Donnybrook: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

Kentucky.
    Jarhead’d learned about Donnybrook two nights ago, after he’d beaten Combine Elder into twelve unknown shades of purple. Afterward, Combine had smirked at the unblemished rawhide outline and wheat-tinted hair of Jarhead Earl, his razor-tight arms clawed by black and red amateur tattoos hanging by his sides. Combine told him, “Son, you oughta enter Donnybrook. You could be the next Ali Squires.”
    Ali Squires: Bare. Knuckle. God.
    Squires was beaten only once, by a man went by Chainsaw Angus.
    Combine told Jarhead that Donnybrook was a three-day bare-knuckles tournament, held once a year every August. Run by the sadistic and rich-as-fuck Bellmont McGill on a thousand-acre plot out in the sticks. Twenty fighters entered a fence-wire ring. Fought till one man was left standing. Hordes of onlookers—men and women who used drugs and booze, wagered and grilled food—watched the fighting. Two fights Friday. Four Saturday. The six winners fought Sunday for one hundred grand.
    The two jobs Jarhead worked, towing for a junkyard during the day, then flipping burgers and waffles two or three nights a week, hardly provided enough cash to feed and clothe his two smiling-eyed progeny. Boys created with the comeliest female in the Kentucky hills, Tammy Charles.
    In between his jobs he jogged through the Kentucky mining hills that gave his stepfather black lung and his mother gun-powder suicide. He pounded the homemade heavy bag that hung from a tree in front of his trailer till his hands burned red. Training for his next bare-knuckle payday out in an abandoned barn or tavern parking lot. Farmers. Miners. Loggers. Drunks. Wagering on another man’s will.
    Altogether, the money he was making came nowhere close to one hundred grand.
    Donnybrook would be Jarhead’s escape from the poverty that had whittled his family down to names in the town obituaries. He just needed the thousand-dollar fighter’s fee to enter.
    Jarhead pulled to a stop off the side of a back road somewhere outside of Frankfort, Kentucky, worry from the robbery tensing his hands damp on the steering wheel.
    “Shit! Shit! Shit! Don’t need this.”
    The cruiser’s door opened. The outline of the county cop approached. Jarhead had his window rolled down. Watched the shadow trail toward his car in the rearview. The officer stopped at his window.
    Should I open the door, punch him in his throat, his temple? Can’t get caught if I’m going to help my babies and my girl, thought Jarhead.
    And the officer said, “Evening. Know you got a busted taillight?”
    Shit! rang through Jarhead’s bones. All that worry for nothing.
    Smiling, sweating, Jarhead said, “Why, no, sir. I sure didn’t. Which side might it be?”
    Pointing, the officer said, “Right back on your passenger’s side.”
    “Well, I’ll be having to get that fixed shortly.”
    “Can I see your license and registration?”
    “Sure, sure.”
    Jarhead pulled his license from his wallet. Registration from his glove compartment. Handed them over.
    Officer took them. Read over the name. Address. Said, “Long ways from home, ain’t you, Johnny. Taking a trip?”
    “Yeah. Going to visit friends and family up in Indiana.”
    “What part of Indiana?”
    Nosy prick. “Down over in Orange County.”
    “The southern part. I got kin down in that neck of the woods myself. Who’s your people? Might be some acquaintance.”
    This is how they catch sons a bitches, Jarhead thought. Hare-brained coincidences. He told the only name he could think, one that Combine Elder told him. “McGill. Bellmont McGill.”
    The officer parted a big rabbit-toothed smile, said, “Yeah, I remember old McGill. Owns damn near half of Orange County since his in-laws passed. Lots say he’s rougher than a cob. Never had no cross words with him. He’s tough. Not one you’d cross. Other than that, seems a fair shake. That your daddy’s side or your mamma’s?”
    Son of a bitch must be writing an oratory on hill