Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [10]
Dody leaned against the sink, glaring angrily at Burke. “I never heard of nobody so low-down mean to take a family's home away from them!” she said scathingly.
Her remark was uncalled for, but it caused Burke a deeper flush of embarrassment. “I reckon you don't know Mr. Mansfield, little lady,” he said defensively, “and not overmuch about cockfighting neither. But a bet is a bet.”
“For men, yes! But what about me?” Dody patted her big breasts several times with both hands and looked beseechingly into Burke's eyes. He was troubled and he scratched his head, slanting his wary eyes in my direction.
I stood up, smiled grimly, and holding out my hands with the palms up, I made an exaggerated gesture of presentation of Dody to Jack Burke. There could be no mistake about the meaning.
“Well, I don't rightly know about that, Mr. Mansfield.” Burke scratched his head. “I already got me a lady friend up Kissimmee way.”
I stepped out from behind the table and put on my cowboy hat. Dody came flying toward me with clawing nails. The space was cramped, but I sidestepped her rush and planted a jolting six-inch jab into her midriff. Dody sat down heavily on the linoleum floor and stayed there, gasping for breath and staring up at me round-eyed with astonished disbelief.
There are three good ways to win a fight: A blow to the solar plexus, first, an inscrutable expression on your face, or displaying a sharp knife blade to your opponent. Any of these three methods, singly or in combination, will usually take the bellicosity out of a man, woman or child.
The swift right to her belly and the sight of my impassive face were enough to take the fight out of Dody. Burke tried to help her to her feet, but she shrugged his hands away from her shoulders as she regained her lost breath.
“You—can—go—to—hell, Frank Mansfield!” Dody said in gasps. “I can take care of myself!” However, she prudently remained seated, supporting herself with her arms behind her back.
Burke said nothing. He ran his fingers nervously through his long hair, looking first at me and then at Dody and back to me again. He wanted to say something but didn't know what he wanted to say. I sat down at the table again and scratched out a short note.
Mr. Burke—If your Little David is still around, I challenge you to a hack at the Southern Conference Tournament—
I pushed the straw cowboy hat back from my forehead and handed him the note. After reading the message, Burke crumpled the paper and looked at me thoughtfully.
“You don't have any fighting cocks left, do you, Mr. Mansfield?”
I shook my head, and moved my shoulders in a barely perceptible shrug.
“Do you honestly believe you can train a short-heeled stag to beat Little David, a nine-time winner”—he counted on his fingers—“in only six-months' time?”
In reply, I pointed to the crumpled challenge in his hand. “Sure, Mr. Mansfield. I accept, but it'll be your funeral. And I expect you to put some money where your mouth is when the hack's held.”
We shook hands. I picked up my suitcase and guitar and went outside. As I collected my gaff case and coop together, trying to figure out how I could carry everything, Burke and Dody followed me outside. The four odd-sized pieces made an awkward double armload.
“I'll give you ten bucks for that coop,” Burke offered.
The suggestion was so stupid I didn't dignify it with so much as a shrug. If Burke wanted a coop like mine, he could have one made.
Ralph Hansen had Burke's Ford pickup parked on the road about twenty yards away from the trailer. Burke strolled over to his truck to say something to Ralph. The other handler was in the truck bed with Burke's fighting cocks. The truck bed had steel-mesh coops welded to the floor on both sides, with