I finally selected Tommy Olsen. A clever light-heavyweight. A good boy
but not a man-killer. The sports writers were somewhat surprised at my
preference, but the crowd that packed the arena was infinitely more
so. As before, Costigan began boxing in a lively manner, but almost
instantly blew up and began his wild and futile slugging.
The bout went the full ten rounds. Olsen, boxing cleverly, punished
Costigan terrifically, but because of the iron man's incredible
stamina, was unable to stop him or even knock him off his feet. At the
end of the slaughter, the referee decided that Costigan had gained a
draw, owing to his aggressiveness and the fact that his aimless but
terrible swings had twice floored Olsen for counts of nine. The crowd
booed the decision and even I felt it was unjust to Olsen.
* * * * *
The sports writers, after recovering from their astonishment, trained
their heavy artillery on us, inquiring sarcastically as to what kind of
iron man this was, unable to defeat a man fifteen pounds lighter than
himself.
As for me, I saw the handwriting on the wall.
"Slade," I said, "our championship hopes have gone glimmering. I hate
to quit so quickly, but the crowd has us whipped."
Slade silently grasped my hand. "You're a real friend, Steve, and
you're right. It's bitter quitting the game like this, but my face is
already more battered than many an old-timer's and my brain will be
next. I've seen these punch-drunk wrecks that were once iron men like
myself. But I want just one more fight, and then I'll have money enough
to go into the kind of business I want, Steve."
I argued against it, but finally gave in. Handler and his manager were
clamoring for a return match and as I could get more money for my man
there than anywhere else, I agreed with misgivings. Handler was a hard
man.
One night, a few days before the fight, Slade came in and after
hesitating a while, and making several false starts, he said, blushing
like a schoolboy, "Steve, I have a girl."
Following my manager's instinct, I was about to protest; then
remembering he was practically through with the game, I congratulated
him heartily.
"Her name's Gloria. She dances in some of the higher-class cabarets.
Maybe--maybe when I get started good in my business she'll marry me."
He wandered away day-dreaming, and I sighed. It was pathetic to me, for
I felt in my heart Slade would fail in his "business" as in everything
else.
The night of the fight arrived and I stood in Slade's corner, as I
thought for the last time, muttering some words of encouragement to
him. Across the ring Joe Handler sat glowering, grimly intent on wiping
out the stain on his record.
"I'm glad Gloria isn't here," muttered Slade just as the gong sounded
and I silently echoed his words. If the girl cared for him at all, it
would be a terrible sight for her to see the beating I knew he was in
for.
At the tap of the gong Costigan leaped from his corner in a vain effort
to crush Handler before he could get set. But Handler, while bent on
revenge, was taking no chances with the sledges which had knocked him
out before. He back-pedalled around the ring with Slade in hot chase,
swinging fiercely and futilely. Handler evaded his efforts, frequently
beat him to the punch with a stinging left jab, and clinched often.
Little damage was done by either that round.
During the minute intermission I thrust my head through the ropes and
spoke a few cheering words to Slade, who smiled dazedly at me. The
crowd had him. As I was about to climb into the ring to aid his seconds
in caring for him, I felt some one tug at my coat. I turned to look
into the face of a girl who sat in a front row seat. She was small and
slender, not much more than a child, with a winsome face set off by
silky blond hair. This hair was cut in a very boyish bob and a round
little hat perched jauntily on top, adding to her appearance of piquant
youthfulness.
"You're Mr. Palmer, aren't you?" she asked childishly, her large,
violet eyes gazing trustfully up at me. "Slade is going to win, isn't
he?"
"How do I know?" I responded irritably, for my nerves were rasped with
worry. "What is it to you?"
"I'm Gloria," she answered nervously. "Hasn't Slade told you about me?"
"My God!" I exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
She shrank back into her seat. "Don't tell him," she cried. "He told me
not to come, but I wanted to see him whip Handler."
"You're more likely to see him battered to a bloody pulp," I snarled
brutally. "Why can't women stay where they belong? Don't let him see
you, whatever you do. He's in for enough suffering as it is."
I instantly regretted my unnecessary roughness. Tears sprang to her
soft eyes and she twined her white hands nervously.
"You'd better leave," I said, more gently, but she shook her head.
"I'm right behind Slade's corner," she said in a subdued manner. "He
can't see me unless he turns right around, and he isn't likely to do
that. Mr. Palmer, please let me stay; I won't scream or anything."
"All right." I turned back to my fighter, who was just getting off
his stool to answer the gong. Evidently, in the racket the crowd was
making, he had heard nothing of our conversation and was unaware of the
girl's presence.
* * * * *
I haven't the heart to tell of that fight in detail. Round after round
it was the same, Costigan charging and missing, and Handler putting
more and more steam behind his jabs and counters as he solved Slade's
single style, until he was battering away fiercely at the iron man's
crimsoned face and body. The fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh were
alike. The crowd was stunned at two things: Slade's powers of taking
punishment, and his senseless manner of fighting. I sighed, thinking of
what he might have been.
At the end of the eighth round Costigan went down for the second time
beneath a volley of right hooks to the head and had to be helped to his
corner. I was on the point of throwing in the sponge, but Costigan,
both eyes partly closed, his nose smashed and blood gushing from
innumerable cuts on his face, stopped me. Oh, he had courage.
"Take it standing up," he muttered like a man in a dream. "Feeling
better now--last out the bout."
It was true that his recuperation was remarkable--more so than in any
man I have ever known. He actually charged out for the ninth round with
a show of freshness which would have broken some men's hearts--and the
slaughter commenced again. Handler, wearying of his efforts, began to
take chances in his eagerness.
I heard a sound of sobbing and turned to see the girl, Gloria. She had
left her seat and was leaning against the ring at my side. Her pretty
little face was streaked with tears, her foolish little hat all awry.
"Oh, why don't they stop it?" she whimpered. "Isn't there some way that
Slade can whip that brute?"
"Yes." I said bitterly. "Handler's leaving scores of openings now, but
Slade's got only a long roundhouse swing that a blind man could duck.
The boy would win if he could box him."
To my amazement her eyes flashed suddenly, she leaped feet first into a
seat, and her high shrill voice cut through the din like a knife:
"Box him, Slade, _box him_!"
And before my eyes a miracle happened. At the first sound of that
voice. Slade stopped short. His head turned as he sought the author of
it, and instantly Handler crashed a sledge-hammer right to his jaw.
Costigan dropped like a log, but as the referee counted over him he
reeled to his knees and his blood-misted eyes swept the ring-side until
they rested on the girl; they remained riveted there.
"Slade, oh, Slade!" Her arms were outstretched and all the pleading and
love and sacrifice of a thousand centuries of womanhood trembled in her
voice: "Box him, kid, _box him_!"
"Nine!" shouted the referee--and Costigan was on his feet. The crowd
screamed. I yelled. Handler's manager went white. Handler, rushing in
to deliver the finishing blow, had been met with a snaky left jab that
set him back on his heels and broke a flow of blood from his lips.
Like a great smooth leopard Costigan was after him, and again and again
the left shot to Handler's face, while Costigan easily avoided the
boxer's wild and bewildered returns. It was an incredible reversal of
form! Now it was Handler who floundered and swung wild and Costigan who
poured a swift fire of jabs and hooks to head and body.
Never before in any ring has such a thing happened. Had Handler had his
mind about him, he might have won yet, but just as Costigan had beaten
him before by a shift from boxer to slugger, so he beat him now by a
shift from slugger to boxer. Handler missed repeatedly, went down, and
arose, weakening fast. Back across the ring Slade jabbed his foe and on
the ropes sank his right four times to the midriff. Handler sank to his
knees and was counted out, crouching and holding dazedly to Costigan's
legs.
"For the love of Mike!" exclaimed a dazed reporter to me, as the
crowd watched in stunned silence and then broke into bedlam, "What
sort of bird are you managing anyhow? You mean to tell me Costigan
intentionally took a beating like that to trick Handler, or what?"
"They say that the influence of the mob can be counterbalanced by one
person, if you think enough of that one person," I answered, only
about halt aware of what I was saying. "There's a living proof of that
statement!"
And I pointed to the corner of the ring where Costigan had collapsed
in the arms of Gloria, who was showering him with tears and kisses
absolutely unaware of any one.
"And about this retirement business you hinted at the other day," the
reporter plucked at my sleeve. "What about it?"
"I've changed my mind. You can announce for Costigan and me that I'm
managing the next world's heavyweight champion!"
* * * * *
That fight marked the beginning of a new era for Slade Costigan. How
it came to be I do not know, being no psychologist, but his horror of
the crowd was a thing of the past as long as Gloria was at hand to call
to him when the old mists began to steal back over his brain. As he
himself expressed it, it was as if her voice woke him from a deep sleep
and started his drugged brain cells working again. The crowd roared and
thundered as of old, but all my boxer heard now was the beloved voice
of Gloria, which out-weighed all else.
I always had a seat reserved for the girl just behind his corner
and when the going was roughest, her voice kept him steady and
keen. Perhaps it was simply his great love for her which made him
instinctively follow her directions under all circumstances. Or perhaps
her nature was the stronger, or that like all restless souls, his
needed an anchor of some sort and she was his anchor. I do not know;
I only know that--with Gloria's war-cry of love quavering through the
roar of fans, "Box him, kid, box him!"--Slade Costigan was invincible.
The Unbeatable Triangle the scribes called us, and our onrush for
the title will be remembered a hundred years. With an anchor for
Costigan's peculiar mind he developed into what I had visioned him. An
irresistible super-fighter.
At last only one man stood between him and the champion--Buffalo
Gonzalez, the South American--and then as suddenly as the Unbeatable
Triangle had been formed, it was broken.
It was two nights after Costigan had outboxed the Brown Ghost of
Atlanta and knocked him out in the seventh. As I came into our training
quarters, I met Gloria coming out and saw at a glance that bad weather
was brewing. Oh, she had a will of her own, for all her childish
gentleness, and was something of a little tigress when roused.
"I hate him!" she exclaimed, stamping her little foot.
"Who, Gloria?" I asked.
"Slade!"
"Slade! Why--" I was struck speechless.
"He was a bully and a brute!" she cried, tears starting to her eyes.
"Just because I went to a dance with a fellow he doesn't like, he got
rough! Look at this bruise on my arm!"
"But, honey," I soothed, "I know Slade didn't intend to hurt you. He's
so strong."
"He had no business grabbing me!" she sobbed, stamping her foot. "I'm
through with him forever and a day! I wouldn't come back if he got down
on his knees! I'm through-h-h-h!"
And suddenly she threw her arms around my neck like a child, wept
briefly on my bosom, jerked away, stamped her foot again--and was gone.
And I could see my hopes of a title fading with her. I went on into the
training quarters.
Slade sat at a table, head sunk in his arms.
"Slade," said I, "you're a fool. What's come between you and Gloria?"
"Oh, I'm a fool all right," he answered, lifting his head with a sigh.
"She went to a dance with this rotter I warned her against, just to
show me I wasn't running her affairs, and when they came here afterward
I went out of my mind and threw him out. Then we had our first row and
she threw my engagement ring at me and swore she was through. And she
means it. She won't come back."
I tried to find the girl, but she had left the city. I put a couple
of detective agencies on the job, but Slade said, "No use, Steve, she
wouldn't come back, even if you found her."
My soul was filled with bitterness. I knew the futility of sending
Slade into the ring without her aid. I stopped all other business in my
useless efforts to find the girl.
Then one day I came into the training quarters and found my boxer
punching the light bag.
"Have you forgotten my match with Gonzalez?" he asked in response to my
questions. "Have you forgotten you signed me up four months ago for a
fifteen-round bout in Chicago with him?"
"You're not going to fight Gonzalez unless I find that girl."
"Yes, I am. The contract's drawn and you've put up a ten thousand
dollar forfeit."
"Do you think I care about the money?" I asked bitterly. "It's yourself
I'm thinking about."
"And it's Gloria I'm thinking about," he muttered, hitting the bay
mechanically.
"Forget her. She's not worth it. You can't mean you'll fight Gonzalez?
Why, man, he's never been whipped! He's a giant, a killer. Boxing him,
you have a chance; slugging he'll kill you. And you know as good as I
do, that you'll go to pieces without Gloria to steady you."
"That's true," he muttered. "But I'll fight Gonzalez. I'll close my
ring career in a blaze of glory, at least. If you'll have nothing to do
with it, I'll fight him anyway. But I'd like to have you in my corner
that night, Steve."
* * * * *
Long ago I learned that when a boxer is so determined it is useless
to argue. With horrible misgivings I went about my preparations for
the bout. There was no need for me to look into the credentials of
Buffalo Gonzalez. Once in a hundred years such a man flashes cometlike
across the stage. Landing in New York less than fourteen months before,
carrying his scanty belongings in a bandanna hankerchief and armed
with the high-sounding but empty title of South American Champion, the
Buffalo had soon proved his worth by smashing through all opposition,
and the record showed a list of twenty straight knock-outs to his
credit.
I could see but one outcome to the bout. Gonzalez was almost as tough
as Slade, and could hit just as hard. He was the greatest natural
slugger I have ever seen; he fought with a certain natural science,
weaved, circled, feinted, ducked, and fought from a crouch. He knew
little of the finer points of the game, but thus far his stamina and
punching powers had made him invincible. At his top form, boxing and
fighting, I believed Slade would prove even the Buffalo's master. But
if he went back to his old way of upright, wide open, useless swinging,
it would simply be a slaughter.
Once again the thunder of the crowd tore at us, the ring lights blazed
above, and the smell of canvas rosin and sweaty leather filled our
nostrils. I helped Costigan through the ropes and watched him as he
stood erect and flung off his bath robe.
A fine figure of a man he was; six feet, and one hundred and ninety
pounds of lithely muscled young manhood, with the long, smooth sinews
rippling along his powerful arms and mighty shoulders. Handsome, too,
in a fierce, tigerish way, despite the disfigurations of his many
battles, which were, after all, not so bad as one might think. A true
iron man, few blows had left their marks on him permanently, and though
his nose had been broken many times, it was not altogether shapeless.
I thought as I looked at him how self-confident and efficient he must
have seemed to the crowd--but to me he seemed pathetic, a bewildered
giant laboring under a handicap he could never overcome, groping
blindly through life, and now deserted by his only stay.
He shivered as though from a cold wind when the full blast of the crowd
smote him, and into his cold gray eyes stole the blank, unseeing stare
as of old. Again and again the crowd thundered his name, a raging ocean
of sound on which I knew Slade Costigan's anchorless soul was drifting,
against which his numbed brain was vainly struggling. Again and again
I asked myself the question--would his trained reflexes carry him
through, or would he crack as he had cracked before?
Then the clamor changed, for another form was entering the ring.
Gonzalez! A huge hairy giant he was, with the mightiest chest ever seen
in an American ring. His shoulders were like iron mountains, his arms
like knotted oak limbs. Six feet two he stood, and every ounce of his
two-hundred-and-fifteen-pound body was vibrant with savage energy. He
was bulky, yet not ponderous. He moved with the case of a tiger, and
from under thick black brows his small eyes gleamed and sparkled with
magnetic fierceness.
The men were called to the center of the ring for instructions, and
Slade listened with his head bowed on his mighty chest, like a great
panther gathering himself for the charge. Then they stepped to their
corners, the seconds left the ring, the lights went out everywhere
except for the cluster which blazed above the ring, and as I climbed
through the ropes, I stopped for a last word.
"Slade, in God's name let me throw in the sponge if it gets too rough!"
His hand grasped mine, and I felt the grip of his iron fingers through
the glove.
"No, Steve, let me go out as I lived. The game's not worth the candle.
My world has crashed about me, and I guess I've been out of place all
my life. Tell Gloria I still loved her to the last. The gong! Now
let's see how long the greatest iron man can last against the greatest
slugger!"
And like a huge leaping tiger he was out of his corner, leaving me
speechless with horror, for I read in his last words a determination
to die there in the ring! Oh, don't laugh at the idea of a man dying
under a hail of leather gloves. It has happened before, and if there
was ever a man built for the destruction of his opponents in the ring,
and intent upon their slaughter, it was Buffalo Gonzalez. It was said
of him that he had knocked bulls off their feet with his fist, and
certainly a squarely landed smash of his right would have caved in the
skull of many a man. Consider, then, the prospects of standing up under
a blast of such blows--of running full into them, time and again.
No, I knew that unless Costigan should by some miracle be knocked out
quickly by one blow, he would be carried senseless from the ring and
might never come to.
Over the stadium a hush fell--a breathless silence, as the tiger and
the buffalo met in the center of the ring.
Costigan came very close to winning by a knock-out in the very first
exchange. Charging in like the rush of a whirlwind, he landed first a
trip-hammer left to the jaw and a blasting right that dashed Gonzalez
to his knees for his first trip to the canvas. The right was high, else
I believe not even the Buffalo could have risen. As it was, he bounced
up without a count. Hurt but furious, and roaring like a wounded bull,
he staggered Costigan with a crashing left to the jaw. He ducked
Slade's return and landed again--hard under the heart with the right.
"My God!" a reporter screamed at me. "Has Costigan gone crazy? What
does he mean, trading punches with Gonzalez?"
How could I tell him that my boy was not only following his stunned
instinct, but was also bent on his own destruction? How could I tell
him of the feelings which prompted Slade's despair--his girl gone, and
with her, all his hopes and ambitions? But understood how the boy felt,
crazed with the shattering of his hopes, and haunted by the ghosts of
all his failures. Life meant nothing to him, and he was willing to lay
it down gloriously here in the ring.
* * * * *
Gonzalez was weaving and ducking, and Slade's savage smashes were
glancing off his massive shoulders. The South American was confident
in the power of his own punches, and he was wild with rage and
humiliation. For the first time in his life he had felt the canvas
under his knees!
I sighed. That incident showed me that Slade had power enough in his
fists to knock out even Gonzalez, could he land often enough. But the
man never lived who could flatten the Buffalo with one or two blows,
and the infrequent smashes which Slade was likely to land would not
turn the trick.
_Smash! Smash!_ Gonzalez's straight rights battered at Costigan's body,
and his long, looping left hooks found Slade's temple repeatedly, while
the lighter man's swings glanced from the weaving Latin's arms or the
top of his skull, or missed him entirely.
A right hook caught Slade off balance and hurled him to the floor. He
was up without a count, and as he rose they traded crashing rights
to the body. Slade was staggered, but Gonzalez grunted and halted an
instant in his rush. Instantly Slade swung blindly and terribly, and by
pure luck landed under the heart with his sledge hammer right. Gonzalez
gasped and bent double, and another mine-sweeping right straightened
him and flung him into the ropes, where he clung, dazed.
Then and there Costigan should have won the fight, but with the South
American reeling helplessly before him, Slade missed swing after swing,
until, recovering with his usual alacrity, Gonzalez lurched off the
ropes and smashed Costigan to the canvas with a long overhand right.
The gong sounded, and we lifted Slade to his feet and helped him to his
corner.
"Boy," Slade's handler habbled wildly, "he's fightin' wide open! You
nearly got 'im that first rush! Duck them slams, an' he's your'n.
Whyn't you box 'im a little?"
"Shut up!" I snarled. "The boy doesn't know what you're saying."
Slade sat, lolling back on the ropes as his seconds worked over him. He
was able to answer the gong, his body and nerves responding as freshly
as ever, but in his eyes still flamed that blank glare that the roaring
of the throng induced.
Gonzalez came out more cautiously--feinted--met Slade's rush with
a straight left to the face. As the lighter man went back on his
heels, the South American, bunching himself into a compact unit of
destruction, crashed through and sank his right to the wrist in
Costigan's body. Not even an iron man could stand up under such a blow.
Costigan dropped as if he had been shot.
"One! Two! Three! Four!"
Costigan was struggling to rise; the blood that trickled from his
battered features reddened the canvas. The crowd was chanting in unison
to the count of the referee. I reached for the sponge. Then suddenly,
at my very elbow, sounded a cry which halted me short.
"Box him, kid; oh, _box him_!"
Gloria! I whirled. She stood at my side, the foolish little hat perched
high on her blond head. One hand clutched at a rope, the other reached
out in mute appeal toward the battered and gory fighter who was slowly
rising in the center of the ring.
"Seven!"
At the first sound of her voice, Costigan's head had whipped about
toward his corner. His eyes flared, and he shook his head violently as
if to clear his brain. He raked a glove across his eyes to wipe away
the blood, and into those eyes, as their gaze fell on the tear-stained
face of the girl, came a sudden blaze of light. The blank stare
vanished; in its place gleamed a sane and self-confident expression. A
sob of grateful relief burst from me.
"Nine!"
Costigan rose with a rather uncertain motion. His trembling legs showed
that the punishment he had received had taken its toll. Gonzalez came
in warily, expecting the usual savage and aimless charge. But Costigan,
with a cat-like movement, ducked between the Buffalo's great arms and
clinched, tying up the South American so that he was helpless in spite
of his superior strength.
The crowd bellowed; Gonzalez swore. The referee broke them, but before
Gonzalez could strike, Slade clinched again. The crowd roared its
bloodthirsty disapproval, but Costigan gave no heed. Each moment now
was precious to him, for with each passing second the strength was
flowing back into his veins.
He stalled, clinched and held until the referee was weary from tearing
them apart, the crowd was frenzied, and Gonzalez was wild. The South
American was all at sea. The shift from slugger to boxer bewildered
him, just as it had Joe Handler, and the Buffalo knew nothing of the
finer arts of the game. Coming out of clinches, Slade kept him off
balance with quick jabs, then clinched again. The gong! And I knew,
barring accident, Gonzalez's best chance of victory was gone.
Slade did not need to be helped to his corner this time.
"Slade, Slade," the girl sobbed. "I'm a selfish, damn fool! I had to
come back to you, Slade; do you still love me?"