Two in the Field (13 page)

“Ten thousand easy.” Twain sized up the throng with a practiced eye. “Most ever for a sporting event here.”

We sat crammed together on the hard grandstand bench, waiting for the players to appear. That morning I’d tried to enter the lobby of the Unites States Hotel, where the Red Stockings were staying, but it was impossible to penetrate the mob there. I left messages for Andy and Harry, but had no confidence that they’d been delivered.

“Here they come,” I said as the teams broke onto the field. Heart quickening, I recognized my old friends: George Wright, wearing sideburns now, but with the same cocky grin; Cal McVey, no longer a peach-fuzzed teenager, but bulky and formidable; Harry Wright, sporting a full set of whiskers, dressed not in uniform but in a derby and cravat, and taking his place quietly on the players’ bench.

Andy Leonard, a bit thicker now …

Seeing him pluck a ball out of the air with one hand and throw it with easy grace brought me to my feet. Suddenly I was plunging down through the crowd toward the diamond. I made it several yards onto the grass before a cop headed me off.

“Andy!” I yelled.
“Andy!”

He glanced my way. His glass-green eyes met mine, I was sure of it, but his expression didn’t change as he trotted to the outfield. I stood there for a few seconds more, then let the cop steer me back behind the ropes. The Dark Blues streamed past and I caught sight of Allison, who used to catch for Cincinnati.

“Doug!” I called. “It’s me, Sam.”

“Hiya, bub.” His eyes flicked my way, then back toward the diamond. Serious and intent, his pregame face. Did he know me? I had no idea. Allison called everybody “bub.” Why should he remember? I’d been part of his life only for a few months, six years ago. But Andy was a different matter. Making my way back up the bleachers, I felt heartsick at the thought that he
had
recognized me and pretended otherwise.

“Why the sour look?” Twain asked as I wedged back in beside him. “It’s a day built for pleasuring.” A band began playing, its brassy notes punctuated by vendors’ cries: “Salted almonds! Soda water here! New York ginger snaps!”

“I should be in my study, squeezing out more of Tom Sawyer,” he said contentedly, “but instead I’m here playing hooky just like him!”

Boston took an early 5-0 lead and the crowd started booing. His interest shifting to a group of ragged boys trying to sneak through the outfield fence, Twain suddenly reached into his duster and pulled out a tiny notebook. Wetting the point of a stub pencil with his tongue, he commenced scribbling. I leaned over to see it:

Aunt P’s fence = 30 yds long & 9 ft high
.

Tom swindles arabs
.

Day’s end = three thick coats, perfectly applied. “If he hadn’t run out of whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.”

“I should come out here more often,” he remarked, tucking his little book away with a flourish.

In mid-game the Dark Blues rallied to tie the score, but Boston won pulling away, 10-5. I thanked Twain for the ticket and promised I’d repay his loan with interest. As the crowd thinned I tried to enter the clubhouse but was blocked by cops. I heard one of them say that both clubs would be on the evening train to Boston, where they played again tomorrow.

The Stockings began to emerge, George Wright among the first.

“George!” I said. “It’s me, Sam!”

He flashed his grin and waved and walked on. Somebody else called to him and he did the same thing. I spotted Andy beside the big-mustached third baseman, O’Rourke, who was talking a mile a minute.

“Andy,” I said urgently. “I’m back!”

The green eyes passed over me.

“Andy!” I yelled. “It’s Sam Fowler!” I couldn’t believe he didn’t hear me, but he kept walking. I struggled to reach him.
“Dammit, what’s wrong with you!”

People turned and stared. Andy did too, with a look of profound hostility, as he slowly raised one fist. The middle finger was not extended, but I knew it was only because we were in public.

Numb with shock, I stood there stupidly as he walked away. Gradually, anger replaced my shock. Determined not to let it end this way, I flagged a hack to the station. An hour later, I boarded the N.Y. & Penn line two cars behind the one occupied by the Red Stockings. Later that night, during a coal-and-water stop in Springfield I stepped into their compartment and dumped my valise in a baggage rack. Most of the players were grouped around a noisy card game at the opposite end.

I watched them for a while, pondering how to get Andy alone. Feeling eyes on me, I looked to the side and found myself staring at Harry Wright.

“Congratulations, Harry,” I said. “Your club looked great—but I wish you were still out in center field.”

He regarded me silently.

“Remember me? Sam Fowler?”

“You appeared among us suddenly on a train,” he said pointedly. “And disappeared quite as suddenly.”

“Not by choice.” I thought about claiming I’d been laid up with terrible fever or somesuch, but Harry was good at detecting bullshit. His players had given him plenty of practice at it.

“I see Acey and Fred aren’t with you,” I said, referring to Brainard and Waterman, star pitcher and third baseman, respectively, on the old club.

“Asa wed a gentle woman who nursed him to health when he nearly died from tuberculosis—that was the winter after you left us, Mr. Fowler—and they had an infant son. Asa abandoned them both.”

His eyes bored into mine, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was making a point. Did he think I’d abandoned not only my teammates but Cait?

“I need to talk to Andy.”

“Does he wish it?”

“We were like brothers,” I said desperately. “I want to set things straight.”

He looked at me for a long moment.

“Please, Harry.”

He rose and walked back to the players. Moments later Andy came up the aisle. His face was tight.

“What do you want?”

Up close I could see the worry lines that etched his forehead and bordered his eyes. With his red hair and freckles and wide-set green eyes, he still looked like the boy chosen Most Popular in his class. But it was also clear that this boy had become an adult.

“Just to talk.” I tried not to show the hurt I felt. “To tell you I’m sorry it’s been such a long time.”

“Grand,” he said tersely. “You said it.”

“Why are you being this way?”

He looked at me incredulously, his eyes red-rimmed; I remembered
that he’d suffered from a chronic irritation in the past. Today he’d been one of the few Stockings to go hitless. But that couldn’t account for his reaction to me. I’d never seen this kind of anger in him.

“Why?”
he demanded. “You show up out of the blue after all this time, like your vanishing didn’t
matter?”

“If it does any good to say it,” I told him, “I missed you every day I was gone.”

“In ’Frisco I asked for your promise to come back,” he said bitterly, “and you
gave
it to me.”

I remembered: at Woodward’s Gardens, standing beside a little lake, feeling the milkiness building around me, sensing O’Donovan closing in. I’d told him that I would return to Cincinnati, and he’d taken it as a brother’s oath.

“I
have
come back,” I said. “I’m here. I’m sorry it took so long. I never wanted to leave in the first place.

You can’t imagine how hard it’s been for me to get back.”

A noisy outburst came from the other end of the car, some of the players exulting, others groaning. I gathered that there had been side bets. Harry, who had been sitting close enough to overhear us, got up and moved rearward. He didn’t like some of his men running up large debts to others.

Andy noted Harry’s departure, then said in low tones, “You want the cash, that’s all.”

“What cash?”

“The money that buried Ma.”

“That was a gift,” I protested.
“You
called it a loan.”

“And swore I’d pay it back,” he snapped. “But right now is …” He shook his head and his words trailed off.

“Look, I didn’t come for that.”

“Why then?” His scowl made me want to shake him until the old Andy emerged. “To get me in dutch with this club?”

“Why the hell would I want to do that?”

“What you
want
don’t hardly matter. Just your being here is plenty. You think folks don’t take notice when a killer shows up?”

It stopped me cold.
Killer …

“Didn’t Johnny tell you what happened?” I managed to say.

He looked at me blankly.

“Remember? My partner in the concessions, the black man who raced bikes.”

“Oh, yes, your pet velocipedist.
He
vanished, too. Your booth was taken over by a downtown restaurant.”

Which answered one of my questions: Had Johnny stayed on in San Francisco? Apparently so. I’d hoped that he’d returned to Cincinnati and told everybody what happened on Russian Hill. Instead, all Andy knew was that O’Donovan met a violent end there. And that I’d disappeared.

“You honestly believe I could kill somebody?”

“You half finished Craver just with your fists,” he retorted. “The Fenians put it out that you murdered Fearghus and tried to pass it off as an accident. They claimed he was holding a gun, which shows he tried to defend himself.”

My chest felt constricted by a sick hopelessness. Cait would have been hard pressed to deny that story if the Fenian Order stood behind it. I listened numbly as he told of reward notices for my capture posted in the
Pilot
, the official Catholic voice of the Boston Archdiocese, and duplicated in every other city with an Irish population. Odd to think I’d come back to find myself a wanted man.

Two Hartford players entered from an adjoining car, saw Andy, and headed toward us. I inclined my head toward the door, and Andy followed. Outside, we stood on a small platform behind a safety railing. The rush of night air felt mild and fresh
after the car’s closeness. A bright three-quarter moon lit Andy’s features.

“Aren’t the Fenians washed up by now?” I asked.

“New policies and leaders—but they never forget,” he said. “Red Jim still comes around every so often, askin’ if I’ve seen you.”

“McDermott?” I’d last seen the red-haired gambler in a Utah jail, riddled with bullets. “He’s loose again?”

“More than that, he claims that when he found out you were a paid informer and assassin, he set out to stop you from killing Fearghus.”

“Jesus Christ.” To the Irish an informer was probably even lower than an assassin. The two combined could hardly be worse.

“But you ambushed Fearghus first,” Andy finished.

“That isn’t how it happened,” I said, and, leaving out the shadowy form I’d taken to be the ghost of Colm O’Neill, I told him what had transpired.

As he listened, his face softened slightly, and when he said, “So why’d you hide out?” he sounded curious as well as accusatory.

“I didn’t,” I said. “After all, it was O’Donovan who tried to kill
me.”

“Hide from the Fenians, I mean.”

“I didn’t even know they blamed me.”

He blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Okay, then, where
have
you been, Sam?”

“Remember that night in Washington?” I said, deciding to push it all the way. “When I carried on about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and you said I was talking crazy?”

He nodded.

“I knew what would be standing in that spot in the next century because that’s where I’m from—the future.”

I waited anxiously for his reaction.

He blinked again and for the first time showed a trace of a smile. “When you first showed up,” he said, “and Champion caught us drinking and you passed out for three days …”

“Right,” I said. “I woke up in Rochester with you staring at me.”

“Well, while you slept I went through your billfold.” He paused to let that sink in. “I found a little chromo of you on a hard celluloid card that said, ‘California Driver License’ and gave you the right to operate a ‘motor vehicle.’ Another one said something about ‘airlines.’ There was queer-looking money, too, and everything had dates 130 years ahead.”

My God, he’d known
.

“Did you tell anybody?”

With a soft laugh he shook his head. “They’d’ve put one or both of us in a lunatic refuge,” he said. “I felt drawn to you, like it was all supposed to happen. So I decided to play it out, see where it would go.”

“I felt the same way.” I paused while the cars jolted and rattled over a rough section of track. “You never told Cait?”

He shook his head. “After you didn’t come back, I couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t have forgiven me for knowing it all along and letting her fall in love.” He paused and studied me. “So that’s truly where you’ve been? Back in your own time?”

I nodded. “It’s the last thing I wanted, though.”

The compartment door opened behind us and Harry Wright’s head emerged. He looked relieved to see us.

“It’s okay,” Andy told him. “We’re just talkin’ about my family.”

He waited until Harry retreated again. “I’m married now,” he said quietly.

“You are? Congratulations!”

“We had Andy Jr. two months ago.”

“That’s great!”

“He’s sickly, Sam, which is why I can’t pay you back.”

“Will you come off that!” I said heatedly. “Did I pay you for taking care of me when I didn’t know a soul? Or for jumping on Craver’s back when I was about to get stomped?”

“No.” He looked troubled.

“Andy, I’ve got to find Cait. I never want to leave her again. Where is she?”

“I don’t know.” He looked down at his feet. “Last time we were together she accused me of caring only about ball-playing. Said I was indifferent to the cause of Ireland, and shouldn’t be looking to see her again. Since then I haven’t had any word from her. Neither has our sister Bridget.”

I felt unsteady, as if the floor were about to fall away. I’d been so sure that he would lead me to Cait. Now what the hell would I do?

“Last year, the Reds and the Athletics went on a tour to England,” he went on. “I crossed over to County Cavan, to see where I’d come from. I saw the tiny plots of land—the pisspoor conacres—we’d rented, and heard all about The Starving, when the potatoes turned black and the stores of oats ran out. I’d thought our Da’ died just of drink, but I learned how the landlords broke him first. Cait was old enough to have seen some of it, but I was only a babe.”