As they hiked up the damp macadam path, he recalled the first time he'd
ever been to this part of the country.
Back in '99 or '00, in the late fall or early winter. A friend of his
from the army, Willie Kohler, had scored some two hundred buck tickets
to a boxing match out on the coast.
Not the best seats, but pretty good, only about fifty or sixty feet
from the ring. It was in one of those Indian casinos that the local
tribes had put up. Chinook something?
Chinook Winds, that was it. In Lincoln City.
He remembered the event better now that he thought about it. They had
given it some silly name, like the Rumble in the Jungle or the Thrill
in Mantilla, it was ... ah, yes. Commotion at the Ocean. He and
Willie had gotten some funny mileage out of that one.
He wasn't the world's biggest boxing fan, but he'd done a little in the
service when he'd been younger, fighting camp matches as a
light-heavyweight and giving about as good as he got. No future there
for him, getting bashed in the face, but he didn't mind watching
somebody with real skill demonstrate it. As he remembered, there had
been six or eight matches at the casino, all fairly low weight classes,
and a couple of them were championship bouts. The most interesting
fights had been on the under card. Some black kid from Washington,
D.C-, with sweet moves had put his man down in the second round. And
there had been a couple of female fighters, one a little girl in red, a
featherweight, all of a hundred and twenty-two or -three pounds, who
had great hands--and great legs, too. Only her third pro fight, but
she had real boxing skills. Of course, this was back when boxing
wasn't considered a brutal crime against humanity, and women were just
getting into it. And when it still wasn't too politically incorrect to
admire a woman's legs ... What he remembered most of all was that they
played bad rap music--if that wasn't redundant--between each fight, and
it was way, way too loud. Earmuffs should have been mandatory; it was
noisier than a shooting range, and probably less musical. After the
second or third fight, he and Willie were ready to go and kick out the
damned speakers to kill the noise. But like at gun shows, you needed
to be polite at a big boxing match--you never knew but that guy you
just sloshed your beer on might have been the number one contender for
the cruiser weight title a few years back, and no matter what
self-defense system you knew, a good pro boxer was going to get at
least a couple of shots in if he smiled--and then threw the first
punch.
Howard smiled as they climbed into the waterfall mist.
There was a lot of green on the hillside now--moss, ferns, all kinds of
water-loving plants.
Julio was right, he needed to relax and enjoy his vacation.
His son was growing up, and pretty soon he'd be a lot more interested
in girls and cars than boomerangs and family trips. Might as well
enjoy it while he could.
He was out in the Wild West, nothing of any major military importance
was apt to happen here, certainly nothing he needed to worry about.
Nadine looked back at him and smiled.
