He takes his station by Ash’s corner, setting his black leather bag down on a stool. His bag of tricks, with towels and water bottles as well as mystery creams and stuff.
Ash’s mom stays away from the fights. She can’t take seeing her girl get smacked around.
I look down at the bird of prey’s eyes on the robe in my lap. Still feels warm from her.
Ash goes to center ring. The fighters do their stare down as the ref tells them the rules. Then they touch gloves and go to their corners to wait for the bell.
Ash’s dad calls up to her. It’s hard to make out what he’s saying, but it doesn’t sound English. He repeats it before the bell dings and she goes out to do battle.
The first round, the redhead holds Ash at a distance with her longer reach, jabbing and keeping away from the inside power punches Ash wants to throw.
When the bell ends the round, Ash comes scowling to sit on the stool Nick sets down. He squirts water into her mouth. She rinses and spits into a bucket. He’s talking to her the whole time as she glares at the other girl.
Then she gets up for the second round, and he steps back through the ropes. Before the bell, he calls to her: “Nataga wab moodoo.” Something like that.
Pike gives me a nudge. “They’re talking Injun.” He’s way too loud. Always too loud.
Nick turns and gives him a killer stare. Pike looks down at his hot dog till the bell sounds.
The second round starts like the first, with Ash held off by the long arms of her opponent. But then Ash catches her on the side of the head.
I’ve felt that hook. It’s a stunner. The other girl staggers and backs off. The redhead sticks to long-range jabs, trying to keep clear of Ash’s inside power. Ash absorbs the jabs without effect, like they’re mosquitoes.
Then she bursts in, catching the redhead with a combination that knocks her head from side to side. She tries to retreat but Ash stays on her, up close.
She grabs on to Ash, one arm holding her in tight while the other works body shots to Ash’s ribs.
“Break it up.” The ref moves in.
They step away. Ash has her fuse lit now. She says you have to take a few hits and taste some of your own blood before you really get juiced.
She comes up under the redhead’s guard to catch her chin with an uppercut. When the other girl falls back on the ropes, Ash stays with her, knocking her head around, keeping her off-balance.
The other girl grabs on to her, trying to pin Ash’s arms against her body. Then she shoves her glove up inside Ash’s headgear.
Ash stumbles out of the hold, shaking her head and squinting badly.
“Gouge!” Nick yells at the referee. “Thumb gouge. Come on, ref! You blind?”
The bell rings and Ash collapses on the stool in her corner. Her dad kneels and holds her head to get a look at the gouged eye. Nick flushes it out with some water.
“She’s losing her legs,” I hear him tell her. “Desperate. End this now. Quick! Hear me?”
Ash gives a little nod, and he towels her face dry.
When she stands for the third round, struggling to keep her left eye open, her dad shouts to her: “Nataga wab moodoo.”
The sweat is running down her back, making her shine.
Before the echo of the bell dies, Ash is right up on the other girl. She forgets about guarding herself and goes all out. The redhead responds with a flurry of punches.
The crowd is loving it. Even Howie’s screaming for blood.
Just as the redhead is pulling back to fire a killer hook, Ash comes in low and puts everything she’s got into a wicked uppercut. The other girl falls back on the ropes. She tries to stay standing, but her legs give out and she hits the mat hard on her knees.
The ref waves Ash back to her corner and starts the count.
I count along, trying to hurry the ref.
“Eight. Nine. Ten!”
There’s the bell. Ash holds her hands in the air and walks a circle in the middle of the ring. She owns the place. Her dad climbs in and they knock fists, his bare to her gloved. Then he grabs her up, holding her tall in his arms so everybody can see.
“Hoorah! Hoorah!” chant the guys from CFB Borden. A soldier’s salute.
Ash, held high and pumping her fist in the air, squinting and sweaty, is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.
A knockout.
NINE
After the fights, a convoy heads over to the base for the celebration. Two of the three brats boxing tonight won. The third lost a decision on points, leading to a near riot in the stands.
I’m riding with Ash and her dad, with the guys following in Pike’s junker.
“How’s that eye?” Nick asks, pulling off the highway at the exit for Canadian Forces Base Borden. “Got her thumb right in there, didn’t she?”
“Clearing up. Little blurry.”
“Can you read that license plate, just with your left?”
I lean up from the backseat, watching her try to focus. She reads out the plate of the car ahead of us, getting it right except for calling a “B” an eight.
“Close enough. You’ll be okay,” he tells her, reaching across to pat her knee. “What do you think of my girl?” He glances at me in the rearview mirror.
I open and close my mouth a couple times, like a goldfish eating lunch. How do I answer that? In front of her father?
“Yeah.” Ash turns back, fixing me with her bloodshot eye. “What do you think of me now?”
“I—I think … I … uh. She’s great. You’re great. I mean, uh … you know.”
Ash grins, enjoying torturing me.
“Gotta watch out for these smooth talkers.” Nick pulls up to the base gate and they wave us through.
We park at the Legion Hall. Usually you have to be eighteen, and army, to get in. Tonight they’re relaxing the rules for the boxing brats.
The wind chases us across the lot. Stepping inside, I catch a warm breath of beer fumes and greasy fries.
“I’m starving.” Ash leans in close, to be heard over the teeth-rattling sonic boom of the amped-up jukebox belting out a country song. “Skipped lunch to make weight. Time to binge.”
We squirm through the crowd, Ash getting congratulatory pats and high fives. Shouts of “Hey, champ,” “Outstanding!” and “Unbeaten!” follow us to the last empty booth.
“What are we eating?” Nick asks.
“Everything,” Ash shouts.
He nods and disappears into the crowd to order the feast.
Besides her bloodshot eye with its puffy lid, her lower lip is swollen where a shot slipped past her headgear. But no new scar to join the old one tracing a pale line on her lower lip.
Those lips are smiling at me now.
“So, what did you really think? First time you’ve seen me fight. Not counting me knocking you down and out.”
I give a little shrug. Don’t want to say too much—you know, open my chest, spread my ribs and expose my heart.
“Incredible. There was no quit in you. You took the hits and kept on coming. And you looked … amazing.” I stop. Don’t let out too much. “I mean, with that robe and everything. Where did you get that?”
“My aunt made it for me, on the reservation up at Grassy Narrows. First I thought it made me look too Indian. That I’d get a lot of crap from everybody for it. But like my dad says—you get crap anyway. If you’re gonna be Indian, go all the way.”
“The bird on the robe mean anything?”
“My last name, Animkee, means “thunder.” So my aunt put a thunderbird on the back. Brings me luck. Hey, I’m unbeaten, right? The t-bird brings on the storm, makes thunder with its wings. Shoots lightning from its eyes.”
Ash makes her eyes go wide, staring me down. Then she breaks into an almost-shy smile and looks away. Shy for Ash is still pretty cocky, though.
The guys crash in on us, Pike shoving me over in the booth, Ash patting the spot next to her for Howie.
“You were awesome,” Howie
says. “Best fight yet. And you beat her clean when she went dirty.”
“You terminated her.” Pike laughs.
The food comes fast. Burgers, nachos, spicy chicken wings, fish and chips. Ash eats like she fights—no stopping, no fear, no quit.
Nick makes it over to the booth after a few congratulatory beers in honor of his girl. He leans in and rests one of his massive hands on the back of Pike’s neck, giving it a squeeze that makes Pike wince, payback for the “talking Injun” comment earlier.
“Pike, you little pyromaniac.” He fixes him with a cold glare. “Blow up anything lately?”
“I don’t like to brag.”
“Hell you don’t,” Nick grunts. “Shove over.”
He releases Pike and digs into the feast.
Pike’s reputation as a pyro is legendary. If anybody really cared about Fat Bill’s place getting burned down, he’d be the prime suspect. Not that they’d ever nail him for it. He’s slippery as a greased rat. The back-page story that ran in yesterday’s Barrie Examiner said the fire was probably caused by a careless smoker. Nobody’s going to be crying for Fat Bill anyway.
Pike’s need to shock and awe us reached its peak back on Halloween, during the fireworks. The town does a show every year down by the lakeside, with fireworks shot off over the water.
Me, Ash and the guys were watching from the beach. Out on the water, a raft of glowing pumpkins flashed their gap-toothed smiles.
“Wait till you see the fireworks finale,” Pike told us. “I’ve added my own little twist.”
Then he disappeared before the show even started.
There were oohs and aahs at the shooting stars, starbursts and sparkling silver waterfalls in the night sky. When it ended, the crowd applauded and cheered.
Then a row of sparklers flared to life on the raft of pumpkins. Pike’s show was just getting going.
The pumpkin on the far left exploded with a red flash and a sound like a gunshot. A second later the next one in line went off, rocking the raft and sending pumpkin shards into the air. One by one they went off with thunderclap booms that made you wince. The last explosion sent pumpkin guts raining down on the beach and people running for cover.
They tried to nail Pike for it after, but how do you pull fingerprints off a squashed squash?
How he did it was pretty disturbing, using small charges of actual dynamite. He wouldn’t tell where he got the stuff. But around here they use dynamite as a fast way to clear stumps. He must have raided somebody’s stash.
The crazy thing is, Pike and Howie’s dad, Captain Slater—his job during his tour in Afghanistan was clearing land mines, explosives and booby traps. So here’s the Captain neutralizing this kind of lethal stuff while his son is building his own homemade versions.
Last week, when we had to pick a favorite quotation for an assignment in Miss Mercer’s class, Pike chose one by the guy who invented the atom bomb. After this guy saw his first A-bomb tested out in the desert, he said: “I am the destroyer of worlds.”
Right now Pike’s destroying the nachos.
“Don’t steal all the cheese,” I say. “Leave some for the champ.”
“The champ’s on her third burger,” Pike mumbles around a mouthful. “She ain’t gonna starve.”
A couple of crew cuts in uniform come up to our table.
“Hey, Captain. One of the new guys wants to try out your arm.”
Ash’s dad is a legendary arm wrestler. He won an army competition a few years back.
Nick scowls playfully up at them, flexing his massive right hand. “You mean the Crippler?”
“Yeah. We’re taking bets. What do you say?”
Nick makes a fearsome fist, knuckles popping. “Cut me in.”
He gets up and follows the crew cuts into the crowd.
“Time to ride the Reaper,” Pike says. “You guys gonna come watch?”
The Reaper is the mechanical bull over in the corner, roped off and surrounded by cushioned mats.
“We can see from here,” I say. “But it sounds like a bad idea, man. You’re gonna be puking nachos all over the saddle.”
Pike stands on the seat to peer over the mob and see if the bull is free. “I think I’ll try it on five tonight.” (The thing goes up to a spine-shattering, testicle-pulverizing six.) “Yep. I’m gonna reap the Reaper.”
Pike makes off for the bull, and Howie gets up. “Somebody has to be there to pick up the pieces,” he says, leaving me and Ash alone.
She finishes off her third burger and leans back.
“You finally full?” I have to shout over the music.
“Just pacing myself.”
“So you have to tell me—”
“What?”
I start to lean over the table so she can hear, but she waves me over to her side of the booth. I slide in next to her.
“You have to tell me,” I say, leaning in close enough to smell her shampoo. “What was that thing your dad was yelling to you during the fight? Something Indian?”
She gives me a small smile, curving her swollen lower lip. “It’s just this thing he says to get me juiced for battle.”
With my leg against hers, I can feel the heat coming off her.
“What was it?”
“Netaga waab minodoo.” She twists her tongue around the strange words. “It’s Ojibwa. Kind of an inside joke between me and him. Means ‘Kill the white devil.’ ”
“What’s the white devil?”
Her grin gets wider, and she hits my leg lightly with her fist. “You are, man. Whitey.”
“Kill the white devil?” I laugh nervously.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll let you live. You’re too cute to put in a coffin.”
I go red and have to look away.
Through the crowd, I see Pike’s head whiplashing around as the bull spins and bucks under him. His red Mohawk flashes in the light like a struck match.
Ash stretches her left arm, laying it down along the back of the booth, resting it on my shoulders. I lose sight of everything but her.
“Don’t get any ideas,” she says. “It’s just I think I strained my rotator cuff. Gotta stretch it out.”
“Right. Anything else you need to stretch out?”
She shrugs her “strained” shoulder. “I’ll let you know.”
We share a nice silence, picking at the remains of the feast.
Howie slides into the other side of the booth. He notices Ash’s arm around me and gives a shy little smile. “Pike’s waiting in line to have another go at the bull.”
Ash stuffs some fries in her face. “Remember back at Gagetown, him and the rottweiler?”
Howie shakes his head. “He’s lucky it didn’t rip his head off.”
“What’s that about?” I ask.
Ash, Howie and Pike grew up at the army base in Gagetown, New Brunswick. They’ve got some serious history together.
“Pike, when he was little,” Howie tells me, “wanted to run away and join the rodeo. He saw this bull-riding competition on TV and thought that was, like, his destiny. So he started out practicing his riding technique on the local dogs. He tried this big rottweiler named Napalm. A hundred pounds of mean, slobbering muscle. Pike hopped on, grabbed its collar and locked his legs against its sides. That thing spun, twisting and trying to take a chunk out of him. It rolled in the dirt to get him off, but Pike wouldn’t let go. Finally, Napalm just gave up and lay down on its belly, exhausted.”
“That was when we knew Pike was kind of wrong in the head,” Ash says.
Howie grunts. “We knew way before then. But seeing him break Napalm—that was something.”
He’s proud of his brother, no matter what.
Ash taps my shoulder. “Let me out. Gotta take a leak.”
When she’s gone, I remember my cell phone pictures. Now that I’ve got Howie alone, I can’t put it off any longer.
“Gotta show you something.” I dig out my cell. “I found these weird tracks in the snow. From
some kind of animal, I guess. See if you can tell me what made them.”
I pull up the shots from the ditch. “There.” I hand my cell over to him.
Howie pages through the shots on the little screen. “Where was this?”
I gulp some of my Coke, stalling. I don’t want to say too much, don’t want to come off like I’m nuts.
“Down by the lake,” I say. “In a … ditch.”
“Hmmm.” He frowns. “What were you doing in a ditch?”
“Doesn’t matter. Long, weird story. But what do you think? What kind of animal left those?”
He makes more hmmming sounds, squinting at the pictures. “The claws marks are bizarre. Eight digits to a paw? And the impression of the pad …?”
Howie keeps flicking back and forth through the photos.
“What size shoe are you?” he asks, looking at the shot where I set my foot down next to the tracks to get scale.
“Ten.”
Howie blinks at the image on the screen. Then he pulls out a pen. “Give me your shoes.”
“Huh?”
I hesitate as he clears some space on the tabletop. But then I pull them off and hand them over. Never question a genius.
Using the photo and my running shoes for reference, he paces out lengths and widths, drawing lines in ink on the pale wood of the table. Then he draws an outline, adding little circles in a curve at the top to show the position of the claw marks.
The outline stretches most of the width of the table.
“Wow, that’s …” His voice dies off. “I don’t know what that is.”
“How about a bear or something?”
“Nah. Even if you had one gigantic polar bear on steroids, the structure’s all wrong. The heel, the span of the digits.”
“So what then?”
Howie shrugs, with a puzzled half smile. “Bigfoot, maybe? The Abominable Snowman?”
“Any way you can look into it?” I ask, glad that he’s not pressing me for the full story yet.
“Definitely. Just let me e-mail these shots.”
He sends the digital images to his own address.
Ash shows up then and sees my shoes on the table.
“What’s this? Strip poker? Can I get in on it?”
I grin, glancing at her sideways as she slips in next to me.