If I Never Get Back

by Darryl Brock

  During my second night Timmy sank horribly. His skin burned with fever, his breathing was irregular, his pulse barely discernible. We thought for one terrible moment that he had died.

  “If he goes,” said Cait, “I’m going with him.”

  The finality of it chilled and angered me. “Don’t say that,” I blurted, slamming my fist against the wall. “We’re not losing anybody!”

  She looked at me wordlessly, her expression unreadable.

  The world shrank and was encompassed by the walls of that room, a world in which our resources consisted of each other. It was an emotional cauldron. We forged bonds there that linked us, in my mind, forever.

  Timmy moaned, body writhing, intestines locked in agony, Cait crying with him in the worst times.

  With daylight it seemed a bit easier.We went on.

  It was hard to pinpoint the crisis. Only days later were we sure that the fever was subsiding and that the worst had passed. The danger of relapse, Unzelman warned, would be extremely high for at least another week.

  It was about then that the ghost came.

  Cait and I were drowsing, around three or four in the morning. An oil lamp gleamed dimly above Timmy, the only light in the room. I woke with a start at the sound of a branch striking the side of the house. Strange, I thought, for a storm to rise so quickly.

  A high, thin wail escaped Timmy. Later I wondered if it were a cry of recognition, of welcome. But at the time, thinking the noise had frightened him, I rose and stepped toward the bed. At that point several things happened.

  The lamplight dimmed to a tiny glowing point and disappeared.

  I heard Cait say, distinctly and wonderingly, “A bird.”

  “What?” I fumbled in my pockets for matches, wondering where to find more lamp oil.

  “That sound,” she said. “It was a bird.”

  Hell of a big bird, I thought; and then my mind flooded with recollections of ghostly winged apparitions. I said cautiously, “You see it?”

  “I suppose I dreamed it,” she said. “But I think it was . . .”

  Colm.

  I became aware of loamy odors; tangible, heavy fragrances of green leaves and tree bark and earth. It was in the room, a presence emerging in the gum-spirit atmosphere.

  “Tim!” Fear strained Cait’s voice.

  I reached out to be sure he was still there. To my surprise he was sitting halfway up. I kept my hand on him and drew Cait close with my other arm.

  He was there with us.

  I didn’t think the room brightened, but I wasn’t sure. I saw a shape limned in light, a dark, familiar shape in a long military coat, one arm stretched to us, as if in greeting. Or beckoning. I couldn’t be more frightened than I was then. Cait sagged against me.

  God, I thought crazily, if it is Colm, how must this look, the three of us, me with his family?

  Timmy suddenly squeezed my hand with surprising force. Sitting erect, looking straight at the apparition, he mumbled something.

  As goose bumps rippled over me the apparition turned slightly toward him, or perhaps it was just the outstretched arm that moved.

  “NO!” Cait shrieked.

  “Wait,” I breathed, holding her as she struggled toward Timmy.

  We watched its other arm rise slowly, as if in benediction. Then the figure began to recede, slowly at first and building to a great rush. Just before it vanished I glimpsed tiny figures, humans, standing across a distant stream beyond him.

  I found a match and lit the lamp. It held plenty of oil. Timmy lay supine, eyes closed, asleep. Cait and I looked at each other.

  “Did you see the others?” I said. “At the end?”

  She nodded, swallowing hard. “It was the Other Side we were seeing.”

  “My God,” I said.

  “I feared he wanted to take Tim.”

  “Could you make out what Timmy said?”

  “No, but I know it was Colm standing there for a certainty.”

  She sounded more sad than anything. I wondered if she were still in love with him.

  “Cait, I had this strong feeling he was trying to help.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Several days later, when Timmy felt up to talking, I asked if he remembered any unusual dreams. Cait leaned forward tensely.

  “Like what?” Timmy asked.

  “Like, say, someone was here with us, a soldier maybe.”

  “A soldier?” he said, eyes widening. “Here?”

  “Yes,” I said, “like he suddenly came through the window or the wall, and—”

  “Like the bird did,” said Timmy.

  “What bird?” said Cait.

  “There was this big soft-looking bird, all friendly, like he was my pal. He came to be with me ’cause I was sick. Least that’s what he said.”

  “He said?”

  Timmy laughed weakly. “Sounds wrong now, but it wasn’t then. It was real as life.”

  I sketched on a piece of paper. “Did he look like this? A dove?”

  “That’s it,” said Timmy. “The chest was puffed out like that, and the eyes were all warm, like they were lit up.”

  Cait began to cry.

  The quarantine imposed by the city consisted of a red warning sign posted on the front door. Nothing else. Andy and Johnny came and went freely, bringing supplies. Several times I asked Cait where her boarders were. Her answers were vague.

  I began taking afternoon walks. One day I returned to find the illustrious Fenian hero himself, Captain Fearghus O’Donovan, emerging from the parlor. In the street, regarding me coolly from a carriage, were half a dozen other men. I recognized several from Cait’s.

  O’Donovan faced me on the porch.

  “Back from the wars?” I said.

  “Wars?”

  “The ones you’re trying to start?”

  He gave me a long, cold stare. “Caitlin tells me you rescued her brother.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Worse luck for you that Le Caron screwed up.”

  “I’m not familiar with that person.”

  “McDermott’s cutthroat. The one who did the kidnapping and tried to kill Andy, and the rest of us by firing the boat. Ring any bells?”

  “No.”

  “I suppose you deny knowing McDermott, too.”

  He took a deep breath. “Blackguards may serve causes nobler than themselves.”

  “Like gambling, you mean?”

  “You’d be well paid to contain your insolence, sir.”

  I laughed, wondering if I could provoke him into admitting his complicity. I had the impression he was feeling his way, deciding how to play me.

  “Until now I’ve shown forbearance on Caitlin’s account.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “You haven’t come at me only because you thought I might disappear. Then you’d never learn who I worked for. You’re so paranoid that—”

  “I’m what?”

  “—you assume I’m a spy. But most of all, you’d never get your hands on the precious money.”

  “Ah, there!” he exclaimed. “You’ve as much as admitted robbing us!”

  “How can you be robbed of something you never had?”

  “General O’Neill has ordered me to recover it.”

  “I see.” I grinned maliciously. “While he’s off recruiting the KKK, you get the fun stuff—like sucking up to McDermott.”

  His fists clenched, knuckles whitening; his eyes glittered with malice.

  “You ought to give up extortion,” I said. “Even with McDermott’s expertise, you’re not very good at it.”

  “Why do you talk of him?” he hissed.

  I saw no point in revealing my eavesdropping adventure. On the other hand, I enjoyed watching him wriggle on my hook.

  “Maybe because his name goes so well with yours. ‘McDermott and O’Donovan.’ Like a partnership, no?”

  “You have a fortnight, sir,” he stated.

  “For what?” Was he challenging me to a duel?

  “To
deliver the money.”

  “Oh, for Chrissake, can’t you drop that?”

  “I don’t make idle threats. Have it together when I return in mid-September.”

  “How generous to give me that long.”

  “Another matter, more personal. I intend for Mrs. O’Neill to become my wife. You have no right to see her.”

  “She’s the one to decide that.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  I lost it then. The words whooshed out in an explosive gust. “I’m tired of threats. I’m tired of being told what to do. If something happens to me, you can be damn sure Cait will find out your precise role in her brother’s kidnapping. I’ve already arranged for it. Not only that,” I added, swept on by my own lies and my anger, “she’ll get the full story on Colm!”

  I suppose I’d meant it as a probe, a shot in the dark. The instant the words left my mouth I realized I’d hit ground zero. He staggered back as if I’d socked him. His face went pale, and he stared at me with narrowed eyes. In the street the cab doors opened abruptly and men began to climb out. O’Donovan waved them back.

  “Who are you?” he breathed.

  I said nothing, intrigued by the dramatic reaction.

  His voice rose above a whisper. “Now it’s plain why you brought up that bastard McDermott!”

  “Is it?” This was proving interesting.

  “You dare link his name with mine, when you’re the one conspiring!”

  “Conspiring?” I wanted to snatch his shirtfront and shake him. “O’Donovan, you dimwit! Bullets were flying around me at our last game! Le Caron blew up an entire boat! You’re trying to force me to give you huge amounts of money and to stay away from Cait and Timmy. Now you’re bent out of shape because you got a threat back? What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  “A fortnight,” he said, staring into my eyes. “Honor will be satisfied, should I have to pursue you to earth’s end.” Later I would have cause to remember his phrase.

  I returned to the team to find that Champion had also given me notice. As soon as he hired a new substitute, my playing tenure would end. I’d keep my other roles, but at half salary. Thanks a lot.

  Actually, I wasn’t surprised. Harry was sympathetic, but I’d missed far too much practice. I knew that he could use somebody younger, with more speed and versatility. And who wouldn’t suddenly disappear or get shot. I was welcome to work out with the team, he assured me, even keep the score book during games, if I wanted. On balance I wouldn’t be losing all that much.

  Champion’s decision, I suspected, stemmed only in part from my most recent absence. Somehow he’d gotten word of the steamboat escapade. Though our presence there had not made the papers—coverage of the fire was eclipsed by the disputed game—to Champion it must have represented exactly the sort of reckless adventuring he dreaded.

  I got back in time to suit up for a game to benefit the Buckeyes. Their resources were currently at a low ebb, so we were helping out.

  “Typhoid Fowler’s back,” Allison greeted me in the clubhouse.

  “Quarantine’s lifted,” I announced. “Your hero is here!”

  They hooted me.

  “Curious how you and Acey laid off,” Waterman said, “when Harry was grinding our butts into the dirt.”

  “Acey?” I looked over at Brainard, who was pulling on his cotton undershirt.

  “Been sicker’n a pup,” he said soberly.

  “Everything clear?” I asked him on the diamond. “McDermott gone?”

  “’Pears so,” he replied. “You mind if I hang on to that other five hundred a mite longer?”

  “No problem,” I said. “Were you going to throw that game?”

  He said nothing.

  Probably just as well. I might not have liked his answer.

  Before a fair-sized crowd, we set about battering the Buckeyes. It was pathetic. George, Sweasy, and Mac had thirteen hits each, and every starter scored at least ten runs. We hit eleven homers. We won 103-8.

  In the final inning Harry let me bat for Allison. I went to the plate thinking it would probably be my last time up as a Stocking. I wanted to make it count.

  The Buck hurler came in with a low medium-speed spinner. I strode into it and whipped the bat. Solid contact. The ball flamed on a line to the fence. “Hold!” yelled Harry as I rounded first. The left fielder played the carom perfectly. I sprinted for second, not about to stop. The throw came in strong. I hooked away from the baseman, outside the bag, catching it with my bent left leg. He lunged to make the tag, lost his balance, sprawled over me.

  “Safe!” hollered the ump.

  I hadn’t ignored a base coach since Little League. I brushed myself off, feeling elated and guilty.

  “Sorry,” I said later to Harry. “I just didn’t want it to end so fast.”

  “I noticed.” He smiled faintly. “Perhaps there’ll be chances for you on the nine again, once things settle.” The warm eyes regarded me shrewdly. “But don’t ever run through my directions!”

  We stopped by Cait’s, finding her and Timmy in good spirits. Andy displayed the small Stocking uniform he’d had specially made. I thought Timmy’s eyes would pop.

  “The fellas say you can be our mascot,” Andy told him.“Oh boy!

  “We’ll see,” Cait said quickly.

  “MOTHER!”

  That night, before a special meeting of the club, most of the nine and a number of Buckeyes gathered to eat at Leininger’s. George read aloud from a New York Sun story on the Haymaker game, reprinted in the Enquirer: “The Umpire very properly gave the game to the Cincinnati Club. . . . The Haymakers have always had a bad reputation. No club ever visited Troy and returned satisfied with their treatment. . . .” Last season, the article continued, before a contest with the Atlantics, the Haymaker president had tipped Mute players to back Troy because “a job had been put up.” If such was true, the writer concluded, the Haymakers should be expelled from the association.

  We toasted the Sun reporter, grateful for eastern support.

  Allison got laughs saying he’d heard that Lansingburghers were now so broke that housewives bought fish with flatirons and got change in matches and soft soap. In saloons drinks averaged two shirt collars.

  “You fellers headin’ East again?” said one of the Bucks.

  “Tonight will likely decide that,” George answered.

  Three hundred club members applauded us in Mozart Hall. From the podium a smiling Champion orchestrated with grand gestures. We were in for a surprise.

  “Gentlemen,” he announced, “the repute of our invincible first nine [more applause] has spread across the bosom [sly chuckles] of this continent. An invitation has arrived from the Pacific Slope, from the assembled baseball clubs of San Francisco and Sacramento, challenging us to a series of matches [shouts, laughter]. What’s more [dramatic pause and triumphant crescendo] they want us so badly they’ll pay our entire fare on the Pacific Railroad, lodge us at their expense, and give us half the receipts from all matches!”

  The resulting roar reverberated in the large room. Not all of it signified support. Gould and Mac were on their feet yelling, “Let’s go!” George and Waterman shouted, “No! The whip pennant!”

  Debate lasted two hours. Go East or go West? Either choice would reward the club and add to its fame. There wasn’t time to do both; contracts expired November 15, and September was already upon us.

  I sat numbly as voices droned, one arguing for storming baseball’s traditional strongholds again, another dwelling on the glory of being the first to play on both coasts. Harry said nothing. I suspected that he and Andy and the other eastern players preferred going for the pennant, playing again before their families and friends. But the lure of crossing the continent was strong. The gold rush had happened only twenty years before. The West was wild and exotic, still inhabited by untamed Indians.

  “I’m for Frisco,” I heard Brainard remark to Waterman. It occurred to me he might have his own reasons for not wanting
to visit New York just then. But Allison also liked the idea, as did Sweasy.

  In the end the chance to ride the four-month-old transcontinental railroad—already it was the rage among the fashionable—won out, especially since it would be free. An experience roughly equivalent, I thought, to a passenger shuttle to the moon. Except that reaching the moon wouldn’t take two weeks.

  By a narrow margin the club voted to send us to California.

  Tangled emotions played in me. I had no defense against bittersweet memories. San Francisco. Where I had left my little girls, my identity, my life.

  “Sam!”

  Andy was grinning at me.

  “Ain’t it dandy for you!”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why,” he said, looking at me expectantly, “you’re goin’ home!”

  PART THREE

  The Pacific

  . . . and I will remark here, in passing, that all scenery in California requires distance to give it its highest charm.

  MARK TWAIN, Roughing It

  Go, go, go said the bird: human kind

  Cannot bear very much reality.

  T. S. ELIOT, Four Quartets

  Fowler . . . continued his discoveries, with the result that I came out safe and sound, at the end. . . .

  MARK TWAIN, Autobiography

  Chapter 22

  Good grief, Cait, what’s wrong?”

  She looked at me silently, took a deep breath. “I’m not sure.”

  It struck me as an honest assessment. She had been distant and fretful for several days. When I’d told her about the nine going West, she said, “How nice for Andy,” and asked how long the trip would be. I said it would take the better part of a month. Would I be going? she asked. I said I didn’t know yet. What I didn’t say was that it depended partly on her. Her matter-of-factness upset me. I wanted more from her. I wanted to talk about the jangling inside me that the prospect of going to San Francisco set off. Of the hauntingly strange pull I felt, almost like what had drawn me to her. But I couldn’t. Why was she being so distant? Didn’t she care?