Page 33 of A Good Prospect

Abel looked as though he expelled a sudden “ooph,” his craggy and uneven face almost comically frozen in a surprised expression. The crowd roared to a fury, their huzzahs ringing and echoing around her, some of the men even jumping on the makeshift ropes of the ring while Tyke’s League men went about hitting them over the head with sticks to back them off. One of the League convicts came to Tamasin’s side to hit the enthusiastic vaquero, yelling, “Down with Spaniards!”

“There’s no need for that!” Tamasin shouted, tugging on the League man’s sleeve.

“He can’t be near the ring!”

Tamasin didn’t even have any room to put her hands indignantly on her hips. “Let’s say I order some of my men to hit your men over the head with sticks. Let’s see how you like that. I don’t see them staying away from the ring!”

It was true—two Australians gripped Abel’s arms, preventing him from going down flat. Tamasin did not think this was playing by the rules, but Abel was soon capable of standing unassisted, and like a rampaging bull, he nearly had steam coming from his nostrils. When he was released he charged at Ophir before Thompson gave the call, with the result that he rammed his big head into Ophir’s chest before Salvador could even scramble away, bowling both men over.

The crowd pitched into Abel. A farmer sat on the shoulders of a vaquero, emitting the piercing scalping shriek of the Comanches. Tamasin, unaware that she herself was screaming at the very top of her lungs so they later ached, tore her fingernails into the vaquero’s shoulder, and was kicked in the head by the farmer. “No fair!” she bellowed, and even Ascención was shrieking, “No es justo!” Tyke merely leaned against the ropes grinning while Abel spread his arms in preparation for one giant dive into the dirt, atop Ophir and, by default, Sal. Tamasin made a circuit of the ring to get closer to her men, but by the time she had shoved aside all of the whooping and wailing caballeros and convicts that crushed the ring, she saw that Ophir had managed to scramble out of Abel’s way. So Abel’s thick body had crushed Salvador—his second, who was not even a combatant!

It would have been humorous if it was someone she didn’t know, being squashed like a beetle under the waving blubbery limbs of this gargantuan lummox. Risking a clobber to the head, Tamasin gripped the ropes and shrieked, “Ophir! Get him off Salvador!” Ophir, perhaps recalling the rules that said he could not kick—as though Abel was playing by the rules!—leaned over and grabbed Abel’s bare shoulder so viciously that Tamasin later saw ten claw marks there.

“Get up, you brawling ass!” Ophir shouted.

He finally succeeded in tearing the monster off Salvador, and swung him wide the full length of the ring. Abel crashed into the ropes with such velocity he tore the stakes from the ground. He halfway flattened about four spectators, but enough men remained to shove him back into the ring, and he now came at Ophir in an upright position. Meanwhile Salvador had rolled and bounced from the ring apparently no worse for wear, panting from having all the air compressed from him.

“Thompson!” Sal bellowed, pointing angrily at the ground. “He jumped us before the round even started! What are you doing, you pendejo?”

“I’m trying to call time,” Thompson insisted, “but no one’s listening to me!”

“¡Véte ál carajo!” Sal growled. Go to hell!

“Butting with the head is foul!” Tamasin tried to tell Thompson.

Indeed, Ophir was bestowing a dizzying array of violent jabs to the bully’s stomach and chest, and Abel merely resembled a wall that would not budge. One of Ophir’s wide swinging uppercuts caught the brute in the forehead and down he went, but not before clutching Ophir by the biceps and bringing him down with him.

Now they rolled in the dirt, made a bit muddy by a recent summer rain. Tamasin could tell Ophir was trying to get loose, for if he just stood and waited for a count to ten, he’d be the victor, if the bovine animal could not raise himself. Once again Abel managed to pin poor Ophir, who was unable to connect a single blow with his limbs agitating under the fleshy mass. But apparently there was nothing in the rules about not kneeing anyone in the groin, for Ophir was finally able to do just that, and Abel rolled off him, roaring like a steer.

Leaping to his feet, Ophir turned his back on the thug and strode over to Thompson. “Call ‘time’!” he shouted angrily.

“I am objecting, so both men should return to their corners!” Sal added.

But Thompson was immersed in calling out the seconds since Abel had been down. Rallying now to the cheers of the convict portion of the crowd, Abel clambered to his feet and took a roaring running start in a beeline for Ophir.

“Ophir! Ophir!” Sal and Tamasin cried the alarm with wide eyes, pointing to the approaching battering ram.

Why did Ophir appear so unconcerned, when not only Tamasin and Salvador, but the largest portion of the crowd, were entreating him to turn around? Perhaps he’d been bashed in the head and couldn’t hear, for he merely faced Thompson with fists jammed onto his hips and lower lip angrily jutting, arguing over his absence of timekeeping skills!

“Ophir! Ophir! Turn around!” Tamasin screamed.

Abel was so close Tamasin could hear his Paleolithic yell of infuriated agony—he fully intended on pinning poor flailing Ophir beneath his weight again. He ran at full chisel with outspread fists pummeling the air, and it was a vast anticlimax when Ophir merely turned calmly, took a step and a half to one side, and bashed him with a fist to the cheekbone. Instead of continuing forward under his own steam, Ophir had clobbered Abel off track, and he veered to the left, resembling a wild fandango dancer with crossed eyes before collapsing in a heap.

Thompson was on top of things for once, and he quickly counted down the seconds Abel remained in a pile in the mud.

Wreathed in smiles now, Ophir climbed out of the ring as the crowd of maybe two hundred surged in his direction. Tamasin only caught a brief glimpse of Tyke standing over Abel, shaking his head with disgust, looking as though he wanted to kick Abel. Tyke would later argue that striking a blow below the waist in the testicular area was foul, but Salvador countered that deliberately falling on an antagonist was foul, and by that time the crowd’s opinion was heavily weighted in favor of Ophir, so he collected all the winnings.

Tamasin was smashed up against Ophir’s chest, which she did not mind at all, but he smelled of fresh dirt mingled with sweat. “Let me draw you a bath,” she said into his ear. “You want to be clean for the fandango, and I’ll wager all of these women wish to dance with you.”