The House of Daniel (10 page)

If they put a hex on you, too … Amarillo's a tough town some ways. You heard stories about the Greys, the team that was on top there before the Metros got good. They brawled all the time, sometimes so bad they couldn't finish games. When they did finish 'em, they had their own kind of fun afterwards. They'd bury live chickens in the dirt up to their necks, all in a row. Then they'd gallop by on horseback, one player at a time, and lean down and yank off the chickens' heads. Whoever tore off the most won.

So a little magic to help the home team along wouldn't have surprised me one bit. If you had some serious side money down on the game, wouldn't you do whatever it took to make sure you didn't blow it? Sure you would.

Anybody would think I used to do business for Big Stu or something. Yeah, anybody would.

I watched the Metros getting loose after we came in. They might not have needed a conjure man. They were slick as boiled okra. Their pitcher was a big southpaw who'd been around the block a time or three. He wouldn't beat himself. That's half the battle right there.

Oh, and I got a look at what was painted on the high yaller guy's necktie. It was a skull—a skull in a yellow fedora. Wes had it right. That fellow was a piece of work. Dirty work. Dirty work he'd pull on us.

Nobody sat anywhere near him. It wasn't because the crowd there was white and he was colored, either. Oh, no. Whatever color he was, that was the least of people's worries.

We went down in order in the top of the first. The stuff the Metros' pitcher was throwing, either it fell off the table or it came in hot enough to broil steaks on. Back behind their dugout, that conjure man was wiggling and twisting like he had a swarm of fire ants inside that stupid silk suit. He might have been sweating harder than the guy on the hill. Of course, if you can't sweat in Amarillo, you aren't half trying.

They touched us for a run in their half of the frame. Two singles and a long fly to left—nothing much to do about it. We got a scratch hit in the top of the second, but that was all.

We watched the Metros' pitcher. We watched the conjure man. “I bet he's a fake,” Wes said. “They're playing games with our heads, like—gave that clown five bucks and told him to play at being a wizard.”

“I dunno,” Eddie said. “I don't remember their guy being anywhere near this sharp last time we were here.”

“Me, neither,” Harv allowed. “But have no fear, friends. The Lord provided for Daniel. If He's so inclined, He'll provide for Daniel's House, too.”

“If,” Eddie said.

“Have no fear,” Harv repeated. “Just go out there and play good ball. You take care of your end and the Lord'll take care of His.”

But Eddie booted one to start off the bottom of the second. He looked down at his glove as if it were playing tricks on him. Me, I thought the ball took a crazy hop right when it got to him. The infield was baby-butt smooth—it shouldn't have bounced like that. It shouldn't have, but it did.

Metros didn't score, though. I ran down a drive in left-center to make sure they didn't. It was a good catch, yeah, but not a crazy one like the one I made in Ponca City. A guy doesn't make this play, he's got no business out there. Way the conjure man clapped his hands to his chest and screeched, I might've swiped his life's savings, if he had any.

I led off the top of the third. First pitch was high heat, straight at my coconut. I sprawled every which way. Wes hadn't buzzed me anywhere near that hard. I got up, picked up my bat, put my cap back on, dusted off my behind, and stood in again. If my head was thumping, their pitcher didn't have to know.

“Didn't mean to throw a beanball,” he said. He sounded as though he meant it. But I bet the conjure man meant him to.

I wanted to hit the next one nine miles. That'd learn both of 'em! I swung hard, and missed. Then I grounded to third. Yeah, what you want and what you get are different. If nothing else shows you that, baseball sure will.

When I got back to the dugout, I was muttering to myself. “Hang in there, Jack,” Eddie said. Eddie's all right.

Harv was muttering to himself in there, too. Not the way I was.
He
was muttering things like, “‘And in all matters of wisdom
and
understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians
and
astrologers that
were
in all his kingdom.'”

Good Book talk. You heard it all the time in Enid. I used little bits and pieces myself sometimes. Harv talked as if he grew up going on like that. Well, he did. And it wasn't just Good Book talk, I found out later. It was Book of Daniel talk. He was pickled in it like a cuke in vinegar.

I looked across the field at the conjure man back of the Metros' dugout. He was wiggling and twitching some more. Different now, though. When I wiggled like that, it was because I swallowed a big old dose of castor oil. And wouldn't you know it? Right about then, he lit out for the gents', and he wasn't what you'd call slow about it, either.

“Harv?” I said.

“What you want, Snake?”

“Did you have anything to do with that?”

“Who, me? I'm just a dumb ballplayer.”
Dumb like snow is black
, I thought. That old pawnshop man's crack came in handy all kinds of ways. Harv went on, “Anyways, whatever happens, I'd sooner chalk it up to the Lord. He gets the credit. I get the blame for not being good enough.”

All at once, without the conjure man there, the Metros' pitcher wasn't good enough. Oh, he still had smarts. But now his curve was just a wrinkle, not an old-time drop. He lost some giddy-up off his heater, too. You could hit him. We scored two runs, and then two more. I bunted those last two along. I thought I was safe at first, but they called me out. I jawed a little. You won't win—you never win—but you feel a little better afterwards. And maybe they'll get the next one right.

Then the conjure man came back. He looked drug through a knot-hole, but he was still game. And I'll be blamed if he wasn't carrying a live chicken. I thought about the Amarillo Greys and their notion of after-the-game fun.

Whatever the conjure man did with the chicken, he held it down so we couldn't see. I don't
know
that he killed it, but the Metros' moundsman started throwing bullets again, and the ball took some more funny bounces off their bats. They closed to 4-3 on us.

“‘That we would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret,'” Harv muttered in the dugout. Book of Daniel says
they
, but he was talking about us. “‘He revealeth the deep and secret things; He knoweth what
is
in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with Him.'”

I watched the conjure man. I hoped he'd get the trots again, but he didn't. I don't believe he did any more conjuring after that, though. His head kind of lolled back and to the side, the way your head will when you take one on the button and you're trying to recollect who you are. He was a
good
conjure man, mind, same as the Metros were a good ballclub.

But the House of Daniel was better that day. And Harv might not've done anything to a chicken, but he was better that day, too. He didn't do anything to the Metros, or I don't think he did. Without their fellow in the lime and the pumpkin and the skull with the fedora, we ended up whupping 'em good. Final was 9-4. I got one hit—not the homer I wanted, but a single. It would do. It would have to.

“Good game,” the Metros' manager said when he came over to shake hands after the last out. It didn't quite sound like
Now go swallow rat poison
, but it was on the way there.

“Why, thanks,” Harv said. “Nice to see you let one of your colored brethren out of their section so he could sit with the white people.”

The Amarillo man's face congealed like fat in an icebox. “Cornelius, he sits where he wants to,” he said.

“Shits where he wants to? Well, ain't that nice?” Harv went right on smiling. I would've punched the Amarillo guy, swear I would. Now I look back on it, though, Harv's way was better. It hurt worse, and it would sting for longer. He hardly ever cussed, but he couldn't resist that one. We gave old Cornelius something fresh to think on, too. Well, ain't that nice?

 

(V)

Tulia's fifty miles south of Amarillo. Only a couple of thousand people there, but Eddie Lelivelt told me they had themselves a pretty fair town team. It was one of the outfits the Amarillo Greys used to tangle with, and you can take that however you want—I guess they did.

But the House of Daniel felt right at home when the bus chugged in there. Quite a few of the Tulia men were raising whiskers along with their wheat and cows. “Good thing you fellers won't be here for Old Settlers' Day month after next,” one of them said. “They give a prize for the best whiskers, and y'all've got yourselves a running start.”

“How big a prize?” Wes asked. “If it's big enough, maybe we'll come back.” He smiled so the local could think he was joshing if he wanted to.

The bristly man from Tulia said, “It's only twenty-five smackers. Wish it was more, but times is tough all over.”

We'd seen that on the way down from Amarillo. Plenty of what had been farms weren't any more, on account of nobody lived on 'em. Tulia wasn't like Pampa; it didn't have the oil fields to keep it going. It was hurting so bad, it could've been in Oklahoma.

Maybe there were folks with nothing to fear but fear itself. I'll tell you, though, plenty more with getting thrown out of work to fear, or getting foreclosed on and tossed out on the street, or not finding a new job if you'd already lost the one you used to have, or not being able to feed your kids and put clothes on their backs, or not being able to feed yourself and put clothes on your own back.

Shack I'd lived in, getting foreclosed on would've just been a laugh. I'd been all those other places, though, and more besides. Would I have taken up with Big Stu if I hadn't? Well, I like to think I wouldn't have, any road.

Tulia team called themselves the Ravens. No, I don't know why. Because they did, that's why. Socks and caps and uniform letters and piping, those were all green. Ever seen a green raven? Me, neither.

But they beat us. They had a spotty-faced kid throwing for 'em, and he just rared back and flung, and we never could catch up to him. We managed one run, but they got three.

I almost made the last out. I purely hate doing that. It's like everything's my fault then. I was proud of myself when I worked the kid for a walk. A round-tripper would tie it. A groundout to second wouldn't, and that was what we got.

After the last out, the Ravens started yelling and pounding on each other like they'd just licked the Wolves and they were all gonna get fat Series checks. Folks in the grandstand weren't what you'd call sedate, either. Looked like the whole little town was there, or pretty close.

Well, what else did they have to do? Whole flock of 'em had no work to go to. They'd sit wherever they'd sit, and they'd stew. Or they'd cough up a quarter and go to the pictures. They could do that all day, every day. House of Daniel came through once every couple of years. The hope of beating us ought to be worth half a buck, hey?

And then the Ravens went and did it. Happy days for Tulia. One happy day, at least. If that kid kept pitching and his arm didn't blow up, he'd go places for sure.

This was the third game I'd played for the House of Daniel, the fourth I'd seen. I felt mad about losing, and I felt bad about losing. We were the House of Daniel! We were supposed to charge on into these no-account hick towns and
win
.

It's funny. I didn't feel the same way when I played for the Enid Eagles. I wanted to win then. I tried to win. But I knew sometimes we wouldn't. We were good. We weren't
that
good, though.

When I looked at the other fellas with the lions on their shirts, I needed a few seconds to cipher out how they felt. Then it hit me: they were
embarrassed
to lose a game to the Tulia for heaven's sake Ravens. You play baseball, you'll get embarrassed every once in a while. The game does that to you. Doesn't make it any more fun when it happens.

Harv walked over to the Tulia dugout. He was a better sport than that so-and-so in Amarillo. When he said, “Well, you got us this time,” he didn't sound like he wanted a tornado to blow the Ravens and the ballpark and the whole town straight to nevermore. He may have felt that way, but he didn't sound like it.

“I'm much obliged,” the Tulia manager said. “Sidd pitched his arm off out there today, didn't he?”

“Hope not, for his sake. I don't know how long you'll be able to keep him,” Harv said. “A year from now, he could be in the Texas League. Three years? Maybe the bigs, if he stays sound. He's trouble, all right.”

“That'd be something, wouldn't it?” The guy from Tulia turned his head and hollered, “Hey, Sidd! The House of Daniels reckon you got the stuff to pitch in the big leagues!”

“I'd sure like to.” Sidd's uniform was all soaked and soggy with sweat. Well, so was everybody's, but the pitchers and catchers had it worse. He went on, “You pitch up there, your name goes into the record book all official, like, and you're in there forever so they can remember you.”

“The Lord always remembers you forever,” Harv said, but even he sounded kinda halfhearted about it. What we did would go in the local paper—a guy from the
Tulia Herald
was talking with some of the Ravens and scribbling down what they said—but who except the ballplayers and their kin would recollect the game and what all went on longer than Tuesday after next?

Baseball. It's the same game, semipros or the bigs. Oh, they play it better—they play it real well a lot more often—up there. But it's the same game. Only in the bigs everything everybody does between the white lines gets written down for all time, almost as if they carve it in stone. Sidd said it: play the game there and you're part of history.