The House of Daniel (21 page)

“Who the devil is that?” Eddie sounded as far underwater as I felt.

“Beats me.” I know I sounded blurry, 'cause I was yawning while I was trying to talk.

“Well, tell him to go take a flying leap at himself,” Eddie said.

I might have told him to do it, but I didn't. I staggered out of bed instead. He was a veteran. I was a replacement, and a new replacement at that. A baseball team has the same kind of pecking order chickens do. Eddie could peck. I was way down at the bottom. I got pecked.

The knocking went on while I lurched to the door. I wondered how long it had taken to wake us up. Then I yawned again. I opened the door.

Two guys I'd never set eyes on before stood outside the cabin. One of them said, “You What's-his-name—Spivey?”

“Uh-huh. Who the—?”

That was as far as I got. The fellow who'd asked my name hauled off and gave me a right to the jaw. His buddy dished out a left to my belly. I folded up like a concertina. I was on the floor when one of them kicked me. The other one said, “Big Stu says, that'll teach you to get your name in the papers. And he says, you gotta take it if you won't dish it out.” Then he kicked me, too.

They walked away. They weren't laughing or anything. They didn't beat on me for the fun of it. They did it because they needed the money. It was a job, the way me going out and playing center for the House of Daniel was a job.

If I'd given Mich Carstairs a right to the jaw and a left to the belly and kicked her a couple times, I wouldn't've been playing center for the House of Daniel, of course. I would've still been back in Enid, doing more jobs like that for Big Stu. And if Mich had been Mitch, that's just where I would have been and what I would have been doing.

Instead, I was on the floor in a motor lodge cabin in Hobbs, New Mexico. The inside of my mouth was bloody. I ran my tongue around in there, but I didn't seem to have busted any teeth. If Big Stu ever found out, he'd be disappointed. The muscle men hadn't kicked me in the face, either. Once in the ribs, right where the bruise from that plunking was, and once not quite close enough to my family jewels to crack 'em.

“What the demon was
that
?” Eddie said. When I didn't answer right away—on account of I couldn't answer right away—he got out of bed and came over to me. He almost tripped on me, since I was trying to get up then. I wasn't having much luck yet, but I was trying. His voice got shriller: “What did they do to you?”

“Pounded on me.” Talking hurt. That was when I realized my tongue was cut. “I told you I was getting away from some trouble. I guess it went and caught up with me.”

“I guess it did.” Eddie found the light switch. I managed to make it to my feet. He winced. “Wash your face,” he said. “You've got blood dribbling down your chin.”

I went to the pitcher and basin on the dresser and did. I spat into the bowl once or twice, too, and rinsed out my mouth. Then I tossed the basin water outside. It was pretty gory. But I didn't look too bad. My beard was coming in pretty thick by then. It hid most of the bruising and swelling.

“I hope not,” I answered. “Sounded like it's done. Well, almost.” There was something I still needed to take care of. Big Stu's bully boys hadn't thumped me to make me think of it, but getting thumped made me remember.

“Should we call the cops? Should we wake up the rest of the team? If we catch those skunks, we can give them more of what they gave you.” Eddie mimed connecting on somebody's ribs with a baseball bat.

But I shook my head. “Forget about it. They're gone. And like I told you, I'm pretty sure it's over. I just want to go back to bed.”

“You won't go to sleep,” Eddie said.

I figured he was right. I hurt too much, and in too many places, to make shuteye a good bet. I could just lie there in the dark, though, and try not to think about anything. So I said, “I'll give it a shot.” Took a while to talk Eddie around, but I did it.

Out went the light. I lay on my back. They hadn't done anything to me there. My mouth hurt. My jaw hurt. So did my ribs, and my belly, and my thigh. I hoped like anything I didn't have a Charley horse. I had to be able to run the next afternoon, doggone it. We still didn't have anybody else who could do even a halfway decent job in center field.

So much for not thinking about anything. All that stuff went round and round in my head. After a while, my hurts weren't quite so sharp. After a while more, I did fall asleep again. Doesn't mean the goons didn't beat on me. Just means I was mighty tired.

*   *   *

I was still tired when Eddie's alarm clock and mine (yeah, I had one by then) went off together. I was sore, too, and stiff. But I thought I could work out the kinks in my leg. I'd drooled more blood and spit down my beard. The pillowcase wouldn't make the geezer who ran the motor lodge very happy. Well, that was his hard luck. I poured more water into the basin and washed my face again. This time, the water wasn't quite so bad, but I chucked it anyhow.

If I looked funny, nobody on the team said anything. When we came back from breakfast, I gave the fellow at the motor lodge a nickel for an envelope, a piece of paper, and a three-cent stamp. I went back to the cabin and wrote Big Stu's name on the envelope, and the address for his diner. Then I folded the paper around a ten-dollar bill so nobody could see what it was and I sealed everything up.

A mailbox sat on the street outside the motor lodge. Tourists and salesmen and people passing through could drop reports and letters and whatnot in there. I'd told Rod Graver I'd pay back the ten bucks I got from Big Stu to do what I hadn't wound up doing. I'd forgotten about that till now, but I got reminded. Oh, yes, just a little.

I wanted to write something on the paper to tell Big Stu where to head in or where to stick the money. I wanted to, but I didn't. That might've kept him sore at me. If he figured I'd got my licking and he'd got his cash, maybe he'd decide it was all over and forget about me.

Or maybe he wouldn't. Big Stu didn't get to be what he was by forgetting things. I hoped Charlie Carstairs was all right. I hoped Mich Carstairs was in California. I hadn't heard any Oklahoma news since the House of Daniel made the long jump from Ponca City to Texas. I'd almost forgotten about Oklahoma, tell you the truth. Well, I had bruises and bumps and a cut on my tongue to show how Oklahoma hadn't forgotten about me.

“You good to go, Snake?” Eddie asked me when we got on the bus. We weren't heading back into Texas. I thanked my lucky stars for that. No, we were going the other way, west and a little south on US 62/180 to Carlsbad. If we'd headed straight down to Carlsbad from Artesia, it would only have been about twenty-five miles. But then we would've had to go to Hobbs from there and come back west over that unpaved stretch. We would have done the whole triangle any which way, in other words.

And we would have done another stretch without paving. They may call US 62/180 a highway, but close to thirty miles of it are nothing but gravel and dirt. Harv said “Shucks!” and “Doggone!” more than I'd ever heard from him before. Some of the guys said stronger things than that. I know I did. We got through it without a flat. I don't know how, but we did.

Some of the land around Carlsbad is irrigated. The rest sits on top of potash mines. They just found the potash a few years earlier. It wasn't quite a gold rush or an oil field full of gushers, but it must've been the next best thing. Carlsbad's got it almost as good as though the Big Bubble'd kept getting bigger.

The semipro team was called—guess what?—the Potashers. They were a company team, like the Greasemen in Ponca City. Some of 'em really worked in the mines. Some played ball well enough so they didn't have to do much else.

They've got a nice ballpark in town. Nothing was built up around Montgomery Field, so they could make it a decent size. It's 345 in left, a good 415 to center, and 320 to right. Because of the thin air and heat, it sounds bigger than it plays, if you know what I mean. We saw that as soon as we started taking batting practice there.

When I wasn't swinging, I was trotting from home down the foul line and back, loosening up my sore leg. Once the blood got flowing, it wasn't too bad. I didn't think I'd be as quick as usual, but I'd still be better in center than anybody else Harv could put there.

He noticed me trotting that way, of course. It wasn't part of my usual routine before a game. “You good to go, Snake?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” I said.

“Honest injun? Talk straight with me, son. I hear you ran into some trouble last night—or it ran into you.”

He'd heard from Eddie. I hadn't seen Eddie talking with him, but I don't have eyes in the back of my head. Eddie cared more about the team than he did about me. One more reminder I was still a spare part bolted on to keep the machine running. Nothing I could do about that except keep it running as well as I could.

“I'll be all right, Harv,” I told him. “Even sore, I move better'n anybody else you've got healthy, and you know it.”

He didn't try to convince me I was loopy. He couldn't. I went out to center to catch some flies and see how it felt when I had to turn fast. It was sore. So were my ribs. So was my belly. I could play, though. As long as I could, I would. Big Stu's plug-uglies would've had to stomp me a lot longer than they did to knock me out of the lineup.

By the time the game started, there were a couple of thousand people in the stands. Not quite a full house, but close. Harv said Montgomery Field held 2,250. He knew things like that, so I didn't try to argue with him.

The Potashers were good. I'd seen that watching their hitting and fielding drills. They knew what to do out there, and they could do it. The mining outfit that backed them had the money to go out and find good ballplayers. Maybe their reserves weren't so hot; I don't know about that. But the men they put on the field could've been pros. Some likely had been. One or two of the kids might be in a year or so.

Their pitcher reminded me of Fidgety Frank, only he was a righty. He was tall and lean, all arms and legs, with everything going every which way. The one trouble with a motion like that is, it's not easy to fix when something goes haywire. He walked our first two guys, and Harv smacked a double into the left-field corner on a get-it-over fastball. Both runners scored.

Their first batter hit a fly into left-center. I caught it. If I couldn't have caught it, I didn't belong out there. You always feel better after you do catch one. You're in the game, not waiting for something to happen.

We got another run in the third. They got two back in the fifth when their left fielder knocked one over the fence just to the right of the 415 sign. I got back on it fine. I would've made the play if it stayed in the park. But it was long gone. I'd seen that that guy was slow and had a glass arm, even for a left fielder. He could swing the bat, though.

They tied it in the eighth. We went to extra innings. I got up there with men on first and third and two outs. I hadn't done much—I'd walked once, but that was it. I guessed their hurler wouldn't worry about me. He'd come in with fastballs and try to get out of it. I took one for a strike. He wasted a curve, and I laid off. Then he threw me another fastball. I dropped down a bunt.

I'm not a power hitter. I never will be, not even in Hobbs. I haven't got the muscles or the fast bat. So I have to do the little things better than I would if I could swing for the fences all the time like Mort Milligan or the Potashers' left fielder in this game. And their third baseman was playing back of the bag to try to cut off extra-base hits.

I got it down. If it stayed fair, it'd be a hit, 'cause I knew I laid it out there too far for their catcher to reach, and their pitcher fell off toward first every time he threw. I ran as hard as I could. It hurt, but I didn't care.

I didn't look back till after I crossed the bag and turned around. The ball had gone about fifty feet up the third-base line and stopped. I couldn't have rolled it out there any better. We had ourselves a 4-3 lead.

The Potashers' first baseman looked disgusted. “What a crappy thing to go and do,” he said.

I shrugged. “We needed the run. You would've liked it fine if one of your fellas went and did it.”

“Take your hacks, man,” he grumbled. “You don't fight fair.” He could say things like that. He was even bigger and wider through the shoulders than their left fielder. He was bound to be even slower, too, or they would have put him in left. When he took his hacks, the ball would jump.

“I wish I could hit hard,” I told him. “I've got to get it done some other way. It's all part of the game.”

“Phooey,” he said. Any first baseman would have. First basemen are hitters first. When it comes to defense, first is the easiest position to play. You don't have to run fast or throw much. If you can hit but can't field, that's where they put you.

He said
Phooey
again, or maybe something ruder, when he flied out to me with a man on second to end the game. I had to run some to get it, but not too bad. One of the Potashers yelled out from their dugout: “You shaggy bums went and stole that one!”

Harv smiled. We'd won, so he could. “They don't count how you get the runs. They count how many you get. Back in the deadball days, they would've said hitting a homer was stealing one.”

Eddie swatted me on the behind when I came in with the ball still in my glove. “They don't know how tough that was,” he said, not too loud.

“Nothing hurts when you come out on top,” I answered. That wasn't quit true, but close enough. I knew I might be more sore and swollen the next day and the day after that, but I figured I could play through it if I did a good job getting loose beforehand, the way I had here.