Stumptown Kid

by Carol Gorman

  A door opened in the back behind the counter, and Luther came out with a floor mop in his hand.

  “Luther, it’s him!” I cried.

  Ruckus hurried around the counter toward Luther with me right behind him.

  Luther backed up a few steps, his eyes big. He lifted the mop with his left arm and held up the wet part in front of him. It wasn’t a weapon, but it was all he had.

  “I’m sorry that pitch killed your brother, Ruckus,” Luther said in a calm voice. “I didn’t mean to hit him.”

  “I don’t care if you meant to or not,” Ruckus said. “My brother’s dead on account of you.” He held up something in his hand and flicked it open.

  A switchblade.

  “Luther!” I crouched low, took the bayonet out of the case, and slid it hard over the floor to him. It bumped against his foot. He scooped it up and dropped the mop at his feet. I dropped the case on the floor.

  “I told you I’d kill you, boy,” Ruckus said to Luther.

  It was weird hearing those words come out of his mouth because it wasn’t a comic book and it wasn’t a movie. It was real. He sounded mad and even a little bit sad.

  Ruckus was dressed like any other guy, in old blue jeans and a T-shirt. But when he held up the knife and looked at Luther, his eyes were crazy. I started trembling.

  “It wasn’t Luther’s fault,” I shouted. “He threw a good pitch.”

  Luther glanced at me and back at Ruckus. “Charlie,” he said, “you get out of here, you hear me?”

  “My brother raised me,” Ruckus said. I knew if Luther didn’t have Dad’s bayonet, Ruckus would’ve rushed him by now.

  He took a step toward Luther.

  “Leave him alone!” I hollered. I wasn’t so sure that Luther would use that blade, even to defend himself.

  But he had to. It was the only thing protecting him.

  “Charlie,” Luther said, “I’m tellin’ you, son, get out of here.”

  I couldn’t move. I wouldn’t leave Luther for anything.

  Ruckus moved to the side, and they circled each other. Luther didn’t move the arm with the blade; he just held it out in front of him. The night was cool, but sweat ran in tiny rivers off his face.

  Ruckus crept closer to Luther and Luther backed up a couple steps, still holding the bayonet blade out from his body. Three stacks of wooden egg crates sat just behind him. He bumped into them, and they crashed to the floor. Luther fell backwards on top of them, crushing a few crates and sending broken eggs sliding across the floor. He staggered to his feet, still holding the bayonet. The gooey eggs were slippery, and he slid to the floor again, landing on his back in the egg mess.

  Ruckus rushed over and stomped on the hand Luther was using to hold the bayonet. Luther cried out and let go. Ruckus kicked it out of the way and bent over Luther with his switchblade.

  I could see what was going to happen. So without thinking about it, I grabbed the nearest thing—one of the egg crates that wasn’t broken—and smashed it over Ruckus’s head as hard as I could.

  He staggered a few steps, then hit the floor. He wasn’t unconscious, but he was stunned a little.

  Luther scrambled for the bayonet and picked it up off the floor. I started toward Ruckus to yank the knife out of his hand, but Luther grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me in the air.

  “Charlie, are you crazy, boy?” he yelled at me. “Let’s get out of here!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  We were barely out the door when we heard the sirens. A squad car, red lights whirling, barreled up the street toward us and screeched to a stop outside Landen’s. Two sheriff’s deputies threw open their doors and leaped out, aiming guns at Luther.

  “No! No!” I screamed, waving my arms. “Get Ruckus Brody—he’s inside. He tried to kill Luther.”

  “He got a weapon?” It was Deputy Mead.

  “A switchblade,” I said.

  They turned and walked with slow and careful steps into Landen’s. A half minute later, one of them poked his head out of the screen door.

  “We got ’im,” the officer said. “Come inside, you two.”

  Me and Luther went inside Landen’s.

  The first two officers aimed guns at Ruckus, who still looked pretty dizzy from when I whacked him on the head. They had taken away his knife.

  “Okay, tell us what happened,” said Deputy Mead.

  Just then, the screen door flew open and my mom and Vern rushed in.

  “Charlie!” Mom cried. “What happened? Are you all right? We saw the police cars. Oh, Charlie!”

  She threw her arms around me and held on real tight. Vern put his arm around her, but she didn’t seem to notice. I tried to get away, but Mom was squeezing too hard.

  “I’m okay,” I said. She kept squishing me. “Let go, Mom, I can’t breathe.”

  She finally let go.

  Vern put a hand on my shoulder and I batted it away.

  Deputy Mead cleared his throat. “Okay, suppose you all tell us what’s goin’ on?”

  “He killed my brother,” Ruckus said, pointing at Luther. His eyes looked clear now and focused sharp with hate.

  “It was an accident!” I blurted out. I looked at Deputy Mead. “You know about what happened. And so does Sheriff Engle.”

  “That’s right,” the deputy said, nodding. “But I want to know what happened here tonight.” He turned to Luther. “You tell me.”

  So Luther told him about how he’d come back to Landen’s to clean. He told how Ruckus burst in, how I shoved the bayonet across the floor to him, and how they fought.

  Mom gasped and held on to my shoulder. Vern still had his arm around her. Even with everything that had just happened, it burned me to see that.

  Deputy Mead turned to Ruckus. “That pretty much what happened?”

  “He killed my brother,” Ruckus said.

  “We’re taking you in and charging you with assault,” Deputy Mead said, slapping handcuffs over Ruckus’s wrists. He looked at Luther. “And we’ll need a formal statement from you, Mr. Peale.”

  Luther glanced around him. “Mr. Landen’s depending on me to clean up this mess. Could I come in the morning? Or after I finish here?”

  Mead nodded. “Okay, we’ll get your statement in the morning. Meantime, you better call Landen and tell him what happened here.”

  One of the other deputies took down my address and Luther’s address while Mom stood behind me, still gripping my shoulders.

  When the deputies had all the information they wanted, they said we could go. The deputies walked Ruckus out the door, reading him his rights.

  Luther held out Dad’s bayonet to Mom. “Here, Mrs. Nebraska. I won’t be needing this now.”

  “I’ll take that,” Vern said, stepping in front of Mom and grabbing the bayonet.

  “Give it to Mom,” I told him in a loud voice.

  “Vern, I want to put that away,” Mom said, her voice going as soft as mine was loud.

  He glared at me but handed it over to her. She turned to me. “Where’s the case?”

  I picked the case up off the floor where I’d dropped it and handed it to her.

  Luther turned to me. “Charlie, you shouldn’t have done what you did. You could’ve got yourself killed. Now, I appreciate you comin’ to help me, but it wasn’t the right thing to do.”

  “Charlie,” Mom said, “that man had a switchblade! Whatever were you thinking?”

  “Luther didn’t have nothin’ to protect himself with,” I said.

  “Well, don’t you worry about Ruckus, Charlie.” Luther looked steady into my eyes. “He’s goin’ to jail now. Besides, we got a big game tomorrow.” He put a hand on my shoulder and it felt pretty shaky, if you want to know the truth. But it sure felt better than Vern’s fat paw. “You better go home and get rested so you can concentrate on that tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Come on, Charlie,” Vern said. “I’ll drive you and your mom home.”

  I scowl
ed at him. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere with you.”

  “Charlie—” Mom began.

  “I’ll walk home. I ain’t ridin’ with Vern.”

  Vern sighed loudly and ran a hand over the top of his head.

  Mom said to Vern, “I’ll walk home with Charlie. It’s not that far.”

  “Mary, it’s dark,” he said, but Mom shook her head.

  “Now that that man with the switchblade is going to jail, we’ll be fine,” she said. “Holden’s a safe town. And I want to walk home with my son.”

  Vern glared at her, then at me. He walked out of Landen’s and let the screen door bang shut behind him.

  “Ready to go?” Mom asked me. I nodded. “Good night, Luther.”

  “’Night, ma’am,” he said. “‘Night, Charlie. See you tomorrow on the ball field.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “See you.”

  Mom and I walked down the street for a long time without talking. I wondered what she was thinking, but she kept it to herself till we were almost home.

  Finally she said, “Charlie, I want you to know that I think you were very brave,” she said. “But don’t ever, ever do anything so dangerous again. You were wrong to take the bayonet when I told you not to. You could have been killed. Promise me you won’t do anything like that again.”

  I kept walking and didn’t say nothing. I knew if Luther ever needed help again, I’d do just about anything.

  “Promise me, Charlie.”

  I sighed. “I promise.”

  It was a lie. But I thought maybe with Ruckus in jail, I wouldn’t have to do anything dangerous again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I was glad Ruckus was in jail. Mom said he’d probably have to go before a judge in Cedar Rapids. Then maybe they’d take him back on the train to the sheriff in Tennessee.

  I just wanted Ruckus far away from Luther so he couldn’t try to hurt him again. I had to talk Luther out of going home. How would he be able to stay away from Ruckus in Tennessee? But we still had to play that game against Lobo and Will and the Wildcats. I’d have to talk to him later.

  It was weird thinking about Will in the same category as Lobo and the Wildcats. What would it be like to play a game against him? We’d always rooted for each other. This time we’d be hoping the other guy would make mistakes. In some ways, playing against Will would be almost as hard as playing against Lobo.

  Luther was a great coach, and we’d all improved a lot. But I didn’t think we’d improved enough to be much competition for the Wildcats.

  Lobo was still bragging that he was going to pitch against us. That made me more nervous than ever. Our concentration would have to be like Superman’s not to let Lobo’s sneer affect our hitting.

  The morning started out sunny, but by noon, dark clouds rolled in. The man on the radio said it might rain in the afternoon. To tell you the truth, I hoped it would start pouring, but that didn’t make a lot of sense. If the game was rained out, we’d just have to play it later. And Luther was leaving Holden soon. I sure didn’t want to play this game without him around. So we might as well get it over with.

  Mom dropped me off at the park at one and said she’d be back before two. She had some errands to run, she said. I hoped picking up Vern wasn’t one of those errands, but I didn’t ask her. I didn’t want to get mad seeing the two of them up there in the stands but I didn’t want to get all worked up now before the game.

  The rest of the Stumptown Stormers got to the ball field at one o’clock, too.

  “Lobo’s gonna pitch for sure,” Eileen said when we’d gathered around Luther. “I heard one of his friends talkin’ about it.”

  Everyone groaned.

  “It’ll be hard for us to hit with Lobo makin’ all those mean faces right from the pitcher’s mound,” Kathleen said.

  “You remember what I told you the first day about concentration?” Luther asked. “If you concentrate, you won’t even see his face.” He smiled. “But I had a feeling that Lobo might want to pitch.”

  We all looked at each other like it was doomsday.

  “All right, Stormers, listen up,” Luther said. “Having Lobo pitch is good.”

  “What do ya mean, Luther?” Walter asked. “How could that be good?”

  “Pitching isn’t like playin’ catch,” Luther said. “Lobo’s expecting to come here and get an easy win. But we’ll use our speed and our ability to drag bunt. You all did a good job with that yesterday. The drag bunt’ll surprise and frustrate him, especially when he pitches out of a stretch. We might not be able to hit Lobo, but we can bunt anybody. We need to put the ball in play and let Lobo’s team make the mistakes.”

  Could that really work? A look around at my friends’ faces showed me that pretty much everybody on the team was wondering the same thing.

  But it was worth a try. We had to trust Luther. He’d worked his magic with us before. I just hoped his plan was good enough that we’d survive the game.

  Luther unfolded a sheet of paper and read off the starting lineup. Eileen would be first at bat, then Devin, then me. I was real happy that Luther trusted me to bat third, but it made me even more scared. Alan would be next, in the cleanup spot.

  The Wildcats boys began arriving before too long. Will came, too, but he didn’t look at me. I didn’t really care. I wondered if he knew that Luther had gotten dragged down to the sheriff’s office after Will spilled the beans about what happened in Tennessee.

  About twenty minutes before the game, a whole bunch of people started coming to the park. By five minutes to game time, the bleachers were packed, and folks were sitting around in lawn chairs. Most of the parents from both teams were there, and lots of people from town came to watch, too. It was the biggest crowd I’d ever seen at a baseball game.

  Mom came alone and sat with Eileen’s mom and dad. I was real happy she hadn’t brought Vern with her.

  When Coach Hennessey arrived, I got even more nervous. He leaned against the batter’s cage, chewing a wad of gum.

  Lobo got there at the last minute, strutting onto the ball field a little before two o’clock. He looked real sure of himself.

  “You girls ready to get stomped on?” Lobo asked, grinning at us. He didn’t look at me. I wondered if he was remembering how I’d seen his brother slap him at the A&P.

  But then his ugly mouth curled into a sneer that could’ve been peeled off the devil himself. “Prepare to die,” Lobo told us.

  “Come on, Charlie and Brad,” Luther called. “Time for the coin toss.”

  I almost laughed out loud when Luther called Lobo “Brad.” His first name didn’t sound so scary that way. And I could see by the way Lobo’s face got all red that he didn’t like being called Brad.

  Lobo, me, and Luther met at home plate for the coin toss to decide the home team. Luther flipped the quarter into the air.

  “You call it, Brad,” Luther said.

  “Heads,” Lobo yelled.

  It came up heads, so us Stormers would be up at bat first. Me and Luther and the rest of the team hustled to our places for hitting.

  A raindrop fell on my nose. I hadn’t noticed till then that the sky had gotten darker. Maybe we’d get rained out after all. “Remember our strategy,” Luther told us in a low voice, and we all nodded.

  “Go, Stumptown!” some of the parents yelled from the stands, clapping. “You can do it!”

  Eileen was up first. She’s left-handed, so she stood on the right side of the plate in a good, closed position.

  Lobo snorted. “They’re puttin’ a girl first?” he called out. “Get ready for the game’s first strikeout.”

  He wound up and threw a powerful fastball.

  Eileen did the drag bunt just perfect. The second the ball left Lobo’s hand, she swiveled fast from a closed position to an open one. She let the ball bounce hard off the very end of the bat and took off for first base before Lobo knew what was what.

  Lobo was so surprised by the drag bunt, he scrambled for the ball and fell on
his face. By the time he was back on his feet and scooped up the ball, Eileen was safe at first.

  We all grinned, and a ripple of laughter ran through the crowd of Stormers fans. The drag bunt had worked! It was the last thing Lobo had expected, and he’d blown the play.

  The laughing made Lobo’s shame worse, and he got red in the face. He was pacing around the pitcher’s mound and he looked like he was grinding his teeth, too.

  Alan gave me a thumbs-up, and I blew out a relieved sigh. Luther smiled at me and nodded.

  I glanced at Will. He was looking real serious. Was he wishing he’d played on our side?

  A few more soft raindrops sprinkled around us now. The air had a good earthy smell, but I wasn’t thinking about that too much. I didn’t want to get rained out now. After getting our first base hit, I hoped we’d be able to play for a while. I was curious to see if Luther’s strategy would keep working.

  Next up was Devin.

  “Concentrate, Lobo!” Coach Hennessey hollered from the stands.

  Our team had to concentrate, too. One good play was a start, but we had a long way to go.

  Lobo pitched another hardball to Devin. Devin bunted, too, only he used a regular bunt, which surprised Lobo all over again. Lobo fielded it and threw to second, but Eileen was already safe.

  The people in the stands on our side stood up and cheered wildly.

  Lobo was rattled, that was for sure. And after all his bragging and strutting, the surprise plays made it all the worse for him. He stomped around, muttering words I couldn’t hear.

  Now it was my turn at bat. I tried to fill my mind with all Luther had taught me about hitting. I kept my focus glued on that baseball in Lobo’s hand, and I whispered to myself, “I’m gonna hit the ball. I’m gonna hit it.”

  I kept myself in a closed position and took my stance. I was ready.

  Lobo wound up and threw a powerful pitch. I swung and smashed the ball with all the strength I had. It flew out over the first baseman’s head and into right field.

  “You got it, Charlie!” Luther hollered. “You got it!”

  I ran all the way to third base, following Eileen and Devin, who safely made it home.