Mohawk

back the tears.
    The fact that he was crying made him mad. Giving up on his fists and lowering his head like a battering ram, Dallas drove forward into his opponent’s midsection. Benny D., much surprised by this eleventh-hour tactic and suspension of the rules heretofore in effect, was lifted high in the air and brought back down to the pavement on his tailbone with a loud crack, whereupon all the blood went out of his face and with it the fight out of his heart. Dallas then sat on his chest and thumped his head into the pavement like a melon until Benny D.’s eyes rolled up in his head. Not one to pressan unfair advantage, Dallas then proclaimed the fight finished, which of course it was.
    In Mohawk news of fights traveled fast, and before long Dallas’s victory passed from fact to fable. Both combatants were admitted to the hospital, Dallas with a broken nose and smile, Benny D. with wounds less noticeable but more severe. Both winner and loser were tremendously admired, because it had been a real fight, not just profane taunts and a little shoving. The fact that the two were friends added a bittersweet quality and made the whole thing seem even more noble. The fact that so much damage had been traded over a girl elevated the contest into the realm of heroism.
    After two days in the hospital, Dallas was allowed to go home. Anne picked him up in his own car and helped him up the stairs to his flat above the drugstore. Her face was ashen and he was proud of having defended her honor to the point of maiming and of the effect his doing so apparently had upon her. For months he had feared that she didn’t love him as she once had and was now delighted to discover how wrong he’d been. On the way up the narrow stairs she let him lean on her, and it occurred to him that there might be no better time to press his advantage, even if he did look like a B-movie zombie.
    “Dan came by the hospital last night,” he ventured.
    “Did he,” she said as if she hadn’t really heard.
    “He said he and Di are getting hitched next month.”
    “Yes.”
    “I guess I was the first one he told.”
    “Yes. Di told me this morning.”
    “I wish I didn’t look so beat up. Otherwise, I’d ask you.”
    She studied him, then—a little sadly, it seemed, andnot at all surprised, but with more affection than he had seen for some time. She took out a tissue, wet the corner with her tongue and touched it on one of his swollen eyes. “I wouldn’t make you happy,” she said. “Besides, I promised my father I’d give him one semester at school.”
    He shrugged happily, having anticipated a much more forceful objection. “How about January? I can wait.”
    She smiled. “People don’t get married in January.”
    “They do in Austria.”
    “You mean Australia?”
    Well, he had meant Australia. “I mean I love you.”
    His room overlooked Main Street, and from where they sat it was possible to see all the way up past the hospital into Myrtle Park, which overlooked the entire county. Only when Dallas finally noticed that she was crying did he realize how much she must love him, and he vowed from that moment to be worthy of her.
    But it hadn’t worked out. He did not blame her for ending the marriage when she did. She deserved better, and he couldn’t see how there was much advantage to starting up again. He’d make all sorts of vows and end up breaking every one. He knew himself now, and he knew he could live without her.
    “All right, Harry,” he said. “Give me some of that turkey before you start crying. And don’t be a cheapskate with the gravy, either.”

19
    Dallas Younger was Harry’s last real customer at the Mohawk Grill, which meant there would be a special on turkey-and-dressing over the holiday weekend. Dallas lingered until late in the afternoon when he heard feet tromping up the stairs on the other side of the wall. Then he borrowed fifty from Harry and joined the game upstairs. The other players were family men who’d seen enough of their families and grown depressed by the sight of the turkey carcass.
    Harry was cleaning the grill and preparing to close when Officer Gaffney came in. He was looking a little sheepish since Harry had read him the riot act. For two days he had obeyed the injunction not to show his face in the Mohawk Grill. But lacking a convenient place to drink coffee was beginning to wear on him, and he looked haggard.
    “No,” Harry said when the policeman straddled his favorite