Pay the Devil - Jack Higgins [46]
Clay lay in the mud for a moment, his head singing from the force of the blow. Somewhere there was a cry, and as he started to get to his feet, Joanna appeared beside him. “He’ll kill you, Clay,” she said desperately. “He blinded a tinker in a prizefight at Galway Fair three months ago.”
Clay pushed her away and moved forward again. Burke’s teeth gleamed as he smiled. “You don’t look too good, Colonel,” he said. “But there’s more to come—much more.”
He feinted with his right, drawing Clay’s guard, and delivered a powerful blow to his stomach. As Clay started to heel over, Burke hit him again, high on the right cheek, splitting the flesh to the bone and sending him backward into the mud.
Somewhere a woman screamed, and a child started to cry, but otherwise there was silence as the village waited for the end. Through the mist, a small inner voice kept telling him what a fool he had been. So Burke was heavier by thirty pounds and an expert with his fists? There were other ways. In life, as in war, it was the quick, the unexpected that won the day. Without it, a man had to eat dirt.
Clay stayed down until his head cleared a little, watching Burke’s boots cautiously as the other waited. When he moved, he came up from the ground and launched himself forward. He ducked under Burke’s arm, twisted a shoulder inwards and sent him over his hip in a cross-buttock that drove the wind from the man’s body.
It was then that Burke made his mistake. Half-stunned and shocked though he was by that terrible throw, he tried to get up at once. As he rose to one knee, Clay moved in fast and delivered two fierce blows to the man’s unprotected face with all his force. Burke’s head snapped back and he rolled over and lay still.
A ragged cheer echoed through the rain, and as Clay turned, the villagers swarmed around him, hands thumping him in the back, admiring grins on every side.
Clay was winded and sick and he couldn’t remember clearly what it was all about. One thing was certain. He had been lucky—incredibly lucky. Burke’s fists were lethal weapons. He had not been defeated by superior skill, but by the twin elements of surprise and one deadly wrestling trick taught to a young boy by an old Indian fighter many years before.
The crowd parted and Kevin Rogan appeared, grinning hugely. “My father will curse the day he missed this, Colonel.” Clay sagged a little and the big man slipped an arm about his shoulder, concern on his face. “Easy now, you’d best sit down for a while.”
They went into the cottage and Joanna pulled a chair forward. As Clay slumped into it, Kevin poured a generous measure of whiskey into a cup. “Drink this, Colonel,” he said. “There are few men who can say they’ve been in a fit state to do the same after fighting with Peter Burke.”
Joanna’s face was white and anxious. “Your face,” she said in horror. “The flesh is split to the bone. I thought he was going to kill you.”
“He very nearly did,” Clay assured her. He got to his feet and Kevin helped him on with his coat.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Joanna said.
Clay nodded. “I’ll go back to Claremont and get into a hot tub. I’ll survive.”
“I’ll ride with him, Miss Hamilton,” Kevin said. “I’m going home anyway.”
She smiled gratefully. “I’d feel easier in my mind.” She smiled up at Clay and smoothed his lapels in a small, intimate gesture. “I’ll stay with Mrs. Cooney for a while. I don’t think there will be any more trouble. I’ll try to see you later on.”
He nodded and went outside. Burke was sitting against the wall, groaning slightly, as one of his men slapped him in the face, and Clay mounted Pegeen and rode through the crowd followed by Kevin Rogan.
He was still suffering from the effects of those first few terrible blows, and when they were two or three hundred yards outside the village and screened by trees, he stopped and was violently sick.
After a moment, he looked up with a tired grin. “I feel much better for that.”
“All you need is a lie-down, Colonel,” Kevin assured him.
“Later perhaps,” Clay said.