'Firebrand' Trevison - Charles Alden Seltzer (top 10 books of all time .txt) 📗

“Ready?” he said.

“Quite.” Trevison had not accepted Corrigan’s suggestion about taking off his “damned foolish trappings,” and he still wore them—cartridge belt, leather chaps, spurs. But now he followed Corrigan’s lead and threw his hat from him. Then he crouched and faced Corrigan.

They circled cautiously, Trevison’s spurs jingling musically. Then Trevison went in swiftly, jabbing with his left, throwing off Corrigan’s vicious counter with the elbow, and ripping his right upward. The fist met Corrigan’s arm as the latter blocked, and the shock forced both men back a step. Corrigan grinned with malicious interest and crowded forward.

“That’s good,” he said; “you’re not a novice. I hope you’re not a quitter. I’ve quite a bit to hand you for riding me down.”

Trevison grinned derisively, but made no answer. He knew he must save his wind for this man. Corrigan was strong, clever; his forearm, which had blocked Trevison’s uppercut, had seemed like a bar of steel.

Trevison went in again with the grim purpose of discovering just how strong his antagonist was. Corrigan evaded a stiff left jab intended for his chin, and his own right cross missed as Trevison ducked into a clinch. With arms locked they strained, legs braced, their lungs heaving as they wrestled, doggedly.

Corrigan stood like a post, not giving an inch. Vainly Trevison writhed, seeking a position which would betray a weakened muscle, but though he exerted every ounce of his own mighty strength Corrigan held him even. They broke at last, mutually, and Corrigan must have felt the leathery quality of Trevison’s muscles, for his face was set in serious lines. His eyes glittered malignantly as he caught a confident smile on Trevison’s lips, and he bored in silently, swinging both hands.

Trevison had been the cool boxer, carefully trying out his opponent. He had felt little emotion save that of self-protection. At the beginning of the fight he would have apologized to Corrigan—with reservations. Now he was stirred with the lust of battle. Corrigan’s malignance had struck a responsive passion in him, and the sodden impact of fist on flesh, the matching of strength against strength, the strain of iron muscles, the contact of their bodies, the sting and burn of blows, had aroused the latent savage in him. He was still cool, however, but it was the crafty coolness of the trained fighter, and as Corrigan crowded him he whipped in ripping blows that sent the big man’s head back. Corrigan paid little heed to the blows; he shook them off, grunting. Blood was trickling thinly from his lips; he spat bestially over Trevison’s shoulder in a clinch, and tried to sweep the latter from his feet.

The agility of the cow-puncher saved him, and he went dancing out of harm’s way, his spurs jingling. Corrigan was after him with a rush. A heavy blow caught Trevison on the right side of the neck just below the ear and sent him, tottering, against the wall of the building, from which he rebounded like a rubber ball, smothering Corrigan with an avalanche of deadening straight-arm punches that brought a glassy stare into Corrigan’s eyes. The big man’s head wabbled, and Trevison crowded in, intent on ending the fight quickly, but Corrigan covered instinctively, and when Trevison in his eagerness missed a blow, the big man clinched with him and hung on doggedly until his befoggled brain could clear. For a few minutes they rocked around the room, their heels thudding on the bare boards of the floor, creating sounds that filtered through the enclosing walls and smote the silence of the outside world with resonant rumblings. Mercilessly, Trevison hammered at the heavy head that sought a haven on his shoulder. Corrigan had been stunned and wanted no more long range work. He tried to lock his big arms around the other’s waist in an attempt to wrestle, realizing that in that sort of a contest lay his only hope of victory, but Trevison, agile, alert to his danger, slipped elusively from the grasping hands and thudded uppercuts to the other’s mouth and jaws that landed with sickening force. But none of the blows landed on a vital spot, and Corrigan hung grimly on.

At last, lashing viciously, wriggling, squirming, swinging around in a wide circle to get out of Corrigan’s clutches, Trevison broke the clinch and stood off, breathing heavily, summoning his reserve strength for a finishing blow. Corrigan had been fearfully punished during the last few minutes, but he was gradually recovering from his dizziness, and he grinned hideously at Trevison through his smashed lips. He surged forward, reminding Trevison of a wounded bear, but Trevison retreated warily as he measured the distance from which he would drive the blow that would end it

He was still retreating, describing a wide circle. He swung around toward the door through which Braman had gone—his back was toward it. He did not see the door open slightly as he passed; he had not seen Braman’s face in the slight crevice that had been between door and jamb all along. Nor did he see the banker jab at his legs with the handle of a broom. But he felt the handle hit his legs. It tripped him, forcing him to lose his balance. As he fell he saw Corrigan’s eyes brighten, and he twisted sideways to escape a heavy blow that Corrigan aimed at him. He only partially evaded it—it struck him glancingly, a little to the left of the chin, stunning him, and he fell awkwardly, his left arm doubling under him. The agonizing pain that shot through the arm as he crumpled to the floor told him that it had been broken at the wrist. A queer stupor came upon him, during which he neither felt nor saw. Dimly, he sensed that Corrigan was striking at him; with a sort of vague half-consciousness he felt that the blows were landing. But they did not hurt, and he laughed at Corrigan’s futile efforts. The only feeling he had was a blind rage against Braman, for he was certain that it had been the banker who had tripped him. Then he saw the broom on the floor and the crevice in the doorway. He got to his feet some way, Corrigan hanging to him, raining blows upon him, and he laughed aloud as, his vision clearing a little, he saw Corrigan’s mouth, weak, open, drooling blood, and remembered that when Braman had tripped him Corrigan had hardly been in shape to do much effective hitting. He tottered away from Corrigan, taunting him, though afterwards he could not remember what his words were. Also, he heard Corrigan cursing him, though he could never remember his words, either. He tried to swing his left arm as Corrigan came within range of it, but found he could not lift it, and so ducked the savage blow that Corrigan aimed at him and slipped sideways, bringing his right into play. Several times as they circled he uppercut Corrigan with the right, he retreating, side-stepping; Corrigan following him doggedly, slashing venomously at him, hitting him occasionally. Corrigan could not hurt him, and he could not resist laughing at Corrigan’s face—it was so hideously repulsive.

A man came out of the front door of Hanrahan’s saloon across the street from the bank building, and stood in the street for a moment, looking about him. Had Miss Benham seen the man she would have recognized him as the one who had previously come out of the saloon to greet the rider with: “Well, if it ain’t ol’ ‘Brand’!” He saw the black horse standing in front of the bank building, but Trevison was nowhere in sight. The man mumbled: “I don’t want him to git away without me seein’ him,” and crossed the street to the bank window and peered inside. He saw Braman peering through a half-open door at the rear of the banking room, and he heard sounds—queer, jarring sounds that made the glass window in front of him rattle and quiver.

He dove around to the side of the building and looked in a window. He stood for a moment, watching with bulging eyes, half drew a pistol, thought better of the notion and replaced it, and then darted back to the saloon from which he had emerged, croaking hoarsely: “Fight! fight!”

Trevison had not had the agility to evade one of Corrigan’s heavy blows. It had caught him as he had tried to duck, striking fairly on the point of the jaw, and he was badly dazed. But he still grinned mockingly at his enemy as the latter followed him, tensed, eager, snarling. He evaded other blows that would have finished him—through instinct, it seemed to Corrigan; and though there was little strength left in him he kept working his right fist through Corrigan’s guard and into his face, pecking away at it until it seemed to be cut to ribbons.

Voices came from somewhere in the banking room, voices raised in altercation. Neither of the two men, raging around the rear room, heard them—they had become insensate savages oblivious of their surroundings, drunken with passion, with the blood-mania gripping their brains.

Trevison had brought the last ounce of his remaining strength into play and had landed a crushing blow on Corrigan’s chin. The big man was wabbling crazily about in the general direction of Trevison, swinging his arms wildly, Trevison evading him, snapping home blows that landed smackingly without doing much damage. They served merely to keep Corrigan in the semi-comatose state in which Trevison’s last hard blow had left him. And that last blow had sapped Trevison’s strength; his spirit alone had survived the drunken orgy of rage and hatred. As the tumult around him increased—the tramp of many feet, scuffling; harsh, discordant voices, curses, yells of protest, threats—not a sound of which he heard, so intent was he with his work of battering his adversary, he ceased to retreat from Corrigan, and as the latter shuffled toward him he stiffened and drove his right fist into the big man’s face. Corrigan cursed and grunted, but lunged forward again. They swung at the same instant—Trevison’s right just grazing Corrigan’s jaw; Corrigan’s blow, full and sweeping, thudding against Trevison’s left ear. Trevison’s head rolled, his chin sagged to his chest, and his knees doubled like hinges. Corrigan smirked malevolently and drove forward again. But he was too eager, and his blows missed the reeling target that, with arms hanging wearily at his sides, still instinctively kept to his feet, the taunting smile, now becoming bitterly contemptuous, still on his face. It meant that though exhausted, his arm broken, he felt only scorn for Corrigan’s prowess as a fighter.

Fighting off the weariness he lunged forward again, swinging the now deadened right arm at the blur Corrigan made in front of him. Something collided with him—a human form—and thinking it was Corrigan, clinching with him, he grasped it. The momentum of the object, and his own weakness, carried him back and down, and with the object in his grasp he fell, underneath, to the floor. He saw a face close to his—Braman’s—and remembering that the banker had tripped him, he began to work his right fist into the other’s face.

He would have finished Braman. He did not know that the man who had greeted him as “ol’ ‘Brand’” had smashed the banker in the forehead with the butt of a pistol when the banker had tried to bar his progress at the doorway; he was not aware that the force of the blow had hurled Braman against him, and that the latter, half unconscious, was not defending himself. He would not have cared had he known these things, for he was fighting blindly, doggedly, recklessly—fighting two men, he thought. And though he sensed that there