The House of Daniel

by Harry Turtledove

  “This outfield is big enough,” Fidgety Frank said. “I’m supposed to play right today, ain’t I? Can I have the day off, or a motorcycle to go get the ball?”

  “You grouse about the little ones the same way,” Harv said, which was true enough. But for the grandstand, a little one League Park wasn’t. It was 330 to left, but then it went out and out and out. Dead center was 500 feet, and it was 425 to right. I wouldn’t have minded a motorcycle myself.

  Fidgety Frank wouldn’t let go of it. “These blasted New Mexico parks are like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. They’re either too big or too small. None of ’em’s just right.”

  “They’ve got to play in it, too,” Eddie put in.

  Fidgety Frank gave him a look. “Oh, keep quiet, you, you—infielder, you.” Frank wasn’t that young any more, and he wasn’t that quick. Playing right out on that wide stretch of lawn wouldn’t be much fun for him. And any ball that got over him or between him and me was a sure triple, maybe a homer.

  In the top of the first, I saw how the Roswell center fielder shaded over into right-center to try to cut off those gappers. The left fielder gave up the line and swung a few steps into left-center, which was also long. When we went out there in the bottom of the first, we played it the same way.

  Hits dropped in anyhow, for both sides. With that much acreage, what else would you expect? We did what we needed to do. The Giants were a respectable team, about as good, say, as the Enid Eagles or the Ponca City Greasemen. The Potashers were better. That mining company had more cash to spend on the team than anybody in Roswell did. The House of Daniel ought to beat a ballclub like the Roswell Giants most of the time. We won this one, 8-5.

  It wasn’t neat. Fidgety Frank did have to chase a couple of long drives all the way to that far-off fence in right. One went for a triple. The other was an inside-the-park job.

  After he got that ball back to the infield—too late to do any good—he turned to me and said, “I’m getting too old for this. Wes serves up another one of those, he can come out here and I’ll take the mound. Let’s see how he likes that.”

  “Let’s see how the Roswell guys like it after you stick one in somebody’s ear,” I said with a kind of a wink in my voice.

  “Who, me?” By the way Frank talked, butter wouldn’t’ve melted in his mouth. But I’ll tell you, if he had started pitching I wouldn’t have wanted to dig in at the plate if I played for Roswell. You’d be digging your own grave, is what you’d be doing.

  He stayed in the outfield, though. Nobody threw at anybody on purpose, not that I could see. It was only a ballgame. That suited me fine, day after I’d been on the wrong end of a punching out.

  We went to supper with the Roswell team, in fact. They raised a lot of cattle around there, and they had good beef. The Roswell Giants knew a place that served big steaks and fried potatoes and draft beer and didn’t try to gouge you. Can’t hardly ask for better’n that, not as far as I’m concerned. Not everybody on the House of Daniel drank, but the ones who didn’t didn’t ride the ones who did, not unless somebody put down so much it hurt the way he played.

  “C’mon, boys,” Harv said at last. “Long drive tomorrow.”

  We got up. So did the Roswell fellas. Most of them had to go back to their regular jobs, poor bastards. We’d been in the steakhouse a while. It had got dark outside. The night was clearer than clear. You could see a million stars in the sky.

  You could see other things, too. Azariah pointed up at them. “What the devil are those?” he asked.

  “Oh, good!” I said. “I’m not the only one who sees ’em.” I’d wondered if that sock on the jaw did scramble my brains. There were, I dunno, eight or ten little shining circles flying through the air in a V as though they were Canada geese. They were dead quiet; they didn’t buzz like aeroplanes. They flew too fast and turned too sharp to be carpets, and flying carpets aren’t round. So I was like Azariah—I had no idea what they could be.

  The Roswell guys just laughed. “We call ’em flying hubcaps,” one of them said. It was a good name—they did look like polished hubcaps with the sun shining off ’em. He went on, “They come around every so often. They fly by—that’s all they ever do.”

  “But what are they?” I asked.

  “Beats me,” he said. “Nobody knows. Nobody outside of Roswell gives a hoot. World’s got more important things to steam about than stupid lights in the sky.” I couldn’t very well quarrel with that. Along with my teammates, I went back to our boarding house.

  (X)

  We got up before sunrise. We had to. It’s two hundred miles from Roswell to Albuquerque. Harv would’ve liked it better if we’d left Roswell after supper and driven through the night, the way we did from Ponca City to Pampa. Everybody else bellyached so much, though, that he threw up his hands and let us sleep where we were at.

  More flying hubcaps in the sky when we got going. They didn’t pay any attention to us. They just zoomed around minding their own business, whatever that was. I wondered if the Army Air Corps knew about them. If it did, it sure didn’t do much to shoot ’em down.

  Up US 285 we went. It was cold when we started out. It wouldn’t stay that way, but it was. We stopped in a little no-account place called East Vaughn for breakfast. Instead of potatoes or grits, they gave us pinto beans and chilies with our ham and eggs. Wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what I was looking for, either.

  Then we piled back into the bus and got going again. US 285 swung from north to northwest after our stop. In a while, it ran into US 66. That would take us west to Albuquerque. Route 66 had taken a whole pile of folks west, especially since the Big Bubble popped.

  I expect my pa took Route 66 west to California or wherever he wound up. Not like I’d heard from him since he took off, so I didn’t waste much sleep time fretting over that. Still and all, he was my flesh and blood, as much of it as I had anywhere. So I did wonder every now and again.

  Sleep time … I got half an hour or so on the bus. First time I’d ever managed to do that. Only goes to show you can get used to anything. Some of the guys just turned out like light bulbs as soon as they climbed aboard. I never got so I could do that, but a little shuteye comes in handy however you grab it.

  Albuquerque’s just under a mile high. “It’ll help us get used to Denver,” Harv said about three different times. It’s the biggest city in New Mexico, and New Mexico’s a big state, at least on a map. Well, turns out biggest city in New Mexico makes it a little bigger than Enid. Next to Oklahoma City or Tulsa, Albuquerque’s hardly there at all.

  But like the fella said about the skinny gal, not much meat on her bones but what there is is choice. You could see the mountains from anywhere you looked. We’d crossed over ’em; we were on the downhill of the other side. They used a lot of adobe to build with, and some of the places that weren’t made from the stuff looked as though they were. Everything blended together, I guess you’d say.

  The cabins in our motor lodge were made of adobe. Till I opened the door, I had nary a notion about how thick an adobe wall was. All that mud does a decent job of keeping out the daytime heat. I will give it that.

  We put on our uniforms and went over to Tingley Field. It was in Rio Grande Park, not far from the river. And doggone me if it wasn’t made from adobe, too, adobe and timber. I’d seen that ballpark in El Paso with the adobe entranceway and walls, but this one was all adobe, just about. What they called box seats were folding chairs close to the field. The grandstand was just for the seats back of home—most were bleachers.

  The field looked as though it was half adobe, too. The grass grew kind of by fits and starts. It was a big park—not a monster like League Park in Roswell, but big. It went 348 down the lines and 480 to straightaway center. Just to make things exciting, a telephone pole sprouted inside the center-field fence.

  “Is that in play?” I asked an umpire, pointing out to it.

  “You bet it is,” he answered. “Ball goes behind it or bounces off it, you’ve
got to chase after the thing. I’ve seen it happen a few times.”

  “Okey-doke,” I said. “Pole was there first? Is that it?”

  “Uh-huh.” He nodded. “They only built the ballpark year before last.” You could’ve fooled me. Adobe looks old even when it’s new. The ump frowned. “They put it up for the Dons, in the Arizona–Texas League. But the league folded halfway through the season. What are you gonna do?”

  “Hang on tight. What else can you do?” I answered, and the umpire nodded again.

  The team we were playing had DONS across their chests in big square brown letters—almost adobe-colored, but darker. The uniforms didn’t look new. They’d likely belonged to the pro team, and the guys kept ’em after it went bust. When they got new players, they’d alter old uniforms to fit. One way to hang on tight is not to waste anything.

  They knew what they were doing out there. You could tell most of ’em would have been good enough to play pro ball. Their third baseman might have been good enough, but I knew darn well he hadn’t played in the Arizona–Texas League. He was lighter than that Willard fella in Las Cruces, but darker than the team name and number on his shirt.

  I didn’t feel as funny about playing against him as I had in Las Cruces. First times are always strange. After the first, you think, Well, all right. I’ve done that before. I guess I can handle it again. I wasn’t in Oklahoma or Texas any more. There weren’t any laws against it here.

  Weren’t any in Denver, either. I had to remember that. There wouldn’t just be colored ballplayers in the tournament. There’d be whole colored teams, and fine ones. They’d want to show the white man’s world they could play the game a little bit, too.

  Harv beamed like a brown-bearded Santa Claus at the crowd filling up the bleachers and the grandstand. “Swap me pink and call me Bluey if we don’t have better’n three thousand here today,” he said. I don’t know what he meant, exactly, but that’s what came out of his mouth. Kinda like dog my cats, I suppose.

  He hit a hard smash at that colored third baseman in the first. The guy vacuumed it up and threw him out. It wasn’t a great play, but it was a good one. A pro third baseman wouldn’t have made it every time. Well, I don’t know that this fella would’ve made it every time. He made it that time, though.

  I played deep. This was another park where you didn’t want one going over your head. Too much room for the darn thing to roll in, and never mind the stupid pole out by the fence. If a single or two dropped in front of me, swell. You’d rather have a runner on first than on third any day.

  Fidgety Frank gave up a run in the bottom of the first. Eddie, of all people, hit one out to tie it in the second. When I came up in the third, I thought I’d drop another bunt. I’d had good luck with ’em, and maybe I’d catch the colored guy napping.

  Only I didn’t. He charged in, scooped it up barehanded, and threw me out by half a step, all in one motion. He had a good arm, too. I kinda looked at him when I walked to our crowded little dugout. He grinned back at me. He knew he’d stolen a hit from us.

  The Dons kept making the plays. You couldn’t get anything past that guy playing third. He went into foul ground back of the bag to snag a hopper from Wes, then somehow planted himself and nailed him at first. Wes isn’t what anybody’d call fast, but even so.… He shook his head when he came back. “Gotta keep ’em away from that son of a gun,” he said, or something like that.

  The colored fella could hit, too. I cut off a drive into the gap before it could go through, but he got a double out of it anyway—he slid, but the play wasn’t close. One out later, he scored on a single.

  They beat us, 5-3. They were better than we were that day. I don’t know what else to tell you. I think we would’ve been better than they were more often than not, but they don’t pay off at that window.

  After it was over, I went up to their third baseman and said, “You got a mask and a gun? You robbed us blind out there.”

  He grinned again. His teeth looked real white, the way colored folks’ do against their dark skins—except for one in the top center. That one was gold. “Hey, I got lucky,” he said. He’d come from somewhere in the South. You could hear it when he talked. It made me homesick.

  “Lucky, nothing,” I told him. “You can play down there.”

  He touched the brim of his cap. “I thanks you kindly.” One of his eyebrows went up. It changed the shape of the grin. He could hear where I came from, too. “Mighty nice of you to say so. You ain’t too bad yourself. I thought I got that one by you in the sixth, and you almost threw me out.”

  “Nah. You had the bag.” I stuck out my hand. Hey, in for a penny, in for a pound. After a beat, he shook with me. If you didn’t think about it, it was just like shaking hands with anybody else.

  They had showers under the grandstand. Those were tiled—adobe showers wouldn’t be smart. We got into our street clothes. Harv didn’t know how to feel. He was gloomy ’cause we’d lost but happy about the gate receipts. A split of the doubleheader, you could call it.

  * * *

  When we came out to walk to the bus, a couple of Indians were sitting with their backs to the adobe outer wall, enjoying the shade. One of them had a pint in his pocket. He took a drink, then passed it to his friend. They didn’t look likely to go anywhere except to sleep for quite a while. I’d seen the same thing in Enid. It’s sad, but there you are. Too many of ’em don’t hold their liquor well. It ends up holding them instead.

  A kid—thirteen; fourteen, tops—popped out of nowhere and said, “Spare a dime?”

  I never had to beg in the streets. I came close a few times, which helped get me started doing this and that for Big Stu. I don’t know if I could’ve done it. I’ve got a funny kind of pride, but it’s pride just the same. If I got hungry enough, though … Well, you never know for sure.

  This kid was so scrawny, he had to be plenty hungry. I reached into my pocket and gave him a quarter. I hoped somebody would’ve given me a little something if I had to beg. “Here,” I said. “Get yourself some food.”

  “Thanks, Mister!” By the surprised way he said it, he’d had a lot of people tell him to dry up and blow away. Times were hard for him, but times were hard for darn near everybody. He scooted off with the silver clenched in his fist.

  “That was a Christian thing to do, Snake,” Harv said.

  Well, I went and did it anyway was the first thing that came into my head. I didn’t let it out, which was bound to be just as well. Harv tried to live what he believed. He said that was how he preached, by example. “Kid looked like he could use a hamburger or something” was what I did tell him.

  “That he did,” Harv agreed. “But not everybody would have given him the chance to get one.”

  I kinda shrugged. “I know what empty feels like. I ought to. Playing ball for the House of Daniel, this here is the most money I ever made in my life.”

  “You’ve had it rugged, all right.” That was Fidgety Frank. He was half joking, half not. He was like the rest of the team—he didn’t care to lose. Made him sore as a bear that swatted a hornets’ nest instead of a beehive.

  You will lose some of the time. You know that going in. The House of Daniel plays the best semipros. Some of ’em could be pros. Some of ’em were pros only a couple of years ago, like the Dons. Sometimes the House of Daniel plays real pro teams. Hard to get matches like that, though, because the pros know they can lose to us, same as we can lose to good semipros. Losing to us embarrasses pros the same way losing even to good semipros embarrasses us.

  The door to the bus creaked closed. It was supposed to hiss closed, but the bus sounded as tired as we were. We’d come a long way from Roswell, and we’d lost. Somehow, you’re twice as tired when you lose as when you win.

  But Harv didn’t take us straight back to the motor lodge. He stopped at a Consolidated Crystal office first. “Be right back, boys,” he said. “Gotta send me a message.” And in he went, as sneaky as though he were playing a spy in a thriller.


  He came out with a big old grin on his face, the kind of grin you get when you know something and other people don’t. “What’s going on, Harv?” Fidgety Frank asked him.

  “Not a thing, Frank, not a thing,” Harv answered, which was such obvious bushwa that we all hooted at him. Even Azariah hooted, and he’s as churchy as Harv.

  But Harv didn’t say anything more. He kept that I-know-a-secret smile on his mug all the way back to the motor lodge. He kept it all the way through supper at a chop-suey house down the street. And he kept it when we walked back to the lodge from the chop-suey house.

  It was getting dark by then. I looked up into the sky. All I saw were a bunch of stars coming out. No flying hubcaps. They must’ve been back in Roswell, doing whatever flying hubcaps do. Flying.

  Most of the guys went into their cabins. I stayed out for a while. So did Eddie. So did Wes. So did Fidgety Frank. We talked baseball. We talked life on the road. We talked about everything under the sun except how come Harv needed to send a Consolidated Crystal message, and how come he looked as though he had canary feathers in his beard.

  No, we didn’t say anything about any of that. No, not a word, not one single, solitary word. We just stood around killing time. We mostly kept our hands in our pockets like kids pretending to be tough guys. Wes and Fidgety Frank smoked a few cigarettes. Eddie and I didn’t use ’em. I never got the habit. When I was back in Enid, it cost too much money. Anything that cost any money at all cost too much in those days.

  A shooting star sparked across the sky, there and gone before you could be sure you saw it. There are more of them after midnight, but you get some in the early nighttime, too. “Not a flying hubcap,” Eddie said. Was that also in my mind? Oh, just a little.

  So we talked about flying hubcaps for a while. Since even the fellas who lived in Roswell didn’t know what they were, we didn’t find any answers. Sure came up with some interesting questions, though.