King of the Mound: My Summer With Satchel Paige

by Wes Tooke

  His father glanced at the shirt and then at Nick, his eyes dark and angry. “Where’s your head? Don’t waste a good shirt on blood.”

  Nick went back to the clothesline and traded the shirt for a sock with a hole in the heel. When he got back, his father snatched the sock, wrapped it tightly around his thumb, and then stared accusingly at the saw, which was lying on the ground next to the wall of the cabin.

  “Want me to get a doctor?” Nick asked.

  “I’ve spent enough money on doctors,” his father said. “And I’m certainly not paying for a house call.”

  “Doesn’t Dr. Burnhill treat the players for free?”

  “I ain’t on the team,” his father said, his voice a low growl. “And I’m worth nothing to Mr. Churchill with a bum thumb.” He looked at Nick and shook his head. “We’ve got to be the sorriest pair in North Dakota. Nothing but damaged goods.”

  “That isn’t fair,” Nick said quietly.

  His father rolled his eyes. “Life isn’t fair. Not for people like us. And you better stop dreaming and figure that out because otherwise you’ll end up hungry like those farmers outside town. Or, worse yet, a washed-up ballplayer with a dead wife and crippled son.”

  The last words slammed into Nick’s stomach like a punch, and although Nick bit his lip to keep water from spilling out of his eyes, his vision still got blurry. His father gave him a long look, a strange expression on his face, and then turned on his heel and marched out of the yard toward town. Nick hoped he was going to see the doctor after all, because one of the older brothers of a kid at school had cut his thumb on a saw and died a few weeks later of tetanus. And while his father could be mean, Nick still didn’t want him to get tetanus.

  It was at moments like this that Nick most missed his mother. With every passing year he remembered fewer details about her, but in his memory everything had been different before she caught tuberculosis. His father had certainly changed at her funeral as if someone had thrown a switch. He didn’t laugh anymore, ever, and he talked to Nick only when he was mad or giving instructions. At least they had shared baseball before Nick got sick, but now that Nick couldn’t pitch they had nothing. In fact, his father didn’t even want him around—Nick was sure of that. Maybe he looked too much like his mother, or maybe he was just an unpleasant reminder, as his father said, that life wasn’t fair.

  “Are you okay?”

  The voice cut across the yard. Nick looked up and saw Emma walking toward him, a towel slung over her shoulder.

  Nick wiped his face on his shirt. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  “What happened to your dad? My mom said he was walking toward town with his hand wrapped in a bloody sock.”

  “He cut his thumb with the saw.”

  “All the way off?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’ve got an uncle who’s missing two fingers on his left hand. But he got them shot off in the war.”

  “You talk a lot,” Nick said. He felt bad the moment the words came out of his mouth, but Emma just smiled.

  “Not usually,” she said. “But I like talking to you. Maybe it’s because you actually listen.”

  Nick didn’t quite know what to say, so he just looked back at her. After a moment her cheeks turned red. “I’m going swimming,” she said after an awkward pause. “Want to come?”

  Nick shook his head. “I haven’t swum since . . . well, you know.”

  “What? Do you think you forgot how to do it or something?”

  “No,” Nick said. “It’s just . . .”

  As Nick’s voice trailed off, he considered her offer. While he didn’t really want to go swimming—or do anything other than sit on the porch—he knew if he stayed at the cabin, he was just going to feel sorry for himself.

  “Fine,” he finally said. “I’ll go.”

  Whenever Nick had gone swimming, it had always been in the Missouri River, which was wide enough in most spots that not even Moose Johnson, who had the best arm in the Bismarck outfield, could throw a ball from bank to bank. Just south of town, where the dark water slowed, a giant sandbar had formed, and kids would splash around in the shallows during the warm summer months. Sometimes they would even play stickball in the sand using a worn rubber ball and bare hands.

  But Emma led Nick in the opposite direction, into the dusty plain that stretched northwest of the town. They passed two abandoned farmhouses, their windows boarded up and roofs sagging, and then turned off the road and cut through a field filled with burned-out cornstalks. Emma scrambled over a small wall, pausing at the top to give Nick a hand, and when they plopped down on the other side, they were suddenly in a green field—an island of life amid the dust and dirt. Nick paused and poked a small squash with the toe of his shoe.

  “Why is this stuff growing?” he asked. “I thought there was a drought.”

  “That’s how I found the swimming hole,” Emma said. “But it’s supersecret, so you can’t tell anyone. Promise?”

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t know anyone to tell. Except Satch and my dad. And I don’t think they care.”

  Emma laughed, probably because she thought it was a joke. But it wasn’t. Before Nick got sick, he had taken for granted that every day when he got out of school there would be a dozen kids waiting for him to play baseball or go swimming or walk down to the five-and-dime store to look at bikes, but now . . .

  “Over here,” Emma said loudly.

  She had walked ahead of him and was cutting into a little stand of trees. As Nick followed her into the shade, the air became cool and moist, and he took what felt like his first deep breath in a very long time. Emma skirted the trunk of a giant tree, and suddenly a small pool of water appeared ahead of them. It was about half the size of a baseball infield, and its edges were covered with lily pads and a few thick stands of reeds.

  “This is my favorite spot in the whole world,” Emma said. She turned and pointed at the giant tree. “And look!”

  Nick turned and saw a thick rope hanging down from one of the branches. The end was just a few feet off the ground, two thick knots standing out like mice swallowed by a snake, and he realized that it was a swing.

  “Isn’t it great?” Emma asked.

  “Yeah.” Nick glanced back at the little pond. The water appeared inky in the shade. “Who else knows about it?”

  “The farmer, I guess.”

  “No other kids?”

  “Nope.” Emma pointed at the far side of the pond. “There’s a path that leads to a house, but I’ve never seen footprints on this side of the water.”

  “It’s amazing,” Nick said. “Like an oasis or something.”

  Emma just smiled and then sat on a rock and pulled off her shoes. Nick went down to the shore, pushed aside a lily pad, and dipped his fingers in the water. It was cool but not cold. A few fat frogs watched him from farther down the bank, their eyes wide and unblinking.

  “Last one in is a rotten egg!” Emma called.

  Nick glanced up just in time to see her go swinging past him on the rope. She whizzed out high above the pond and then let go with a yelp and plummeted into the dark water. The splash almost reached the shore, and Nick stood up to get a better look. She was underwater for a few seconds, and then her head popped out, her long dark hair plastered against her white cheeks.

  “Come on,” she said. “Don’t be a chicken.”

  Nick took off his shoes and then waded a few feet out into the water to retrieve the end of the rope, which was still swinging slightly from Emma’s plunge. He slowly walked the rope back up next to the tree and then stood motionless, gathering his courage. Emma had clutched the rope with her hands and feet, but Nick didn’t trust his bad leg to help him.

  “Now or never!” Emma called.

  Nick stared at the pond. “I’m worried about my brace.”

  “It’ll dry.” She paused. “Baaawwwk!”

  Nick gave the pond one last look and then clutched the top knot and lifted his feet. The ground sped by, followed b
y water, and then suddenly he was soaring up into the air like an eagle swooping up from a field after missing a rabbit. A shout burst from Nick’s lungs near the top of his arc, and he released the rope and suddenly was falling down, down, down, until he landed with a splash. He panicked for a moment when he felt the weight of the brace pulling him deeper, but after two quick strokes with his arms, he emerged from the water, laughing. Emma was watching him from shore, a satisfied smile on her face.

  “It’s like flying,” Nick said as he waded onto the bank.

  “I know,” she said. “And it’s all ours.”

  Nick tried the swing a dozen more times and only stopped because his hands were getting sore from gripping the rope. He particularly loved the moment just after he let go, when his body was hanging in midair and for a second he was flying—no bad leg, no angry father, nothing.

  When they finally walked back to the house, they were the happy kind of quiet, the only noise coming from Nick’s squeaking brace. His skin felt slimy from the pond.

  “Thanks for taking me,” Nick said when they were back in the yard. “It was kind of a bad day.”

  “I thought so,” Emma said. “You looked sad sitting on the porch.”

  Nick just grunted. Emma gave him a last smile and then turned and skipped to her house. As Nick turned and slowly walked back to his cabin, it occurred to him that most kids would have asked more questions or tried to figure out why he had been upset. But Emma was different; she knew enough to leave him alone. At that moment Nick realized that he’d been wrong earlier when he said he didn’t have any friends in town. Of course, it was kind of funny that his one friend was a girl—Nick had barely talked to girls before he got sick. But Emma liked baseball and had shared her secret spot with him and was really nice about his leg. And those were the kinds of things friends did.

  Nick’s father got home after the sun had set, his thumb neatly wrapped in a bandage. He tossed a loaf of bread and a can of beans at Nick as he came through the door and then went and lay on his bed. Nick made a fire, and when he was finished cooking, he offered his father a thick slice of toasted bread spread with the beans and a little bit of bacon fat from the jar over the stove. But his father just grunted and rolled away toward the wall.

  Nick therefore had too much food, and he ate until it felt like the beans were starting to climb back up his throat. When he was finished cleaning, he lay on his cot. He had a few blisters on his palms and a large sore patch on his leg from where the wet brace had chafed against his skin, and the pain was nagging enough to keep him awake until long after his father’s snores had started to echo around the cabin. The excitement of swimming and the subsequent happy glow had helped Nick forget how the day had begun, but now he couldn’t keep himself from wondering what was going to happen. Would his father really quit the team? Were they going to stay in Bismarck? He prayed they would—and not just because Satchel Paige was going to spend the summer pitching a mile down the street from their cabin. During the months Nick had spent at the hospital, it had felt as if his life had been frozen, and these first days in Bismarck had seemed like the beginnings of a thaw. And as Nick drifted off to sleep, he realized that if they could just stay here for a while, it might even begin to feel like a home.

  After breakfast the next morning Nick’s father started putting on his uniform pants. Nick watched him for a long moment, trying to keep himself from asking the question, but eventually he couldn’t help himself.

  “Are you going to practice?” he asked.

  His father glanced at him, annoyed. “I’m on the team, ain’t I?” He stood and flicked his head at the duffel bag with his equipment. “Grab that.”

  “Yes, sir!” Nick said.

  Nick couldn’t keep a stupid smile off his face all the way to the ballpark. His father knocked on the door of the office and then glanced at Nick, his nostrils flaring and a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead.

  “Stand up straight,” he said. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

  As Nick shifted the bag on his shoulder and pushed the top of his head toward the sky, the door swung open and Mr. Churchill stepped outside. He glanced from Nick to his father.

  “You coming to work or saying good-bye?” he asked.

  “Coming to work,” Nick’s father said. “If that’s still okay.”

  Mr. Churchill smiled and clapped his father on the shoulder. “Of course it’s okay. I’ll be grateful to have you on that bench.”

  “I always thought I might get into coaching someday,” Nick’s father said. “Just didn’t figure it would be so soon.”

  “The only certainty about plans is they change,” Mr. Churchill said. “Which explains why I’ve got to run to the dealership for a minute.”

  “You want me to warm up the team?” Nick’s father asked.

  Mr. Churchill nodded. “Yeah, have them do some running. Except for Satch—he’s going to be late.” Mr. Churchill turned to Nick. “And why don’t you sweep the dugout? . . . That way you can watch a little bit of practice. Does that sound good?”

  “Very good,” Nick said.

  By the time Nick got the broom out of the storage shed, Mr. Churchill had sped off in his car and the team was jogging in the outfield. Nick was halfway through sweeping the home dugout when Satch strolled onto the field. He was wearing a pair of olive pants and a white collared shirt rather than his uniform, and he looked at Nick, a funny glint in his eye.

  “This is the reason a body should never be on time,” he said. “I’d hate to be out there running around like some kind of jackrabbit.”

  “Aren’t you worried about your legs?” Nick asked.

  Satch shook his head. “My legs are just fine as they are. Probably because I don’t generally like exercise. I believe in training by rising gently up and down from the bench.”

  Nick wasn’t sure whether Satch was joking or not, so he focused on sweeping a little pile of sunflower seeds and dirt into his metal dustpan. After a long moment Satch threw his head back and laughed.

  “Jeez, Hopalong,” he said. “You’re a regular chatterbox, aren’t you? Just never shut up.”

  This time Nick knew Satch was kidding. “I was wondering about something,” he said tentatively.

  “Shoot.”

  “Why do people call you Satchel?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “I read in the newspaper that it was because your feet are so big that people said they looked liked satchels.”

  Satch snorted. “My feet ain’t got nothing to do with my nickname. But once folks get it in their heads that a feller’s got big feet, pretty soon they start looking pretty big.” He gave Nick a glance. “Did you have a nickname before I started calling you Hopalong?”

  “My friends used to call me Smoke. Back when I could pitch.”

  “Because you put heat on your fastball?”

  “Yeah.”

  Satch’s head suddenly whipped around and he stared at Nick, an eyebrow raised. “Wait, what’s this nonsense about not being able to pitch? You didn’t believe me when I said you could pitch on one leg?”

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t know any pitchers with polio.”

  “I know a lot more pitchers than you,” Satch said. “And not all of them are as perfect as me and my normal-size feet. You ever hear of a big old farm boy called Three Finger Brown?”

  “Of course,” Nick said. Mordecai Brown had been a famous pitcher who played for a bunch of teams before the First World War. He had gotten his nickname because he had only three fingers on his pitching hand, which supposedly helped him throw the best curveball of his day.

  “Then let me ask you this,” Satch said. “You think Three Finger would have gotten famous if he decided to quit ball after sticking his hand in that wood chipper? You think we’d know his name if he just decided to stay on that farm and feel sorry for himself?”

  “I guess not,” Nick said, his voice low. “But my dad says you can’t pitch on one leg, and he knows a w
hole lot about baseball.”

  “Your daddy may know plenty,” Satch said. “But there ain’t no man alive who knows more about pitching than old Satch, and I’m telling you that you can pitch on one leg or no legs or with three fingers or twelve. All that matters is that you know how to miss the fat part of the bat.”

  Nick glanced at the outfield. The team had stopped running, and his father was tossing a ball with a few of the younger pitchers. He was probably telling them to step into their throws and make sure their wrists snapped as the ball left their fingers—the same advice he’d given Nick a million times.

  “Over here, kid,” Satch said, snapping his fingers. Nick looked back at him. “I can tell you don’t believe me, but I’ve got a way to change your mind. You’re coming on a drive with me. Right now.”

  Nick gave the bench a long look—he desperately wanted to go with Satch, but he had barely started sweeping. “Mr. Churchill wanted me to finish this before he got back. And my dad will be mad if I leave the park.”

  “I’ll let you in on a secret,” Satch said. “Your daddy works for Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Churchill will pretty much do anything to keep old Satch happy. And right now what would make Satch happy is if you come with him. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Nick said.

  The silver convertible sped down a dirt road outside of town, moving twice as fast as Nick’s father ever drove a car. Nick clutched his seat, a combination of scared and exhilarated, as the wind whipped his hair and his blurry eyes tried to focus on the bouncing landscape. Satch glanced at him and then laughed, the sound muffled by the whipping wind.

  “You look just like my wife,” he said. “She’s fit to pass out every time we go for a drive.”

  “Is she here in Bismarck?” Nick asked.