John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

Atkins gets himself steady and when the redskin turns they exchange a look I have seen before on the front range between a timber wolf and a very old fleabag of a buffalo, a look that says This is the curtain, buster, and the miner even nods slightly, as if saying I understand, thus reads the rule of claw and fang, and then the Indian lumbers in.

He lumbers in cocking his sleepmaker behind him but the little worn-out rock-knocker quicksteps forward and whips an overhand right like a base-ball hurler flush on the redskin’s beezer, crowding to follow it with an uppercut he starts from the toes, planting it square on his opponent’s chin, and then staggers back as if that is all he has.

The Chief’s peepers roll up in his head and he totters this way and that and then somebody from the Colorados hollers “Timberrrrrrr!” and he goes down on his face like a hundred-year-old redwood. It is quiet for a moment, all of us as stunned as a catfish on an ice wagon, and then the bell rings and the true-blue Anglo-Saxons start to whoop and holler and stomp on the boards, celebrating the ineffable march of the white man and calculating their haul. Mostly I am hearing the clink of all those silvers and golds I collected rattling down the shitter, the sound of greenbacks flapping out of my pocket, and the Indian does not stir.

He does not stir as a detail of the boys carry his carcass into the back where Major Ruckheimer, our company croaker, slaps his kisser and dumps a bucket of water on him and jams a stick in his jaws so he should not swallow his tongue, does not stir until after the mittens have been untied and yanked off and Atkins has been helped in, looking beat to hell but relieved he is not dead and has earned so many hundreds of cocoanuts to blow on his china doll.

Where am I, ask the redskin then, and Who shut the lights off and things of this nature as he sits up and plops his hat-holder into his big, bandage-wrapped mitts. There is resin on his kisser where it hit the canvas, his beezer scraped a little, but he looks pretty chipper for a guy who has just been coldcocked in the ring.

Who won? asks the Indian and Captain Sturdevant and the other brass crowding around get a laugh out of that but I do not.

I do not laugh when I settle accounts with all the boys, nor when I hand over a sack of my own hard-won cocoanuts to the rock-knocker, as it should be known that the Runt, if that is how you choose to address me, is no welsher. Atkins is bruised and battered but still in possession of all his choppers.

Private Neely informs me you take my play at six to one, he says to me, laying a swollen-knuckled hand onto my shoulder. That is extremely white of you.

I do not laugh either when later, being of a suspicious nature, I sneak back and shake the lumps of sponge from their boxing gloves, the last substance one would expect sworn enemies should be stuffing into their mittens, nor when I see them together in the mess a few days after, chumming around like there is no hard feeling betwixt fellow ring warriors. I judge from his haymakers that the Chief has not previously taken part in a contest of skill and science, but somewhere, perhaps in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Extravaganza, he learns to take one hell of a dive.

And as for sentiment — unless you have got both fighters in the satchel you can forget about it.

“Arizona,” he lies.

It has gotten to be a habit, like calling himself Tommy Atkins. If the railroad man has noticed Hod’s cheek swollen from the fight he’s at least not staring at it.

“Arizona and New Mexico, mostly. Little outfits digging for gold and silver, though the ore isn’t as rich there as they hoped.”

The recruiter eyes his uniform. “And when exactly do you become a free man?”

“Ship leaves Friday.”

“And if I was to check with your lieutenant—”

“Googoos got him about a month back. But any of the other officers — you know—‘Service honest and faithful.’ ” If they bother to check he is sunk, but this is not the minefields and they are pretty hard up for white men.

“We won’t be digging tunnels right away. How the line is set up now, it’s just maintenance—”

“Hell, I helped build the White Pass Railroad in the dead of winter,” he lies again. “Back in the Klondike. And I spent a good deal of time on the Northern Pacific and the Denver and Rio Grande.”

The recruiter, who says he is from Idaho, narrows his eyes. “You been all over the damn map, haven’t you?”

Hod gives him a smile and speaks softly, thinking how Jeff Smith would play it. “Yes, sir, and I think I finally found a spot that suits me.”

The recruiter has an electric fan pointed straight at the back of his head, making his little bit of hair stick up, and does not appear happy to be in the Philippines.

“Your work gangs will be mostly coolies. You speakee any of that?”

“No, sir, but we had em to carry our supplies on the march. You just sing the right tune in American and they’ll hop to it pretty good.”

Mei has taught him a few words, useful to tell a shopkeeper he is a thief and a liar and you might pay half of what he says but not a penny more.

“Foreman’s wage is fifteen a month, which is plenty when you think how cheap it is to live here.”

“Bout what I get now,” Hod nods, as if agreeing on the salary. “Course nobody sposed to shoot at a section boss. How far up the line you think I’ll be?”

It is always good to talk like you already got the job. Make their mind up for them.

“From here to Dagupan, wherever we need a road crew. Till we start to expand.”

“And that would be—?”

“Whenever they get the damn bandits under control. You people,” and here he points at the single stripe on Hod’s uniform sleeve, “been taking your sweet time about it.”

“Yes, sir, I spose we have.”

Hod pictures the recruiter sweating it out, surrounded by a bunch of insurrectos with their bolos in hand. Hearing that guff from the regulars is one thing, but from a civilian—

“And you know we don’t give any pay in advance.”

“I’ll draw a full month when I muster out. That should tide me over.”

The recruiter looks like he still isn’t sure. “You a temperate man?”

There has been more shooting in Manila lately than any time since the first days of the war, men bored and drunk and dreading the confinement of the long ship ride home. A provost guard got killed the other night by an Oregon crazy on beeno , some of the men still preferring jungle juice to anything with a label on it.

“I haven’t taken the Oath,” Hod smiles, “but liquor don’t set right with me in the heat.”

The recruiter nods. The front of his face is running sweat. “And you understand the deal with your citizenship?”

General Otis has decreed that volunteers may not remain in Manila to engage in business, forced either to be shipped home or re-enlist for immediate service.

“I think so—”

“Mr. Higgens prefers you go for a British passport, since they own the road. He can help at their embassy—”

Hod grins. It is a big step, he knows, giving up on America, but so far he’s surprised at how little the idea bothers him. “Long as they don’t send me off to fight them Dutchmen.”

The recruiter doesn’t think this is funny. “Africa,” he says, writing Hod’s made-up name onto a list, “can’t be any worse than this.”

Hod walks out through the switching yard, a boxcar being loaded with crates full of tinned peaches. There are all kinds of fruits hanging off the branches here, pineapples busting out of the ground, but he’s never seen a peach tree. That would be an angle if he knew how to farm, growing things that Americans want and don’t have here yet. Manila is a boom town, he thinks as he cuts south on Abad Santos, no less than Cripple Creek or Creede or Skaguay or Leadville in its day, filling up now with sharp-eyed Americans dressed in new Hongkong suits looking for the main chance and paying double for whatever they hanker for from home. Jeff Smith would be a millionaire in a year. A man with a lemonade stand—