Stallion Gate Read Free Page B

looked nearly civilized next to Texans. Even with helmets and sticks, the MPs usually stayed clear of the huts on Saturday night. Joe saw money passing between the two camps. There was probably $2,000 or $3,000 riding on a fight like this.
    The boy was left-handed, fast, aggressive. Not much face: a heavy brow, a spade nose, sandy hair and peg ears. He wore a tank shirt and denim pants; his most distinctive features were his neck and shoulders of fanning muscle. A natural heavyweight. Twenty years old, maybe less.
    Ray tried to slip the right jab, but the boy pulled it back and snapped it again, then moved in to a chorus of cowboy hoots. Joe’d always felt it was a combination of the big hats and Texas sun that baked and compressed the Texas brain to the size of a boiled egg. There was a deeper mystery here, though. The Army was drafting men who were missing fingers, toes, other appendages. There was a clerk with two fingers typing in the quartermaster’s office. Joe couldn’t count fingers inside a boxing glove, but this boy seemed exactly the sort of postadolescent maniac who should be gutting Japs on some barren atoll.
    Ray kept circling to his left, which was directly into the kid’s jab. In New York he had been a solid, middle-of-the-card fighter, a body puncher. Afraid of nothingin the world until he came to the Hill and had the safety course on radiation. He paid other drivers to take his place whenever there was a chance of coming within fifty yards of active material. Tonight he looked old, the eyes desperate, the muscles puffy. A painful blush spread on his skin everywhere a punch landed. He circled into a jab, ducked and moved into a straight left and was down, sitting on his ass and gloves, his legs splayed. The kid bounced and motioned Ray to stand.
    Joe had already taken a step back into the dark. Through the door the scene looked smaller, like a cockfight, bettors hanging over a pit, some glum, some screaming till their neck cords popped. It depressed him. There was something about war, about murder on the grand scale, that made mere boxing sordid and unnecessary.
    The cooling night winds blew. Across the valley, the range of Sangre de Cristo was a spine pointing south to Santa Fe. At his back the Jemez Mountains were a dark volcanic mass. In between, the moon looked ponderous, ready to crash.
    Why had he picked on Fuchs? Because he was angry and the German was the first easy target to waltz onto the dance floor. Jesus, how shameless would he get before this war was over?
    Since he was supposed to be on 24-hour call to drive Oppy and handle any “native” problems, Joe lived outside the barracks, in his own room in the basement of Theater 2, the enlisted men’s general-purpose hall. Thebasement corridor was a black tunnel of volleyball nets and music stands. Without bothering to turn on the light in his room, he went straight to his locker and opened a new bottle of bourbon and a fresh carton of cigarettes. The glow of the match lit a poster for the Esquire All-Stars, featuring Art Tatum and Coleman Hawkins. Hawkins held a tenor sax. The poster was a door to the past and maybe to the future, but it sure as hell wasn’t the present. He blew out the flame; the black men on the wall faded, and he felt as if he were fading himself.
    Hanging in the center of the room, next to invisible, was a heavy bag. Joe set his drink and cigarette down, pulled off his tunic and shirt. He tapped the bag with a jab and as much felt as saw it wiggle on its chain. The bag’s name was MacArthur. He hooked it with his left and listened to the satisfying creak of leather and kapok. He hooked again, then crossed with his right and MacArthur jumped. Jabbed, hooked, crossed, bobbed and crossed again. Air popped from the seams. Over the chain, the ceiling groaned. A heavy bag demanded commitment; hit it tentatively and a man could break his wrist. He snapped the bag back, moved in to hit it again and slipped, nearly fell. The bag