Graves' Retreat (22 page)

    May Tolan was nowhere to be seen.

    Whenever Les turned his attention from the stands to the field, he recognized that the team was exhibiting a bad case of nerves. Grounders rolled between the legs of a shortstop; an easy dropping fly was missed by a center fieldman who made a federal case out of supposedly being blinded by the sun; and the pitcher, Simmons, the man Les had hoped would bail the team out if Les got overwrought, was throwing one bad ball after another.

    Harding paced the length of the team bleacher. Finally he said, “Go in there, Les.”

    Les felt a tremor pass through his body. He thought of training camp with the White Stockings.

    The pressure…

    “Did you hear me, Les?” Harding was half shouting.

    Les stood up, sighed, packed a fist into his glove, then ran out onto the field.

    Applause from the stand exploded.

    Simmons, a redhead with blackheads, tossed him the ball. It was pussy from having been hit so many times this afternoon. “Hope you have a better time out here than I did,” he said and then trotted off, head down, to the bench, carrying with him the air of a man who had just sold out his country for a few pieces of gold.

    Les stood on the mound, trying to concentrate as much as possible, but still his eyes sought the stands and May Tolan.

    And then he found her.

    She had slipped in sometime in the last few minutes and now sat near the first team’s bench.

    Even from here he could see her smile.

    So, finally, no longer feeling alone, he set to playing baseball.

    Kamey, the catcher, squatted behind the plate and held up his glove for Les to pitch into.

    Kamey was good. Les used his raised glove as a target. He took ten warm-up pitches and each one was a dazzler.

    For the moment, images of T.Z., Neely and the White Stockings’ training camp receded as Les concentrated on the first batter, a chunky man named Henning.

    Les fired away. Strike one.

    Henning looked almost stunned at the way the bail had come across the plate.

    He eased back from the plate a little. Les had managed to intimidate him.

    The second pitch was even more blinding. The umpire seemed to take particular pleasure in calling, “Strike!”

    This time, Les made the mistake of letting his eyes roam the stand briefly. He paid for breaking the almost meditative state in which he pitched his best games.

    The third pitch was wobbly and ill-aimed.

    Kamey fired the ball back with at least a small air of recrimination. This time Les didn’t glance at the stands.

    Instead he poured his very being into the white ball itself, virtually becoming one with it.

    The ball came across the plate so fast that Henning automatically jumped back just as the umpire, in an operatic paroxysm of bias, shouted, “Strike! Yer out!” and then proceeded to give Les a little salute.

    The stands loved it.

    Unfortunately, the rest of the day did not go so well.

    In all, Harding let Les face six batters. There was only the one strikeout. Two of them he walked. One of them got a single. Two of them got doubles.

    By the time he came back to the bench, tension had made his fingers stiff and his mind impossible to focus.

    When he left the field and came back to the bench, the crowd cheering him, Harding said, “How’d you feel out there?”

    Les looked straight at him. “Scared.”

    “You’re gonna be fine tomorrow.”

    “You sure?”

    “Sure I’m sure.”

    Les shook his head. “I don’t know, Harding. I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I guess I was kind of hoping that Simmons would have a little better afternoon. In case I didn’t do so well tomorrow.” Harding threw an arm around Les’ shoulder. “Butterflies, that’s all.”

    “I started out all right,” Les said, recalling the White Stockings’ camp, “but the more batters I faced, the more-”

    "You just be quiet. Otherwise you’ll talk yourself into what the wife always calls a ‘funk.’ You don’t want to be in no funk for tomorrow.” I le nodded to the stands. “Why don’t you go have a nice cold drink with May?”

    She stood now at the fence behind the bench.

    Les sighed. “I don’t want to let you down, Harding.”

    “Will you shut up for cripes sake and just go see May.”

    This time, making sure, Harding guided Les over to the fence and said to May, “Take this fellow someplace and help him relax. Whatever you do, don’t let him get into a funk.”

    “Yes, sir,” May said, smiling. “No funks.”

    They walked along the river. In the first hint of dusk the sun was fiery gold on the water.

    “It’s what happened to me at training camp,” Les said.

    “I don’t think it’s good for you to talk about it. Harding’s right. You need to relax.”

    He kissed her on the cheek. “I’m trying.”

    “Why don’t we go have dinner?”

    But by now he’d remembered Neely. “I’m afraid I can’t tonight, May.”

    She searched his face. “It’s that man, isn’t it?”

    He nodded.

    She stopped and leaned back against a green-painted park bench that had been set along the river. Behind her, weeping willows touched the gold-red water.

    “What does he want from you?”

    “I-can’t talk about it, May.”

    “I need to ask you something, Les.”

    “I’ll answer it if I can.”

    “Are you in trouble?”

    He didn’t know what to say.

    “You’re trembling,” she said.

    “I’m fine.”

    Again, she said, “You’re trembling.” Then, “Who is he, Les?”

    “Somebody I used to know.”

    “A friend of your brother’s?”

    “It’s better not to talk about it.”

    “Is he-a criminal?”

    “Please, May.”

    He saw how tense she’d become. “Now I’m the one who’s scared, Les.”

    “I don’t want you to be.”

    “I know you’re in some sort of trouble.”

    “No,” he said. “No.”

    “You’re not going to tell me the truth?”

    He shook his head. “I’m not in any trouble, May. Really.”

    But she was lost to him now. She had that ability. To slip away inside herself. She’d been like that when he’d told her about Susan Edmonds. Unreachable.

    Then he saw Neely.

    Obviously the man had been at the stadium and simply followed them along the river path.

    May saw him, too.

    “He’s a frightening man,” she said, as Neely drew closer. “You can feel his anger.” Suddenly, she clutched his hand. “Why don’t you walk me back to my house, Les?”

    “I can’t. I need to-talk to Neely.”

    For the first time in the two years he’d known her, she lost her air of a competent adult and became a child. “Les, you wouldn’t let yourself get in any trouble, would you?”

    But before he could answer, Neely had come up.

    “Afternoon,” he said. He smiled, but smiles to Neely were just one more expression of the ironic distance he put between himself and others.

    May looked at him with the same apprehension she had earlier this afternoon. “Just who are you?” she said.

    Neely’s smile only broadened now. “Nobody special, ma’am.”

    “I’d like you to leave.”

    “I’m afraid I can’t do that, ma’am. Les and I have some business.” She looked at Les. “Please, Les, why don’t you come with me now?”

    Les, feeling ashamed, lowered his head.

    “Our business won’t take long, ma’am,” Neely said in his cool, even way.

    Les had not raised his head.

    May left.

    Neely, watching her recede along the river path, said, “She’d give you fine children.”

    “Where’s T.Z.?”

    “There’s a tavern on the edge of town. He’s waiting there for me.”

    “When are you going to do it?”

    “Late tonight, early tomorrow morning.” Neely’s smile had returned. “I take it you got it, then.”

    Les sighed. “Yes, I got it.”

    Neely said, “Mexico’s going to be good for him.”

    “I’m afraid for him.”

    “I’m going to take care of him, Les. I promised you and I’ll keep my promise.”

    Les just shook his head and looked miserably at the ground. He thought of what Black Jake Early had said. About a year of life being better than a bullet in the heart. Was it-when your year was spent awaiting execution.

    "Tell him-” Les started to say something, but then he saw the anger in Neely’s eyes and felt intimidated.

    You did not tell a man like Neely to convey the fact to your brother that you loved him.

    On Neely’s tongue words like that had a way of becoming sarcasm. But Neely surprised him now. “He knows how you feel about him, Les; how you always felt about him. And he’s grateful. Believe me, he’s grateful. If there was any alternative to what we’re doing-” Then Neely raised his hands helplessly. “But there isn’t, Les. There really isn’t.” For the first time Les could ever remember, Neely’s smile looked genuine. “But we’re out of your life now. Out of it completely.”

    Les thought of his brother living out his life so far away in the alien heat of Mexico. His only solace was that it was better than waiting for the executioner.

    From his pocket Les took the copy he’d made of the combination to the safe.

    Neely took it and said, “I appreciate it, Les.”

    “Tell him I said hello.”

    “I will, Les. I sure will.”

    “And-take care of him, Neely. I mean it.”

    “I know you do, Les. And I will. I really will.”

    With that, Neely nodded and was gone.

    Les drifted over to the river’s edge. Rowboats carrying lovers drifted down the Cedar. On the opposite bank a dozen fishermen waited patiently for catches. Beyond them you could see the silhouette of the business district and the first stars of night shining down.

    He thought of T.Z. So much pain in his brother. And it would never go…

    He turned and started back up the path, winding his way home.

    When he reached First Avenue, a voice came from behind the shrubbery and said, “I’ll walk home with you if you’d like.”

    It was May.

    She had never looked lovelier nor could he remember a time when he’d more needed to see her.

    

    

    Black Jake Early was writing a letter to his wife when a knock startled him out of his concentration.

    Early had left his Missouri home two weeks ago at a point when his second-youngest child had been running a fever of 104. This whole trip the child’s suffering face had stayed with him. He wanted to assure his wife that he was thinking of their little girl and praying for her and that when he got back they would, the whole family, go into St. Louis for a long weekend vacation.

    He had been at the point of writing about the proposed St. Louis trip when the knock came.

    The first thing he did was pick up his weapon. The second thing he did was turn down the table lamp. No sense in giving a potential killer any more light than you needed to.

    He sighed and stood up. He took three steps away to the left of the hotel door and leveled his weapon and said, “State your business please.”

    Silence.

    "I said, state your business please.”

    A tiny voice said, “I-” but not much more.

    Black Jake went to the door and opened it so quickly it slammed back against the wall with the force of a gunshot.

    He had a cowlick and freckles and suspenders and shoes so poor the toes were tom out.

    He could easily have been Black Jake’s own fourteen-year-old.

    “What in the Lord’s name are you doing in a hotel this time of night?” Black Jake said. “Don’t your parents keep track of you?”

    “There’s just my dad,” the boy said. He couldn’t keep his eyes from the gun.

    “What are you doing here, son? Don’t you know what kind of men and women you find in hotels like these? Don’t you go to church on Sunday and listen to the minister?”

    “I was only playing marbles.”

    The kid had muttered.

    “Speak up, son.”

    “I was only playing marbles.”

    “Yes, go on.”

    “Well, I was just playing marbles when the man came up.”

    “What man?”

    “The man who gave me the note.”

    And then Black Jake Early understood. “May I see the note, son?” The kid dug into the pockets of his frayed denims and handed it over.

    “Did he give you money?”

    “Yes, sir.”

    “How much?”

    “Ten cents.”

    Black Jake Early dug into his pocket and put a coin in the kid’s palm. “Now you’ve earned twenty cents.”

    “Thank you, sir.”

    “Did you gel a good look at him?”

    “Not real good. It’s dark out.”

    “Could you describe him even a little bit?”

    The kid then proceeded to give him a perfect portrait of T. Z. Graves.

    “Where’s your pa?”

    “At home, sir.”

    “And that’s where you should be, too.”

    “Yes, sir."

    “I want you to promise me that’s where you’re going."

    “I promise.”

    “And tell your father he should be ashamed of himself, letting a line young man like you come into hotels.”

    “Yes, sir.”

    And with that the kid was gone.