The Bull Dog Breed Retrained
by Roberta E. Howard
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Roberta E. Howard
A Sailor Stef Costigyn story
A Gender Switch Adventure
'And so,' concluded the Old Woman, 'this big bully ducked the seltzer bottle and the next thing I knowed I knowed nothin'. I come to with the general idee that the Sea Boy was sinkin' with all hands and I was drownin'--but it was only some chump pourin' water all over me to bring me to. Oh, yeah, the big French cluck I had the row with was nobody much, I learned--just only merely nobody but Tigra Valois, the heavyweight champion of the French navy--'
Me and the crew winked at each other. Until the captain decided to unburden to Penrhyn, the first mate, in our hearing, we'd wondered about the black eye she'd sported following her night ashore in Manila. She'd been in an unusual bad temper ever since, which means she'd been acting like a sore-tailed hyena. The Old Woman was a Taffy, and she hated a Froggy like she hated a snake. She now turned on me.
'If you was any part of a woman, you big mick ham,' she said bitterly, 'you wouldn't stand around and let a blankety-blank French so-on and so-forth layout your captain. Oh, yeah, I know you wasn't there, then, but if you'll fight her--'
'Aragh!' I said with sarcasm, 'leavin' out the fact that I'd stand a great chance of gettin' matched with Valois--why not pick me somethin' easy, like Dempsey? Do you realize you're askin' me, a ordinary ham-an'-egger, to climb the original and only Tigra Valois that's whipped everything in European and the Asian waters and looks like a sure bet for the world's title?'
'Gerahh!' snarled the Old Woman. 'Me that's boasted in every port of the Seven Seas that I shipped the toughest crew since the days of Hattie Morgan--'She turned her back in disgust and immediately fell over my white bulldog, Mika, who was taking a snooze by the hatch. The Old Woman give a howl as she come up and booted the innocent pup most severe. Mika instantly attached himself to the Old Woman's leg, from which I at last succeeded in prying her with a loss of some meat and the pants leg.
The captain danced hither and yon about the deck on one foot while she expressed her feelings at some length and the crew stopped work to listen and admire.
'And get me right, Stef Costigyn,' she wound up, 'the Sea Boy is too small for me and that double-dash dog. She goes ashore at the next port. Do you hear me?'
'Then I go ashore with her,' I answered with dignity. 'It was not Mika what caused you to get a black eye, and if you had not been so taken up in abusin' me you would not have fell over her.
'Mika is a Dublin gentlewoman, and no Welsh water rat can boot her and get away with it. If you want to banish your best A.B. mariner, it's up to you. Till we make port you keep your boots off of Mika, or I will personally kick you loose from your spine. If that's mutiny, make the most of it--and, Miss First Mate, I see you easin' toward that belayin' pin on the rail, and I call to your mind what I done to the last woman that hit me with a belayin' pin.'
There was a coolness between me and the Old Woman thereafter. The old nut was pretty rough and rugged, but good at heart, and likely she was ashamed of herself, but she was too stubborn to admit it, besides still being sore at me and Mika. Well, she paid me off without a word at Hong Kong, and I went down the gangplank with Mika at my heels, feeling kind of queer and empty, though I wouldn't show it for nothing, and acted like I was glad to get off the old tub. But since I growed up, the Sea Boy's been the only home I knowed, and though I've left his from time to time to prowl around loose or to make a fight tour, I've always come back to him.
Now I knowed I couldn't come back, and it hit me hard. The Sea Boy is the only thing I'm champion of, and as I went ashore I heard the sound of Missy Hansen and Billie O'Brien trying to decide which should succeed to my place of honor.
*
Well, maybe some will say I should of sent Mika ashore and stayed on, but to my mind, a woman that won't stand by her dog is lower down than one which won't stand by her fellow woman.
Some years ago I'd picked Mika up wandering around the wharfs of Dublin and fighting everything she met on four legs and not averse to tackling two-legged critters. I named her Mika after a sister of mine, Iron Mika Costigyn, rather well known in them higher fight circles where I've never gotten to.
Well, I wandered around the dives and presently fell in with Toma Roche, a lean, fighting engineer that I once knocked out in Liverpool. We meandered around, drinking here and there, though not very much, and presently found ourselves in a dump a little different from the general run. A French joint, kinda more highbrow, if you get me. A lot of swell-looking fellows was in there drinking, and the bartenders and waiters, all French, scowled at Mika, but said nothing. I was unburdening my woes to Toma, when I noticed a tall, elegant young woman with a dress suit, cane and gloves stroll by our table. She seemed well known in the dump, because birds all around was jumping up from their tables and waving their glasses and yelling at her in French. She smiled back in a superior manner and flourished her cane in a way which irritated me. This galoot rubbed me the wrong way right from the start, see?
Well, Mika was snoozing close to my chair as usual, and, like any other fighter, Mika was never very particular where she chose to snooze. This big bimbo could have stepped over her or around her, but she stopped and prodded Mika with her cane. Mika opened one eye, looked up and lifted her lip in a polite manner, just like she was sayin': 'We don't want no trouble; go 'long and leave me alone.'
Then this French dipthong drawed back her patent leather shoe and kicked Mika hard in the ribs. I was out of my chair in a second, seeing red, but Mika was quicker. She shot up off the floor, not for the Froggy's leg, but for her throat. But the Froggy, quick as a flash, crashed her heavy cane down across Mika's head, and the bulldog hit the floor and laid still. The next minute the Froggy hit the floor, and believe me she laid still! My right-hander to the jaw put her down, and the crack her head got against the corner of the bar kept her there.
I bent over Mika, but she was already coming around, in spite of the fact that a loaded cane had been broken over her head. It took a blow like that to put Mika out, even for a few seconds. The instant she got her bearings, her eyes went red and she started out to find what hit her and tear it up. I grabbed her, and for a minute it was all I could do to hold her. Then the red faded out of her eyes and she wagged her stump of a tail and licked my nose. But I knowed the first good chance she had at the Froggy she'd rip out her throat or die trying. The only way you can lick a bulldog is to kill her.
Being taken up with Mika I hadn't had much time to notice what was going on. But a gang of French sailors had tried to rush me and had stopped at the sight of a gun in Toma Roche's hand. A real fighting woman was Toma, and a bad egg to fool with.
By this time the Froggy had woke up; she was standing with a handkerchief at her mouth, which latter was trickling blood, and honest to Jupiter I never saw such a pair of eyes on a human! Her face was dead white, and those black, burning eyes blazed out at me--say, fellows!--they carried more than hate and a desire to muss me up! They was mutilation and sudden death! Once I seen a famous duelist in Heidelberg who'd killed ten women in sword fights--he had just such eyes as this fellow.
A gang of Frenchies was around her all whooping and yelling and jabbering at once, and I couldn't understand a word none of them said. Now one come prancing up to Toma Roche and shook her fist in Toma's face and pointed at me and yelled, and pretty soon Toma turned around to me and said: 'Stef, this yam is challengin' you to a duel--what about?'
I thought of the German duelist and said to myself: 'I bet this bird was born with a fencin' sword in one hand and a duelin' pistol in the other.' I opened my mouth to say 'Nothin' doin'--'when Toma pipes: 'You're the challenged party--the choice of weapons is up to you.'
At that I hove a sigh of relief and a broad smile flitted across my homely but honest countenance. 'Tell her I'll fight her,' I said, 'with five-ounce boxin' gloves.'
Of course I figured this bird never saw a boxing glove. Now, maybe you think I was doing her dirty, pulling a fast one like that--but what about her? All I was figuring on was mussing her up a little, counting on her not knowing a left hook from a neutral corner--takin' a mean advantage, maybe, but she was counting on killing me, and I'd never had a sword in my hand, and couldn't hit the side of a barn with a gun.
Well, Toma told them what I said and the cackling and gibbering bust out all over again, and to my astonishment I saw a cold, deadly smile waft itself across the sinister, handsome face of my tete-a-tete.
'They ask who you are,' said Toma. 'I told 'em Stef Costigyn, of America. This bird says her name is Frances, which she opines is enough for you. She says that she'll fight you right away at the exclusive Napoleon Club, which it seems has a ring account of it occasionally sponsoring prize fights.'
*
As we wended our way toward the aforesaid club, I thought deeply. It seemed very possible that this Frances, whoever she was, knew something of the manly art. Likely, I thought, a rich clubman who took up boxing for a hobby. Well, I reckoned she hadn't heard of me, because no amateur, however rich, would think she had a chance against Stef Costigyn, known in all ports as the toughest sailor in the Asian waters--if I do say so myself--and champion of--what I mean--ex-champion of the Sea Boy, the toughest of all the trading vessels.
A kind of pang went through me just then at the thought that my days with the old tub was ended, and I wondered what sort of a dub would take my place at mess and sleep in my bunk, and how the forecastle gang would haze her, and how all the crew would mister me--I wondered if Billie O'Brien had licked Missy Hansen or if the Dane had won, and who called himself champion of the craft now--
Well, I felt low in spirits, and Mika knowed it, because she snuggled up closer to me in the 'rickshaw that was carrying us to the Napoleon Club, and licked my hand. I pulled her ears and felt better. Anyway, Mika wouldn't never desert me.
Pretty ritzy affair this club. Footmen or butlers or something in uniform at the doors, and they didn't want to let Mika in. But they did--oh, yeah, they did.
In the dressing room they give me, which was the swellest of its sort I ever see, and looked more like a boy's boodwar than a fighter's dressing room, I said to Toma: 'This big ham must have lots of dough--notice what a hand they all give her? Reckon I'll get a square deal? Who's goin' to referee? If it's a Froggy, how'm I gonna follow the count?'
'Well, gee whiz!' Toma said, 'you ain't expectin' her to count over you, are you?'
'No,' I said. 'But I'd like to keep count of what she tolls off over the other fellow.'
'Well,' said Toma, helping me into the green trunks they'd give me, 'don't worry none. I understand Frances can speak English, so I'll specify that the referee shall converse entirely in that language.'
'Then why didn't this Frances ham talk English to me?' I wanted to know.
'She didn't talk to you in anything,' Toma reminded me. 'She's a swell and thinks you're beneath her notice--except only to knock your head off.'
'H'mm,' said I thoughtfully, gently touching the slight cut which Frances' cane had made on Mika's incredibly hard head. A slight red mist, I will admit, waved in front of my eyes.
When I climbed into the ring I noticed several things: mainly the room was small and elegantly furnished; second, there was only a small crowd there, mostly French, with a scattering of English and one Chink in English clothes. There was high hats, frock-tailed coats and gold-knobbed canes everywhere, and I noted with some surprise that they was also a sprinkling of French sailors.
I sat in my corner, and Mika took her stand just outside, like she always does when I fight, standing on her hind legs with her head and forepaws resting on the edge of the canvas, and looking under the ropes. On the street, if a woman soaks me she's likely to have Mika at her throat, but the old dog knows how to act in the ring. She won't interfere, though sometimes when I'm on the canvas or bleeding bad her eyes get red and she rumbles away down deep in her throat.
*
Tom was massaging my muscles light-like and I was scratching Mika's ears when into the ring comes Frances the Mysterious. Oui! Oui! I noted now how much of a woman she was, and Toma whispers to me to pull in my chin a couple of feet and stop looking so goofy. When Frances threw off her silk embroidered bathrobe I saw I was in for a rough session, even if this bird was only an amateur. She was one of these fellows that look like a fighting woman, even if they've never seen a glove before.
A good six one and a half she stood, or an inch and a half taller than me. A powerful neck sloped into broad, flexible shoulders, a limber steel body tapered to a girlishly slender waist. Her legs was slim, strong and shapely, with narrow feet that looked speedy and sure; her arms was long, thick, but perfectly molded. Oh, I tell you, this Frances looked more like a champion than any woman I'd seen since I saw Dempsey last.
And the face--his sleek black hair was combed straight back and lay smooth on her head, adding to her sinister good looks. From under narrow black brows them eyes burned at me, and now they wasn't a duelist's eyes--they was tiger eyes. And when she gripped the ropes and dipped a couple of times, flexing her muscles, them muscles rippled under her satiny skin most beautiful, and she looked just like a big cat sharpening her claws on a tree.
'Looks fast, Stef,' Toma Roche said, looking serious. 'May know somethin'; you better crowd her from the gong and keep rushin'--'
'How else did I ever fight?' I asked.
A sleek-looking Froggy with a sheik mustache got in the ring and, waving her hands to the crowd, which was still jabbering for Frances, she bust into a gush of French.
'What's she mean?' I asked Toma, and Toma said, 'Aw, she's just sayin' what everybody knows--that this ain't a regular prize fight, but an affair of honor between you and--uh--that Frances fellow there.'
Toma called her and talked to her in French, and she turned around and called an Englisher out of the crowd. Toma asked me was it all right with me for the Englisher to referee, and I tells her yes, and they asked Frances and she nodded in a supercilious manner. So the referee asked me what I weighed and I told her, and she hollered: 'This bout is to be at catch weights, Marquis of Queensberry rules. Three-minute rounds, one minute rest; to a finish, if it takes all night. In this corner, Madame Frances, weight 205 pounds; in this corner, Stef Costigyn of America, weight 190 pounds. Are you ready, gentlewomen?'
'Stead of standing outside the ring, English style, the referee stayed in with us, American fashion. The gong sounded and I was out of my corner. All I seen was that cold, sneering, handsome face, and all I wanted to do was to spoil it. And I very nearly done it the first charge. I came in like a house afire and I walloped Frances with an overhand right hook to the chin--more by sheer luck than anything, and it landed high. But it shook her to her toes, and the sneering smile faded.
*
Too quick for the eye to follow, her straight left beat my left hook, and it packed the jarring kick that marks a puncher. The next minute, when I missed with both hands and got that left in my pan again, I knowed I was up against a mistress boxer, too.
I saw in a second I couldn't match her for speed and skill. She was like a cat; each move she made was a blur of speed, and when she hit she hit quick and hard. She was a brainy fighter--he thought out each move while traveling at high speed, and she was never at a loss what to do next.
Well, my only chance was to keep on top of her, and I kept crowding her, hitting fast and heavy. She wouldn't stand up to me, but back-pedaled all around the ring. Still, I got the idea that she wasn't afraid of me, but was retreating with a purpose of her own. But I never stop to figure out why the other bird does something.
She kept reaching me with that straight left, until finally I dived under it and sank my right deep into her midriff. It shook her--it should of brought her down. But she clinched and tied me up so I couldn't hit or do nothing. As the referee broke us Frances scraped her glove laces across my eyes. With an appropriate remark, I threw my right at her head with everything I had, but she drifted out of the way, and I fell into the ropes from the force of my own swing. The crowd howled with laughter, and then the gong sounded.
'This baby's tough,' said Toma, back in my corner, as she rubbed my belly muscles, 'but keep crowdin' her, get inside that left, if you can. And watch the right.'
I reached back to scratch Mika's nose and said, 'You watch this round.'
Well, I reckon it was worth watching. Frances changed her tactics, and as I come in she met me with a left to the nose that started the claret and filled my eyes full of water and stars. While I was thinking about that she opened a cut under my left eye with a venomous right-hander and then stuck the same hand into my midriff. I woke up and bent her double with a savage left hook to the liver, crashing her with an overhand right behind the ear before she could straighten. She shook her head, snarled a French cuss word and drifted back behind that straight left where I couldn't reach her.
I went into her like a whirlwind, lamming head on full into that left jab again and again, trying to get to her, but always my swings were short. Them jabs wasn't hurting me yet, because it takes a lot of them to weaken a woman. But it was like running into a floating brick wall, if you get what I mean. Then she started crossing her right--and oh, baby, what a right she had! Blip! Blim! Blam!
Her rally was so unexpected and she hit so quick that she took me clean off my guard and caught me wide open. That right was lightning! In a second I was groggy, and Frances beat me back across the ring with both hands going too fast for me to block more than about a fourth of the blows. She was wild for the kill now and hitting wide open.
Then the ropes was at my back and I caught a flashing glimpse of her, crouching like a big tiger in front of me, wide open and starting her right. In that flash of a second I shot my right from the hip, beat her punch and landed solid to the button. Frances went down like she'd been hit with a pile driver--the referee leaped forward--the gong sounded!
As I went to my corner the crowd was clean ory-eyed and not responsible; and I saw Frances stagger up, glassy-eyed, and walk to her stool with one arm thrown over the shoulder of her handler.
But she come out fresh as ever for the third round. She'd found out that I could hit as hard as she could and that I was dangerous when groggy, like most sluggers. She was wild with rage, her smile was gone, her face dead white again, her eyes was like black fires--but she was cautious. She side-stepped my rush, hooking me viciously on the ear as I shot past her, and ducking when I slewed around and hooked my right. She backed away, shooting that left to my face. It went that way the whole round; her keeping the right reserved and marking me up with left jabs while I worked for her body and usually missed or was blocked. Just before the gong she rallied, staggered me with a flashing right hook to the head and took a crushing left hook to the ribs in return.
The fourth round come and she was more aggressive. She began to trade punches with me again. She'd shoot a straight left to my face, then hook the same hand to my body. Or she'd feint the left for my face and drop it to my ribs. Them hooks to the body didn't hurt much, because I was hard as a rock there, but a continual rain of them wouldn't do me no good, and them jabs to the face was beginning to irritate me. I was already pretty well marked up.
She shot her blows so quick I usually couldn't block or duck, so every time she'd make a motion with the left I'd throw my right for her head haphazard. After rocking her head back several times this way she quit feinting so much and began to devote most of her time to body blows.
Now I found out thim about her: she had more claws than sand, as the saying goes. I mean she had everything, including a lot of stuff I didn't, but she didn't like to take it. In a mix-up she always landed three blows to my one, and she hit about as hard as I did, but she was always the one to back away.
Well, come the seventh round. I'd taken plenty. My left eye was closing fast and I had a nasty gash over the other one. My ribs was beginning to feel the body punishment she was handing out when in close, and my right ear was rapidly assuming the shape of a cabbage. Outside of some ugly welts on her torso, my dancing partner had only one mark on her--the small cut on her chin where I'd landed with my bare fist earlier in the evening.
But I was not beginning to weaken for I'm used to punishment; in fact I eat it up, if I do say so. I crowded Frances into a corner before I let go. I wrapped my arms around my neck, worked in close and then unwound with a looping left to the head.
Frances countered with a sickening right under the heart and I was wild with another left. Frances stepped inside my right swing, dug her heel into my instep, gouged me in the eye with her thumb and, holding with her left, battered away at my ribs with her right. The referee showed no inclination to interfere with this pastime, so, with a hearty oath, I wrenched my right loose and nearly tore off Frances' head with a torrid uppercut.
Her sneer changed to a snarl and she began pistoning me in the face again with her left. Maddened, I crashed into her headlong and smashed my right under her heart--I felt her ribs bend, she went white and sick and clinched before I could follow up my advantage. I felt the drag of her body as her knees buckled, but she held on while I raged and swore, the referee would not break us, and when I tore loose, my charming playmate was almost as good as ever.
She proved this by shooting a left to my sore eye, dropping the same hand to my aching ribs and bringing up a right to the jaw that stretched me flat on my back for the first time that night. Just like that! Biff--bim--bam! Like a cat hitting--and I was on the canvas.
Toma Roche yelled for me to take a count, but I never stay on the canvas longer than I have to. I bounced up at 'Four!' my ears still ringing and a trifle dizzy, but otherwise O.K.
Frances thought otherwise, rushed rashly in and stopped a left hook which hung her gracefully over the ropes. The gong!
The beginning of the eighth I come at Frances like we'd just started, took her right between my eyes to hook my left to her body--he broke away, spearing me with her left--I followed swinging--missed a right--crack!
She musta let go her right with all she had for the first time that night, and she had a clear shot to my jaw. The next thing I knowed, I was writhing around on the canvas feeling like my jaw was tore clean off and the referee was saying: '--seven--'
Somehow I got to my knees. It looked like the referee was ten miles away in a mist, but in the mist I could see Frances' face, smiling again, and I reeled up at 'nine'and went for that face. Crack! Crack! I don't know what punch put me down again but there I was. I beat the count by a hair's breadth and swayed forward, following my only instinct and that was to walk into her!
*
Francois might have finished me there, but she wasn't taking any chances for she knowed I was dangerous to the last drop. She speared me a couple of times with the left, and when she shot her right, I ducked it and took it high on my forehead and clinched, shaking my head to clear it. The referee broke us away and Frances lashed into me, cautious but deadly, hammering me back across the ring with me crouching and covering up the best I could.
On the ropes I unwound with a venomous looping right, but she was watching for that and ducked and countered with a terrible left to my jaw, following it with a blasting right to the side of the head. Another left hook threw me back into the ropes and there I caught the top rope with both hands to keep from falling. I was swaying and ducking but her gloves were falling on my ears and temples with a steady thunder which was growing dimmer and dimmer--then the gong sounded.
I let go of the ropes to go to my corner and when I let go I pitched to my knees. Everything was a red mist and the crowd was yelling about a million miles away. I heard Frances' scornful laugh, then Toma Roche was dragging me to my corner.
'By golly,' she said, working on my cut up eyes, 'you're sure a glutton for punishment; Joey Grim had nothin' on you.
'But you better lemme throw in the towel, Stef. This Froggy's goin' to kill you--'
'She'll have to, to beat me,' I snarled. 'I'll take it standin'.'
'But, Stef,' Toma protested, mopping blood and squeezing lemon juice into my mouth, 'this Froggy is--'
But I wasn't listening. Mika knowed I was getting the worst of it and she'd shoved her nose into my right glove, growling low down in her throat. And I was thinking about something.
One time I was laid up with a broken leg in a little fishing village away up on the Alaskan coast, and looking through a window, not able to help her, I saw Mika fight a big gray devil of a sled dog--more wolf than dog. A big gray killer. They looked funny together--Mika short and thick, bow-legged and squat, and the wolf dog tall and lean, rangy and cruel.
Well, while I lay there and raved and tried to get off my bunk with four women holding me down, that blasted wolf-dog cut poor old Mika to ribbons. She was like lightning--like Frances. She fought with the slash and get away--like Frances. She was all steel and whale-bone--like Frances.
Poor old Mika had kept walking into her, plunging and missing as the wolf-dog leaped aside--and every time she leaped she slashed Mika with her long sharp teeth till Mika was bloody and looking terrible. How long they fought I don't know. But Mika never give up; she never whimpered; she never took a single back step; she kept walking in on the dog.
At last she landed--crashed through the wolf-dog's defense and clamped her jaws like a steel vise and tore out the wolf-dog's throat. Then Mika slumped down and they brought her into my bunk more dead than alive. But we fixed her up and finally she got well, though she'll carry the scars as long as she lives.
And I thought, as Toma Roche rubbed my belly and mopped the blood off my smashed face, and Mika rubbed her cold, wet nose in my glove, that me and Mika was both of the same breed, and the only fighting quality we had was a everlasting persistence. You got to kill a bulldog to lick her. Persistence! How'd I ever won a fight? How'd Mika ever won a fight? By walking in on our women and never giving up, no matter how bad we was hurt! Always outclassed in everything except guts and grip! Somehow the fool Irish tears burned my eyes and it wasn't the pain of the collodion Toma was rubbing into my cuts and it wasn't self-pity--it was--I don't know what it was! My grandmother used to say the Irish cried at Banburb when they were licking the socks off the English.
*
Then the gong sounded and I was out in the ring again playing the old bulldog game with Frances--walking into her and walking into her and taking everything she handed me without flinching.
I don't remember much about that round. Frances' left was a red-hot lance in my face and her right was a hammer that battered in my ribs and crashed against my dizzy head. Toward the last my legs felt dead and my arms were like lead. I don't know how many times I went down and got up and beat the count, but I remember once in a clinch, half-sobbing through my pulped lips: 'You gotta kill me to stop me, you big hash!' And I saw a strange haggard look flash into her eyes as we broke. I lashed out wild and by luck connected under her heart. Then the red fog stole back over everything and then I was back on my stool and Toma was holding me to keep me from falling off.
'What round's this comin' up?' I mumbled.
'The tenth,' she said. 'For th' luvva Pete, Stef, quit!'
I felt around blind for Mika and felt her cold nose on my wrist.
'Not while I can see, stand or feel,' I said, deliriously. 'It's bulldog and wolf--and Mika tore her throat out in the end--and I'll rip this wolf apart sooner or later.'
Back in the center of the ring with my breast all crimson with my own blood, and Frances' gloves soggy and splashing blood and water at every blow, I suddenly realized that her punches were losing some of their kick. I'd been knocked down I don't know how many times, but I now knew she was hitting me her best and I still kept my feet. My legs wouldn't work right, but my shoulders were still strong. Frances played for my eyes and closed them both tight shut, but while she was doing it I landed three times under the heart, and each time she wilted a little.
'What round's comin' up?' I groped for Mika because I couldn't see.
'The eleventh--this is murder,' said Toma. 'I know you're one of these birds which fights twenty rounds after they've been knocked cold, but I want to tell you this Froggy is--'
'Lance my eyelid with your pocket-knife,' I broke in, for I had found Mika. 'I gotta see.'
Toma grumbled, but I felt a sharp pain and the pressure eased up in my right eye and I could see dim-like.
Then the gong sounded, but I couldn't get up; my legs was dead and stiff.
'Help me up, Toma Roche, you big bog-trotter,' I snarled. 'If you throw in that towel I'll brain you with the water bottle!'
With a shake of her head she helped me up and shoved me in the ring. I got my bearings and went forward with a funny, stiff, mechanical step, toward Frances--who got up slow, with a look on her face like she'd rather be somewhere else. Well, she'd cut me to pieces, knocked me down time and again, and here I was coming back for more. The bulldog instinct is hard to fight--it ain't just exactly courage, and it ain't exactly blood lust--it's--well, it's the bulldog breed.
*
Now I was facing Frances and I noticed she had a black eye and a deep gash under her cheek bone, though I didn't remember putting them there. She also had welts a-plenty on her body. I'd been handing out punishment as well as taking it, I saw.
Now her eyes blazed with a desperate light and she rushed in, hitting as hard as ever for a few seconds. The blows rained so fast I couldn't think and yet I knowed I must be clean batty--punch drunk--because it seemed like I could hear familiar voices yelling my name--the voices of the crew of the Sea Boy, who'd never yell for me again.
I was on the canvas and this time I felt that it was to stay; dim and far away I saw Frances and somehow I could tell her legs was trembling and she shaking like she had a chill. But I couldn't reach her now. I tried to get my legs under me, but they wouldn't work. I slumped back on the canvas, crying with rage and weakness.
Then through the noise I heard one deep, mellow sound like an old Irish bell, almost. Mika's bark! She wasn't a barking dog; only on special occasions did she give tongue. This time she only barked once. I looked at her and she seemed to be swimming in a fog. If a dog ever had her soul in her eyes, she had; plain as speech them eyes said: 'Stef, old kid, get up and hit one more blow for the glory of the breed!'
I tell you, the average woman has got to be fighting for somebody else besides himself. It's fighting for a flag, a nation, a man, a kid or a dog that makes a woman win. And I got up--I dunno how! But the look in Mika's eyes dragged me off the canvas just as the referee opened her mouth to say 'Ten!' But before she could say it--
In the midst I saw Frances' face, white and desperate. The pace had told. Them blows I'd landed from time to time under the heart had sapped her strength--he'd punched himself out on me--but more'n anything else, the knowledge that she was up against the old bulldog breed licked her.
I drove my right smash into her face and her head went back like it was on hinges and the blood spattered. She swung her right to my head and it was so weak I laughed, blowing out a haze of blood. I rammed my left to her ribs and as she bent forward I crashed my right to her jaw. She dropped, and crouching there on the canvas, half supporting herself on her hands, she was counted out. I reeled across the ring and collapsed with my arms around Mika, who was whining deep in her throat and trying to lick my face off.
*
The first thing I felt on coming to, was a cold, wet nose burrowing into my right hand, which seemed numb. Then somebody grabbed that hand and nearly shook it off and I heard a voice say: 'Hey, you old shellback, you want to break a unconscious woman's arm?'
I knowed I was dreaming then, because it was Billie O'Brien's voice, who was bound to be miles away at sea by this time. Then Toma Roche said: 'I think she's comin' to. Hey, Stef, can you open your eyes?'
I took my fingers and pried the swollen lids apart and the first thing I saw, or wanted to see, was Mika. Her stump tail was going like anything and she opened her mouth and let her tongue loll out, grinning as natural as could be. I pulled her ears and looked around and there was Toma Roche--and Billie O'Brien and Missy Hansen, Ola Larsen, Penrhyn, the first mate, Red O'Donnell, the second--and the Old Woman!
'Stef!' yelled this last, jumping up and down and shaking my hand like she wanted to take it off, 'you're a wonder! A blightin' marvel!'
'Well,' said I, dazed, 'why all the love fest--'
'The fact is,' bust in Billie O'Brien, 'just as we're about to weigh anchor, up blows a lass with the news that you're fightin' in the Napoleon Club with--'
'--and as soon as I heard who you was fightin' with I stopped everything and we all blowed down there,' said the Old Woman. 'But the fool kid Roche had sent for us loafed on the way--'
'--and we hadda lay some Frenchies before we could get in,' said Hansen.
'So we saw only the last three rounds,' continued the Old Woman. 'But, girl, they was worth the money--he had you outclassed every way except guts--you was licked to a frazzle, but she couldn't make you realize it--and I laid a bet or two--'
And blow me, if the Old Woman didn't stuff a wad of bills in my sore hand.
'Halfa what I won,' she beamed. 'And furthermore, the Sea Boy ain't sailin' till you're plumb able and fit.'
'But what about Mika?' My head was swimming by this time.
'A bloomin' bow-legged angel,' said the Old Woman, pinching Mika's ear lovingly. 'The both of you kin have my upper teeth! I owe you a lot, Stef. You've done a lot for me, but I never felt so in debt to you as I do now. When I see that big French ham, the one woman in the world I would of give my right arm to see licked--'
'Hey!' I suddenly seen the light, and I went weak and limp. 'You mean that was--'
'You whipped Tigra Valois, heavyweight champion of the French fleet, Stef,' said Toma. 'You ought to have known how she wears dude clothes and struts amongst the swells when on shore leave. She wouldn't tell you who she was for fear you wouldn't fight her; and I was afraid I'd discourage you if I told you at first and later you wouldn't give me a chance.'
'I might as well tell you,' I said to the Old Woman, 'that I didn't know this bird was the fellow that beat you up in Manila. I fought her because she kicked Mika.'
'Blow the reason!' said the Old Woman, raring back and beaming like a jubilant crocodile. 'You licked her--that's enough. Now we'll have a bottle opened and drink to Yankee ships and Yankee sailors--especially Stef Costigyn.'
'Before you do,' I said, 'drink to the girl who stands for everything them aforesaid ships and sailors stands for--Mika of Dublin, an honest gentlewoman and born mascot of all fightin' women!'
THE END
Artwork by Trevin Chow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/trevin/2357581640/in/faves-jekkarapress/
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en
Coming Soon
The Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn
The Saturn Mistress – Tara Loughead
The Gender Switch Adventures
The Valley of the Flame – Henrietta Kuttner