Excerpt
The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 6, Part 2
DREAM FIGHTER
HE NEVER EVEN cracked a smile. Just walked in and said, “Mr. Sullivan, I want a fight with Dick Abro.”
Now Dick Abro was one of the four or five best heavyweights in the racket and who this kid was I didn’t know. What I did know was that if he rated a fight with anybody even half so good as Dick Abro, his name would have been in every news sheet in the country.
At first I thought the guy was a nut. Then I took another look, and whatever else you can say, the kid had all his buttons. He was a tall, broad-shouldered youngster with a shock of wavy brown hair and a nice smile. He looked fit, too, his weight was around one eighty. And Abro tipped the beam at a plenty tough two hundred.
“Listen, kid,” I said, shoving my hat back on my head and pointing all four fingers at him. “I never saw you before. But if you were twice as good as you think you are, you still wouldn’t want any part of Dick Abro.”
“Mr. Sullivan,” he said seriously, “I can beat him. I can beat him any day, and if you get me the fight, you can lay your money he will go out in the third round, flatter than ten pancakes.”
What would you have said? I looked at this youngster, and then I got up. When I thought of that wide, brown face and flat nose of Abro’s, and those two big fists ahead of his powerful shoulders, it made me sick to think what would happen to this kid.
“Don’t be a sap!” I said, hard-boiled. “Abro would slap you dizzy in half a round! Whatever gave you the idea you could take that guy?”
“You’d laugh if I told you,” he said quite matter-of-factly
“I’m laughing now,” I said. “You come in here asking for a fight with Abro. You’re nuts!”
His face turned red, and I felt sorry for the kid. He was a nice-looking boy, and he did look like a fighter, at that.
“Okay,” I said. “You tell me. What made you think you could lick Abro?”
“I dreamed it.”
You could have knocked me down with an axe. He dreamed it! I backed up and sat down again. Then, I looked up to see if he was still there, and he was.
“It’s like this, Mr. Sullivan,” he said seriously. “I know it sounds goofy, but I dream about all my fights before I have them. Whenever I get a fight, I just train and never think about it. Then, a couple of nights before the fight, I dream it. Then I get in the ring and fight like I did in the dream, and I always win.”
Well, I thought if Dick Abro ever smacked this lad for a row of channel buoys, he’d do a lot of dreaming before he came to. Still, there’s a lot of nuts around the fight game. At best, and it’s the grandest game in the world, it’s a screwy one. Funny things happen. So I tipped back in my chair and looked up at him, rolling a quid of chewing gum in my jaws.
“Yeah? Who’d you ever lick?”
“Con Patrick, in two rounds. Beetle Kelly in four, Tommy Keegan in three. Then I beat a half dozen fellows before I started to dream my fights.”
I knew these boys he mentioned. At least, I knew one of them personally and two by their records. None of them were boys you could beat by shadowboxing.
“When’d you have this pipe about Abro?” I asked.
“About a week ago. I went to see the pictures of his fight with the champ. Then, two weeks ago I saw him knock out Soapy Moore. Then I dreamed about fighting him. In the dream, I knocked him out with a right hook in the middle of the third.”
I got up. “You got some gym stuff?” I asked.
He nodded. “I thought maybe you’d want to see me box. Doc Harrigan down in Copper City told me to see you soon as I arrived.”
“Harrigan, eh?” I rolled that around with my gum a few times. Whatever else Harrigan might be, and he was crooked enough so he couldn’t even play a game of solitaire without trying to cheat without catching himself at it, he did know fighters.
We walked down to the gym, and I looked around. There were a couple of Filipinos in the ring, and I watched them. They were sure slinging leather. That man Sambo they tell about in the Bible who killed ten thousand Filipinos with the jawbone of an ass must have framed the deal. Those boys can battle. Then, I saw Pete McCloskey punching the heavy bag. I caught his eye and motioned him over. The kid was in the dressing room changing clothes.
“Listen, Pete,” I said. “You want that six-round special with Gomez?”
“I sure do, Finny,” he said. “I need it bad.”
“Okay, I’ll fix it up. But you got to do me a favor. I got a kid coming out on the floor in a couple of minutes, and I want to see is he any good. Watch your step with him, but feel him out, see?”
“I get it. You don’t want him killed, just bruised a little, eh?” he said.
The kid came out and shadowboxed a couple of rounds to warm up. Pete was looking him over, and he wasn’t seeing anything to feel happy about. The kid was fast, and he used both hands. Of course, many a bum looks pretty hot shadowboxing.
When they got in the ring, the kid, who told me his name was Kip Morgan, walked over and shook hands with Pete. Then he went back to his corner, and I rang the bell.
McCloskey came out in a shell, tried a left that the kid went away from, and then bored in suddenly and slammed a wicked right to the heart. I looked to see Morgan go down, but he didn’t even draw a breath. He just stepped around, and then, all of a sudden, his left flashed out in four of the snappiest, shortest jabs I ever saw. Pete tried to slide under it, but that left followed him like the head of a snake. Then, suddenly, Pete and I saw that opening over the heart again. And when I saw what happened I was glad I was outside the ring.
McCloskey hadn’t liked those lefts a bit, so when he saw those open ribs again, he uncorked his right with the works on it. The next thing I knew, Pete was flat on his shoulders with his feet still in the air. They fell with a thump, and I walked over to the edge of the ring. Pete McCloskey was out for the afternoon, his face resting against the canvas in a state of calm repose. I couldn’t bear to disturb him.
THAT NIGHT I dropped in on Bid Kerney. Race Malone, the sportswriter, was sitting with him. We talked around awhile, and then I put it up to him.
“What you doing with Abro?” I asked. “Got anybody for him?”
“Abro?” Bid shrugged. “Heck, no. McCall wants the champ, an’ Blucher wants McCall. There ain’t a kid in sight I could stick in there that could go long enough to make it look good. Even if I knew one, he wouldn’t fight him.”
“What’s in it?” I asked. “You make it ten grand, and I got a guy for you.”
Race looked up, grinning. “For ten grand I have, too. Me! I’d go in there with him for ten grand. But how long would I last?”
“This kid’ll beat Abro,” I said coolly, peeling the paper off a couple of sticks of gum casually as I could make it. “He’ll stop him.”
“You nuts?” Kerney sneered. “Who is he?”
“Name of Morgan, Kip Morgan. From over at Copper City. Stopped Patrick the other night. Got ten straight kayos. Be fighting the champ in a year.”
When I talked it up so offhand, they began wondering. I could see Malone smelling a story, and Bid was interested.
“But nobody knows him!” Bid protested. “Copper City’s just a mill town. A good enough place, but too far away.”
“Okay,” I said, getting up. “Stick him in there with Charlie Gomez. But after he beats Gomez, it’ll cost you more.”
“If he beats him, it’ll be worth it!” Bid snapped. “Okay, make it the last Friday this month. That gives you two weeks.”
When I walked out of there, I was feeling good. There would be three grand in this, anyway, and forty percent of that was a nice cut these days. Secretly, I was wondering how I could work it to make the kid win. He had some stuff. I’d seen that when he was in there with Pete, and while Gomez was tough, there was a chance. Pete was fighting Tommy Gomez, Charlie’s brother, so he would be training. That took care of the sparring partner angle.
