Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [106]
I was elated when Peach Owen called over the PA system for entry Number Two and entry Number Five to report to the judge's box to pick up their weight slips. My tension disappeared. Now I could be busy.
The first match was 5:00 cocks. After getting our weightslip, Omar and I double-timed back to the cockhouse to heel our chicken. Time was going on from the second we received our weight slip, and only fifteen minutes were allowed to heel and be ready for the pitting. If an entry failed to make it on time, he forfeited that fight, and the next waiting, heeled pair was called. The fifteen-minute time limit kept the fights moving along fast. Where a match was even, or after ten minutes of fighting in the main pit, the two cocks were sent to the drag pit and a new pair was started in the center pit.
From the first pitting, I knew that the fight was going to be a long-drawn-out battle. Pete Chocolate matched a Spanish cross against my Mellhorn Black, and both birds were wary and overcautious. They did little damage to each other by the fourth pitting, and just before the fifth, when Ed Middleton saw that Roy Whipple and Baldy Allen were heeled and ready, he signaled for second referee Buddy Waggoner to start the next match and ordered us to follow him into the drag pit.
In the thirty-first pitting we went to breast after the third count of twenty, one hand under the bird only, at the center score.
“Get ready,” Ed Middleton said.
Pete and I faced each other across the two-foot score, both holding weary fighters with our right hand, and one foot above the ground. That's when the Indian made his first mistake.
“Pit!”
I dropped on signal and so did Pete, but Pete pushed, causing his Spanish to peck first because of the added impetus. I saw him plainly, but Ed missed it. Snapping my fingers I made a pushing gesture with my right palm and pointed to the straight-faced Seminole.
“I'm refereeing this fight, Mr. Mansfield!” Ed snapped angrily. “Handle!”
We picked up the cocks for the short rest period. I couldn't argue, but Ed had been alerted and he watched Pete closely during the next actionless pittings. There are no draws at the S.C.T., and I was beginning to think the fight was going to last all day when Pete just barely pushed his bird on the forty-fifth pitting. This time, Ed caught him at it.
“Foul! The winner is Number Five!”
“Foul?” Pete asked innocently. “I committed a foul of some kind?”
“Pushing on the breast score. Are you trying to argue, Mr. Chocolate?”
“I'm afraid I must, Mr. Middleton,” Pete said with feigned bewilderment. Spreading his arms widely, Pete turned to the crowd of a dozen or so spectators who had followed the first fight into the drag pit. “Did any of you gentlemen see me pushing?”
“That's a fifty-dollar fine for arguing. Anything else to say, Pete?”
Pete glowered at Ed for about ten seconds, and then shook his head. We carried our birds out, returning to our respective cockhouses. The door was open and my partner was attempting frantically to heel a 5:02 Roundhead by himself when I entered.
“Take over, Frank!” Omar said excitedly. “Your drag lasted almost an hour, and we've got less than five minutes to meet Roy Whipple with a 5:02!”
I put the battered Mellhorn away, and while Omar held, I finished heeling the Roundhead. We made it to the weighing scales with two minutes to spare. During the long drag battle with Pete, three fights had been held in the main pit.
From the word “Pit!” my Allen Roundhead lasted exactly twenty-five seconds with the Whipple cock before it was cut down in midair and killed.
The fighting was just as fast for the rest of the morning. If I didn't lose during the first three or four pittings I usually won the battle. My tough, relentless conditioning methods paid off with stamina. In a long go, my rock-hard gamecocks invariably outlasted their opponents. Every fight at Milledgeville was a battle between two Aces, however, and during the first