Nathanael West - The Day of the Locust [48]
“Have we a chance?” Tod asked.
“You can’t ever tell,” he said, shaking his extra large head. “He feels almost like a dead bird.”
After adjusting the gaffs with great care, he looked the bird over, stretching its wings and blowing its feathers in order to see its skin.
“The comb ain’t bright enough for fighting condition,” he said, pinching it, “but he looks strong. He may have been a good one once.”
He held the bird in the light and looked at its head. When Miguel saw him examining its beak, he told him anxiously to quit stalling. But the dwarf paid no attention ‘and went on muttering to himself. He motioned for Tod and Claude to look.
“What’d I tell you!” he said, puffing with indignation. “We’ve been cold-decked.”
He pointed to a hair line running across the top of the bird’s beak.
“That’s not a crack,” Miguel protested, “it’s just a mark.” He reached for the bird as though to rub its beak and the bird pecked savagely at him. This pleased the dwarf. “We’ll fight,” he said, “but we won’t bet.”
Earle was to referee. He took a piece of chalk and drew three lines in the center of the pit, a long one in the middle and two shorter ones parallel to it and about three feet away.
“Pit your cocks,” he called.
“No, bill them first,” the dwarf protested.
He and Miguel stood at arm’s length and thrust their birds together to anger them. Juju caught the big red by the comb and held on viciously until Miguel jerked him away. The red, who had been rather apathetic, came to life and the dwarf had trouble holding him. The two men thrust their birds together again, and again Juju caught the red’s comb. The big cock became frantic with rage and struggled to get at the smaller bird.
“We’re ready,” the dwarf said.
He and Miguel climbed into the pit and set their birds down on the short lines so that they faced each other. They held them by the tails and waited for Earle to give the signal to let go.
“Pit them,” he ordered.
The dwarf had been watching Earle’s lips and he had his bird off first, but Juju rose straight in the air and sank one spur in the red’s breast. It went through the feathers into the flesh. The red turned with the gaff still stuck in him and pecked twice at his opponent’s head.
They separated the birds and held them to the lines again.
“Pit ‘em!” Earle shouted.
Again Juju got above the other bird, but this time he missed with his spurs. The red tried to get above him, but couldn’t. He was too clumsy and heavy to fight in the air. Juju climbed again, cutting and hitting so rapidly that his legs were a golden blur. The red met him by going back on his tail and hooking upward like a cat. Juju landed again and again. He broke one of the red’s wings, then practically severed a leg.
“Handle them,” Earle called.
When the dwarf gathered the red up, its neck had.. begun to droop and it was a mass of blood and matted feathers. The little man moaned over the bird, then set to work. He spit into its gaping beak and took the comb between his lips and sucked the blood back into it. The red began to regain its fury, but not its strength. Its beak closed and its neck straightened. The dwarf smoothed and shaped its plumage. He could no nothing to help the broken wing or the dangling leg.
“Pit ‘em,” Earle said.
The dwarf insisted that the birds be put down beak to beak on the center line, so that the red would not have to move to get at his opponent. Miguel agreed.
The red was very gallant. When Abe let go of its tail, it made a great effort to get off the ground and meet Juju in the air, but it could only thrust with one leg and fell over on its side. Juju sailed above it, half turned and came down on its back, driving in both spurs. The red twisted free, throwing Juju, and made a terrific effort to hook with its good leg, but fell sideways again.
Before Juju could get into the air, the red managed to drive a hard blow with its beak to Juju’s head. This slowed the smaller bird down and he fought on the ground. In the pecking match, the red’s greater weight and