Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [21]
“Do you want this cock, Frank?” Ed asked fiercely, when I rejoined him.
What could I say? I stretched out the fingers of my left hand and made a sawing gesture on my right forearm. I shook my head, then made the sawing motion higher up, at the shoulder.
“Okay, Frank. You can have him for five hundred dollars. I told Martha last night you'd come home with me to buy the last of my chickens. So that's the price. Pay me and take him!”
The old cock fancier dug his hands into his pockets and walked away from me, unable, for the moment, to look me in the face.
He knew perfectly well I didn't have five hundred dollars, and he also knew that the cock wasn't worth that much. For fifty dollars apiece I could purchase country-walked gamecocks, with authenticated bloodlines, from almost any top breeder in the United States. And fifty dollars was a good price. The average for a purebred cock was thirty-five, and I could buy stags for ten and fifteen dollars apiece. I've seen Ace cocks sell for a hundred, and sometimes for one hundred and fifty—but never for five hundred.
No breeder wants to sell any of his fighters to another cocker he may meet at the same pit someday. The cock he sells or gives away may possibly kill some of his own birds in a pitting. On the other hand, the breeders who raise game fowl to sell would be thought ridiculous if they attempted to peddle an untested cock for five hundred dollars!
The answer was simple. Ed Middleton didn't want to sell Icarus. He was looking for an out to keep his pet. After I left he could tell Martha I had made an offer and that he had promised to sell it to me. Anybody else who came around to buy it could be legitimately refused. “I'd be glad to sell it,” he could truthfully say to a prospective buyer, “but I've promised the cock to Frank Mansfield. Sorry.
The old bastard was trying to renege on his promise to his wife. Knowing that I didn't have his price and was unlikely to pay it if I did, he planned on keeping his pet cock until it died of old age. One thing I did know. If I showed up with the money, he would have to sell it. And I wanted that bird. I seemed to sense somehow that this was the turning point in my run of bad luck at the pits... Little Icky.
Standing by an orange tree, Ed jerked a piece of fruit from a lower limb and threw it in a looping curve over the trees. I could hear the mushy thud of the orange as it landed deep in the grove. I crossed the space separating us with an outstretched right hand.
Ed grimly accepted my promise to buy his cock with a strong handshake.
While Mr. Middleton made a mixture of barley water, I leaned against the door of the feed shack and finished my cigarette. Somehow, I was going to get the money to buy that cock. Now my impending trip to Jacksonville had a sharpened point to it. If Doc Riordan had any money at all, I intended to get it.
Ed measured out the cracked corn and fed his pet, the two battered Gray roosters, and the old hen. Although I could feel some sympathy for Martha in not wanting her husband out traveling the cockfight circuits, I could not understand her desire to make him give up cock-breeding. If she considered cock-breeding morally wrong, she could have consoled herself with the idea that Ed was doing the breeding, not her. A man like Ed Middleton could never give up his love of the game. Perhaps she was going through her menopause and, as a consequence, was losing her mind.
“Let's go get us some breakfast, Frank,” Ed said, as he locked the feed shack door. Ed started down the path toward the lake, and I lingered for a last look at Icarus. He pecked away at his grain hungrily. I could see the fine breeding of the cock in his stance and proud bearing. The cock had shape, health, and an inborn stamina. Through proper conditioning I could teach him responsiveness, alertness, improve his speed, and sharpen