The House of Daniel (28 page)

Harv set a hand on his shoulder. “Happens to everybody once in a while,” he said, and anyone who's played a little baseball knows about that. “Sometimes you're the windshield. Sometimes you're the bug.”

“Splat!” the fat, old, ex-Colorado Springs Millionaire said. They both laughed. I'm sure it felt funnier to Harv, though. You lose a game like that, you want to go somewhere quiet and have a couple-three cold ones so you don't need to brood about it as much.

Afterwards, we celebrated at a spaghetti joint. Spaghetti and meat balls and that kind of stuff is cheap, but it fills you up. “I think we did play better today. I'm not what you'd call sure, though,” Harv said. “When the other side turns in a game like that, you've got a tough time gauging how good you are.”

Wes kinda coughed, but he didn't say anything. Harv had had kittens when we played two games like that. Of course, Harv was looking ahead to the tournament. We couldn't play like that in Denver, not if we wanted to go very far.

We got back on the bus. Harv drove us to the roominghouse where we were staying in Colorado Springs. The gal who ran it came out just about spitting rivets. “Mister Watrous,” she snapped, “Mister Watrous, there's someone in the parlor who says he needs to see you.”

“Well, all right. I'll see him. What's the matter?” Harv said. Pretty plainly, something was.

The woman made a horrible face. “I am not in the habit of letting persons of that sort enter my establishment. I don't know how he sweet-talked me into allowing it. Do your business with him and send him on his way, if you would be so kind.”

“What's she going on about?” Eddie whispered. Eddie was a Northern fella through and through. He had no hint. I thought I did, but I could've been wrong, so I shrugged back at him. We all trooped in together. As soon as we got to the parlor, we'd know.

In there sat a colored fella. I nodded to myself; that was what I'd figured. He stood up when he saw us. He was tall—six-three, maybe six-four—and skinny. He wore a sharp suit. He might have been my age or he might have been twenty years older. You couldn't tell at first glance. He would've been handsome and to spare if he hadn't quit shaving a few days earlier.

He touched the brim of his Panama hat. He had long, thin fingers.
A pitcher's fingers
, I thought, not knowing yet how right I was. “”Which one of y'all is Mistuh Watrous?” he asked, his voice smooth as creamed coffee and full of the Deep South.

“That's me.” Harv stuck out his hand. “And you would be—?” He sounded as though he knew, but he wanted to hear it with his own ears to make it official.

The colored fellow shook with him. His hand almost swallowed Harv's, which wasn't little itself. “I'm Carpetbag Booker,” he said. “Mighty pleased to meet you, suh. I've come to pitch fo' your team through the tournament, like you asked me to.”

*   *   *

Harv beamed just like Christmas. Everybody except Harv gaped at Carpetbag Booker. Fidgety Frank, Wes, Eddie, and I were maybe a little less amazed than the rest of the guys, but only a little. Yes, the four of us knew Harv had got a CC message connected to somebody from the Pittsburgh Crawdads, but we'd never dreamt he could've talked Carpetbag Booker into signing up with the House of Daniel, even for a little while.

Wes looked less happy about it than some of the others. He was our number two pitcher. Now he'd be number three, which meant he wouldn't pitch much. He played the outfield, too, but even so.… This bit a big chunk out of his pride.

But the first thing Harv had to do was get the lady who ran the roominghouse down off her high horse. The idea of a colored man staying in her place gave her conniptions. It did till Harv slipped her an extra ten clams, anyway. That and hearing how Carpetbag was a famous colored man sweetened her up. Mostly, though, it was the money.

Nobody asked me how I felt about things. I'd played against colored fellas a few times now. Play on the same team with one? He'd give us a way better chance to win the tournament. Any fool could see that. I'd been raised to think whites and coloreds playing together was wrong, though. No, it was worse than wrong—it was a sin.

Maybe it was … in Oklahoma. And in Texas. And in Alabama or Mississippi or wherever Carpetbag Booker came from. Not in New Mexico or Colorado. If these places could cope with it, maybe I could, too. Besides, Carpetbag had already put some extra money in the roominghouse lady's pocket. If we went deep into the tournament, he'd put more in mine.

And the way he acted, you didn't think of him so much as a colored fella. You thought of him as a ballplayer. He'd barnstormed with big-leaguers in the offseason. If they could play alongside him, I reckoned I could, too. Playing alongside him sure got them some extra cash.

So we all talked for a spell. Then he picked up the carpetbag he was nicknamed for and went to his room. He had one all to himself. The gal who ran the roominghouse insisted on it. Carpetbag, he didn't say boo. If he slept better than the rest of us on account of not having any roommates, he didn't say anything about that the next morning, either.

For that day's game, we went toward Denver by going away from it. Canon City is about forty miles southwest of Colorado Springs, most of it along a winding mountain road. They spell it the way they spell it, but they say it as though it were Canyon. It's at the start of the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas, which isn't in Arkansas and isn't as grand as the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, which isn't in Colorado. Names get confusing sometimes, don't they?

My guess is, Canon City used to have one of those Spanishy thingumabobs over the first
n
so you could tell how you were supposed to say it. It doesn't any more, though, and it hasn't for a long time. They still say it as if it did. Spelling gets confusing sometimes, too.

The Grand Canyon of the Arkansas is a thousand feet of red granite carved by the river over Lord only knows how many years. A bunch of 'em—that's all I can tell you. The other thing you could see in Canon City was the Colorado State Pen. The walls there were all made out of gray stone, so I don't think they got carved out of the Grand Canyon.

Across from the prison was State Park. When we got there, trusties in striped jail suits were mowing the grass and trimming weeds and the like. In the middle of the park stood the field where we'd play.

Well, the ballpark stood and leaned and tilted. It was another old wooden place falling to pieces a bit at a time. For a little while, not long after I was born, Canon City had a team in the Rocky Mountain League. A very little while—it moved down to Raton partway through the season, and the league gave up the ghost before the season ended. So that's been a semipro park and a for-fun park ever since.

We were playing the Canon City Fylfots. That was the name of the pro team back when, and the semipro team hung on to it. You do see that here and there. And they had a hooked cross on each sleeve and FYLFOTS across the chest in black letters with red edging. They had got hold of the thing before that noisy fella on the far side of the ocean, and they were not about to let go of it for him or anybody else.

The stands were not great big. They were pretty full, though. The House of Daniel does pack 'em in. And everybody in them buzzed when Harv bawled out the last name in our lineup: “And pitching today for the House of Daniel, for the first time ever, is the one, the only, the great … Carpetbag Booker!”

Carpetbag tipped his cap to the crowd. They must have seen him there warming up, but not all of 'em would have known who he was. They'd heard of him—that was for sure. Most of 'em cheered. Some booed. A few yelled the kind of things colored fellas hear a lot.

Growing up where he grew up, Carpetbag must've heard 'em all a million times. If they bothered him—and how couldn't they?—he didn't show it. As far as anybody could tell by looking, they rolled off him like water off an oilcloth.

We staked him to a couple of runs in the top of the first. That's always good. He went out and put on a show. He kicked his leg way high in the air when he wound up, so the batter would see the sole of his shoe. He had a fastball that sank. He had a fastball that hopped. He had a changeup. He had a nickel curve. And he had the knack that good pitchers have, the knack for ruining a batter's timing. He had way more of that than anybody else I've ever seen.

When no one was on, he'd throw a hesitation pitch. Guys will do that now and then. But he was even better at it than Fidgety Frank. He could stop his motion at a different place each pitch, yet still throw hard and still throw strikes. You wouldn't believe it, but Carpetbag did it. He made it look easy, too.

It didn't seem fair. He was tougher than big-league hitters. The Canon City Fylfots couldn't touch him. Oh, it wasn't a perfect game or anything—they scratched out a few hits and even a run. That was something for the guy who did it to tell his grandchildren about when he had them.
I knocked in a run against Carpetbag Booker!

But it wasn't any kind of contest. By then we'd got seven or eight, I forget which, and the poor Fylfots hadn't a prayer of catching up. Carpetbag toyed with them. He started clowning. They still couldn't hit him.

The crowd ate it up. “Do the windmill!” some leather-lungs shouted from the seats. And Carpetbag would. He'd send his arm around three or four times before he turned the ball loose. And the hitter would swing and miss. Or else he'd stand there with his eyes wide and take it. The ump would call it a strike, because it was.

When the game was over, half the Fylfots crowded round to get his autograph. He signed and signed, a big old grin on his face. “Mistuh Harv, I had to get stretched out after the train ride west, but I reckon I'm ready,” he said.

“I reckon you are,” Harv said. “The teams in Denver, though, they'll be tougher than you had it here.”

“Some of 'em will.” Carpetbag knew how good he was. He didn't brag or boast nearly so much as he might have. He must've known that, if he'd been born white, he would've been even more famous than he was, to say nothing of a lot richer. Knowing that kind of thing would have soured a lot of men. It rolled off his back, the same way the nasty names did.

Nothing stuck to him. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. He was what he was, he knew what he was, and he was happy with what he was. You know what? You could do worse. Plenty of folks have, whatever their color.

When we went back to the boardinghouse in Canon City, the woman who ran it held a sealed CC envelope out to Harv and said, “This came while you were playing the game.”

“Did it?” Harv answered with no expression in his voice. I mean, none. He looked a trifle worried while he opened the envelope. Carpetbag Booker seemed less cheerful than usual, too. What kind of finagling did he do to get out of his contract with the Crawdads and sign one with the House of Daniel? Had the Crawdads sicced lawyers on him to make him go back where they said he belonged?

“What's it about?” he asked Harv.

A big, slow smile spread over Harv's face once he read the message. “It's from the guy in Colorado Springs who runs their semipro league,” he answered, nothing but relief in his voice. “Wants to know if we can play his All Stars again tomorrow. Says he promises a full house if Carpetbag pitches.” He turned to the colored fella. “Don't want to wear you out ahead of the tournament.”

“Reckon I can go a few, anyways,” Carpetbag said. “Didn't have to work too hard today—no, suh. An' I done a lot o' ballplayin', Mistuh Harv. Soupbone ain't fallen off my shoulder yet.”

“You know best,” Harv said. “But sing out if you feel tired or sore, you hear? The tournament's more important than a warmup game.”

“I will let you know,” Harv said solemnly.

“Okey-doke.” Harv turned back to the landlady. “Where's the CC office at here? I've got to answer this.”

*   *   *

When we got back to Colorado Springs, we found a different roominghouse to lodge at. The old couple who ran this one didn't get shirty about having Carpetbag Booker staying at their place. He did wind up with a room of his own again, though. He seemed happier that way, and Harv wanted to keep him happy.

That old minor leaguer didn't miss a trick. He advertised the game in the town paper. Flyers all over said BALLGAME TODAY! COLORADO SPRINGS ALL STARS VS. HOUSE OF DANIEL AND CARPETBAG BOOKER! SPURGEON FIELD, 2:30 PM! In smaller letters underneath, it said
Admission only one dollar!

Tickets two days earlier had been fifty cents, what the House of Daniel usually charged. If he could fill the ballpark at twice as much a head …

He could, and he did. People cheered when they saw Carpetbag getting loose. He tipped his cap to them, and they cheered louder. “I barnstormed through here—ain't been back for a few years, but I did,” he said. Then he paused and thought about it and looked surprised and a little sheepish. “Reckon I barnstormed through just about everywhere. Everywhere they plays baseball, anyways.”

The All Stars did better than they had the last time we faced 'em. You could see why the old ex-Millionaire thought they
were
all-stars. But they'd never faced Carpetbag Booker before. From center, I could see he wasn't throwing as hard as he had against the Fylfots the day before. But he didn't need to. When the All Stars weren't out in front on him, they swung late. He had 'em—what's the word?—mesmerized, that's it, like a bird in front of a snake.

Oh, not all of 'em, and not every pitch. One guy singled off him, then hit a two-run homer. Carpetbag tipped his cap to him, too, as the fellow rounded the bases. Baseball's a fair game. Even Carpetbag Booker made mistakes. If you could jump on one, more power to you.

Carpetbag might not have been so polite if we weren't still ahead, 5-2. After six innings, Harv batted for him and brought in Fidgety Frank to finish the game. Frank gave up a run, but we still beat the All Stars again.