In Open Spaces

by Russell Rowland

  I smiled, never having heard my name broken up that way before.

  “I do have a secret.” Mr. Paige looked over one shoulder, then the other, then back at me, smiling with the most marvelous twinkle in his eyes, and I knew that whatever he was about to tell me was going to be good. “The secret, Mr. Buckle, is to keep everyone thinking you got a secret.” He laughed lightly, then put his hand on my shoulder. “That’s the best secret of all.” Then he shook my hand and sauntered off, still chuckling, his body following no particular rhythm but his own.

  And I felt as if I had just met the wisest man in the world.

  When I went out to the parking lot, David’s demeanor had completely changed. Gone was the smug slant of his smile. I felt, just from the way he looked at me, as if our stations in the world had suddenly reversed.

  “What did he say?” he asked.

  I just smiled.

  He tilted his head. “Oh, you can’t do that to me. You just talked to one of the greats of the game, and you’re gonna hold out on that, too? You can’t do that.”

  I shrugged, knowing that I now had David Westford in the palm of my hand.

  “All right. If that’s how it’s gonna be,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re the hot shot here.” He opened his car door. “So when is your tryout? We got some time for lunch?”

  “Three o’clock,” I said.

  David took out his pocket watch. “Okay. We got an hour and a half. So I’m gonna buy you lunch. Come on. It would be my honor to buy lunch for the next star of the St. Louis Cardinals.”

  “Don’t get carried away now,” I said. “It’s just a tryout.” But it was clear he wasn’t about to take no for an answer, so I followed along without an argument.

  At the restaurant, I could hardly eat. Between my nerves, which twisted my stomach into a tangle, and David’s eating habits, my appetite was shot. David ate his food in great handfuls, like some character from a children’s book. Grease coated his chin, and chunks settled into the corners of his mouth and lived there until they were crowded out by bigger chunks. I have no idea what he ordered, because I couldn’t look after the first few bites. But I barely touched my steak. I also said very little. But David did enough eating and talking for both of us. While he went on and on about the Cardinals, my mind wandered, picturing the barn wall, and visualizing myself throwing pitches to those stick figures.

  “A pitcher, huh?” David said, looking me square in the eye. “They could use some pitchers right now. They got a hell of a lot of good hitters. But they could sure as hell use some good pitching. I can’t believe…boy, you really had me going with this whole farm kid routine.”

  Finally, mercifully, lunch was over. Mr. Murphy was waiting when we arrived at the baseball field, which was just as David described it—more of a small park, with a baseball diamond carved into the grass. There were no bleachers, or dugouts. Not even benches. Mr. Murphy was older than I expected, probably in his fifties. He was bald, ruddy-faced, and constantly squinting. His suit was worn at the elbows, and his shoes hadn’t seen a polish brush for a couple of seasons. He had another young guy with him, a kid with a broken nose whom he introduced as Johnny Trumble. Johnny was decked out in catcher’s gear.

  “Did you bring your lawyer with you?” Mr. Murphy nodded toward David, who sat on his car’s fender.

  “No, he just gave me a ride. He’s not a lawyer.” I felt my face burn red.

  Mr. Murphy laughed. “I was just kidding, Blake. Listen, are you nervous? Why don’t you loosen up a little? Just play some catch with Johnny here. Don’t think about pitching for a few minutes. Just relax, loosen your arm up.”

  He tossed me a ball. “Did you bring your mitt?”

  My heart sank. I looked at my feet. “Actually, I don’t have one.”

  He looked only slightly surprised, and it occurred to me that he probably scouted a lot of young country kids who couldn’t afford equipment. “All right. Okay. Let me think. You know, I think I might have one in my car. No. Actually, I think I loaned—”

  “I got one, Mr. Murphy.” Johnny Trumble trotted off toward Murphy’s car, and returned with a mitt while I took off my jacket and tie and unbuttoned my sleeves, rolling them up past my elbows.

  Once I got loosened up, Johnny Trumble took his place behind the plate, and I climbed the mound. I felt as if I was towering over the world.

  “You probably never pitched off a mound before, have you?” Mr. Murphy said.

  And although there was nothing condescending about Mr. Murphy’s tone, I thought about lying. I didn’t want to give him a reason to eliminate me as an option. But I shook my head.

  “That’s all right. You don’t have to use the mound.”

  “No, no. It’s okay,” I told him. “I want to.”

  “Good. All right.” He smiled. “That’s the spirit. Just throw a few easy ones to get a feel for it.”

  For the first few pitches, the angle threw me off, and the ball bounced in front of the plate. But as I started to get more comfortable, I saw how the mound could provide an advantage with the leverage. I found a rhythm, and I began to put a little more effort into each pitch, until I was throwing as hard as I could. Mr. Murphy watched from several different angles—from behind me, from each side, then from behind Johnny. I felt pretty good, although my nerves never did settle completely. Mr. Murphy’s manner encouraged me. Not that he was smiling. But he studied me closely. He wasn’t bored, at least. But I was worried about the curveball. Timing was so much more important for that pitch, and I wasn’t sure I could adjust to the new angle.

  “You have any other pitches? You throw a drop? Or a curve?” Mr. Murphy asked.

  Okay, I thought. Here comes the hard part. “I throw a bit of a curve,” I said.

  “Good. Okay. Let’s see how you do with it from up there. On the hill.”

  I took a deep breath. Then I fixed my gaze on Johnny, who held his glove up, setting the target. He gave me a slight, encouraging nod, and a wink, which I appreciated. I let her fly. Again, the first one kicked up dust, landing just behind the plate. But it had broken off nicely, and I closed my eyes, making a mental adjustment, picturing the stick figure on the barn wall, and I imagined aiming just a little higher, at shoulder height instead of elbow. I wound up slowly and threw, and this one also broke sharply, but far outside. But the distance was better, and I used this as encouragement. Each pitch felt just a little better. I threw curve after curve, breaking most of them off perfectly, just as they crossed the plate.

  I was soaked in sweat, and I looked over at David. He was smiling.

  “That’s enough, Blake.” Mr. Murphy walked toward the mound from where he’d been standing, behind Johnny. “That’s good.” He walked slowly, head down, hands behind his back. He didn’t look at me. I got more nervous, my stomach floating. I took off the mitt, and my hand was sweating.

  He didn’t speak for a long time, stopping halfway between the plate and the mound, looking down, his hands still tucked behind. Finally, Mr. Murphy turned toward me and looked up.

  “Well, what do you think?” he asked me.

  “What do I think?” I scratched my head. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you mean, Mr. Murphy. What do I think about what?”

  He took two more steps toward me. “How did you feel there? How were you throwing today? As well as you can? Better than usual? Worse?”

  “Good,” I said immediately. “I felt pretty good.”

  He nodded. “Well, you looked good, too, Blake. You throw well. That curve has some bite to it. And you’ve got a good fastball, too. It has a little movement.”

  “Yeah?” I suddenly couldn’t breathe. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” He looked up at me. “There’s someone else I’d like you to meet. My boss, actually. He’s coming into town tomorrow. I’d like you to meet him, show him what you can do. What do you think about that?”

  “Oh, no,” I answered quickly, without thinking.

  Mr. Murphy’s brows r
ose. “No?”

  “I mean, yes, I would like that. I’d like to meet him, but tomorrow isn’t good. I have to catch a train, tomorrow morning.”

  Mr. Murphy stood right where he was, with one foot in the grass, one on the base of the mound. His eyebrows had jumped to the middle of his forehead, and he kept looking at me, as if he was waiting for me to tell him something different, to change my mind. But I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wondered about coming down another time, but I knew that was impossible. It would probably be another three years before I had a chance.

  “So?” Mr. Murphy finally said. “That’s it, then? You can’t stay one more day?”

  I looked at my shoes. I suddenly felt ill. I thought about how long I’d been waiting for this chance—six years of hard work, six years of hope. There had to be a way.

  “Can you just talk to your boss?” I asked.

  “Talk to him?” Mr. Murphy shook his head in confusion. “About what? About what? If he doesn’t see you pitch, I really don’t have anything to talk to him about. See what I mean, Blake? What do I say to him if he’s never seen you?”

  I swallowed. I thought about harvest. They were starting harvest the day after my return. They needed everyone for harvest. I dug my hands into my pockets.

  We all stood there, and for several seconds, nobody said a word, and I knew that all I needed to do was say “Okay.” All I had to do was say, “All right, I’ll be here,” and I might have a chance. That was it. Mr. Murphy waited, knowing that questions would be rolling around in my head. The temptation sat, holding me hostage for those long, silent seconds, and he knew it. He was good. He knew that if there was ever a moment I would weaken, it was then. Finally, I saw that there was only one choice. Despite the price I would pay, and the trouble it may cause.

  “Okay,” I said. “All right. What time?”

  And I heard a small whoop from the direction of David Westford.

  Despite all my efforts to talk him out of it, David insisted on giving me a ride to the tryout the next morning. I sent a telegram to the Belle Fourche Hotel, knowing that whoever came to pick me up would be staying there. I just explained that something had come up, and that I’d be a day late. Nothing to worry about, I added.

  I did manage to talk my way out of spending the evening with David. I wanted a good night’s rest, and I had a strong suspicion that a night on the town with him would not end with a good night’s rest. I was going to check out of my hotel, into a cheaper one, but again, David wouldn’t hear of it, paying for my room while I tried talking him out of it. I could do nothing but say thanks. So once he was gone, I walked around town, shopping.

  I bought a new pocketknife for Dad, some perfume for Mom, a leather belt for Bob, and some chocolates for Muriel. The hardest decision was what to buy Jack and Rita. But in a strange little shop that sold mostly cigars and magazines, I found a catalogue that was basically a list of all the catalogues in the country. And for Rita, I remembered that she used to wear a lot of hats when she first arrived in Montana. So I found a pretty, black felt hat with a brim that curled up the front and a fake diamond pin that held it in place.

  As much as I enjoyed walking around again, it felt different than it had the first evening. I noticed things I hadn’t that first night—such as the fact that people did not meet your eye. That they walked much faster than they did in Belle Fourche. And that almost every exchange I had with anyone outside of a salesclerk was negative. I started to experience some of the same stifled feeling that I did when I was living in Belle Fourche. By the time I got back to my hotel, I had a hard time breathing. I sat in the lobby for a few minutes, watching people walk back and forth, wishing there was some way to stop one of them and start a conversation. I watched people use the phone, and I wished that they had a telephone at home so I could call.

  In the middle of all these people, I felt as lonely as I’d ever felt. I was happy to go to bed. And despite being as nervous as I could ever remember, I slept pretty well.

  But the next morning, I was a wreck. I woke up early, with so much energy that after I ate breakfast and took advantage of the tub one last time, I had to take a walk. My mind raced as I covered blocks of downtown Omaha. I visualized pitching, imagining my motion, feeling it in my arm, and my body. But more than anything, I thought of my brother George. I remembered how horrified I’d been to find out that he was thinking of leaving the ranch. I couldn’t imagine how he would even consider such a thing. Now here I was.

  As my mind explored every angle of the situation, I looked up to realize that I had been paying no attention to where I was. I was in a part of town that looked completely different from the area where my hotel was. I noticed that it felt more dangerous, that people looked at you more suspiciously. There were people holding hats out for change, and the pedestrians were rougher, bumping into each other without a word of apology. I had to ask for directions, and to my surprise, I found that I was just two blocks from the hotel. It was a good thing, too, because I checked the time, and it was only ten minutes before David was supposed to pick me up. But I was struck by how abruptly the flavor of the town could change from one street to the next.

  I hurried back, ran up to my room, splashed some cold water on my face, and waited in front of the building.

  “You nervous?” From the amount of sweat pouring down David’s face, he appeared to be the one who was nervous.

  I shook my head. “Not too bad,” I lied.

  “God damn, I would be.”

  I didn’t say much, and to my surprise, neither did David, somehow honoring my unspoken desire for a little time for mental preparation. When we arrived at the practice field, Mr. Murphy and Johnny Trumble stood on the field talking with a third man, a dapper, handsome man who was perhaps twenty years younger than Mr. Murphy, in his early thirties. And a good half foot shorter.

  “Blake, how you doing today?” Mr. Murphy asked. He sidled up to me, shook hands, and handed me a mitt. I looked down and recognized it was not the one I used the day before. It was new. Mr. Murphy winked at me, and I realized that he had bought it for me.

  “Good, fine,” I answered, smiling. “Thanks, Mr. Murphy.”

  He simply nodded. “This is Billy Spinelli,” Mr. Murphy said. “He’s the head scout for the Cardinal farm system.”

  I nodded, shaking Mr. Spinelli’s hand. But Mr. Spinelli showed right away that he wasn’t interested in the social aspect of his job. “All right,” he said. “Let’s see what you can do, Arbuckle.”

  Johnny gave me an encouraging smile before trotting behind the plate, where he stood pounding his catcher’s mitt while I took off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. Mr. Murphy took a shiny new baseball from his jacket, rubbed it hard with the palm of one hand, and tossed it to me.

  “Okay, Blake. Just remember how you felt yesterday. Just do the same thing you were doing yesterday.” He sounded nervous himself, which immediately brought a fluttering energy to my body. I took a deep breath, adjusted my grip on the baseball, and threw a few straight fastballs, right down the middle. The jitters began to fade.

  Mr. Murphy did as he had done the day before, checking my motion from several different angles. But Mr. Spinelli had the opposite approach. He stood ten feet behind Johnny Trumble, expressionless, his arms folded, his brow furrowed. After checking the look on his face a few times and seeing that it hadn’t changed, I decided it would be better to avoid looking his way. Seeing that same rigid brow and the straight line in his mouth only worried me.

  “All right, let’s see that curveball,” Mr. Murphy said. “Show him how you snap that thing off.”

  I adjusted my grip, running my first finger along one seam, and wound up. But I realized the moment I threw the first curve that something was wrong. The ball squirted off to one side, almost two feet outside the plate, not breaking at all. Johnny didn’t even try to catch it, but stood up and trotted after the ball.

  “That’s okay,” Mr. Murphy assured me. “Take a deep b
reath. Take your time. Just relax.”

  “I hope you’re not wasting my time here again, Murphy,” Mr. Spinelli said.

  But I knew what the problem was. I wasn’t used to a brand-new baseball. The leather was much slicker than the old, scuffed balls I was used to throwing. So before Johnny threw the ball back to me, I bent down and rubbed dirt on my hands. I caught the throw from Johnny and massaged some dirt into the smooth leather. I set my forefinger along the seam, laid my right foot on the rubber, kicked and threw. The dirt helped immediately. This pitch started toward Johnny’s glove, then dropped off its line at the plate. It would have kicked up dust right at Johnny’s feet, but he was ready for it, and caught it with his glove laid flat on the ground. Despite my vow, I had to shoot a quick glance at Mr. Spinelli. His eyebrows had jumped to the middle of his forehead. But it was the only part of his body or face that responded, and they quickly dropped back to their normal position, low over his eyes.

  “Nice pitch.” Mr. Murphy was behind me, and I was relieved to hear this bit of encouragement. “Let’s see a few more like that one.”

  So I did what I could, throwing pitch after pitch, letting the ball spin off the tip of my forefinger as it left my hand. Most of them broke nicely, diving through the strike zone. Johnny smiled, and winked after four in a row broke across the outside corner of the plate. But Mr. Spinelli retained his rocklike demeanor. Not until I’d thrown about twenty-five curveballs did he speak.

  “Is that it?” he asked, still standing firm, arms crossed, brow low. “Does he have any other pitches?”

  There was a long pause. I was annoyed that he spoke to Mr. Murphy as if I wasn’t there. Mr. Murphy cleared his throat behind me. I was just about to say “no,” or shake my head, but a thought came to me. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. I have one more pitch.”

  “Hm?” Mr. Murphy held back his surprise.

  “What is it?” Mr. Spinelli asked.

  “Well, I don’t really know what you call it,” I said. “It doesn’t have a name.”

  This seemed to annoy Mr. Spinelli. “All right,” he said impatiently, looking at his watch. “Let’s see it. I don’t got all day.”