“Never heard of it,” Kenny said. “Sounds like an armpit. Like Bloomfield.” He high-fived his buddy.
“No looking back,” Mary added, struggling to keep her voice high enough. “This ride’s a one-way.”
Kenny the driver cranked the volume, and the three of them chorused to “Jailhouse Rock.” The air teased with new rose, the wind kissing like the first time. The highway flowed as an uncharted river through the endless prairie, and Kain slipped back, let the music take him away. He listened as they sang; they were pretty good, all in all. They were innocent explorers, like Lewis and Clark, searching for something but not knowing what. He envied them; longed for their time. He hadn’t planned on lying to them, but he had this sense—it was strong—that he might soon be putting down roots close to here, for a time anyway, and that it was better they didn’t know. They had jobs and adventure in Des Moines, after all, a whole life to get into trouble. They didn’t need Brent Thompson or Kain Richards or whoever the hell he was this week, bringing it to them.
~
He avoided Des Moines. Too many faces. He hitched a ride to Stuart and spent two days shootin’ stick, but the fun—if you called penny-a-game eight-ball against a group of teetotaling geezers that hung out at a place called Larry’s fun—pretty much ended there. A sobering fact of Iowa life was that you couldn’t get as much as a whiff of a Schlitz pull-tab—legally, that was—in a tavern in ’62; that particular treat was still a good year or so away for Iowans, or never, if you listened to the prohibitionists. As it was, he hooked up with a big rig hauling four-legged steaks, the driver dropping him off just south of Early, the beefheads heading east to meet the ax in Waterloo.
An hour later, he was crossing the Little Sioux River with John Wayne.
~
He was a kid out of Winterset, Iowa—no lie—twentyish, chubby, thin spectacles, a sunburnt arm resting on the door, hand tapping to the radio, the other clasped loosely on the wheel of a beige 1953 Chevrolet Handyman station wagon. His parents really had named him after the Duke, but the resemblance ended with the name. He looked about as close to the actor from Winterset as the drifter did.
The kid was going all the way to Canton to visit “Relations,” but that was in South Dakota. Kain wasn’t sure he wanted to leave the Hawkeye State, at least not yet. Some said the prairies were dull and uninspiring, but he found the rolling hills and wide-open spaces liberating. Good for the soul.
He liked the kid straight off. He seemed bright, a definite candidate for the Sense. But you couldn’t always tell, and unless the cat was out of the bag, you could never be sure. Most people didn’t have it, of course, most people were Stiffs, and that was a good thing. Still, he felt a slight burn of that infuriating static, suddenly. Rising and cresting like waves.
He kept the talk light, as always. “Ever see The Searchers?”
“You kiddin’? Only a zillion times! Best Western ever made, if you ask me.”
The kid was probably right there. “So you don’t mind the name.”
“Heck no.” His face contorted a bit, his lips forming a small crooked grin. “People never forget the Little Duke, mister.” He said it in that same dynamic voice of his famous namesake, a pretty good imitation, not bad at all. Kain had to laugh.
The song on the radio was “Poetry In Motion” by Johnny Tillotson, and as it wound down, they passed one of the countless farms that dotted the pretty countryside. Iowa really was beautiful. It seemed a place alive, its heart pulsing with the bluest lakes and endless seas of fields. Skies that could only reach to Heaven.
Don’t fall in love with it, Kain thought. Don’t you do that.
The kid turned the radio down. “So where you from?”
Miami. Isn’t that what he’d told the barkeep in Rocheport? Didn’t matter. Right now, Miami was as fine as Phoenix.
“Where you headed?”
Wisconsin. The long way.
“Lookin’ for work? There’s plenty up at Cousin Hank’s farm.”
Thanks. Just passing through.
They stopped for a bite in Spencer, and afterward, the kid asked him if he was coming with him to South Dakota.
“Wisconsin … riiight,” the kid said. He put out his hand, and Kain took it. Not once did John Wayne from Winterset, Iowa, ask him about the birthmarks that weren’t really birthmarks, and when the kid looked west toward Canton, said he hoped for rain, you know, for Cousin Hank’s sake, Kain Richards nodded politely, and wished the Little Duke well.
~ 4
He spent the afternoon in Spencer among the shops and the bustle. It was a charming and colorful place, the streets fresh with activity, most of the townsfolk as warm as any in his travels. His first order of business was to find a place to stay, and it wasn’t long before he found a hotel—on the outskirts, a rather dubious establishment that served illicit drink to its patrons, God blessum—that rented by the week.
The proprietor, rather dubious himself, was a middle-aged crank named Henry Roberts. To call him a crusty, thinning alcoholic was an insult to crusty, thinning alcoholics. Henry worked the bar downstairs and lived in No. 8 at the end of the hall, said he could have No. 6 as long as he needed it, so long as he kept to himself and didn’t bring no whores up. Whores were trouble, Henry croaked, especially that screamer Marge Bonner, the one the men in Spencer (and men all over Clay County) called Banshee Bonner, the one who still owed him eighty-five bucks in back rent and a new set of eardrums. His old hearin’ wasn’t so good no more, he said, but it was damn good enough, and if Kain was caught with a whore he was out on his ass, less deposit, and if he was caught with that ear-splittin’ tramp he was out on his ass with buckshot. We clear on that?
Kain paid the fee and found the next order of business had him looking for work. Hammell’s Market had a HELP WANTED sign in the door, but the job was only on weekends, a couple of hours. Barbershop? Even if he knew his flattop from his ducktail, fat chance. The grim face in the window looked like it wanted to chop off every last inch of his hair as he walked on by. He wasn’t good with engines, so the GOOD MECHANIC NEEDED at SHANK’S AUTO REPAIR was out. The local ironworks was looking for someone, something he could do, but the owner was gone until next week. Henry Roberts passed a few names, but nothing came up in the next week, even the ironworks job. Maybe it was the stink of drifter on him. The scars. The long hair. Whatever it was, Ken from KEN’S WROUGHT IRON FURNITURE didn’t take to him, didn’t seem to like his look.
The money was drying up. He managed some quick cash painting, enough to keep him going another week, but as the next wore on it was clear that Spencer was a bust. It was rare for him to stay in one place for so long, especially with work so scarce, but he had to admit, the area had taken hold of him. He wasn’t sure he liked that, not at all.
He took a walk along the water, marveling at the fine day. The heat was stifling, the air thick, but a sweet breeze drifted in from the river. He passed a cemetery rowed with old, old dead, admired a number of gorgeous turn-of-the-century farmhouses, and when he made his way up past the crest of a long rise, was pleasantly surprised. He was grateful his head was clear. No headache. No static. Just baseball. A fine day, indeed.
He stood at the left-field fence to watch a few innings, but by the fifth he had made his way in to the stands. Most of the small crowd was made up of hopeful parents who were stirring over this nail-biter between the Spencer High Tigers and the Mason City Madness. It was only a pre-season match, but both teams had brought their A-game. The scoreboard read 7–6 for the Tigers.
The home team pitcher, a gangly sixteen-year-old with a rocket for an arm, had gotten in deep by the seventh. He’d been in since the fourth inning, the coach giving the hook to the starter, the score suddenly tied after a two-run bomb by a big senior left the Madness team chanting, Will-lie, Will-lie, as the hulk strolled round the bases. An in-the-park home run had put the Tigers up in the sixth, but now there was one out, with runners on second and third. A sac-fly would do the kid in, an
d everyone, the kid included, knew it.
Number 23’s brim was turned down. Doubt lingered in his eyes. His glove dangled at his left side. Nervously, he rolled the ball in his pitching hand.
The batter, another hulking senior (apparently they grew ’em big in Mason City), stepped up to the plate. He eased into his spot and tapped the plate with his bat. He signaled where he wanted the pitch with two short swings.
The kid flung two balls, both outside. He let his glove dangle again and kept on with that anxious roll of the ball. He mumbled under his breath.
He wound up, delivered, and a sharp crack of the bat threatened to sink him. The ball sailed, a solid drive to short. The shortstop, a quick eighteen-year-old named Ben Caldwell, leapt to his right. Ben curled his body mid-air to get his left hand out to make the catch, and the ball slipped into his glove with a dull poop. There was a collective sigh of relief on the Tigers bench that chorused with their infield and outfield, a groan and a single Shit on the Madness bench. Everyone heard the expletive, and the Mason City coach singled out the offending player, the first baseman. The tall kid said he was sorry.
The Tigers coach shouted for his team to look alive—Right-handed batter!—and all at once, like giant spiders converging slowly on a single fly, everyone in the field made those final adjustments only ball players do. The coach checked the infield and told the shortstop to tighten the gap between second and third. Ben Caldwell nodded and slipped right.
The pitcher followed the next batter to the plate, with a look that said what the tall first baseman had said. The bruiser had put him into the game with that blistering two-run shot in the fourth, and now, as his Madness teammates chanted his name again, he could bring those chants to a deafening pitch with, pardon the pun, a single pitch. The kid was a monster, six-four easy, about two-twenty, with eyes of ebony. A thick wad of gum bulged in his left cheek. His face was cold with purpose. From the first row, a man in a red ball cap, a man no stranger to size himself, yelled, Come on, Willie, come on, boy.
William Jones—Number 13—took his place at the plate. His final year at Mason City, he was a shoe-in to be picked up by one of the majors. He corked home runs like they’d moved the fence in about a hundred feet. A right fielder, he could run like a bull, and throw you out at home from the warning track without a single hop of the ball.
Jones choked up on the bat and took a single swing to get his rhythm. He brought the bat back, swirling it in a tight circle. It was a mortar of hickory waiting to explode.
The pitcher nodded dimly at the catcher’s signal. He rushed his wind-up and delivered. Outside. Ball one.
Twenty-three gave a slight shake of his head. You could see the struggle in his eyes, the nagging doubt, and when he dared a glance along the Tigers bench, was met with a long row of uncertain faces.
The batter stepped up. The Swirl, as it was unofficially known, seemed to mesmerize the pitcher. The catcher signaled, but 23 didn’t see it. The Tigers coach told the boy on the mound to buckle down. The kid grimaced as he mumbled something. He took the next sign and threw heat. Wild heat.
The ball flew high, and the batter backed off. Only a sharp stab in the air from the catcher prevented the ball from sailing into the cage. The crowd murmured. Kain heard one man say Game over to the woman next to him, the kid ain’t got it. He thought it a rather cruel thing to say, but he had to admit, it didn’t look good. The kid had power, enough to knock an elephant senseless, but it was raw, unfocused arm. No control.
The Tigers coach called time and headed out to the mound. Coach Plummer, Sid to most folk, held a crop of graying black hair under his cap, and a substantial paunch made more substantial in his snug uniform. His pants were too short by a good four inches, real flood pants, and when anyone ever asked him about them, he told them it wasn’t that the pants were too short, his legs were too long. You could almost hear the cheesy drum roll.
The kid was staring into the dirt. Coach Plummer was talking calmly, like a father to a troubled son. But the boy wasn’t listening, you could see that; he was nodding a bit, enough to make it look like he was. He kept rolling the ball anxiously in his spindly fingers.
The coach stopped talking. Gave a tilt of his head. He was looking right at his pitcher now, trying to get the boy to meet him eye to eye. The color had drained from his tanned face. He started to tip the kid’s hat up so he could see the boy’s eyes, and 23 slapped it away. Now the kid was looking past his coach. Still low. Still at the dirt.
Plummer grumbled, and the kid finally looked up.
The young pitcher ran a long look along the troubled faces on the bench. He avoided the Madness bench, which had fallen as silent as the crowd had. He tipped his head down, his eyes searching for the courage to swallow his anger.
Easy kid, Kain thought. Easy.
Number 23 must have heard his thoughts. He took a small step back. He raised his head slowly, and pitched a curt, Sorry, Coach. It didn’t look sincere.
Coach Plummer looked as if he was about to yank him off the mound by the scruff of the neck, but then his scowl turned. It was almost comical. He rubbed his chin with a slick grin, nodded smugly—Hang yourself, kid—and headed off the field. The players on the Tigers bench traded shocked glances between themselves, and the man they called Coach. The stands were silent, save the guy in the red ball cap. He called Plummer a bum. Some of the fielders shook their heads. The runners on second and third did, too. The Madness coach stood in disbelief at this unpunished defiance, his jaw threatening to hit the ground. Legend had it he had once cut a player for missing practice because of a funeral.
The umpire shouted Play ball, and the tension seemed to melt away as the players and spectators settled in. The batter stepped up. The pitcher glanced at the scoreboard, just to get his eyes off that swirling bat. He took a moment, caught the sign he wanted from his catcher and unloaded a bomb across the plate. Jones never blinked.
“Steeeeerrrrike!”
The umpire clicked his pitch counter, stabbing his fist to the right like a master swordsman. Someone forgot to tell him it was only a high school game.
The call should have settled the pitcher. It didn’t. He glared at the batter now; you could see the anger welling up in him. Jones cast him a cocky smirk. He had let it slip by.
Still down 2–1 in the count, 23 dropped his glove to his side and started rolling the hardball. He was definitely mumbling something, beating himself up. The catcher signaled, but he shook him off. He shook him off again, and this time the batter called time, breaking his rhythm.
“Awww, come onnn, Jones.”
Someone on the Tigers bench had groaned it, and when Kain looked over, saw it was the starting pitcher. The tall teen, a senior on the team, was unmistakably Indian—a Sioux. He’d been pulled in the fourth after surrendering that home run, but from what Kain had seen prior, the kid was definitely a pitcher. Smooth delivery. Great control.
Jones took his time, dragging it out as to be insufferable. He was a Hollywood, a jock who thought he’d look great on a baseball card. The umpire told him to step it up, and he offered the same smart smirk he had given the pitcher. He dug his spikes in at the plate and served up one short swing. Served up the Swirl.
Twenty-three started into his wind-up. The ball came blazing, an uncontrolled rocket that barely made it into the strike zone. There was a solid poomp from the catcher’s mitt, capped by that animated Steeeeerrrrike!
Jones hadn’t swung, had let it rip by, ball or strike. He stepped back with that knowing sneer.
“Don’t be stupid, Jones!” the Madness coach bellowed.
The batter waved him off. “Just funnin’ around, Coach.”
“Yeah? You won’t think it’s so funny when you’re watchin’ the next three games from the bench.”
“Don’t blow it, Willie.” This had come from someone on the Madness side.
“Eat me, Hudson. And your mother.”
“That’s enough, Jones,” the Madness coach told him.
The umpire agreed and directed the batter to the plate. Jones grimaced and spat out his gum. He took up his spot, then readied his weapon with that mesmerizing twirl.
“Come on, Rye,” the second baseman, Ricky McKay, said supportively. “Get this jerk out.”
The pitcher stood with his head down. He was mumbling. His eyes were burning. The ball rolled in his fingers as he waited for the sign, and when the one he wanted came, he stepped hard into the pitch. He held nothing back; he was lucky he didn’t blow his arm out of its socket. The ball was low, a bullet into the dirt a foot ahead of the plate. It bounced up high, just missing Jones in the shoulder as he backed off with a twist of his torso. It shot past the catcher’s extended arm, struck the cage and bounded about. The catcher, a second-year teen named Rudy Burridge who couldn’t bunt if his life depended on it, nailed it with his throwing hand. He tried to throw some reassurance his pitcher’s way, rambling, It’s okay, no problem, all right, but it wasn’t all right, none of it was. The kid on the mound was sinking like a stone.
Ryan Bishop raised his head on the mound. Just enough to let his helpless stare shift to the Madness bench. Some of the boys there were chuckling, some snickering, a few of them doing a pretty poor job of pretending they weren’t. One even mocked his mumbling.
Jones tapped his shoes and settled in with a swing. His eyes never left the pitcher. He was dead serious now, no clowning around. He readied the bat and gave it some swirl.
Twenty-three raised his glove, eased into his wind-up, paused—and fired a cannon. He stumbled on his follow-through, slipping on the mound, but he’d managed to put the ball low and away. He kept his eye on it. Everyone did.
Jones stepped into the pitch, unleashing a cannon of his own. There was a moment, as if the breath of everyone there had been stolen by some great ghost, where time stood still as he brought the bat down and then up in a perfect arc, a swing that God had bestowed upon him at birth. It held the classic grace of a Bobby Jones tee shot. A thing of beauty.
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