THROWING PUNCHES by Marlin Barton

1920

The boy worked the heavy bag and breathed in hot air laden with the deep, rich smells of hay and horse feed. He was thirteen now and stronger than he’d been last summer. He could feel the difference. With each jab and punch, the bag swung a little farther. Not by much, of course – they didn’t call it a heavy bag for nothing – but enough for Walton to come up and lean his body against the other side and steady it. Or maybe Walton was just trying to make him feel good, was only pretending the bag needed steadying.

“Nice,” Walton said, and his praise made Conrad hit harder. “Now try that very first combination I taught you.”

The boy remembered. Left jab at nose level, another left to the belly, right hook to the temple. His gloved fists landed solid every time and sweat flew from his bare torso with each jarring.

“Remember, kill the body and the head goes with it,” Walton said. “All right. You been at it awhile. Want to take a break?”

Conrad grunted a no. He needed to keep hitting. Maybe just because it felt good, or maybe he was still angry with Walton and didn’t know how to tell him. The man had showed up a week ago, a whole week, and hadn’t looked for him once, had stayed holed up here at the Teclaw place with kin all that time. Maybe he’d already been working out himself inside this barn with the heavy bag hanging from a rafter, having forgotten all about last summer and his promise to teach Conrad more of the pugilist’s art (which is what Walton sometimes called it) when he returned.

The boy didn’t let up, kept working the bag with a series of straight right punches. Walton had told him early on that a straight punch had more strength in it, took less energy to throw than a hook or an uppercut. But each kind of punch had its place.

Walton finally backed away from the bag. “Stop. I don’t have lighter gloves for bag work. I want to build your stamina, but your arms are getting tired. You’re dropping your hands too low, leaving yourself open for a counterpunch. Remember, when you throw a punch you’re aiming for the back of the head, right through the face. Then you want to imagine you’re grabbing the end of a string and pulling it straight back, so your hand stays up where you can keep yourself protected.”

“I know. I remember,” he said and heard how his quick words sounded like jabs.

Walton looked at him and nodded, as if he understood more than what Conrad had said. “Let’s get some water.”

They both walked over to the bucket Walton had sat on a worktable earlier, after he’d drawn it up from the well outside the barn. Walton reached for the long- handled dipper and made sure it was full. “I’ll hold it,” he said, “so we don’t have to take your gloves off.”

Conrad lowered his mouth to the dipper and drank, and the angle of his head made him feel like he was bowing down to Walton, maybe asking forgiveness for his anger and rudeness that neither would openly acknowledge. He kept drinking and Walton turned the dipper up as he did, the way Conrad’s mother might have done for him, or any woman with a child, and he suddenly felt embarrassed that a man was doing this. He was not used to a man doing things for him.

Walton filled the dipper again, drank for himself, and then lowered it back into the bucket and looked at Conrad. “I tell you what. Why don’t we take off the gloves, after all?”

A part of Conrad wanted to keep punching, despite the June heat and the sweat that ran down his face and chest, but he gave in, wanted, on some level maybe, to be obedient to someone other than his mother. He raised his right, gloved hand, let Walton untie the laces and unwrap the strip of linen from where it was wound around his fingers, palm, and wrist. Then Conrad let him do the same with his left hand. He stretched both arms once the gloves were off, tried to loosen his tightened muscles.

“You’ve got a long reach,” Walton said and sat down on a bale of hay and looked out the barn doors where the sun shone bright and sweltering. “Noticed your reach when I first saw you in front of the post office last summer.”

Conrad leaned against the worktable. “You told me, that day. I remember.” He paused for a moment. “So how come I didn’t see you ’til this morning?” Walton turned back toward him as if he’d been waiting on the question. “Lyman told me a week ago he seen you. He was hanging around the depot after I left. Told me the next day, ‘Your boxer man got off the train. Too bad he got beat.’”

He watched Walton carefully, wanted to judge how his words landed. Lyman had added that last part about getting beat, but Conrad knew he didn’t have to repeat it. The man’s expression remained unchanged, but his stillness seemed to deepen, to hold something within it he didn’t want to let out.

Three months earlier he’d fought Jack Britton in New York, a city so big and far away from tiny Riverfield, Alabama, that Conrad could barely imagine it, as if the place was its own country across an ocean, where a tribe of people called Yankees lived. He and his mother owned no radio, no one in Riverfield did, expect for maybe a few crystal sets. He’d had to read about the fight several days later in the weekly paper out of Valhia, and his heart had broken for Walton, maybe as bad as when a girl breaks a boy’s heart, but he didn’t know about that yet.

“Ever need time to yourself,” Walton finally said, “like maybe after your father died?”

Conrad knew Walton didn’t want an answer, but he didn’t know if you could really compare losing a fight to losing a father. Maybe you could.

“Eventually decided I couldn’t keep staying to myself,” Walton said. “Took the train from Memphis and come on down here. Knew my cousins would be expecting me. Maybe I came just out of habit.”

“What about me?” Conrad said, unable to stop himself.

“I hadn’t forgot you. But knew you’d want us to put the gloves on, and, well, let’s say I didn’t know if I could keep my hands from dropping.”

Conrad wondered if he was referring to the fight with Britton, but he couldn’t imagine Walton had lost because he’d dropped his hands. He was a better fighter than that. Still, it had been bad for Walton. He’d read that Walton got knocked down in the second round, then again in the third, and they’d stopped the fight early in the fourth. The crowd had already been booing. He knew he had to risk bringing it up, felt like the longer he waited the harder it would be and the fight would feel like some ugly thing that kept them apart, like some lie one of them had told and neither would own up to it.

“You fought the welterweight champ,” he said finally. “I mean, nobody beats Britton. You can fight him again.”

Walton shook his head as if some great sadness had come upon him. “That won’t happen.”

“How come?”

“Not everybody gets a rematch. And if that sounds like a life lesson, maybe it is. Once you lose something, it’s lost for good. I think maybe you know that already.”

Conrad considered this, thought about the dead tone in Walton’s voice, the quit in it, and wondered if there was something Walton wasn’t telling him. “Well, I don’t know why you couldn’t fight him again. Seems like that’s something you’d want to do, but it’s not sounding like it.”

Walton reached out the open palm of his right hand in a gesture that said Leave it be.

Conrad looked away from the hand and out the doors into the bright heat. “That why you hadn’t seen me all week? Not because I’d want to put the gloves on but more because you knew I’d ask about the fight and you couldn’t stand talking about it?”

“I reckon so. I guess you’re a pretty smart boy.”

Something in his answer, maybe that same dead tone, made Conrad feel disgusted with him. He didn’t want to put the gloves back on now. Instead he cupped his hands, submerged them in the water bucket, and washed the sweat off his face and chest. Then he put his shirt back on.

“So are you done?” Walton asked.

Conrad walked toward the stall where he’d put up Jack, his pinto pony. “I reckon so,” he said, echoing Walton’s words intentionally. “About time for me to go home, anyway.”

After he worked the bridle back on the pony, he led Jack from the stall and mounted him. Walton stood, watched as Conrad eased the pony toward the open doors. Then Walton reached out and caught Jack by the bridle, looked up at Conrad. “You want an explanation?”

“Of what?” Conrad asked.

“I didn’t fight him well enough. I wouldn’t be enough of a draw again. His management knows it and wouldn’t ever want a rematch. That was my shot.” Walton looked down at the dirt floor, seemed to study the bits and pieces of hay strewn across it. “I would have been better off if I’d never fought him.”

Conrad looked down at him. “Maybe you would have. You’d know better than me.” He then pressed his heels into Jack’s sides and rode out of the barn.

He kept Jack at a steady pace along the road that ran through cotton fields, and when he crossed over the pond dam, he looked back from where he’d come and admired the columns of the Teclaw house that sat in the middle of what had once been a plantation and was now farmed on shares. He didn’t know exactly how Walton was related, but he knew Walton’s middle name was Teclaw, and that Mrs. Amelia Reed, who Conrad’s mother called, in suspect tone, the mistress of the mansion, had been a Teclaw. Conrad and his mother weren’t poor, but she couldn’t hide from him the struggle she’d been through since his father’s death in ’13. In fact, when she told him his father had died suddenly, he’d said, “Mama, first thing we got to do is count the money.” He’d been six, yet already aware that life for them would be more difficult in a way that Walton’s kin couldn’t imagine, and he envied Walton having such a place to come to when he wanted to leave Memphis, and everything else, far behind. Maybe all the time Conrad had spent there last summer had been his own way of stepping outside of the life he usually lived: working at the depot most all of every day since dropping out of school in fifth grade, doing the hardest chores around the house for his mother, chopping wood, building all the fires every morning in winter, feeding the animals they owned, all the things a man would normally do.

Because he knew Jack was rested and watered, he kicked at his sides and gave him his head, ran him the last half mile until he was in sight of the old Stagecoach Inn. Up ahead he saw Lyman, who’d come out of the store where Conrad’s mother worked and waited mostly on the women customers. He brought Jack to a stop as Lyman walked up. Conrad knew Lyman envied him his pony, and the fact that Conrad no longer had to stay cooped up in the red school house every day from after fall harvest up to spring planting.

“Where you been?” Lyman asked.

He knew Lyman could probably guess. “Up to see Walton.”

“You put the gloves on?” The sun seemed to squint Lyman’s blue eyes, but it was hard to tell for sure. Lyman always appeared squinted, not in a way that looked mean but, instead, nervous, which he seemed to realize and was always trying to hide.

“Yeah, I had them on, worked his heavy bag.” Conrad had to check Jack who wanted to move on, knew his small pasture was near.

“Reckon he’s got extra pairs of gloves?”

“I guess he does. Why?”

“I want to box you sometime.”

Conrad looked away from him and up the road at the cluster of stores, past the post office and church, deciding what to say and how it might sound. “Lyman, you don’t know nothing about boxing. Why you want to box me? I’ll knock you out.”

“Ain’t you talking big.” Lyman looked at him, his eyes almost closed. “I can handle myself.” Then he added, with eyes wide open, as if he were about to make some important point and had to strain to do it, “My daddy taught me. I didn’t have to go and ask nobody, like some loser I could name.”

This was about what he expected of Lyman, was maybe why he’d talked ugly to Lyman first. He pulled hard on Jack, made him turn a tight circle around Lyman and came to a quick stop, hoping a hoof might come down on a foot. “Only person your daddy ever fought was your mama, and she laid him out with a stick of stove wood.” He.knew this was true. He’d overheard his mother telling it.

Lyman pushed at Jack’s neck, tried to back him up a step. “Maybe I know something about your daddy that I could tell you.”

“You don’t know a damn thing, and if you say another word I’ll beat you down right now.”

Lyman looked like he was about to speak but then seemed to take the warning and stepped away, even as Conrad realized he did want to know what Lyman knew. He’d never fully understood how his father had died, knew his mother had never wanted to make it clear to him. Maybe Lyman knew something. “Just what do you know?” he said finally.

The squint- eyed boy appeared to study him. Then he shook his head. “I ain’t gon’ tell. Ain’t my place.” It was as if between telling and not telling he’d figured out what would aggravate Conrad the most. “Ask your mama,” Lyman said.

Conrad aimed Jack toward home. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your wish.”

“What wish is that?” Lyman asked.

“To see the back of your eyelids before you hit the ground.” He shook the reins on Jack and left Lyman behind to puzzle out what that meant.

It was still light out enough for his mother not to have to burn the coal oil lamp in the middle of the kitchen table. So they ate in growing shadow but not dark. Her brown hair was pulled back, the way she wore it to work, and he could see she looked tired. She often did, her hazel eyes sometimes downcast into thought or sadness – he was never sure which. She’d asked if he’d unloaded freight this morning, he had, and if he’d had to deliver any telegrams, he hadn’t, not today. She wanted to know if he’d split more stove wood for her and fed the chickens and the milk cow, slopped the two hogs. He had. Now he was waiting to find out if she knew about his going up to see Walton. He knew that, for some reason, she didn’t like Walton, not that she’d ever said so exactly. It was just a feeling he’d gotten from her last summer after he’d spent so much time with the man.

“Saw you ride by the store this afternoon. You must have seen Lyman. He’d just left out with some penny candy. He told me that Walton was back, staying up at the Teclaws.” She paused, looked at him. “Of course, I already knew that. Walton came in the store when he first got here.”

He wanted to ask why she hadn’t told him, but didn’t. It was like her not to. Sometimes he felt she held so much back, collected so many secrets, that they all became a great weight inside her that she’d carry no matter how heavy they grew.

“That where you were all afternoon, up to see him?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Maybe he can teach you how to shoot this summer.”

He didn’t know what she was trying to get at. “You already taught me how to shoot.”

“That’s right. And how to fish and chop wood, and swing a hammer, even. Sorry I don’t know anything about boxing. But I guess every boy needs to know how to fight.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “But I could already fight, when I’ve had to. I wanted to learn how to box.”

“Maybe you got that from your daddy,” she said and seemed to look past him into shadow.

“Got what from him?”

“Fighting only when you have to. He was never one to start a quarrel. You’re like him that way in your temperament, as best as I can tell. Or maybe I’m wrong.”

He was proud to be compared to his father in any way, good or bad, truth be known. She’d told him before what a gentle- hearted man his father was, but she’d also told him, when he was eight, how his father once had to kill a man who tried to run him over with a horse. He’d wanted to collect on a bill the man owed at his store, and he’d been on foot when the man charged at him. His father had pulled a pistol and shot the man five times while the horse reared and reared again, finally riderless. After she’d told Conrad this story, she’d made clear the only reason she’d told it was so that he would not hear it from someone else who might want to paint his father in a bad light. He wondered now if this was what Lyman had wanted to tell him about, and to tell it in such a way as to insult his father’s memory.

Whatever it was that Lyman had hinted at kept worrying him more and more, and he knew now that he had to tell his mother about it, to see what she might have to say.

At first she remained silent as the room seemed to grow darker. “Sounds like that boy’s on his way to being as sorry as his daddy,” she said finally.

“Think he was going to tell me about Daddy shooting that man?”

She pushed her plate away, half a piece of cornbread still on it. “Probably so,” she said, but her words came too quickly, it seemed, and she had not looked at him when she spoke them, still did not look his way but instead at the window behind him, as if she could see some memory through its panes.

He wanted to push further, to see if she might offer any other thought about what Lyman could know, but he realized it would do no good. Then a different kind of question came to him, one he’d never thought to ask. “Was it hard on him?”

“What’s that?” she said, almost absentmindedly, as if she wasn’t fully aware of his presence.

“Was killing that man hard on Daddy?”

Now she looked at him with such surprise, seemed to see him as a stranger almost. “You’ve never asked me that, but yes, son. It was hard on him, in all kinds of ways. And he’d lost his brother Henry not too long before. Guilt and grief will take a toll on anybody, especially a man like your father.”

He had more questions, wanted to ask what kind of toll, and what she meant by a “man like your father,” but another look at her downcast eyes slowed him, and then she rose from the table in a way that told him their talk about his father had ended.

The train from Valhia built up steam and finally pulled away from the platform, its couplings jerking each car forward with a hard clangor and enough power to cut a man’s hand off if caught inside those metal parts. The train was headed toward Demarville and from there on to Meridian and Jackson, cities he’d never seen but liked to imagine. Larger cities, such as Chicago and New York, places where Walton had fought, seemed mostly beyond his imagination. The freight he’d just unloaded with a hand truck and had stacked up on the platform was real enough, though. He could still feel each crate in his hands and arms and lower back, and in the sweat on his face. Most of it was dry goods for store owners, and since the day was not overcast, he could let it sit until it was picked up. Now he’d carry the mailbag up to the post office. Mr. Traeger, who managed the depot for the L&N Railroad, hadn’t trusted him with it at first, had been reluctant to hire him to begin with, but finally had said, “I’ll do it for Phil’s sake, though I know he wouldn’t have wanted you working so young.”

Just as Conrad carried the mailbag out the front doors, where Jack waited tied to a rail, Walton took the first step up toward him, his hair combed wet, still.

“What you doing here?” Conrad asked. “You need to send a telegram?”

“No, I borrowed Amelia’s car.” Conrad saw the Model T parked at an angle. “Figured I’d come see you a minute.”

“I’m carrying the mail up to the post office.”

“You want a ride?”

Conrad came on down the steps, passed Walton. “No, don’t need one.” He threw the mailbag across Jack’s neck, looped the strap over the saddle horn.

“How about I walk with you?”

Conrad untied the reins and swung himself onto Jack, turned toward Walton. “Fine with me. I’ll try to keep him at a slow pace.– if I can.” Walton seemed to find something mildly humorous in this, as if Conrad had told a joke and didn’t realize it.

“You seemed put out with me when you left yesterday. Want you to know I’d like for you to come up much as you can this summer.” Conrad could tell from the sound of Walton’s steps that he was having to quicken his stride. “I’ll work with you again. We can do some light sparring, more than we did last summer. It’ll be good for you.”

“What about you?”

Walton was quiet at first, as if he didn’t understand the question, or maybe needed to think about his answer. “Let’s just say it’ll give me something to do.”

Conrad pulled back lightly on the reins, so lightly he hoped Walton wouldn’t notice, and he looked sideways at the man. “That all? Just something to do? You not going to keep yourself in training?”

Again, Walton was quiet a moment. “I don’t know. Only so much training I can do here, anyway, without experienced sparring partners. And I don’t have a fight coming up.”

Conrad nudged his heels against Jack. A part of him wanted to make Walton trot, or even run. Conrad knew he was young, but he didn’t like being dismissed so out of hand as a sparring partner for Walton. “So no fight coming up,” he said, and then added, in a low voice, “Got any left in you?” The sound of Jack’s hooves, and Walton’s steps, may have muffled his words enough so that Walton couldn’t have heard them. He wasn’t sure, and Walton didn’t let on if he had heard.

They approached the main road, the Methodist church and the cemetery where Conrad’s father was buried directly in front of them, Conrad and his mother’s house not too far to the right hand side of it. They turned in the opposite direction toward the post office.

“So how about it?” Walton said. “You gon’ come up, keep putting the gloves on?”

The sun was at ten o’clock now, the road through town brightly lit, the heat of the day coming on. “You got extra pairs of gloves? Lyman thinks he wants to box me, and I know I want to knock him out.”

“Why would you want to do that? Isn’t he your friend?”

“Don’t every boxer want to knock out the other man? Besides, he started to talk bad about my father, and he called you a loser.”

“You already told me as much about what Lyman said.” Walton caught Jack’s bridle, stopped him short, and looked up at Conrad. “Sometimes boys say things they don’t really mean.”

“And sometimes they say mean things.”

Walton kept his gaze on Conrad. “I know that for sure.” The soft, quiet way Walton had spoken made Conrad want to turn away, and he felt a kind of burning in his eyes that lasted only a moment.

They were now passing in front of the store where his mother worked, a store his father’s father had once owned, and across the street sat his father’s old wooden store, vacant now. His mother had said maybe one day he would own and run it, be a proper merchant.

“I’m gon’ stop and say hello to Louise while you go to the post office,” Walton said. “Come in when you’re done.”

It struck him as odd to hear Walton call his mother by her first name instead of saying “your mother,” sounded too familiar, and he knew it would be best if Walton didn’t go in, but he only nodded.

He rode on around to the back of the post office, took the mail inside, and spoke to Mr. Penniwit, the postmaster, a small, bandylegged man whose age Conrad couldn’t guess. The man turned from the chicken- wire partition stretched across the front counter and lowered his glasses. “You looking more and more like your daddy, boy.”

“Thank you,” he said.

For a moment it seemed like Penniwit was going to say more but then thought better of it, as if maybe the similarity between Conrad and his father didn’t bode well for the son and shouldn’t be commented upon further. Conrad dropped the mailbag and picked up the empty one from the day before.

When he rode back around to the front of the store, Walton was already standing on the porch, Conrad’s mother beside him. It looked as if she had just spoken to Walton and that he didn’t know how to answer her, or maybe didn’t want to answer her.

“You’re not going to let Walton here ride behind you, are you? Might be too much on ole Jack,” she said.

“No, he walked alongside me from the depot. He can walk back.”

Walton stepped off the porch, started away from them without a word, which seemed a kind of answer to whatever his mother might have said to him a moment ago.

“See you this evening, Mama.” Conrad watched her shake her head, wondered why, and then he turned his pony, caught up to Walton. When they were a little farther away, he said, “I don’t think she likes you.” If it hadn’t been so obvious he wouldn’t have said it.

“No, I don’t think she does. Mothers can be peculiar sometimes, have their own way of seeing things men can’t fathom. But it’s all right. Don’t hold it against her.”

They turned onto the depot road and entered again the canopy of tree limbs that offered protection from the sun’s heat. “What exactly did she say to you? I know it was something.”

Walton stopped, and Conrad pulled up on Jack’s reins, waited for an answer. Walton kept standing there, making him wait even longer. “She thinks I’m teaching you to be violent,” he said finally, as if it had taken him that long to remember.

“That’s what she said?” He shook his head. “That don’t sound like her.”

Walton looked away, then back at him, but not all the way, not in the eye. “All right, maybe I shouldn’t say this, but she told me I’m not your father, that I shouldn’t try to be.”

The words landed less like a punch and more like an illegal jab, one he didn’t see coming, but he wasn’t sure why they had a sting to them. He knew Walton wasn’t his father. So why did he feel so embarrassed now, ashamed almost? It was as if his mother, who was so good at keeping secrets, had told one on him that she couldn’t have known, had maybe made up. He hadn’t even wanted to see Walton earlier, would just as well have ridden off without him.

“I know you’re not my father.”

“I know that, too,” Walton said, and the words seemed to come so easily to him.

There was that sting again, though not as strong, just enough to confirm what he’d already felt. He quickened Jack’s stride and then had to keep himself from turning to see how far behind Walton was, if he’d picked up the pace of his steps.

When Conrad rode up in front of the depot, he saw someone bent over looking into Amelia Teclaw’s Model T. As soon as the figure turned around he recognized Lyman, who squinted at him as if the sun were in his eyes. Conrad dismounted Jack and tied him to the rail. Then Lyman walked toward him, and he saw Walton slowly approaching the both of them.

“What you doing, Lyman?” Conrad said.

“Guess I come to see if you were around.”

“How come?”

Lyman only shrugged. Maybe he didn’t know. He often came to the depot. Maybe he’d come out of habit. Maybe he was lonesome. Conrad didn’t want to stay mad at him, but he wasn’t ready to forgive the day before, either. Whatever Lyman knew about Conrad’s father, he still knew it.

Walton came up and leaned against the side of the car, greeted Lyman. “I hear you’re wanting to box Conrad.”

“Yes, sir. I am.”

Walton slowly shook his head. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Wouldn’t really be a fair fight,” he said, and Conrad felt a sense of pride at hearing the words. Then Walton looked at him and Conrad knew Walton could see the pride he felt. “Afraid you two boys going to end up fighting no matter what I say, with or without gloves. I don’t want to see that happen.” Walton turned from one to the other of them, and Conrad knew something else was coming, that some notion had taken hold of Walton, something Conrad might not like. He didn’t know how he knew. He just did. “Lyman,” Walton said, “if you can make your way up to the house the next few mornings, or if maybe I come get you, I’ll give you some lessons.”

Conrad had no words to say, not even betrayal because the hurt he felt came quicker than any one word could.

Walton must have seen his blank face and known what was behind it. “Only fair. You need to understand that, Conrad. I don’t want anyone to have too big an advantage.” Then he turned to Lyman. “Well, what about it?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.” Lyman seemed so shocked by the offer he had trouble getting the words out.

“So it’s ‘sir’ now?” Conrad said. “That sure ain’t what you was calling him yesterday.”

“Conrad,” Walton said, probably guessing at and so interrupting what Conrad was about to say, “you can still come up any afternoon you want, or can.”

“If I don’t come, maybe you can give Lyman here some extra lessons.”

Walton worked his jaw a moment, as if it held tobacco. “That would be fair, would let him catch up to you a little more, but no, we’ll keep right along. Long as you want.”

Both Walton and Lyman were looking at him now, waiting to see what he might say, but he didn’t say anything at all, not a word. He looked toward the depot doors, hoping maybe Mr. Traeger was wondering why he wasn’t back yet and would come out and call to him. He didn’t. “I got to get back to work,” he said finally and then turned and walked away from them and toward the heavy doors.

That evening his mother commented on how quiet he was, and if she suspected it had anything to do with Walton, she didn’t ask. After they ate, and before dark, he walked alone down in the small pasture and along the creek he sometimes fished for bream. Because the house was so hot inside in the summer, he and his mother always sat on the front porch until bedtime and would call out to and talk with whoever happened to pass. Tonight, just before good dark, a Black man everyone knew as Moon, because he made liquor, came by in a wagon. He called out first and they answered. Then, after night had come full on, a car flew past, headlights boring through the dark, and the smell of dust quickly filled the air. Conrad couldn’t help but breathe it in and then tasted the fine, sour particles in his mouth.

The next afternoon he had to deliver two telegrams, one to the farthest point on Loop Road and the other to the Caulfield place on the Tennahpush River. So he couldn’t have gone to see Walton even if he’d wanted. As he rode Jack and delivered the telegrams, he felt an ache in his arms, something pent up that went deeper than his extremities, a pang inside that only solid- landing punches would remedy. But what he most wanted was to hurt Walton in some way, and he knew he couldn’t do that physically.

After leaving work the next two days he went directly home and fed the animals and did his other chores. He decided he’d just stay away from Walton, completely, would let him teach Lyman as long as they wanted. He’d simply ignore the both of them, let all of Walton’s teaching and Lyman’s sweat come to nothing.

Late in the week he went fishing on the creek but grew restless. Finally he caught four bream, enough for his and his mother’s supper. After cleaning them and leaving them in a pan on the kitchen counter, he headed to the front porch to water the plants like his mother had asked and he’d almost forgotten. As soon as he let the screen door slam behind him he saw Lyman standing at the gate and realized he was disappointed it wasn’t Walton. It was clear from the way Lyman stood leaning against a post that he’d been there for some time, waiting. He didn’t want Lyman coming up onto the porch, so he walked out, without speaking, and met him at the gate.

Although Lyman stood in the shade, his eyes looked narrowed by the sun. “Walton says you ain’t been coming to see him.” He spoke slowly, carefully, with what sounded like a kind of confidence Conrad didn’t expect. When he looked again, he saw Lyman’s blue eyes opened, and they appeared a darker blue than Conrad remembered. “He’s wondering if you ain’t gon’ come no more.”

Conrad looked up the empty road toward the stores and post office. “Did he ask you to come talk to me?”

“No, and he didn’t tell me he was wondering about you, either. I could just see it, and been wondering myself.”

Just as Conrad was disappointed it hadn’t been Walton standing at the gate, he realized now he was disappointed that Walton hadn’t sent Lyman. “So what y’all been working on?”

Lyman pushed away from the gate post, stood a little straighter. “What you’d expect. He’s showed me the right kind of stance, how to throw a punch the right way. Showed me some combinations.”

Conrad looked directly at him again. “I figured your daddy showed you all that already. I thought you said he’d taught you how to fight, that you didn’t need a loser to teach you.” He paused a moment, and then said, “So who’s the loser?”

Lyman kept his eyes on him but didn’t speak. It was as if he needed time to decide how to answer in a way that would do the most damage.

“Tell Walton I ain’t coming up there no more. And Lyman, I ain’t gon’ fight you.”

“How come? Don’t be like that.” He couldn’t tell if Lyman was disappointed or angry. It almost sounded as if he were desperate to prove something to someone, to anyone. “He’s just teaching me a little of what you know, but I’m still willing to fight. How come you ain’t? You afraid? And what you mean, ‘So who’s the loser?’“

“I ain’t afraid. Just don’t feel like it no more. And who’s the loser? Is it not Walton anymore? Or is it your daddy who you know good and well ain’t never taught you nothing.”

Now Lyman’s eyes were bulging, and he struck the post with an open palm. “My daddy ain’t no loser. Yours was a drunk, and he drank himself to death. That’s what I didn’t tell you the other day.”

Conrad wanted to punch him over the top of the gate, then bust through it, shove Lyman onto the ground and punch him in the mouth until his lips broke open, but some cold part of himself took hold, stopped him, as if whatever he’d learned of the pugilist’s art had made him more calculated, maybe even mean in a studied way that he’d no inkling of before now.

“Get out of here, Lyman. And you best keep taking your lessons. You gon’ need them.”

Lyman nodded, maybe knew it was best for him to keep quiet. He slowly turned away and headed up the road toward the stores, and Conrad heard a car approaching from the other direction, could tell it was moving fast, maybe was the same car as the other night, cars being so rare. It flew past again, a stranger behind the wheel, and now the dust rose, surrounded him, and he watched Lyman mostly disappear into the same roiling cloud and then reappear a little farther along as if the cloud had carried him and left Conrad standing still.

He was drawing water up from the well behind the house when he heard his mother open the door of the screened-in back porch and walk down the first few steps. He turned and watched her sit on the third stair from the top as she often did when she got home from the store. She still wore the light blue dress from this morning but had let down her hair, and even though he knew how long it was, she wore it up so much that when she loosened it the length always surprised him, as if he were abruptly seeing some younger version of her from a time before he was born, was maybe seeing her as his father once had.

She was looking past him now, down toward the creek, and he wondered if that’s what she saw or if some memory filled her gaze. He took the water bucket and went and sat beside her, some part of him wanting her attention but another wanting to see what she saw.

“Thanks for carrying the water,” she said. “Maybe later I’ll get you to fill the reservoir on the stove. Might be a night for a bath.”

He didn’t know if she meant a bath for him or for herself and didn’t ask. He realized he’d sat beside her not so much to see what she saw, or even merely for her attention, but to hear her answers to the questions he hated to ask but knew he’d have to as soon as Lyman had said those words about his father. He forced himself now, pushed his own words out, and knew they’d come as something of a shock to her. “Was my daddy a drunk? Is that how he died?”

She let out a lengthy sigh, filled with the sound of a weary breath and maybe a kind of relief, as if these were questions she’d expected he’d ask one day and she would finally have to rise to them as best she could. Then she wasted no more time in answering. “He was not a drunk. And whiskey did not kill him. You need to know those things, you hear?” She turned toward him then so that her knee touched his, and he felt both the pressure of it and the comfort in the touch. “In his last years he drank in a way he hadn’t before. He’d lost his brother, Henry, and his father died not too long after. Then he had to kill that man. All that changed him.” She placed a hand upon his back now, as if her touch there might be more intimate and might ease him and help him understand. “He stayed gentle, though, never let alcohol turn him mean, like it does some, like the father of a boy you might know. He never drank early in the day, and there were weeks, even months, he didn’t drink at all. Most of the time when he did drink you could not tell it. He rarely ever slurred a single word. Sometimes it took.– got the best of him. But he didn’t die because of it. The day he died, he’d drunk some, but not enough to kill him.” She stopped a moment as if she were trying to recall the day and struggling against it. “Something made him sick. I don’t know what. I took him to the doctor in town, and the doctor gave him a shot. Some claim it was the shot that killed him, but Dr. Hamblin was too good a doctor, and your father was better when we left. No matter what somebody else might name, it was grief and guilt that killed him, not alcohol. Whiskey makes some men sorry creatures.” She paused, maybe trying to find the right words. “Your father was always a good man. He was never sorry. That’s what you need to know.”

Conrad looked down into the water bucket between his feet, glimpsed his reflection and then saw past it and, just for a moment, saw in memory his father walking through the front gate and toward the house, smiling at seeing his son standing on the porch next to his mother. Then he was climbing the steps and beginning to speak, but Conrad could not hear or now could not remember what he was saying. And then he disappeared into the ripple of Conrad’s reflection as a breeze stirred the water’s surface.

He believed all his mother had just told him, felt the truth of it inside himself, yet knew how she could keep to herself what she didn’t want you to know, and he wondered if she were doing that now, not lying, just holding back. He would have to trust what she did say– and what he needed to believe.

“So why ask me these things now?” she said. “Did somebody talk badly about your daddy? Maybe a boy I could name?”

He found he didn’t want to answer, felt the need to hold back something of his own.

She waited and did not push, and when he remained quiet, she looked at him and smiled as if she’d just seen how much he was indeed her son. He felt maybe she was even proud of him for his silence.

The next afternoon, as he rode Jack across the dam and looked up toward the big house, he wondered if Walton saw him approaching. He’d been hesitant to come, but now that he was close, he realized again how much he wanted to see Walton. He’d been mad at him before, but it hadn’t kept him away. He wanted to urge Jack along but kept him at a steady gait.

When he reached the yard in front of the house he saw Aiken, one of Amelia Reed’s grown sons, sitting on the wide porch in his rolling chair, crippled from the day he was born. “Never know which of you boys gon’ turn up here,” he said. He grinned and showed his large, square teeth that made Conrad think of a mule chewing briars, set as they were in a strong jaw so at odds with his paralyzed body.

“Walton here?” Conrad asked, still atop Jack.

“He walked around back a little while ago.”

Conrad nodded a thanks, nudged Jack forward. Once he passed the side of the house he found Walton leaned over the well housing. The man then straightened and turned, as if he’d sensed Conrad, had been waiting on him even, but the look on Walton’s face surprised him. He appeared worried, his mind preoccupied. Or maybe it was Conrad who was worried that what he saw in Walton was something. akin to disappointment that was aimed his way.

Conrad tried to make a joke. “You wishing at the well?”

Walton only shook his head. “Just wanted to feel the cool air coming up. What I would’ve wished for already didn’t happen.” He knew Walton must mean losing the fight, or, rather, winning it. Walton turned away for a moment, then back toward him, and Conrad felt as if Walton were looking at someone else, not a boy on a pony but someone grown he needed to explain himself to. “Maybe I should have wished beforehand just to go the distance. I got greedy, wanting to win. I knew he was a better fighter. If I’d fought him a different way, I might’ve gone the distance, and maybe had a shot at the end. I played it wrong.”

Walton didn’t sound quite like himself, and this wasn’t the first time, but today he sounded even less like the man he’d been last summer, and Conrad wondered how often he played the fight over in his head. And for how long now? Months it would be. He missed the man he’d gotten to know last summer, maybe in the same kind of way he missed his father.

“I want to put the gloves on,” Conrad said. “I want to fight Lyman.”

Walton moved toward him. “You’ve changed your mind again. How come?”

Conrad checked Jack, kept him still. “It don’t matter how come. I just want to. Besides, you probably already know. I figure Lyman’s told you.”

Walton didn’t reply one way or the other. He only began to walk toward the barn in measured steps. Conrad put his heels to Jack, came alongside Walton, who finally looked over at him. “You’re not wanting to box him. What you’re wanting is to knock him out – cold, I imagine.”

“Maybe.”

“That can be dangerous.”

They entered the barn and Conrad dismounted, put Jack in a stall and tended to him. He then noticed the three sets of gloves on the table and took off his shirt, hung it on a nearby peg.

Walton picked up a pair of the gloves. “These are yours. They been waiting on you.” He pitched them to Conrad. Then he tore strips of linen off a roll, had Conrad sit down on a hay bale, and wrapped his fingers, palms, and wrists. Once he finished, he pulled the gloves onto Conrad’s hands and tied them. Walton was leaned close to him, their faces near, and for a moment Conrad remembered when his mother would pull on his mittens for him on cold days when he was young, something his father hadn’t done.

“Should have gotten us some water,” Walton said. “I’ll get it later. Right now I guess you need to work the bag for a while.”

Conrad stood, approached it, stretched his arms and flexed his fingers inside the gloves. He was ready to hit, felt the need of it.

“You might throw some jabs,” Walton said. “Then maybe start with that first combination you learned and go through some of the others, if you remember them all.”

Conrad did as he was told, though he didn’t feel as though Walton had really told him to do anything. His jabs landed solid, and he could feel his blood quicken and rise. Then he threw a left jab at nose level, another to the belly, and a hard right hook to the temple.

“Good enough,” Walton said. “Now maybe the jab and straight right.” Somehow Walton’s directions were sounding more like afterthoughts and less like real instructions, as if he were too busy thinking about the punches he’d thrown, and hadn’t thrown, against Britton.

Conrad landed the jab, then threw a hard right. Then again and again, harder and faster each time.

“Go to another combination,” Walton said and Conrad wondered if he was really watching or if he’d decided he had better give some kind of different direction, no matter how random.

He threw a left jab at jaw level, then the same right, and when his weight shifted with the straight right, he followed with a left hook low to the body.

“Guess you haven’t forgotten anything. Better keep those hands up.”

“I practiced all year. Shadow boxing, so I wouldn’t forget.” Sweat was now running down his chest and the smells of hay and feed were filling his lungs, making him feel like some work animal, which he didn’t mind, maybe liked.

“Well, good for you.”

Walton’s tone made him want to hit harder than ever. He went quick to a left jab, a straight right, followed fast by a left hook and another right. Each punch landing well and the bag moved in a way that was satisfying and made him feel strong, somehow larger than his frame. Even his reach felt longer. He wondered if Walton was now seeing how well he hit.

“Getting pretty hot in here. I best go ahead to the well,” Walton said and began walking toward the open doors.

Conrad let fly with every combination he’d just thrown, wanted Walton to hear and maybe even feel the jarring of each punch. The man had never walked away from him like this when he was working the bag, and he couldn’t believe Walton was doing it now. Go to your damn wishing well, he thought. Wish for what didn’t happen. Wish yourself away.

He kept at it, felt his hands dropping, and worked to keep them raised. Finally he stopped and took deep breaths. Then Walton came in with the water bucket and set it on the table and got a drink for himself. “You need water?” he asked.

Conrad shook his head no, but of course he did.

Walton took several swallows from the dipper and put it down. “You need to spar,” he said. “We haven’t done that since last summer.”

“That’s why I come up here.” He paused a moment. “You sparred with Lyman?”

Walton took off his shirt.– Conrad saw the hard chest, the flat stomach – and sat down on the bale Conrad had been on earlier and began wrapping a hand with linen. “We’ve sparred a little. It’s only fair.” He then gave a quiet, short laugh that didn’t really sound like a laugh. It was more as if he were responding to some private joke on himself.

“What?” Conrad said, wondering if instead the joke was on him.

“Nothing really. Just realized I’m sparring with boys these days instead of men.”

Conrad wiped the sweat from his cheek with the back of a glove. “Must be a real comedown for you.”

“Didn’t mean it quite that way. I didn’t.”

How did you mean it, then? Conrad wanted to ask. He pounded the ends of his gloves together so that they pushed down more snuggly on his tightened knuckles.

Walton picked up a pair of gloves that were already tied and pulled them on. “Don’t have head gear for us. Most boxers spar with it now. Of course I’m not going to hit you hard, especially in the mouth. Just hard enough to let you know you been hit. You can hit me a little harder. Some might tell you different, certain sportswriters I could name, but I can still take a punch.” Walton stood, let out a breath. “Well, maybe I can.”

“I’m not exactly Jack Britton,” Conrad said and saw Walton flinch just slightly at the sound of the name, maybe no more than a twitch below an eye, but it was visible. Conrad wondered if Walton’s having the gloves on made the fight come back to him stronger.

“We’ll spar in here, like before,” Walton said. “I’m starting to feel a decent cross breeze with these doors open.”

Conrad met him in the middle of the aisle, all the stalls on either side empty, save the one with Jack, their only spectator. They touched gloves, backed up a few steps, and Conrad moved into his stance, his blood rising again and his breath a little short, but he knew the tension he felt was good, needed. He wanted to be the aggressor, knew from last summer that Walton would wait, force him to move in. So he did, threw a jab that Walton blocked and followed with a straight right, which didn’t land either.

“Stop already,” Walton said. “That’s too predictable. That’s the first combination most people learn, and it’s why I started you with that jab- straight- hook. Don’t be predictable.”

“That how you started Lyman?”

Walton shook his head, probably meaning no, but also that he couldn’t believe Conrad would ask such a question. “Started him with something different. But it’s nothing you haven’t learned for yourself. I’m not looking to give either one of you an advantage.”

Conrad raised his fists, began moving toward Walton again and watched as Walton tucked his chin and anchored his right hand against it. Conrad threw a left hook that didn’t land solid and was about to follow with a straight right but realized he’d let it drop a little, and that’s when Walton popped him with a left jab and just as he did Conrad knew what was coming, remembered too late Walton’s pulley punch. As the man drew back his left, his straight right was already springing forward, as if the two hands were operated by a pulley, and the right struck Conrad square on the chin, hard enough to stun.

“Sorry,” Walton said and dropped both hands to his side. “Hit you a little harder than I meant. You all right?”

“Yeah, fine,” he said, not sure if he was angry at Walton or more angry with himself for leaving himself open.

“Well, you’ve got to be able to take a punch.”

“I know that,” he said, each word a jab. He moved in quick now, wanting to take Walton by surprise. He threw jabs and then leaned in, put his head against Walton’s chest, right under his chin, could feel and smell Walton’s slick sweat, and began throwing more jabs at his body. Walton would know what he was trying to do, and when Walton lowered his head down to eye level, he was playing along, ready to sacrifice himself. Conrad pushed him away then and threw the uppercut Walton had to be expecting, landed it square on Walton’s jaw, hard enough to make him grunt. Conrad didn’t let up, moved in close again, and when he did he felt his left foot land atop Walton’s left and knew how off- balance he was now, tried to recover quickly but Walton’s straight right caught him above the ear, not hard, but hard enough, and Conrad knew he was falling even before the fall began, suddenly nothing but air beneath him and no purchase, and then he was down in the dirt, on his side with an elbow dug into the rotting pieces of hay and looking up at Walton, whose face appeared pained.

“I hated to do that, son.”

Conrad was angrier now, more than before, but he heard that last word, knew it was just a word, one that men used sometimes when talking to a boy, though Walton never had until now. Maybe it didn’t mean all that much, or anything at all, but he heard it, kept hearing it somehow, as if it were an echo repeating from a separate time, its source another voice he had not heard in years. He scrambled to his feet finally, stood before Walton, and could not have said if it was anger or memory that made him feel such pressure in the corners of his eyes.

“Take a few deep breaths,” Walton said, looking close into Conrad’s face. “I didn’t knock you out. We both know that, okay? You were off- balance, and you’re mad at yourself right now. Because you remember what I talked to you about last summer. If an opponent ever missteps, gets thrown off- balance, always be ready. He’s wide open. You want to throw the right punch and throw it hard. There’s nothing dirty about it. I want you to remember that and use it to your advantage.”

Conrad found he could not speak, was afraid of what would happen to him if he did, and so nodded instead.

“Don’t get disgusted with yourself. That won’t help at all. Believe me, I know.”

Conrad felt a cross breeze cool the sweat on his face and heard Jack bumping against his stall door.

“We’re not done yet,” Walton said, “but I know you need water. So sit down. Just imagine we’re between rounds. We’ll get back to it in a few minutes.”

Conrad did as he was told, and felt like he was being told. Walton took the bucket by the bail and set it at Conrad’s feet. He reached for the dipper and though it was clumsy to handle with his gloves still on, he found he was grateful that Walton had not held the dipper for him as he’d done before. Maybe Walton knew such an offer by a hand that had just knocked him down would have been too misplaced for what he needed at the moment.

That night on the porch, he waited until good dark to tell her. He would not have been able to if she’d been looking at him in clear light, and even when it first turned dark he didn’t know if he could. She sat in the swing, its chain creaking slightly as she pushed against the porch boards with her toe. He sat in a ladder- back chair near a front window.

“I thought I’d forgotten the sound of it,” he said and briefly paused, bit his lip, “but I heard Daddy’s voice today.”

At first his mother was quiet, as if she were now listening for this father’s voice too, was waiting for it to apprise her of something.

“How’d you come to hear him?”

“I just did,” he said, not wanting to explain, but he had already told her where he’d gone after working at the depot.

“What did he say?”

“He called my name. That was all.” It was a small lie, but he again felt the need to withhold, to keep something for himself, and he knew better than to tell her Walton had called him son and that his father’s voice had spoken out of that word.

The swing was still now, no more creaking sound. “Was it a comfort to you?”

“He sounded like hisself, the way I remembered and didn’t think I could. So I reckon it was,” he said, though he hadn’t been sure what to make of Walton using the word he had, and he’d been angry at the time, so maybe it hadn’t been any comfort.

“Can you hear him now?” she said, her voice coming out of the darkness almost like it had no real source.

“No, not right now.”

“Well, since you’ve heard it again, maybe you’ll hear it more, and you can keep hold of the sound of it, not let it go. I hear him all the time.”

“You do?”

“He talks to me, tells me how to handle things. I can hear him so plain sometimes.”

He leaned forward in his chair, toward her, as if he needed to so she’d be able to hear him because he knew he was about to speak in a lowered voice and ask something he knew he shouldn’t but had to anyway, and even though he was certain how she would answer, he felt some great need to hear it again, needed to hear the certainty, no matter how clumsy his attempt to prompt her and no matter how.angry she might sound. “When he talks to you,” he said and then hesitated, gripped the seat of his chair, “does he ever slur his words?”

He could hear her move against the swing and toward him, was afraid she was about to stand over him. Maybe he wanted that. “Son, why would you ask me that? I told you your father was not a drunk and you better remember that, never ask me such a question again. Did you not believe me before?”

“I believed you,” he managed to say, not sure if it was true.

“Then why ask that?”

He didn’t know how to answer and gripped the seat of his chair even tighter. “I’m fixing to fight Lyman tomorrow,” he said finally, or blurted out, rather, as if it were some kind of answer to her question. “I mean I’m going to box him,” he added, though this was not further explanation of anything, and he felt he was making no sense to her or to himself.

“You want to fight him?”

“Yes, ma’am. I want to.”

“He been talking about your father again? That why you want to fight him?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Or do you just want to fight because you think you know how, now that Walton’s taught you all the finer points?”

“Maybe that, too.”

She settled back in the swing but then remained still. “Walton going to be there when y’all fight?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Maybe you’re wanting to fight because he’ll be watching.”

He didn’t answer but wondered if she was right. Maybe that was a part of it.

“Well, if you’re going to do this,” she said and then paused for a moment, was maybe leaning forward again, “make your daddy proud of you.”

Her words struck him strangely, almost as if she meant make Walton proud. Again, he didn’t respond. He heard a car drawing near, headed toward town and traveling not fast this time but at a steady speed. He could not yet see its lights and found himself waiting on them.

He showed at the depot just before lunch, and while Conrad hadn’t been expecting him, he was not surprised when Lyman appeared on the platform beside the tracks. He knew Mr. Traeger didn’t want Lyman hanging around inside the depot, so Conrad went out to him, broom in hand as if he needed to sweep. It was a familiar object, felt good in his hands, was comforting in its way.

“You looking for me,” Conrad said, “or do you got long- lost relatives coming on the next train?”

“Just needed somewhere to go.” Lyman looked around as if searching for something. “Walton come by this morning,” he said finally.

“Did he? By your house?”

“Yeah. He usually carries me up to the Teclaw place. He said you was ready.”

“I am. It’s time.”

Lyman looked down at where the broom rested on the platform, seemed to stare at it, and kept staring at it, as if he wanted to hold it himself, or wanted something already claimed by another that he could take up in his empty hands. “Daddy didn’t come home last night,” he said and didn’t look up, as if he’d had no intention of saying what he did and was suddenly far too embarrassed to face Conrad both by the fact of what he’d said and that he’d admitted it to someone.

Conrad pushed the broom a few inches to the side and found he didn’t want to answer with anything mean exactly but needed to say something, maybe just to get him past his own embarrassment at what he’d heard.

“Neither did my father,” he said, and though his words came out harder than he’d intended, when Lyman looked up at him with his wide- open eyes, Lyman only nodded as if he understood something that had just passed between them, and then Lyman seemed as though he might say more. Conrad knew you couldn’t compare a father who’d died and would never come home again with one who’d been gone only one night, but as he held Lyman’s gaze the difference didn’t make him angry, though he couldn’t have said why it didn’t.

When Conrad rode past the house he saw no one on the wide porch, and if he had he probably wouldn’t have asked if Walton were around, would have simply rode on directly to the barn, which he did now. What he saw there, and didn’t see, surprised him. Neither Walton nor Lyman were waiting, but there were ropes pulled across the aisle and tied to posts, and on each side other ropes ran parallel, giving shape to a makeshift ring with what looked like two old milking stools just outside opposite corners, folded towels on top of each. He put Jack in a stall, saw the gloves on the table, and took a drink of water that tasted fresh. He didn’t sit, had too much restless energy. Instead he stepped into the ring, walked to its center and took his stance, began to throw quick punches and combinations, but they did not calm him. His stomach felt tight.

After throwing several more jabs at an imaginary figure, he realized he’d been hearing voices for a few moments before they registered. “Good that you’re loosening up,” Walton said. Conrad stopped, turned to face him, and saw Lyman. “Went to pick him up,” Walton said. “Planned to be back before you got here. We got delayed a little,” he added and looked at Lyman as if there were something unspoken between them. Conrad wondered if Lyman’s father had come home yet, or where the father might be. Did Lyman know? Had Lyman maybe kept that to himself earlier, couldn’t quite say it?

Conrad stepped out of the ring. “Is it regulation?”

Walton took hold of the top rope. “Not quite, but close enough. And you can see, there’s no tension in the ropes. Nothing exactly professional here, and we won’t go past four rounds, if that much. When I stop y’all, that’s it. Same thing if one of you goes down.”

Conrad nodded. He hadn’t thought about how long they would fight. He looked over at Lyman, who remained quiet, seemed distracted. Conrad didn’t feel angry at him now, but still found he wanted to fight, maybe for those reasons his mother had named. The tightness in his stomach grew, and he needed to move, his restlessness rising to meet his need.

Walton looked at both of them, seemed resigned to something. “Well, y’all get those shirts off and wrap your hands. I’ll check the job you’ve done before we get the gloves on.”

Conrad sat on one end of the hay bale where he usually sat and began winding the linen around his left hand. Lyman took the other end of the bale. They kept their backs to each other, and Lyman still didn’t speak to him. When Conrad looked over his shoulder, he saw how straight Lyman sat, his back rigid, his muscles tensed. He seemed angry about something, something that must have happened since Conrad had seen him earlier. Maybe his father had come home and there’d been trouble.

Walton looked at Conrad’s hands and slipped his glove on for him, tied each one, then did the same for Lyman. “Y’all both stand up,” he said, and there was something grave in his voice, as if he knew whatever might happen, good or bad, would be his fault. He looked again from one to the other of them. “Y’all are both feeling it. I can tell. Remember, you’re not trying to kill each other. You’re friends. But this isn’t sparring, either. It’s a fight.”

Lyman finally stole a glance at him, and Conrad saw his eyes looked wet, determined, enough so that he knew he better be ready, had best be on the attack at the outset.

“Y’all get in the ring,” Walton said, and Conrad noticed he kept speaking to both of them at once, as if he didn’t want to show favor to either. But he’d known Walton longer, had learned more from him, had talked to him more and spent more time with him. He couldn’t help but think Walton wanted to see him win. If he didn’t, Walton might feel like he hadn’t taught him well, had failed him. He wanted to show the man he could box, and wanted to show he had a knockout punch.

He followed Walton to the ring, watched him place the water bucket at a corner, and stepped into the ring before Walton did. He turned when he reached center and saw Lyman and Walton approach. Walton held a silver pocket watch in his left hand, and Lyman stared past him, out the far doors and seemingly at nothing. A cross breeze blew through and it was only when his wet skin cooled that Conrad realized how hot the air felt and how much he was already sweating.

“I’m referee and timekeeper,” Walton said. “Three minutes for each round. In between we’ll break long enough for me to give each of you water, and advice. Fight clean. I didn’t teach either of you any different.” He and Lyman both nodded at Walton in acknowledgement. “Come up and touch gloves. Then step back a few paces. When I say start, commence.”

Lyman held out his gloves, looked at him with squinted eyes, and he touched his gloves to Lyman’s, stepped back and Lyman seemed to disappear. He no longer saw him, not his wet, squinted eyes, not the boy with a no- good daddy, only someone he had to punch and bring down or else suffer in the failure just as Walton had.

Then he heard the word start, heard its sharpness, and came forth. Lyman seemed to wait on him with hands raised and ready. Conrad moved close, bobbing his head as he did, and threw a left jab at Lyman’s chin, then another, the second one landing well enough, and he felt himself settle down but still remained beyond alert, followed with a right hook when Lyman left himself open, landing it well, too, but Lyman took it, got his hands back up, and threw a straight right that fell far short and Conrad realized what a difference his long reach made. He could throw from a farther distance, stay out of Lyman’s way, but still he found himself wanting to move in close and did now, surprised at how well he could see the fight, both Lyman and himself, and threw the left jab at nose level, another to the stomach, was two punches into the combination that was second nature to him, pulled back to throw the right hook and felt the jar and.sting below his left eye when Lyman slammed him with a right and then moved in, tucked his head against Conrad’s chest and pushed off, landed the right uppercut that Conrad knew was coming, but he took it, felt he had waded into the fight now, was not angry but instead determined and focused in a way he’d never been. This wasn’t life or death but it felt like it was. Kill the body and the head goes with it ran through his head. He stepped back, got his hands up, and when Lyman came at him, surprising him, he blocked the punches and landed jabs and uppercuts into Lyman’s ribs and stomach, one hard blow after another and knew they hurt. Finally Lyman tried to clinch him, and this time he put his head against Lyman’s chest, pushed off, and hit him with another uppercut. Lyman went to clinch him again and Conrad then became conscious of Walton for the first time when he separated them, stood between them for a moment, and then got out of the way. Now Lyman kept his distance, threw punches that fell short as Conrad kept his left extended, pushing at Lyman’s head whenever Lyman tried to get just close enough. It was as if neither could now decide how to fight the other. A stalemate began to settle in with the two of them facing each other and moving in a slow circle around an unmarked center, but Conrad knew that was no way to fight, and he moved toward Lyman for more punches to the body, saw Lyman crouch, head forward, and was about to throw a straight right at Lyman’s forehead when he heard the sharpness of stop yelled loud and had never been more surprised by any word or sound in his life.

Walton looked at him and pointed to a corner, then pointed at the opposite corner from Lyman. “Y’all take seats,” he said.

Conrad walked over, realized how heavy he was breathing, inhaling the same old smells of hay and animal feed as sweat poured from his body. He grabbed the stool and sat, watched Walton towel the sweat off Lyman’s face, head, and shoulders, then gave him water and talked to him in a low voice as he leaned down toward him.

Now Walton came to Conrad carrying the bucket and wiped him down. “You each get one piece of advice,” he said as he held and tilted the dipper. “Here’s yours. Use your reach. Don’t fight him close.”

Walton moved toward the middle of the ring, looked at his pocket watch, and after just a few seconds shouted start. Conrad rose, could feel the water had done him good, and realized almost too slowly that Lyman wasn’t waiting on him this time but came at a charge, and Conrad was just agile enough to sidestep the punch Lyman threw, felt the whoosh of air as his fist sailed past, and before Lyman could recover Conrad threw a right hook that landed more solid than any punch he’d ever thrown at the heavy bag or at Walton and the thrill of it charged through his body, the current traveling up his arm and into his chest and stomach and even into his head so that for the blink of a moment he did not see what was before him, but Lyman failed to take the advantage, could not have known he’d even had it. Then Conrad saw he couldn’t have known because he was still shaking off the punch, which is when Conrad realized it was a punch that should have taken him down, and would have most anyone their age, and wondered why it hadn’t. Was Lyman tougher than he thought, or had something made him tougher just for this one day, something that had filled him all through the afternoon? He knew then he’d lost his focus, could have followed with a hard left and done with it what he hadn’t with the right, but now Lyman was up against him, pouring sweat, too close for him to throw a knockout punch, their acrid scents merged into the breath of their bodies, and the moment he felt Lyman’s uppercut that he stupidly hadn’t been ready for, he knew Lyman had recovered, a least enough where the fight was not near over, like it had become its own animal that the two of them fed through sweat and tensed muscle and some shared need neither would quit pursuing, as if each punch was the only answer either of them knew to give to a question they didn’t understand, and they were no different than any boy, with or without a father, who’d ever come before them. The fury of adrenaline took him now, had them both, and they answered blows to the body one by one, jabs and uppercuts rebutted with grunts until Walton once again edged between them, had to push them away, but they hadn’t been clinched, there’d been no call for separating them, but he’d done it and they had obeyed. Conrad got his hands raised again, watched Lyman do the same, and then glanced at Walton who checked his pocket watch, lowered it, looked at them both and yelled stop. Conrad stood in place, arms at his side, and when Walton looked at him again and pointed to the corner, he went reluctantly and knew his disgust showed.

Walton came to him first this time, gave him water. He took several swallows and then was able to speak. “You stopped the round too soon.”

“No, I didn’t.” Walton wiped Conrad’s face with the towel. “That’s not something I’d ever do.”

“But you did. I know it.”

“Trust me. I didn’t. When you fight, time disappears. I checked the watch. Now quit arguing and listen. Stop fighting him close. That’s the only way he can fight you. Stop giving him his fight.”

“You tell him to fight me close?”

Walton looked at him with what was maybe his own disgust and covered Conrad’s head and face with the towel before walking away with the water bucket.

He took deep breaths, pulled the towel off, and watched Walton see to Lyman and speak close in his ear. Then Walton moved out into the ring again, checked his watch and called start.

Lyman approached and he reached out his left hand again, keeping Lyman at a distance, throwing short jabs as he could, waiting to set up a hard straight right. Maybe when the chance to use his right didn’t come quick enough he got frustrated, or maybe his anger at Walton drove him toward disobedience. He moved in close, worked Lyman’s body, took punches from Lyman, and then stepped backward just far enough and pulled his right hand back, anchored it to his chin, daring Lyman to close in and throw a punch, and when he did, if he dropped his hands too low, Conrad would show he could throw that pulley punch too, just like Walton, hit with the left and, while pulling it back, throw the right at the same time and rotate his hips into it, take Lyman out. But Lyman didn’t take the dare and Conrad closed on him, stepped in for an upper cut, but knew the second he did it was wrong, couldn’t believe the reckless error he’d made, and only hoped he could get his left foot off of Lyman’s before Lyman could react, if Lyman even knew how to, but Conrad had already dropped his hands, reaching for balance that was just beyond him, and what he caught was Lyman’s right hook against his temple that sent him sideways and the time between falling and landing disappeared into nothing a silver pocket watch could measure – no watch could show a half second lost to blackness that the jarring of the ground took away and left one only stunned but awake again.

He scrambled up, tried to hide how unsteady he was on his legs, but Walton was already staring him in the face and his stop registered. “That’s it, like I told both of you,” Walton said.

“But I’m up. He got lucky ’cause I stepped on his foot. He didn’t knock me out. Let us keep going. If this was a real fight, we could.”

“No.” Walton put a firm hand on his shoulder, looked at him with a level stare. “If one of you went down, I said I’d stop the fight.”

“It was nothing but a lucky punch. I’m fine.”

Walton shook his head and looked over at Lyman whose arms were at his sides. He wasn’t smiling exactly but appeared victorious nonetheless, something like pride welling up into his blue eyes, stolen pride, Conrad thought. “It wasn’t lucky,” Walton said and looked again at Lyman. When he did, Conrad felt some small piece of knowledge enter his mind and couldn’t believe the truth of it.

“You told him,” he said.

“Told him what?”

A hot breeze blew down the length of the aisle and offered no relief from the heat.

“To be on the lookout for it,” he said and watched Walton pretend sudden understanding.

“No, I didn’t. And you hush. Stop thinking that right now.” He looked over at Lyman and back at Conrad. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Just wait. This is between us. Lyman, let me untie those gloves. Then I want you to take the bucket out to the well and get some of that cool water and wash yourself off.” He began with Lyman’s gloves, and Conrad could only discount the look of mild confusion on Lyman’s face. “We’ll be out there directly. Go ahead.”

Lyman nodded. “All right,” he said and walked out the open doors, carrying the bucket in his still linen- wrapped right hand, which made him appear wounded, though Conrad couldn’t imagine why since he’d just been declared winner.

He began trying to pull off his right glove now. “You told him how to take me out if I stepped on his foot. Told him I might do that, ’cause I did it last summer and did it again yesterday. I can’t believe. you.”

“No, I didn’t.” Walton reached for and pulled at the laces on his glove. “When I saw how bad you wanted to knock Lyman out and told you that could be dangerous, I meant for you, that it could make you careless. Why would you think I’d do such a thing as tell him your biggest weakness?”

The word weakness surprised him, felt like a blow to a vulnerable spot, an already bruised rib. “I think it ’cause I know you ended that round early just like you separated us when we weren’t even clinched and I had the upper hand. But mostly ’cause you want me to be like you.”

“How’s that?” Walton untied the left glove now but did not look away from Conrad for one moment.

“You’re so ate up ’cause you lost that fight you wanted me to lose too. That’s how. You been feeling sorry for yourself, acting like a loser. Lyman was right when he called you that, but he got to win, ’cause of you.”

“You’re a boy, Conrad. And you can’t help that. So you don’t know what a man my age goes through when he sees his only chance for something he’s worked so hard for slip away. I’d lost a few fights, but this one was something else, something more than a fight. And the way I lost was shameful, embarrassing. It took a toll on me. You’re right about that, but for you to think I’d turn on you because of my failure is wrong- headed. But you’re embarrassed too right now. So maybe I can understand why you want to think that way.”

Conrad was suddenly aware how dry his mouth was now, dry enough almost to steal his tongue and any words he might say, but Walton had let Lyman carry the water away like he’d earned it, like it was his prize, and hadn’t thought about what Conrad needed. “You gave him the fight and even gave him the damn water.”

“I didn’t give him anything, and we’ll get water in a few minutes. What I did do was to try to help two boys who I thought needed help and might appreciate it.”

“We ain’t no charity cases, and you ain’t our daddy.”

Conrad saw the look of surprise on Walton’s face, heard him say, “No, I never thought I was, not for a moment,” and felt again as if he’d taken a blow to a bruised rib, only this time he hadn’t known the rib was bruised and vulnerable. And now he couldn’t speak, felt only confusion and no way to express it, found what he most wanted was the clarity of a combination, imagined slamming Walton with a straight right, a left hook, and another straight right, imagined the satisfaction each punch might deliver, then heard, from somewhere in his flawed memory, the sound of his father’s voice, but he couldn’t hear the words or even if his father was calling his name, and then it was gone and all he was left with was a longing for what he’d had and lost that was maybe as strong as Walton’s for what he’d wanted. But still he couldn’t speak, could not make sense of all he felt.

“Could be I was wrong to train the two of you,” Walton said.

“Maybe that was disloyal to you, and maybe I failed to be what you wanted – I’m thinking now I did – but you would have had such an advantage, and that boy didn’t need to be beat down. Besides, you were winning the fight, and would have won. But learning how to lose is important too.”

“Guess you know all about that now. You’re an expert.”

Walton closed his eyes, shook his head, and didn’t respond. Then he turned away, looked like he might walk out of the barn, and Conrad felt dismissed, like a schoolboy a teacher gives up on and the rest of the class knows it. After another moment Walton did begin walking away, but when he reached the open doors, was right at the edge of hard sunlight, he faced Conrad again. “You need water. Come on with me.”

Conrad followed but kept quiet, decided anything he might say would be wrong, or too hard for him to say. He began unwrapping the linen from around his right hand as he walked. When he caught up with Walton he looked ahead and saw the bucket sitting on the ground beside the well. What he didn’t see was Lyman, only the two strips of linen piled near the bucket.

“Where do you think he went?” Conrad asked as the two of them kept moving. “Inside the house?”

“No. His shirt’s still in the barn. He wouldn’t have gone in the house without it, or wearing it, either, for that matter.”

Conrad bent down and reached for the dipper, took a drink, and even though the water was now warm he drank again. “You think he left? Heard us talking?”

Walton looked in several directions. “Probably so. I’ll go and pick him up.”

“He won. Strange he’d just walk off.”

Walton faced him but didn’t speak at first. “His father’s in jail. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you that.”

“For what?”

“I’ve said enough. And don’t repeat what I’ve told you, even when you hear people talking about it.”

Conrad nodded, knew he might hear his mother bring it up, and she would ask him if he won the fight. He wasn’t sure how he would answer, what part he might keep for himself.

Walton looked down at the bucket, picked it up, and touched a finger to the water. He poured it out and brought up more from the well. “Now drink,” he said.

Conrad did, and then, without thinking about it, said, “I’ll see to him. You don’t have to go.”

He watched Walton stand there quietly, the sun bright and painful. on his face, his hands hanging at his sides at the end of a reach that was longer than Conrad had ever considered.

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Marlin Barton is the author of three novels, most recently Children of Dust (Regal House Publishing, 2021), and three collections of short fiction. His stories have appeared in The Southern Review, Shenandoah, The Sewanee Review, Best American Short Stories, and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards.