Two in the Field (25 page)

I remembered Morrissey from the Troy ballgrounds, the platinum blonde Elise Holt on his arm. A former bare-knuckle boxing champion and U.S. Congressman, Morrissey could provide formidable protection for Red Jim.

“Think it over,” O’Neill said.

I thought it over. The last thing I wanted was to leave, but if the colony’s future was at stake, was I in any position to refuse? And the prospect of settling affairs with McDermott had a strong appeal.

“In the event of success,” he said coyly, “you could be sure I’d use any influence I might have with Caitlin.”

Well, there it was. The old commander was playing every card he held.

“I don’t want her
influenced,”
I said. “I just want a fair chance.”

“Then I’d say
that
to her,” he said easily. “If you agree to undertake the mission, the means for it will arrive tomorrow.”

I looked at him blankly.

He smiled. “When we win the match.”

Over his shoulder I saw a thatch-covered pavilion being decorated for the festivities. A painted sign read OLD GLORY BLOWOUT! Beyond the pavilion, on the level ground where we practiced, baselines were being marked out with crushed limestone. If there hadn’t been pressure on this country ball contest before, there definitely was now.

 FIFTEEN 

On the Fourth we woke to gunshots from the prospectors’ camp upriver. We’d heard their drunken whoops the last two nights, but until now no firearms. I hoped it wasn’t a tipoff to what the holiday might hold. Several of them, burly and bearded, showed up at our early-morning practice. Watching me align cutoff men on outfield plays, they voiced a few caustic thoughts on such fine-tunings of the game.

“We’re fixin’ to hammer your plowboy asses,” said the largest one, who turned out to be Dyson.

“What’s this?” another yelled, seeing Linc behind the plate. “Black Irish?”

Linc ignored him.

“Black
nigger
Irish!” Dyson said.

While the goldbugs exploded in har-hars at their keen wit, I caught Linc’s eye, and knew we had the same thought: It could be a long afternoon.

When Tim stepped to the plate for hitting practice, Dyson lost no time in commenting on how we were reduced to using “green sprigs.” I saw the boy signal Monohan for an inside pitch, and had an uneasy suspicion. Sure enough, Tim pulled the ball in a blistering hook outside the foul line that low-bridged Dyson and his men.

Oh, hell, I thought, let’s not start this already.

“Was that a-purpose, you shit-arsed sprat!” Dyson roared.

“Of course not,” I said before Tim could respond, walking quickly over to them. “We’re looking forward to a friendly contest.”

“ ‘Friendly contest,’ Dyson repeated in sissified tones. He nearly
matched me in height and outweighed me by at least seventy-five pounds, some of it in his gut but a lot more in solid body mass. I saw a calculation in his eyes and sensed that he was thinking he could take me. I sighed inwardly. Did I put out signals or something? Why did I draw these idiots? “Now we’ve seen your mongrel nine,” he said, “how about doubling the stakes?”

I didn’t like that mongrel crack. I didn’t like Dyson. I especially didn’t like this situation, which held prickly reminders of my last ballpark fracas.

What would Sjoberg counsel?

“You’ll have to ask General O’Neill about that,” I told him. Soft chin. Soft eyes. Non-challenging tone. “We just play, we don’t set the stakes. Besides, we’d be crazy to do it since you don’t seem impressed by us—and we haven’t seen you at all.”

Dyson laughed scornfully, as if I’d been confirmed as a cream puff. “Afore long,” he promised, “You’ll see a lot more than you want.”

Already have
, I thought, nodding cordially as he and his cohorts strode off.

Tim was in my face immediately. “Why’d you back down, Sam?”

I didn’t answer him directly, but called all of them together. “Look,” I said, “that was a useful preview. They’re gonna try to get our goats, take our minds off how we play, make it a slugging match one way or another. That isn’t our game, understand?”

Tim was staring at the ground. I suspected I’d fallen short in the hero department. Well, that wasn’t my problem.

“Understand … Tim?”

He gave a grudging nod.

“Lie down with dogs,” Tip McKee said, “and surely we’ll rise with fleas!”

It brought a laugh, which didn’t hurt just then.

After I dismissed them, I walked off with Linc. “You gonna handle the ‘nigger’ stuff okay?”

“Heard it all before,” he said. “If it’s words, that’s one thing. If it comes to be more, I’ll pick my time and go at ’em with everything in reach.”

“If it comes to that, I’ll be there with you.”

He nodded matter of factly. “Figured you might.”

In my previous life I’d attended my share of so-called old-fashioned Fourths, but none came close to O’Neill City’s Old Glory Blowout. In mid-morning, while antelope and prairie chickens roasted in cooking pits, the first contests got underway: foot races, broad jumping, horse-shoe tossing, wrestling, and a hilarious sack race won by Kaija and a nine-year-old girl. Singing and spelling competitions followed. Then came a half-mile horse race around a clump of willows, and back again. Tim asked to ride Mr. P., and I agreed. In a field of nine, he finished a respectable fifth.

I came face to face with Cait during a taffy pull of boiled-down sorghum. She looked like royalty in a green dress that set off her eyes.

“Morning,” I said.

“Yes.” She passed by with a rustle of fabric.

“Cait,” I said to her back, “this is ridiculous.”

She didn’t turn around.

By early afternoon the pavilion tables held breads and fritters and cakes, marmalade and rose-petal jams, berries topped with cream, dandelion greens, roasting ears, wild plums and grapes and mulberries and gooseberries and crabapples. Plus the roasted game and fish from the Elkhorn.

A contingent from Atkinson arrived with more food. The prospectors came soon after. They were noisy but reasonably
cordial—we were feeding them, after all—and there were jokes about eating so much we wouldn’t be able to play. I’d told my players to load up
after
the contest; another meal would come that evening. The goldbugs showed no such restraint, and it wasn’t hard to tell that several had been drinking. Dyson didn’t say much but kept staring at me. I did my best to ignore him.

A cloud layer cut some of the sun’s intensity and a breeze stirred the air. Good conditions. As game time approached, the women pinned green ribbons to our sleeves and presented us with cotton caps they’d made, each bearing a shamrock, and so we took “Shamrocks” as our team name. The goldbugs dubbed themselves “Argonauts,” their one concession to uniforms being new rope belts to cinch up their jeans.

Dyson wanted all flies, even fair ones, counted as outs if taken on one bounce. It was a reversion to rules used twenty years ago but I readily agreed because I figured it might work to our advantage. We’d been practicing catching the ball in the air. The field was a nightmare of bumps and hollows; if they waited for bounces they might be in for surprises.

Dyson scoffed at the idea of General O’Neill as the solitary umpire, so we settled on a trio: the General, a prospector with an injured leg, and one of the Atkinson group, a man named Rhodes, who’d done some umping in the past.

“Who’s holding stakes?” I asked.

John O’Neill nodded toward Rhodes. “The Argonauts gave him dust and nuggets—and assay papers attesting to their value.”

“What’s he got of ours?”

“A note convertible to goods from our store at wholesale rates.”

A great deal for them, I thought, and a potentially crippling depletion of our stock.

The contest began at three. As I’d expected, it was wildly offensive.
The Argonauts teed off on Monohan’s floaters and sent them deep into the outfield. Dyson hit one close to the river, a prodigious clout that must have traveled nearly 400 feet. Linc matched it an inning later, demonstrating that we could slug too—some of us. Mostly we did what we’d practiced: knocking “daisy-cutters” along the ground and letting the terrain and our opponents do the rest; at one point we had fourteen straight base runners.

In the field we backed each other up, hit our cutoffs, and tagged out a number of unwary Argonaut runners; Linc was masterful at keeping pitches from going behind him; and Tim ranged over the field like Andy himself, stealing hits and drawing Dyson’s vocal attention.

Still, their slugging gave them an edge. After five innings we trailed by seven runs, 42-35. The crowd, comprising virtually every soul in the Irish settlements, quieted and John O’Neill’s confident expression faded as the Argonauts grew increasingly arrogant.

In the sixth, Linc gunned down two of them on steals of second, Tim applying the tag each time. As a rule the Argonauts didn’t slide but tried to bowl us over. Eluding them easily, Tim made a cocky twirl with the ball after the second tag. Dyson yelled something from the sideline.

“Don’t gloat,” I told Tim as he came off the field. “Win or lose, act the same.”

“Who wants to lose?” he retorted; the next was muttered but I heard it: “When’re
you
gonna do something so we win?”

I took a breath and said nothing.

Their pitcher, a hawknosed Hoosier fond of punctuating his windups with twangy remarks like, “Try this one for size,” started to tire as we continued to wait for balls to swat past their infielders. Our patience and good fielding gradually eroded the Argonauts’ lead.

In the bottom of the eighth, score tied 51-all, I singled past shortstop. Linc doubled me to third. Tim stepped to the plate to a chorus of expectant cheers. I looked for Cait in the crowd but couldn’t find her. She must be fearful that baseball would take her son as it had taken her brother.

Dyson gathered his men around him, apparently asking if anybody else could pitch. Finally he took the mound himself and glared in at Tim, who called for a low pitch. Which struck me as peculiar, since I knew he preferred the ball belt high. Dyson, having seen to his own discomfort that Tim could pull the ball with power, came in with a medium high outside pitch—to one of Tim’s favorite spots. He whacked it smartly into right field, and I scored with Linc right behind me. Suspecting from the boy’s smug demeanor that he’d been duped, Dyson scowled at Tim. Maybe it spoiled his concentration, for he laid a fat one in for our next batter, who laced it for another hit, scoring Tim—who, to my displeasure, made a big production of jumping on the plate and announcing his run—and we ended up taking the field in the top of the ninth leading 54-51.

Three outs to win.

It didn’t happen.

Monohan, feeling the pressure, lost his composure and his control. The Argonauts sandwiched two walks and seven hits around a single out. We trailed again, 56-54, with the bases loaded. Stalling, I went over to talk to Monohan and saw defeat in his eyes. If ever a secret weapon was needed, it was now. I called time and told Tim to warm up in the pitcher’s box.

“Think that snotnosed dickie bird’s gonna stop us?” Dyson taunted.

Wondering what a dickie bird was, I sent one of our subs to go fetch Tim’s mother.