The crowd about the pit had been mumbling and talking, but now they grew silent.
Out into the glow of the neon lamps stepped a man dressed in a black suit and hat. A massive rattlesnake was coiled about his right arm. It was wriggling from shoulder to wrist.
About his left wrist a smaller snake was wrapped, a copperhead. The man held a Bible in his right hand. He was called Preacher.
Draping the monstrous rattlesnake around his neck, Preacher let it hang there.
It dangled that way as if drugged. Its tongue would flash out from time to time.
It gave Harry the willies. He hated snakes. They always seemed to be smiling.
Nothing was that fucking funny, not all the time.
Preacher opened his Bible and read:
"Behold, I give unto you the power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing will by any means hurt you."
Preacher paused and looked at the sky. "So God," he said, "we want to thank you for a pretty good potato crop, though you've done better, and we want to thank you for the terriers, even though we had to raise and feed them ourselves, and we want to thank you for sending these outsiders our way, thank you for Harry Joe Stinton and Big George, the nigger."
Preacher paused and looked about the congregation. He lifted the hand with the copperhead in it high above his head. Slowly he lowered it and pointed the snake-filled fist at George. "Three times this here nigger has gone into the pit, and three times he has come out victorious. Couple times against whites, once against another nigger. Some of us think he's cheating.
"Tonight, we bring you another white feller, one of your chosen people, though you might not know it on account of the way you been letting the nigger win here, and we're hoping for a good fight with the nigger being killed at the end.
We hope this here business pleases you. We worship you and the snakes in the way we ought to. Amen.
Big George looked over at Harry. "Be ready, sucker. I'm gonna take you apart like a gingerbread man."
Harry didn't say anything. He couldn't understand it. George was a prisoner just as he was. A man degraded and made to lift huge rocks and pull carts and jog mile on miles every day. And just so they could get in shape for this-to go down into that pit and try and beat each other to death for the amusement of these crazies.
And it had to be worse for George. Being black, he was seldom called anything other than "the nigger" by these psychos. Furthermore, no secret had been made of the fact that they wanted George to lose, and for him to win. The idea of a black pit champion was eating their little honkey hearts out.
Yet, Big George had developed a sort of perverse pride in being the longest lived pit fighter yet.
"It's something I can do right," George had once said. "On the outside I wasn't nothing but a nigger, an uneducated nigger working in rose fields, mowing big lawns for rich white folks.
Here I'm still the nigger, but I'm THE NIGGER, the bad ass nigger, and no matter what these peckerwoods call me, they know it, and they know I'm the best at what I do. I'm the king here.
And they may hate me for it, keep me in a cell and make me run and lift stuff, but for that time in the pit, they know I'm the one that can do what they can't do, and they're afraid of me. I like it."
Glancing at George, Harry saw that the big man was not nervous. Or at least not showing it. He looked as if he were ready to go on holiday. Nothing to it. He was about to go down into that pit and try and beat a man to death with his fists and it was nothing. All in a day's work. A job well done for an odd sort of respect that beat what he had had on the outside.
The outside. It was strange how much he and Big George used that term. The outside. As if they were enclosed in some small bubble-like cosmos that perched on the edge of the world they had known; a cosmos invisible to the outsiders, a spectral place with new mathematics and nebulous laws of mind and physics.
Maybe he was in hell. Perhaps he had been wiped out on the highway and had gone to the dark place. Just maybe his memory of how he had arrived here was a false dream inspired by demonic powers. The whole thing about him taking a wrong turn through Big Thicket country and having his truck break down just outside of Morganstown was an illusion, and stepping onto the Main Street of Morganstown, population 66, was his crossing the River Styx and landing smack dab in the middle of a hell designed for good old boys.
God, had it been six months ago?
He had been on his way to visit his mother in Woodville, and he had taken a shortcut through the Thicket. Or so he thought. But he soon realized that he had looked at the map wrong. The shortcut listed on the paper was not the one he had taken. He had mistaken that road for the one he wanted. This one had not been marked. And then he had reached Morganstown and his truck had broken down. He had been forced into six months hard labor alongside George, the champion pit fighter, and now the moment for which he had been groomed had arrived.
They were bringing the terriers out now. One, the champion, was named Old Codger He was getting on in years. He had won many a pit fight. Tonight, win or lose, this would be his last battle. The other dog, Muncher, was young and inexperienced, but he was strong and eager for blood.
A ramp was lowered into the pit. Preacher and two men, the owners of the dogs, went down into the pit with Codger and Muncher. When they reached the bottom a dozen bright spotlights were thrown on them. They seemed to wade through the light.
The bleachers arranged about the pit began to fill. People mumbled and passed popcorn.
Bets were placed and a little, fat man wearing a bowler hat copied them down in a note pad as fast as they were shouted. The ramp was removed.
In the pit, the men took hold of their dogs by the scruff of the neck and removed their col-lars. They turned the dogs so they were facing the walls of the pit and could not see one another. The terriers were about six feet apart, butts facing.
Preacher said, "A living dog is better than a dead lion."
Harry wasn't sure what that had to do with anything.
"Ready yourselves," Preacher said. "Gentlemen, face your dogs."
The owners slapped their dogs across the muzzle and whirled them to face one another.
They immediately began to leap and strain at their masters' grips.
"Gentlemen, release your dogs."
The dogs did not bark. For some reason, that was what Harry noted the most. They did not even growl. They were quick little engines of silence.
Their first lunge was a miss and they snapped air. But the second time they hit head on with the impact of.45 slugs. Codger was knocked on his back and Muncher dove for his throat. But the experienced dog popped up its head and grabbed Muncher by the nose.
Codger's teeth met through Muncher's flesh.
Bets were called from the bleachers.
The little man in the bowler was writing furiously.
Muncher, the challenger, was dragging Codger, the champion, around the pit, trying to make the old dog let go of his nose. Finally, by shaking his head violently and relinquishing a hunk of his muzzle, he succeeded.
Codger rolled to his feet and jumped Muncher. Muncher turned his head just out of the path of Codger's jaws. The older dog's teeth snapped together like a spring4oaded bear trap, saliva popped out of his mouth in a fine spray.
Muncher grabbed Codger by the right ear. The grip was strong and Codger was shook like a used condom about to be fled and tossed. Muncher bit the champ's ear completely off.
Harry felt sick. He thought he was going to throw up. He saw that Big George was looking at him. "You think this is bad, motherfucker," George said, "this ain't nothing but a cake walk. Wait fill I get you in that pit."
"You sure run hot and cold, don't you?" Harry said.
"Nothing personal," George said sharply and turned back to look at the fight in the pit.
Nothing personal, Harry thought. God, what could be more personal? Just yesterday, as they trained, jogged along together, a pickup loaded with gun bearing crazies driving alongside of them, he had felt close to George. They had shared many personal things these six months, and he knew that George liked him.