of his bones. A cold fury took the place of Hitch’s smile.
“Go atter him! Foller him up!” Skeeter squealed.
Conko shot a right hook at Hitch, who neatly side-stepped; then Hitch
swung a terrible lefthand blow at the giant figure before him.
“Right cross--lef’ hook, Hitch--dat’ll fix him!” Prince Total barked.
Conko ducked and saved his jaw, but the blow landed on the side of his
head. It was too high up to be vitally effective, but powerful enough
to bring a black veil of unconsciousness across Conko’s mind. All faces
vanished for a second; even Hitch Diamond disappeared; then when Hitch
reappeared, Conko pecked savagely at his stomach.
Hitch panted like a winded dog; they clinched, and Hitch, with his
gorilla reach, pounded his enemy over the kidneys.
“Hey, dar! Break ’em! No fair hittin’ in clinches!” the crowd of Conko
backers yelled.
Vinegar Atts grinned, yanked the pair out of the clinch, and a wolflike
howl rose from the crowd. Hitch Diamond had landed a mighty blow in
Conko’s stomach, and the Georgia Cyclone had fallen to his knees!
Vinegar Atts began to count:
“Fo’--five--six--seben--eight----”
“Git up, Conko!” Skeeter Butts screamed in agony. “Fer Gawd’s sake----”
“Nine----”
Conko’s leap upward at this word carried him within striking distance
of Hitch Diamond, and the crowd yelled wildly at a whirlwind rush which
sent Hitch slipping and leaping like a flying shuttle to guard himself
from the wild insurgence of that furious onslaught.
The end of the round found both combatants laughing.
Skeeter Butts, for his part, was alternately sweating cold and hot, and
as nervous as a cat amid a pack of pop-crackers.
The two men sat down in their corners, lying back with outstretched
legs, resting their arms outstretched upon the ropes, gulping in the
air fanned at them from the towels of the seconds. Their eyes were
closed, and the roar of the crowd was a mighty thunder in their ears.
The gong struck, and Conko Mukes stepped to the middle of the ring.
“I done got dis here Hitch Diamond’s number!” he bawled. “Hitch ain’t
nothin’ but a big gob of meat, an’ I’s gwine fry him in his own grease!
Ef you got any money to bet, bet it all on me. I’s de wild ole ram of
de Georgia swamp, an’ no nigger cain’t pick de cockle-burs outen my
wool!”
He bent his huge body, ducked his head in excellent imitation of a
sheep, and bleated loud enough to be heard a mile.
Hitch Diamond sprang to his feet and whooped:
“I’s de swamp wildcat whut kin claw de cockle-burs outen dat ole buck’s
wool!”
He screamed in perfect imitation of a Louisiana panther and met Conko
Mukes in the middle of the ring.
Then Hitch Diamond presented a wonderful exhibition of skill and
quickness, going in and out again, landing a blow to the eyes, to the
jaw, to the ribs, ducking a counter, dancing lightly away, dancing
lightly in, with quick, deft, dangerous blows, rushing things, and
waiting for an opening left by that slow-moving man before him.
That opening came, and Hitch’s right arm flashed into it, a right hook
with all the weight of his pouncing body behind it. Conko Mukes fell
like the rotten trunk of a tree falls in the forest. The crowd sighed
like a great furnace, and a ripple of awestricken applause began close
to the ringside and rolled like a wave to the edge of the amphitheater.
As Conko took the count, a golden-brown girl with large, bold, black
eyes and long, straight, coal-black hair which made her octoroon
complexion appear almost white, walked up close to the ring. The hands
clasped over her full bosom were trembling, and her eyes glowed like
coals of fire.
It was Goldie, Hitch Diamond’s wife.
“Look out, Hitchey!” she exclaimed. “Don’t let dat Conko Mukes git too
close to you! Knock him out in dis round! I knows somepin ’bout him dat
you don’t know!”
“He don’t look so awful dangersome now, Goldie,” Hitch replied,
grinning at his wife, as she stood by the ropes.
Conko Mukes had rolled over and knelt on one knee, listening as Vinegar
Atts stood over him counting in a loud voice. At the ninth he arose.
Springing across the ring with lightning quickness, Conko landed a blow
on Hitch’s jaw just as he turned away from his wife; with a grunt,
Hitch fell flat to the ground within reach of Goldie’s hand. But the
blow had been too hastily delivered and missed the point of the jaw by
an inch. In an instant Hitch was up and fighting like a panther.
The rest of the round was a nigger whirlwind finish. The darkies
grappled like clumsy grizzlies, punching, biting, wrestling, growling
ferociously. Around and around, they butted and pushed, bellowing and
braying, striking any sort of blows, landing them everywhere they
could, while the crowd cheered each man as he gained a slight advantage
without partizanship.
When the men retired to their corners the crowd went mad, and the
voices were yelling: “Go it, Hitch!” “Knock his block off, Conko!”
“Kill him dead, Hitch!” “You’ll git him in de nex’ round, Conko!”
As for Skeeter Butts, he could have qualified for the lunatic asylum.
“Fer Gawd’s sake, Conko,” he chattered, “ef you got any hoodoo stunts
to wuck on Hitch, you better wuck ’em. Dat nigger’s done had you down
two times----”
“Aw, shut up!” Conko rumbled as he breathed in the air from Skeeter’s
flapping towel. “I’s gwine pull dat stuff in de nex’ round. I’s savin’
it fer de third, because de third time is de charm.”
“De Lawd’ll shorely bless you fer sayin’ that, Conko,” Skeeter panted,
with tears in his eyes. “My Gawd, ef us don’t win, I’ll sho’ wish I’d
been borned a corn-field mule!”
The gong sounded for the third round.
Conko Mukes stepped in the middle of the ring and howled:
“In dis here nex’ roun’ I’s gwine win out. I’s gwine hypnertize dis
here Hitch Diamond an’ put him to sleep. I’ll take one look at his ugly
mug wid my right eye, an’ he’ll stan’ up in dis ring like a dead man on
his foots----”
“My Gawd, Hitchey!” Goldie screamed as she pressed through the crowd
and grabbed the ropes by Hitch. “Look out fer dat nigger! He’ll git
you hypped, an’ he cain’t unhyp you!” Then she turned and ran toward
Tickfall like a yellow streak.
“Dat’s right, sister!” Conko Mukes bellowed as he watched her
departure. “You don’t ’pear to be anxious to stay an’ see it done, but
dat’s yo’ Uncle Conko’s little game! Dis here Hitch Diamond is gwine to
sleep, an’ I don’t keer ef he never wakes up!”
As Conko sat down Hitch arose and smiled at the crowd.
“I never goes to sleep till I wins!” he bawled. “Conko is done made a
miscue ’bout who is gwine take a nap. I’s de real old fat mammy whut’ll
sing li’l’ baby Conko to sleep!”
Thereupon Conko Mukes performed a stunt which had never before been
witnessed in a pugilistic ring, and which Conko in his subsequent
career never attempted to duplicate.
He sprang toward Hitch Diamond, sparred for a moment, clinched, and
shrieked like a calliope:
“Sleep! Sleep! Sleep, Hitch Diamond--go to sleep!”
This wonderful performance scared Hitch Diamond nearly out of his wits.
He broke from the clinch, smashed Conko against the ropes, and then
began hooking and driving all sorts of blows against him, tearing
himself out of Conko’s frenzied clinches, punching him, shoving him
against the ropes again and again until the cypress saplings to which
the ropes were attached bowed beneath the storm and weight of human
contestants.
Through it all, like some mighty chant, the stentorian voice of Conko
rumbled the dreadful malediction:
“Sleep! Sleep! Go to sleep, Hitch Diamond--sleep!”
But Hitch never rested a moment, and Conko, looking for an opening to
get in his hypnotic eyework, let Hitch chase him all around the ring a
dozen times.
There were three minutes of this screaming farce, and when it ended,
Hitch Diamond was reeling and staggering from his wild chase around the
ring, and his legs were cramping under him and felt like lead.
Without knowing it, Hitch had spun around like a top for three minutes,
and a natural dizziness was upon him, and before his bewildered eyes
the crowd of faces sagged and swayed, disappeared and reappeared.
Again and again he had struck at Conko and missed. When the round had
ended, Hitch found himself swinging on to Mukes with all his weight to
keep from falling to the floor, while Conko’s bellowing was like the
distant thunder of the surf in his ear, sounding afar off:
“Sleep! Sleep! Sleep, Hitch Diamond, go to sleep!”
When Conko Mukes walked to his corner he was jubilant. He faced the
crowd of wondering coons, placed his gloved hands to the side of his
face, and crowed like a rooster.
“I got him goin’, niggers!” he squalled. “He’s wabbly on his foots! One
mo’ roundance, an’ dat big fat stiff will go to sleep an’ never wake up
no mo’!”
He sank down upon his camp-stool, and his heaving chest and abdomen
sucked in the air in great, hungry gulps.
Skeeter Butts worked like an engine, cackling his delight at his
hero’s wonderful pugilistic ruse.
“You got him skeart, Conko,” Skeeter squawked in a voice hoarse with
excitement. “One mo’ roun’ wid dat hypnertize-eye, an’ dat’ll be his
finish. Don’t let him bat yo’ hoodoo-eyes out!”
At the beginning of the fourth round Conko Mukes proceeded to steal
some of Professor Dodo Zodono’s thunder.
“Feller cit’zens,” he howled, “I’s gwine gib you a little demerstration
of my powers.
“In dis nex’ roun’, you’ll see wonders whut no man cain’t account
fer! You-all will hear noises whut defy all de laws of soundance!
You gwine behold appearances whut fly in de face of scrutination! Us
is gwine demerstrate effecks whut ain’t got no resomble cause--all
free-fer-nothin’!”
He sat down with a happy grin on his horrible face, and Hitch Diamond
stood up to proclaim:
“I ain’t never fit in de ring wid no lunatic befo’. I ain’t gwine waste
no time gittin’ done wid dis fight, neither. While Conko Mukes is
pullin’ all dem stunts he’s braggin’ ’bout, I’s gwine knock de stuffin’
outen his black hide!”
The two men advanced to the center of the ring, circled slowly around
while Conko began his monotonous, bellowing chant:
“Sleep! Sleep! Sleep, Hitch Diamond--sleep!”
Still keeping well out of reach of Hitch’s punch, Conko waved his right
hand slowly in front of his opponent’s face, as if he were stroking
invisible fur with his glove. Hitch followed him slowly, waiting for a
chance to land a knock-out blow.
Then upon Hitch Diamond’s slow mind there slowly dawned the meaning of
all this.
He had witnessed the hypnotic exhibition before the drug-store earlier
in the day, and recognized portions of the speech which Conko had
recited, and noticed a similarity between Conko’s gestures and the
actions of Professor Dodo Zodono.
Then Hitch’s dull eyes began to glow with strange interior fires.
With the negro’s knack for imitation, Hitch’s gloved hands dropped,
his giant arms dangled at his sides, and he began to move toward Conko
Mukes with stiff legs, as if someone had him by the shoulders leading
him forward, as if the hinge joints of his hips were rusty, and hurt
him when he walked.
The crowd gasped and uttered awe-stricken exclamations.
Slowly Hitch advanced until he was well within reach of Conko Mukes’s
protruding jaw.
Then the sleepy lion suddenly thrust out a raging paw--there was the
sharp snap of leather against human bone--an electric globe burst in
Conko Mukes’s puny brain, and darkness enveloped the great originator
of the pugilistic hoodoo-eyes!
“I knows whut I done to dat big stiff!” Hitch grinned as he turned to
walk back to his corner.
Then a loud shout arose from the crowd and Hitch whirled and looked
behind him.
In spite of that terrific blow, Conko Mukes was on his feet again!
The ropes around the rudely constructed ring had been under such a
strain during the fight that when Conko Mukes reeled back against them
they broke, and the inert body of the pugilist rolled into the ice-cold
waters of Dorfoche Lake!
At the moment, when Conko rose and stood waist-deep in the water of the
little lake, he heard a woman’s voice, screaming like a swamp panther:
“Run, niggers, run! De white folks is comin’!”
Conko looked up and beheld a hundred white men following close behind
Goldie Diamond, as the girl ran toward them like a yellow streak,
proclaiming with a Gabriel-trumpet tone:
“Run, niggers, run! De white folks is comin’!”
For one tense moment the crowd of blacks huddled together like quails
bunch before a windstorm. Then, with one voice, a squall of fear split
the sky, and the mob whirled like Dervishes and bumped into each other
like blind bugs in a tin can.
After that, with one accord, they went into the woods, leaping stumps
and logs, tearing their garments to shreds upon the snags and vines,
falling and rising again, miring themselves in the muck of the swamp,
howling like a wolf-pack, their voices echoing through the forest with
terrifying reverberations.
Conko Mukes dived back into the lake, swam across it, and hid in the
deep marsh-grass on the other side until after dark.
* * * * *
The next morning, Sheriff John Flournoy met Skeeter Butts and inquired:
“Skeeter, what made you niggers run off yesterday when we came out to
see the fight?”
“Dunno, Marse John,” Skeeter grinned. “You know how niggers is. We
figgered mebbe you white folks didn’t favor prize-fights.”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Flournoy replied. “Goldie Diamond
came running to town and told us the niggers were having a prize-fight,
and when we went out to see it, she raised a whoop and scared all the
niggers away.”
“Yes, suh,” Skeeter grinned. “Dat’s whut she done.”
“Why did she do it?” Flournoy persisted.
“Well, suh, I s’pose Goldie thought Hitch wus gwine git knocked out.
Anyways, I’s powerful glad it happened, Marse John. Ef dat hadn’t come
to pass, Skeeter Butts would be bankbust by dis time in de mawnin’.”
Flournoy turned away by no means satisfied, but confident that there
was some nigger secret in the matter which the darkies would never
reveal.
Skeeter left him and hastened down to the Hen-Scratch saloon where he
found Hitch Diamond and Conko Mukes waiting for him.
The two pugilists and their seconds had spent nearly all night
straightening out their finances after the bets had been declared off,
and the fight had run off.
Conko Mukes had been drinking heavily and was in a bad humor.
“I got jes’ one thing ag’in’ you, Hitch,” he growled, “an’ dat is dat
las’ punch you gib me on de jaw. You acked like you wus hypnertized,
an’ I wusn’t lookin’ fer no punch. I don’t think dat wus plum’ fair.”
“Dat shore wus a jolter, Conko,” Hitch grinned. “Lawd, I’ll remember
dat after I’m done dead!”
Conko Mukes’s eyes glowed with evil intent as he listened to Hitch’s
delighted chuckles. Finally Conko said:
“But I fooled you ’bout dat hypnertize, Hitch. You thought it wus my
eyes, an’ I didn’t hyp you wid my eyes.”
“Dat’s a fack,” Hitch chuckled. “Whut did you aim to use on me?”
“I hypnertized you wid my wavin’ hand, like dis--” Conko explained as
he rose to his feet to illustrate. His right hand began a slow chopping
motion in front of Hitch’s face, and he continued: “You gotter git up
real close and wave slow--slow--slow----”
Suddenly Conko’s fist shot out with a blow like a trip-hammer.
The punch would have broken his jaw--only the jaw was not there.
Hitch ducked with lightning quickness and rose to his feet ready for
business.
Conko sprang toward the door, but tripped over Hitch’s extended foot,
and fell on his head with a jar which shook two bottles off the shelf
behind the bar.
Hitch stooped and raised Conko to his feet, backed him to the far end
of the saloon away from the door, and shoved him against the wall with
such force that a picture of Abraham “Lincum” was dislodged from its
nail and fell clattering to the floor.
“Ef you wasn’t drunk, I’d kill you!” Hitch bawled, while Conko stood
looking around him like a man in a dream. “As ’tis, I’s only gwine put
yo’ hoodoo eyes on de bum!”
The job was quickly, neatly done--two slight taps on each side of
Conko’s nose.
“Now git!” Hitch commanded, pointing toward the door.
Conko Mukes did not linger. When the swinging doors of the Hen-Scratch
saloon closed behind him, Hitch and Skeeter walked out to the street.
Far down the road a streak of flying dust marked the route Conko had
chosen as he left Tickfall forever.
The Art of Enticing Labor.
“What are you doing here, nigger?”
Colonel Tom Gaitskill’s voice cracked like a whip beside the ear of Pap
Curtain.
Pap had three baseballs in his hand for which he had paid a nickel, and
which he intended to throw at a row of nigger babies about forty feet
away. The tall baboon-faced negro, with shifty eyes, furtive manner,
and lips that sneered, started like a frightened animal. The balls
dropped from his nerveless hands and he turned away.
“Fer Gawd’s sake, Marse Tom,” he chattered, speaking under a visible
strain, his eyeballs nearly popping out of his head. “I shore didn’t
soupspicion dat you wus snoopin’ aroun’ here nowheres.”
Gaitskill’s face grew red with annoyance. The veins in his neck swelled
and his eyes snapped.
“Where are all those other coons?” he demanded. “Did they run off too?”
“Yes, suh; dey said dar wus plenty time to pick dat cotton an’ de
trouts wus bitin’ fine down in de bayou, so dey all hauled off and went
fishin’. Dey sont me to town fer some mo’ fishin’ lines, an’ I jes’
stopped here a minute to throw at dem rag dolls----”