Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [263]
Mingo wished him luck, but he hoped George remembered what he had told him about taking chances with an unreliable bird. A gamecocker’s breeding and development of a fine gameflock could represent a lifetime investment, and it could all be lost in a single emotional gamble. You simply couldn’t risk fighting a bird unless every detectable flaw had been permanently corrected. And if it wasn’t well, George had learned by now to quite calmly wring a gamecock’s neck. He had come to share fully the massa’s and Uncle Mingo’s view that the only worthwhile birds were those whose intense training and conditioning, coupled with instinctive aggressiveness and courage, would drive them to drop dead in a cockpit before they would quit fighting.
George loved it when the massa’s birds killed their opponents swiftly and without injury, sometimes within as little as thirty or forty seconds, but privately—though he never would have breathed this to Mingo or Massa Lea—nothing could match the thrill of watching a bird he had helped raise from a baby chick battle to the death with another equally game champion, each of them staggering, torn and bleeding, beaks lolling open, tongues hanging out, wings dragging on the cockpit floor, bodies and legs trembling, until finally both simply collapsed; then with the referee counting toward ten, the massa’s bird would find somehow one more ounce of strength to struggle up and drive in a fatal spur.
George understood very well Mingo’s deep attachment to the five or six scarred old catchcocks that he treated almost as pets—especially the one he said had won the biggest bet of the massa’s career. “Terriblest fight I ever seed!” said Uncle Mingo, nodding toward that one-eyed veteran. “It was back dere in his prime, reckon three-four years fo’ you come here. Somehow or ’nother massa had got in dis great big New Year’s main bein’ backed by some real rich massa clear over in Surrey County, Virginia. Dey’nounced no less’n two hunnud cocks was to fight for a ten thousand dollars’ main stake, wid no less’n hunnud-dollar side bets. Well, massa an’ me took twenty birds. You lemme tell you, dem twenty birds was ready! We driv days in de wagon to git dere, feedin’, waterin’, an’ massagin’ dem birds in dey coops as we went. Well, gittin’ on near de end o’ de fightin’, we’d winned some, but we’d lost too many to git at dat main purse, an’ massa was plenty mad. Den he foun’ out we was gwine be matched ’gainst what folks claimin’ was de meanest mess o’ feathers in Virginia. You oughta heared de hollerin’ of bets on dat bird!
“Well, now! Massa’d done hit his bottle a couple good licks, an’ got all red in de face as he could git! An’ out’n de birds we had left, he pick dat ol’ buzzard you’s lookin’ at right over dere. Massa stuck dat bird under one arm, an’ commence walkin’ roun’ dat cockpit swearin’ loud he weren’t backin’ off nobody’s bets! He say he started wid nothin’, if he win’ up wid nothin’ again, he sho’ wouldn’t be no stranger to it! Boy, lemme tell you! Dat tough ol’ meat an’ pinfeathers over yonder went in dat cockpit, an’ he come out jes’ barely, but dat other bird was dead! Dem referees ’nounced dey’d been steady tryin’ to kill one ’nother for nigh fo’teen minutes!” Uncle Mingo looked with warm nostalgia across at the old rooster. “So bad cut up an’ bleedin’ he was s’posed to die, but I ain’t slept a wink ’til I saved ’im!”
Uncle Mingo turned toward George. “Fact, boy, dis sump’n I’se got’ to press on you mo’n I’se done—you got to do everything you can to save hurt birds. Even dem dat’s been lucky ’nough to kill quick, an’ standin’ up dere crowin’ big an’ actin’ ready to fight again, well, dey can fool you! Soon’s you git ’im back in yo’ wagon, be sho’ you checks ’im good all over, real close! Maybe he got jes’ some l’il spur cuts, or nicks, dat can easy git ’fected. Any sich cut, piss on it good. If