The House of Daniel (31 page)

We kept getting guys on and then stranding them. Carpetbag wasn't as sharp as I'd seen him—or else the Buffaloes wouldn't swing at so many pitches that looked like strikes but weren't. They held a 1-0 lead through six.

I tried to bunt leading off the seventh, but it went foul. I did draw their third baseman in a couple of steps, though, and got one past him for a single. Whitey looked over at me. I took off on the first pitch. If he'd come to first, I was hung out to dry. But he went home. I ran. I slid. The tag got me up near the hip.

“Safe!” the base umpire yelled. Their shortstop didn't argue, so I guess I was.

Carpetbag sacrificed me to third. Eddie hit a fly ball, and I scored. We'd tied it, anyhow. In the eighth, Wes hit one down the left-field line that barely got over the wall. The Buffaloes made it hard, but Carpetbag hung on. We beat 'em 2-1.

“This looks way too much like work,” Harv said, which was about the size of it.

After supper, we went back to see who'd face us in the finals. The team from Salt Lake put me in mind of the Buffaloes. They weren't glamorous. They just got the job done. Industries was a good name for them.

A team like that stood a chance against the Crawdads. The colored outfit had better players, but they were flightier. If they got down and got rattled, they might give the game away. But they didn't. They scored two in the first, two in the third, and another one in the fourth. After that, they played not to lose. They didn't do that, either. They breezed. The final was 6-2.

“See you day after tomorrow at eight o'clock for the first game of the final series between the House of Daniel and the Pittsburgh Crawdads!” the announcer boomed through the PA system. “Get your reserved seats early—we expect to sell out!”

Still in his catcher's gear, Job Gregson pointed at Carpetbag and shouted, “Gonna take you over the fence!” He thumped his chest protector with a big, knobby-fingered fist.

“Good luck, fool,” Carpetbag shouted back. “I'm here to tell you, you gonna need it.”

“We beat you so bad, we put you in the hospital,” Gregson yelled.

“Talk is cheap,” Carpetbag said.

His onetime catcher pointed at him again. “You oughta know.”

If I ever saw Carpetbag Booker mad, it was then. Good thing he didn't have a baseball handy, or Job Gregson would've been stretched out in the dirt, a knot—or maybe a hollow—right between his eyes to show where Carpetbag drilled him.

“That man don't respect me,” Carpetbag muttered. “He be sorry he don't respect me. I
make
him sorry he don't respect me.”

“Save it for the game,” Harv told him. “Don't use it all up here.”

“I be fine, Mistuh Harv,” Carpetbag answered. “You don't got to worry 'bout nothin', on account of I be jus' fine.”

*   *   *

Before the first game, Zeb Huckaby told both teams all three games were sold out. “Better than eleven thousand tickets a game,” the sports editor said happily. “So speaking just for myself, I hope it goes three. It will add to the pot, and we won't have to give back any money.”

The Crawdads' manager was called Quail Jennings. “All the same to you, we'd rather end it quicker,” he said, his voice as dry as the New Mexico desert.

“Now that you mention it, so would we.” Harv didn't have the drawl, but that was the only difference in the way they sounded.

We won the coin toss. We'd be the road team in game one and at home for two and three, if there was a game three. Carpetbag went up against Lightning Washington. I'd seen him pitch. He threw hard, all right. He could hit his spots, too. He set us down with no trouble in the top of the first.

Carpetbag got through the first, too, but he walked two doing it. He was missing the corners instead of kissing them. His control was off. In the dugout, he complained, “Umpire's pinchin' me, doggone it.” But the ump wasn't, or it didn't look that way from center field. Carpetbag hadn't found his good stuff.

Other thing was, the Crawdads knew him. If it wasn't a strike, they laid off. He kept walking people. Then he
had
to come in. Job Gregson clouted one into the gap in left-center with two men on. I ran as hard as I could, but it shot by me and rolled all the way to that faraway wall. Job ran like the catcher he was, but he got a standup triple. A second later, the next guy singled him home and we were down three.

We ended up losing 5-1. It was about as dismal as it sounds. After our last out, the Crawdads shook hands with one another and patted one another on the back as they walked off the field. They figured they had the prize and the trophy and the glory. In their cleats, I would have, too.

“I'm sorry, Mistuh Harv,” Carpetbag said softly. “I done let you down.”

“There'll be another game tomorrow—and one more the day after that.” Harv wasn't happy, but he hadn't given up. He went on, “‘And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.' But after a bit, Nebuchadnezzar said, ‘Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.' If God's with us, we can't lose.”

“You is a believin' man, Mistuh Harv.” Respect filled Carpetbag's voice. “God weren't with me today—God and that umpire, neither.”

“We'll get 'em tomorrow, then,” Harv said.

But when tomorrow came, he put the ball in Fidgety Frank's hand. “I can go, suh,” Carpetbag said.

“I know you can. If I need you, I'll bring you in,” Harv answered, salving his pride. “Let's see what they do against somebody they haven't met so often, though.”

Carpetbag nodded, but you could tell how much he wanted to be out there. “You the manager,” he said. No, he didn't think Harv was doing the right thing.

Harv saw it, too. “Look, if this doesn't work out, you can say, ‘I told you so, you stupid jerk.' I'll sit still for it. I'll have earned it.”

“Well, that's fair,” Carpetbag allowed. “We win today, you run me out there tomorrow?”

“You bet I will!”

“Let's win, then.”

*   *   *

Something funny happened when we headed for the bus for the second game. A tall guy was walking down the street—almost dancing down the street—juggling three oranges and whistling. He was having himself a great time. If he wasn't a pro dancer, he should've been. He was good.

Just for the heck of it, I tossed him a baseball. He didn't miss a beat. It went right into the stream. Three or four steps later, it came back out—straight to me. We all clapped for him. He grinned and tipped his hat, also without dropping an orange, and kept on going.

“Maybe he'll bring us luck,” Harv said.

I hoped he would. We needed it. And I hoped Fidgety Frank wouldn't be off because he hadn't pitched for so long. I really hoped he wouldn't worry that he—a semipro pitcher—was out there in place of somebody who'd be pulling down a fat salary in the big leagues if only he were pinker.

Fidgety Frank got through the first mostly with fastballs. The Crawdads started a left-hander who went by Two Lemons Ellis. When I asked Carpetbag how come, he started giggling and wouldn't tell me. Two Lemons threw slow, slower, and slowest. He couldn't blow it by you, but he could drive you nuts.

It was one of those games where you knew somebody would catch a break sooner or later, but you didn't know who. I stopped the Crawdads from getting theirs by running down a long drive in center with two out and two on. It would've gone out of some parks. In Denver, as long as I could get to it, it wasn't a tough catch.

“Yeah, Snake!” Fidgety Frank said when I came in.

Two innings later, we loaded the bases with two out. Harv hit one right up the middle: between Two Lemons's legs, past the Crawdads' diving shortstop, past their diving second baseman, and into center. A seeing-eye single, good for two runs. Wes singled in another one, and we had ourselves a lead. Out on the mound, Two Lemons cussed like a muleskinner.

All that rest must've helped Fidgety Frank, not hurt him. He threw a four-hit shutout, and we won by those three runs. Everything was on the line the next day.

Carpetbag was gracious. He mostly was. “Well, Mistuh Harv, you tol' me so,” he said. Then he turned to Fidgety Frank. “You kin do that to my ol' team, why ain't you a fo'-true pro?”

“I like what I'm doing here.” Fidgety Frank must've known he couldn't pitch like that all the time. But he'd done it once, when it counted most. If he was proud of himself, he'd earned the right.

Carpetbag nodded seriously. “That's impo'tant,” he said. “Now I got to pitch me a better game yet. Can't let the Crawdads say some white boy showed me up.”

“I'm no boy.” Fidgety Frank had a few gray hairs in his whiskers. Carpetbag just grinned a sly grin. I still had no idea how old he was. I wondered if anyone but his mother did.

I had a thought before the last game. Remembering Amarillo, I asked Carpetbag, “Reckon the Crawdads have a conjure man helping 'em along?”

“They don't do that much,” he said. “An' no conjure ain't never caught up with me yet. I ain't lookin' back to see if one's gainin', but I ain't hidin' under the bed, neither.” I had to be satisfied with that. I guess I was.

The Crawdads ran Lightning Washington out there again. So it was a rematch of the first game. Only it wasn't. This time, Carpetbag Booker had his good stuff and Lightning didn't. We had a different plate umpire, too, and Carpetbag got the calls on the corners. Give him good stuff and that ump, and all we had to do was get some runs and try not to throw the game away.

We scored two in the third. One was mine. I'd bunted my way aboard—the Crawdads weren't the only ones who could use the speed game. Carpetbag got into hot water in the top of the fourth. One guy singled, and another walked. With two out, Job Gregson hit a screaming liner, but right at me. I didn't have to move more than a step and a half. You could hear the
thock!
when the ball smacked my glove all over Merchants Park.

That was the only hot water Carpetbag saw. He was as good as he'd promised he would be. We took this game 3-0, too, and he gave up that hit in the fourth and only one more. Eddie caught a popup for the last out, and we'd won ourselves the
Denver Post
Tournament.

The roar there was 11,000 people cheering their heads off. We all doffed our caps to them, and they cheered louder. I'd never played in front of such big crowds till Denver. Plenty of big-league games don't have nearly so many people in the stands. When you stop and think about it, that's pretty amazing.

Zeb Huckaby came out and made a speech about how wonderful the tournament was. Well, what would you expect him to say? Then he gave the Pittsburgh Crawdads the runner-up trophy and a check. The crowd applauded them no matter what color they were. That was good. They played some fine ball. They were better than we were, I guess, but they couldn't solve Carpetbag Booker when it mattered most.

Then it was our turn. We got photographed. We got a bigger trophy. I don't know how much the Crawdads made, but I expect we got a bigger check, too. It came to about $150 a man. Not a lot for so many games, but some glory came along with the money. Now if only you could buy stuff with glory.

Almost everybody stayed in the stands to give us one more hand. I felt eight feet tall and solid as Job Gregson. He did shake Carpetbag's hand after the game. That was good, too.

As the clapping died down, we heard a different kind of noise from the direction of the stockyards. It was coming our way, and getting louder. I didn't know what it was, but it sounded scary. And that's how we—and Denver—got caught up in the Great Zombie Riots of 1934.

 

(XIV)

There in Merchants Park, you understand, we had no idea it was the zombie riots yet. We just knew we were hearing a whole bunch of people who sounded scared and angry at the same time. Then, through the middle of all that, a bunch of sharp
pop
s came through loud and clear.

“Those are guns going off,” I said to Eddie.

“You sure?” he asked.

“I'm positive,” I answered. Once you know what gunfire sounds like, you won't mistake it for anything else. Not even fireworks come close.

“You're right,” Carpetbag Booker said. I wasn't surprised he'd heard gunshots, too. “What's goin' on?”

“Nothing good—can't be,” I said. Well, I was right. I didn't know how right I was, but I'd find out.

A cop with his cap all askew on his head ran into the ballpark and handed Zeb Huckaby a sheet of paper. Then he ran right back out. He pulled his pistol from his holster as he hustled away.

“May I have your attention, please? Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?” Huckaby said into his microphone. “The police have asked me to request that you leave Merchants Park quickly and in an orderly way. Be careful when you get outside. They have warned me that there are, ah, disturbances out there.”

Naturally, that set off more hubbub than it stopped. But it might've been all right if the lights hadn't picked that exact minute to go out. I don't just mean the lights in the ballpark. I mean the lights all over town. All at once, without the slightest warning, Denver went black as the inside of a crocodile. The screams we were hearing got louder and shriller. The gunfire didn't let up, even a little.

Some of the ushers, bless 'em, had wills-o'-the-wisp they used to guide people to their seats. In a night game, it got dark under the grandstand roof—the lights were for the field. But it didn't get so dark then as it had now. Those little flickering lights were godsends.

“Will an usher please come to the field to guide the players away?” the
Post
's sports editor shouted. The microphone was dead, of course. But either an usher heard him anyway or the fella had the notion on his own. In that sudden midnight, even a will-o'-the-wisp seemed wonderful.