Two in the Field (7 page)

“Do it!” urged Alex.

I smiled, part of me enjoying Sweasy’s predicament after the welcome I’d gotten. No way I’d run around on that broiling lot.

“You wouldn’t have to do nothin’, just join in so the match is legal.”

I shook my head.

“I’m in a pinch, Fowler.” He sounded weary. “You helped out before …”

His saying it brought to mind that the Stockings had taken me to Cait the first time. Maybe it was supposed to happen like this. Maybe baseball had to be part of it. “What do I get in return?”

Alex stared at me, astonished that I’d quibble over the chance of a lifetime.

“How ’bout a half share?”

“I don’t want money.”

“What, then?”

“Where’s Cait?”

His face clouded. “Okay, I’ll tell the little I know—but after we’re done.”

Wondering what I’d let myself in for, I followed him to the dressing shack. The near comatose player, supine with a water-soaked towel over his face, barely reacted when we pulled off his jersey and pants. I managed to climb into them but could barely cram my feet into his spiked shoes. Forget trying to run, even if I were so inclined.

“Don’t expect anything good,” I said.

Out in right I could hear Alex yelling encouragement. The expanse to cover looked impossibly huge. Our pitcher was obviously trying to get the Westerns to hit away from me, and I was relieved when he managed it with the first hitters. The in-blowing breeze also helped hold fly balls up long enough for the ballhawking Croft to reach them.

“Thank God you’re out here,” I told him after he sprinted far into my territory to pull down a liner.

“You’ll do fine,” he assured me with a gap-toothed grin.

Easy to think so when you’re twenty and all your parts work like oiled cogs.

So far Sweasy’s hitters had scarcely touched the Western pitcher. Coming to bat in the sixth, my main hope was not to strike out with Alex watching. My timing was wretched, but I managed an infield popup. Sweasy didn’t look at me as I trudged back to the bench.

“You’ll get him next time!” Croft piped up.

I was starting to like this kid.

In the seventh the Westerns’ solitary lefty poled a rising liner my way. I misjudged it, retreated too late, tripped and fell. By the time Croft retrieved the ball, the runner was on his way home. Four-base error. The Westerns went up 2-0.

Sweasy turned and stared at me, hands on hips.

I checked an urge to flip him off. Chalk one up for impulse control. Sjoberg would have been proud.

With two outs in the ninth, our leadoff man walked and our second hitter reached base on an error. A passed ball moved them to second and third. Our next batter already had a couple of hits, and the Westerns didn’t look eager to pitch to him—especially since I was on deck and figured to be an easy out. While they discussed it, Croft came up to me.

“I picked up something on their pitcher,” he whispered. “He bobs his head a tiny bit when he’s about to toss a curve.”

“Don’t know if it matters,” I said. “I still gotta hit it.”

As expected, they walked our man to load the bases and set up a force-out. With Alex cheering raucously, I stepped to the plate and called for a low pitch. The Keokuk hurler whizzed the ball inside. My vision and coordination seemed as good as ever as I smashed the ball down the left-field line. Foul, but not by much. The pitcher looked thoughtful. I was bigger than anybody on the field, and I’d demonstrated what could happen if I got too fat a pitch. He ducked his head slightly as he wound up again. The ball shot straight at me. I flinched involuntarily, then felt foolish as it broke across the plate.

“Strike!” called the ump.

Next came a fastball that I socked foul even harder than the first one. Concluding that I was a dead pull hitter, the Western captain waved his fielders around to the left.

Two strikes. I’d looked awful on the curve, so it wasn’t hard to guess that another one was coming. The pitcher wound up
—yes, the head bob
—and the ball flashed at me. I forced myself to hold position and keep my weight back. The ball broke sharply, farther outside than before. At the last instant it looked like it might nip the outside corner. I swung desperately,
butt poked back, arms reaching. Through some miracle the bat made contact, a “plunk,” and I saw the ball wobbling over first base and dropping fifty feet beyond, just inside the foul line. Given where they’d shifted on me, I couldn’t have thrown to a better spot.

“Go, Sam!” yelled Croft.

Legs and feet protesting, I pumped around first like a crazed dinosaur. I made second standing up when they elected to throw to the plate to nail our runner from first. But the other two had scored to tie the game. I stood there panting, more relieved than elated. Now Sweasy couldn’t blame a loss on me. In the stand, Alex sounded like he was going nuts. Sweasy soon sent him into new ecstasies by drilling a gapper that scored me easily to put us ahead.

The Westerns went down 1-2-3 in the final frame, and Sweasy looked pleased with the victory. In the “clubhouse,” however, his face fell when he received the pay envelope.

“How bad?” Croft asked.

“Sixty-eight bucks.” Sweasy slammed the envelope on the bench. “Our share for both games!”

“Shoot,” Croft muttered.

“The goddamn Browns’ stock company raised twenty thousand!” Sweasy said bitterly. “Signed practically the whole Atlantic nine out of Brooklyn and now they’re sellin’
season tickets
, for chrissakes!”

“Browns?” I said to Croft.

“Brown Stockings,” he said. “Used to be the Empires.”

I remembered them. In ’69 we’d thrashed them in a rain-shortened match in Cincinnati, then again in St. Louis on our way to the Coast. They were amateurs then. It seemed that recruiting high-priced Easterners and wearing colored sox was still the formula for success.

“They whupped Chicago today, 10-0,” Sweasy went on. “It came over the wire. All St. Looie is celebrating.”

“The papers’ll scarcely mention us,” Croft said glumly.

Sweasy pulled his clothes on with stiff movements, then rose with a muffled groan and headed outside.

“He gets the rheumatiz somethin’ terrible,” Croft said. “It was better today than it’s been.”

Which accounted for Sweasy’s rusty look in the field. But wasn’t he too young for arthritis? Maybe he had another bone-and-joint disorder. In any case, it explained his career hitting the skids.

“Okay,” I said to him outside, “where are Cait and Andy?”

He scowled, then took a slow breath. “Fowler, you did me a good turn today, but I don’t fancy talking about that old stuff. Andy’s in Boston. He picked Harry Wright over me. Same’s he picked you before.”

That wasn’t how I remembered it, but my friendship with Andy had always been a touchy point for Sweasy. The two of them had been boyhood pals. “I’m out here and they’re in the East,” he said. “Harry won’t even bring his club to play us—says we can’t guarantee a gate. That good enough for you?”

“And Cait?”

“Caitlin …” He said it Cat-
leen
. “Andy’s beaut of a sister. She was too good for me, too.”

“I just want to know where—”

“Washington City was the last place I saw her,” he snapped. “She paid a visit to Andy in ’71 after we signed there. Said she was fixing to leave Cincinnati.”

That didn’t sound good. “And go where?”

“She didn’t know yet.”

“Was she well? How’d she look?”

“Sickly … like she looked after Colm got killed.”

Grieving over me, I reflected. Christ, I had to find her!

“First Colm and then Fearghus,” he went on. “Small wonder if Caitlin thought herself a curse to the men she fancied.”

Cait fancying Fearghus O’Donovan? Bullshit! Just the thought of it provoked a swell of indignant anger.

“Queer how Fearghus came to die out in ’Frisco,” Sweasy went on, a malicious tone edging his words. “Right after you refused to go back with us.”

O’Donovan advancing with his revolver on the precipice of Russian Hill … eyes staring wildly at the shadow of Colm as he plunges past me over the edge …

“Queer, the timing of it,” he said pointedly. “And then you disappearing.”

With a sick feeling I watched him walk off. Cait couldn’t possibly have thought for a second that I had a hand in killing O’Donovan. Could she?

For the sake of company, I’d thought about asking to tag along with the Reds as far as St. Louis. Hell with it. I’d make my own way.

“You gonna play for Cap’n Sweasy again?” Alex said as we neared the train station.

“Doesn’t look too likely.”

“But you struck the tying blow!”

At the station I thanked them and started to climb down. Alex put his hand on my arm. “Would you?” he said. He handed me his ball and the scorecard pencil. Touched, I signed below Sweasy’s scrawl.

At the ticket window I paid full fare to Boston via Rockford and St. Louis. I was fading fast, desperate for rest. A sleeping berth cost an extra dollar.

“They’re as comfortable as home,” the agent claimed.

“How many per berth?”

“Two.”

“In that case, consider me a couple.” Wanting privacy, I gladly forked over the dollar.

I discovered that he hadn’t exaggerated. Drapes sectioned off the berths, and there were plush cushions to sleep on. I practically dove into them.

I woke up only once. We must have hit a rough patch of track; things were bouncing and jostling. The clacking of the wheels was very loud. I separated the window curtains and peered out. Moonlight silvered the prairies. I thought I saw a coyote scurry into the brush where a creekline cut a dark curve.

1875 …

A moonlit night almost a century before my birth.

I was heading to Boston to rejoin my old comrades. Some of them, anyway. Even if Cait wasn’t there, Andy would tell me where to find her. Odd, though, that I still felt a tiny pull from the opposite direction.

“Gotta get up, suh.”

He came into focus, a train porter.

“Please, suh, gotta make up the cah.” Slow, liquid, southern accents. “I done the rest while you slept, but I cain’t put it off no more.”

“Sure.” I lifted my foggy head and reached for my money belt. It wasn’t under the cushion where I’d put it. I catapulted to my feet and the porter stared at my jockey shorts. I upended all the cushions, panic setting in. Nothing. I looked around in sick bewilderment as I realized that my money belt wasn’t the only thing missing.

My clothes and train ticket were gone too.

 FIVE