Muncy Morgan

GEORGE MILBURN

• There was something soothing about the

way the muscles moved under the skin of

Muncy Morgan's broad, saddle-colored back. It put you in mind of wind moving across prairie grass.

Muncy shoed horses for Vince Blanc. lie began working in the blacksmith shop when he was sixteen. Muncy was a strong boy. He never did have any trouble getting the shoes on a horse. He would get hold of a horse's leg and clamp it between his thighs, and it didn't do the horse any good to kick after that. There wasn't a horse in the country that could break Muncy's grip. He could take a steel plow-beam and muscle it out with one hand.

No one ever gave Muncy Morgan credit for having much sense. His parents had come to town with a caravan of cotton-pickers. Muncy worked around town doing odd-jobs, and then he got a job at the blacksmith shop. His family loaded up their covered wagon and drove the burro team out of town. Muncy didn't go with them.

He grew up to be a mighty, shaggy man. Hardship didn't mean anything to him. He would go duck hunting. The wind would be blowing raw and cold across the shallow lakes. There would be a skim of ice on the water. Muncy never wore rubber hip-boots. When a duck fell out in the water, he would pull of! his shoes and pants and wade out in the icy water after it.

Vince Blanc wanted to make a blacksmith out of Muncy, but he never did take any interest in that work. Vince was always trying to get him to learn the trade so that he could do iron work more high class than horseshoeing. But Muncy didn't care anything about iron work. He wanted to be a professional wrestler. He was always trying to get some of the boys to grapple with him on Sunday afternoons. He was too strong. None of the boys wanted to have a scissor-hold put on him by a man who could hold the leg of a fractious horse between his thighs.

The only person Muncy Morgan could get to tussle with him was August Kunkel, the shoemaker. August was a strong man, too. He couldn't throw Muncy, but August was quick enough to give the horseshoer a good match. Muncy hated to practice with August Kunkel, though. August was an infidel.

'T don't like to mess with nobody that goes around saying that the Bible ain't right," Muncy said. "I sure don't like to tangle with a man that carries on like that."

The horseshoer made a dummy out of straw and canvas. He practised wrestling holds on it out in the back yard of the blacksmith shop. He was taking a correspondence course on wrestling from a school in Omaha. He would come up in the front part of the shop to get Vince Blanc to read over the instructions for him.

Along in the Fall, carnival companies came

to town. The athletic show was always a big attraction. The wrestlers and boxers who travelled with the show, toughened, punchdrunk, old ham-and-egg bruisers, appeared on the platforms out in front of the tent. The spieler issued a challenge to all comers. Sometimes he offered a dollar a minute to anyone who would stay with one of the show's men over ten minutes. The professionals seldom had any trouble in laying out the native athletes. In case they did run up against a tough one who could stay they would use some trick to get out of paying the prize money.

Muncy Morgan was always in the crowd out in front of an athletic show. He stood listening to the ballyhoo, his mouth gaping and his Adam's apple shuttling. Sometimes, when the challenge was issued, he would move as if to accept it, but he was shy. The thought of standing up before so many people kept him back. The man the carnival had planted out in the crowd always got ahead of Muncy.

One year a carnival had come to town. On a Saturday night, before the last performance, the wrestler with the athletic show was as insulting as he could he. The show badly needed local talent for a drawing card. Taunting was one sure way of getting some town boy to come forward.

The wrestler, in his faded red tights with

soggy leather knee pads, squatted down on the platform. He stuck out his ruined face and peeled back his lips. He pounded his matted chest.

"What's the maddah wid all youse rubes?" he said. "Dey ain't a man in dis boig dat's got any guts. Here we just offered youse a dollah a minute to any boid dat'll stay wid me over ten minutes. Yer all yellah!"

Muncy Morgan was pretty well along in his wrestling course. This challenge was more than he could stand. He lunged forward, parting the crowd with thrusts of his mighty shoulders. The rickety platform swayed as he stepped up on it.

The carnival barker saw that he had a good attraction in Muncy. He made the most of it. Instead of letting the show begin, he kept Muncy standing up there, teasing him. The crowd before the tent grew until everyone on the grounds was jammed around, waiting to follow the wrestlers inside.

"Well, is this puny specimen the best your fair city has to offah?" the barker said. "I'm scared Tony will have him flat on his back so quick you all won't get your money's worth."

The professional wrestler leered at Muncy. The crowd hooted, "Let Muncy at him!" "Atta boy, Muncy! Clean his plow!" "Mess up that mat with him, Muncy!"

Muncy had been (Continued on page 84) mad when he went up on the platform. Under the showman's taunts he was half-crazy. Once he lunged toward the carnival wrestler, but the man jumped nimbly out of the blacksmith's reach.

(Confirmed from page 61)

When the last of the carnival crowd had been drawn to the athletic arena's outside platform, the spieler said to Muncy, "Now, my man, if you'll go inside and get on a pair of tights, we'll start the match."

Muncy said, "No, I'll crawl the sonnabitch just like I am."

The spieler said, "No, you'll have to get on a pair of tights, because we don't want nobody saying that this wasn't no fair match."

Muncy followed the showmen inside the tent. The crowd surged forward to buy tickets.

When Muncy crawled through the ropes of the wrestling arena the canvas billowed with the cheers that went up from the crowded plank tiers.

The show wrestler circled. Muncy bellowed and made for him. The two fell to the mat in a tangle. They were both dressed in tights of the same faded red. The light was had. It was hard telling who was who.

Muncy had his legs locked around the other's body in a scissors hold. The

professional had a head hold on Muncy and he bore down viciously. Both men were grunting loudly. Everyone thought that the blacksmith had the show wrestler where he wanted him, though. The crowd quieted down, waiting for someone to give in.

The show wrestler squirmed and slipped free from the terrible grip of Muncy's legs. Muncy made a frantic grab. He snatched a toe-hold, and he yanked savagely. Something cracked. It cracked like a rifle shot. The show wrestler stood up. Muncy Morgan had fainted. He was twisted up there, gray and ghastly in the flickering light of the gasoline torches.

The crowd held its breath while Doc Boatright came up to examine Muncy. The carnival barker talked with the doctor for a few seconds.

Then he stood up in the arena and began explaining it to the crowd. Muncy Morgan's leg was broken. He had caught a toe-hold on his own foot. Muncy had broken his own leg.

No one would believe it. Everyone went wild. There was a big fight that night. Someone set fire to the athletic show's tent, and the carnival company got so wrecked that it couldn't show in the next town.