Holm, Stef Ann (17 page)

Her
father's loud voice filled the floral-papered bedroom. "You're missing the
entire point! Who's going to protect you from
them?"

"We
have
to get rid of her."

The
clatter of the train's wheels could not upstage Cub LaRoque's words. The
matter-of-fact statement sounded through the vestibule where Alex stood with
the majority of the other players. The enclosed hallway between the rail cars
pressed in on him. He never should have agreed to come out here when Bones
asked him to.

Accordion-like
appendages at each end of the vestibule united the individual cars into a
single unit where passengers could walk from one train to the next without
losing a hat.

Alex
would have preferred the beating wind on his face and a cigarette between his
fingers. Charlie had been lighting one right after the other, and Alex was on
the verge of hitting him up for one.

"I
agree," Charlie seconded, drawing in a deep pull on his Old Judge.
"Did you see how Eddie Gray read her the riot act yesterday and she didn't
do a durn thing about it?"

"Called
her a cupcake," Bones said.

Cub
corrected him. "Piece of honeycake."

Bones
shrugged. "Fergawdsake. Same thing. Both are too sugary to be used on a
baseball field."

"Any
other manager wouldn't have taken that crap from Eddie," Mox proclaimed.
"They would've punched Eddie in the gut."

"And
got ejected from the game," Cub concluded. "A good manager gets
himself ejected from the game."

Cupid
added his two cents. "With a fat fine."

"She
was crying," Bones said.

"Nothing
to use a hankie on," Mox put in, "but she watered up like a leaky
faucet, just the same."

Noddles
nodded. "Them other teams are laughing at us because our manager doesn't
have balls.
Literally.
If we run her off, then we'll have to get a new
manager."

"And
not a woman," Mox added. "Let's give her hell."

"Old
man Kennison would be better than her," Jimmy ventured to say, "and
we know how bad he is."

"So."
Noodles pursed his lips. "What can we do?"

"Hold
on." Specs raised his hand, light reflecting off the wire frame of his
spectacles. "I don't know if I want to be a party to this. She did teach
us those calisthenics. I'm feeling a lot more limber."

"Would
you rather be a party to being called a sissy ass?" Cupid all but spit the
insult.

"Nobody
calls me a sissy ass. At least not to my face."

"Well,
I suppose it's okay to be called one behind your back, then," Yank
snapped. "According to the
Chicago Tribune,
'The Harmony Keystones
have flopped into disgrace in more ways than one this season. Not only do they
lead the league in losses, but they are managed by the first ever—and we hope
the last—female baseball manager. Buy your tickets now, folks, for the games
July first through third at South Side Park. Admission, fifty cents and one
pink posy.' " His expression soured. "I saw the newspaper in the
station. Bold as brass, right there on the racks. We're making the news across
the country and it's goddamn embarrassing."

Nods
showed that several others concurred with Yank's sentiments. Alex neither
agreed or disagreed, but that wasn't to say he wasn't interested.

He
butted his shoulder next to the aft passenger car, the precise one in which
Camille sat. They'd made a line switch from the Northern Pacific to the
Pennsylvania in Chicago. For some forty hours, they'd been on a train, sleeping
and eating with hardly a moment to get off and stretch their legs. And they had
twenty-one hours more to go.

The
National League had played away games, but they were mostly along the East
Coast lines. This going from one end of the states to the other was hard on a
body. It was only natural that tempers flared.

"I
missed that newspaper," Specs said, folding his arms over his chest.
"You're right. It's embarrassing."

Deacon
shrugged. "So what do you propose we do, Cub?"

"First
off, we have to all be in agreement," Cub said. "Show of hands,
gentlemen."

Hands
lifted. Alex merely tipped his Stetson at a lower angle over his brow. He
glanced through a window in the car door. He saw Captain, doing just what he'd
been doing when Alex left him—looking out the window with a worried expression.
Cap had been excited to come on the trip and had done nothing but talk about it
for days, but as soon as the train rolled out, he'd done nothing but ask Alex
when they were going back to Harmony. Alex hadn't anticipated Captain's
reaction. He wished he had; he could have made other arrangements.

The
car was filled with few passengers at this time of the evening; the hour was
just shy of nine. A pair of lovebirds, newlyweds from the way they cuddled and
cooed at each other, had gotten on at the last stop. Now they slept, the wife's
head resting on her husband's shoulder.

Camille
sat in one of the middle seats. Couldn't miss her. That hat. Bluebirds and
sprays of floral stuff. She looked out the Venetian blinds into the darkness,
then back at something in her lap.

Alex
absently faced forward.

Cub
narrowed his eyes at him. "Cordova, are you in with us or not?"

"I've
never hit a lady."

Cub
spouted off. "We aren't going to hit her! Just get her fired."

"Same
thing in my book." Alex watched Charlie light another smoke from the
burning end of the one he'd just finished. Grinding the butt with the instep of
his shoe, Charlie inhaled and let a stream of gray smoke pass between his lips.

Cub
pursued Alex. "Why did you tell us to 'get over it' back in the clubhouse
a week ago? Do you know something about Miss Kennison that we don't? Do you
have a plan of your own to get rid of her?"

"Actually,
I thought she'd get rid of herself I didn't think she'd last."

"Well,
she
has
lasted. So are you with us?"

Alex
sucked up some of the thick smoke into his lungs, taking from the air what he
could of Charlie's Old Judge cigarette. "I don't really care what you do
about her."

"Then
will you keep this information to yourself?" Specs asked.

"Yeah,
why not."

"Here's
the deal, then," Cub began with a conspiratorial smile. "We make her
look bad every chance we get. On the train, off the train, in restaurants and
hotels, in the ballpark. Kennison is going to have to fire her when he sees how
shabby things are looking."

Yank
felt the stubble on his jaw. "So what do we do first?"

"Well,
Doc's in the john." Cub gave a slight chuckle. "Duke's waiting
outside and'll take his place as soon as Doc flushes the crapper and the train
stops."

Alex
listened without enthusiasm. Pranks. He didn't go in for them. Many players
pulled this stuff, even when they
did
like the manager. Alex knew all
about the pneumatic brake system on the car and how it tapped into the
air-water apparatus when flushing the john. If a person flushed at the right
moment, the brakes locked. A big sign hung above the sink that said not to pull
the chain on a curve.

Cub,
who sidled up to the door, gazed through the window and nodded to Duke, who in
turn rapped three times on the water closet door.

Holy
hell.
Alex
moved past Cub and let himself out of the vestibule to take his seat beside
Cap, who'd finally nodded off. His face was contorted in some dream, but it
didn't look as if it were a nightmare— merely the stress of keeping himself
awake for so many hours at a time.

Alex
glanced at Camille. She sat four rows ahead of him. She'd barely slept all
night. Alex had stayed up most of it with her, not one to sleep deeply on a
train. He guessed Camille was worried about the team. She should be. They were
going to make her life unpleasant. Alex almost felt sorry for her. But he
pushed that thought back. There was no place in baseball for foolish
sentiments. If men—or women—couldn't handle the pressure, then they'd better
get the hell out.

A
screech of metal brake against iron rail scratched through the car. Alex
clenched his jaw while Cap sat up, hair in his eyes.

"Are
we going back to Harmony now, Alex?"

"Naw,
Cap. Go back to sleep."

Cap
frowned, his eyelids drooping. "I just got comfortable. These seats are
bad."

The
hard seats, with barely any leather to them, did leave little to be desired.
Being as tall as they were, both he and Captain were pressed for comfortable
space; the knees on their long legs touched the back of the seat in front of
them. Alex stood, shrugged out of his traveling duster, and wadded it in a
ball. "Use this to rest your head on, Cap, and go back to sleep."

Almost
instantly, Cap did.

Camille
had risen to her feet, bending forward to look out the window. Alex appreciated
the way her breasts molded against her white shirtwaist. How her waist seemed
slender and curvaceous at the same time. She looked over her shoulder at him. A
tiny curl fell in front of her right ear, exactly where her cheek had pressed
on the wood panel of the wall when she'd napped. That heavy-lidded gaze, and a
low voice made throatier from exhaustion, was purely sensual. "Do you
think we've hit an animal on the tracks?"

Alex
couldn't contain a smile. "We're barely out of Chicago. The only animals
out here are criminals."

She
gave him a frown, her lips looking soft and lush. He would have liked to knock
her hat off, pull the pins from her hair, and sink his fingers into the blond
curls—then kiss her for a long, long while.

The
brakeman, a big ox of a man, stomped through the car from the front vestibule,
his eyes zeroing in on the water closet. The shiny patent-leather bill of his
navy hat acted as a mirror, reflecting the displeasure in his face and giving
it a bluish tinge of anger.

Alex
casually turned in his seat as Ox Man rapped on the lavatory door with a big
fist. "You in there— can't you read the sign?"

"Oh,
I can read," came Doc's muffled voice. "My mistake."

Snickers
sounded from the players. They'd gathered in the back of the car, trying to
smother their guffaws.

"Who's
in charge here?" the brakeman called, looking at the players.

"I
am."

Camille
walked toward them, her steps a little unsteady from having been sitting for so
long. Alex was almost tempted to take her by the elbow, but he refrained. He didn't
want any part of this.

"I'm
certain the use of the closet on a curve was a genuine mistake."

"Who
are you?"

"Camille
Kennison, manager of the Harmony Keystones." She made a quick adjustment
of her frilly collar.

"Manager
of baseball?"

At
that, her tone grew slightly defensive. "Yes."

The
brakeman began to lumber back through the aisle, muttering, "It'd better
have been mistake, lady. Now we have to reset the air pressure."

"It
won't happen again," she called after him, then looked at the men who hung
around the closet door. "Will it?"

Nobody
answered.

But
it did happen again. Four more times. Each time the brakeman had come in, her
demeanor had changed. She'd gone from being demurely polite to being incensed
over the joke. The fifth time the train was stopped by a flush, she came apart.
She was already standing as Ox Man marched into the car.

"I
understand you're upset," she said before the brakeman could get out a
single word. Her eyes flashed with outrage. "I feel the same way. And
believe you me, there's going to be aces to pay."

She
tread heavily—gone was that efficient walk— over to the water closet door,
glaring at the players who milled around, then rapping with glove-covered
fingers on the door. "Mox! You get your keister out of there right this instant!"

Turned
in his seat, Alex watched the sparks that seemed to crackle off her like a
charged wire. Jesus. He'd never seen a lady mean business the way Camille
Kennison meant business. She looked dangerous. Desirable. If this is how she
got when she didn't hold her temper back—holy Christ—what would she be like if
she didn't hold her passion back?

Sheepishly,
Mox stuck his head through a crack in the door. She all but grabbed the handle
and swung it open on him.

She
berated him. "This is intolerable."

"You've
got that right," the brakeman agreed in a growl. "The next time this
crapper is flushed and the brakes lock because of it, each and every one of you
will be off this train. I don't give a damn where we happen to be. Even if it's
twenty miles from the next station!"

His
voice bellowed through the car as he stomped out.

Camille
rested her hands on her slender hips, looked at the hoodlums, and made a threat
of her own. "If we are thrown off this train, it will cost each and every
one of you the price of your ticket,
plus
an additional fifty dollars by
way of a fine from the Keystones management."