Three days later it was almost hot, just like the “Weatherman” had predicted. Solomon was on his rounds again, doing more bartering than gambling, now that he was getting prepared for his annual trip west. I went with him and tried not to let him see what I was thinking and feeling. I should have realized he knew me better than that. He said, “You don’t go with me out west, kid. You stay and find zis thing, zis thing inside you.”
We had never discussed me going west with him, but I think we had both assumed I would.
“You know about me, don’t you?” I said.
He barked at his mules, then turned to me.
“I know what I know, Zianno. No more than that.”
I made him stop the wagon and I told him I had discovered something special, something I didn’t understand, something from my papa. I told him I had to find something else now. I had no choice. I had to find someone named Sailor; it was the last thing my mama had said and maybe Ray Ytuarte could help me do it. He said he understood and that he’d already made arrangements with Mrs. Bennings for me to stay with her. Of course, I’d have to earn my keep and maybe watch over her a little for him. He said he might go all the way west this time, maybe to California. I told him that sounded like good business.
In the next few weeks, Solomon and Mrs. Bennings made no more pretense about their relationship. She knew he would be away for at least six months and they spent most of their time together.
I spent a lot of that time with Ray. Every day we met somewhere and I asked him about the Meq. Ray still ran his gang, but I could tell he was drifting away from that. He was starting to need me as much as I needed him, for what I didn’t know. Some days he actually seemed like a twelve-year-old and some days he was just strange and distant. One day, for no reason, he told me his sister’s name. He said it was Zuriaa, a beautiful old Basque name, but she had changed it to something else.
I asked him about us, all of us. How could we even be born if our parents stayed twelve. I knew babies didn’t come from storks.
He said there was a ritual, something only the Meq did, called Zeharkatu. He didn’t know much about it because he’d never done it, but after the ritual the Meq became like the Giza, the other people. They could have babies, get sick, grow old and die, just like the Giza. But their babies would be Meq. He wasn’t sure when or how the ritual was done. He said it had something to do with the Itxaron, the Wait. He said there were all kinds of old stories and legends, but his old lady only knew a few and since he’d been on his own, he’d learned very little. He heard that some of us were old, older than you would believe, and some were not to be messed with. I asked him if he’d ever heard of one named Sailor and he said he had, but it was more like a ghost in one of his old lady’s stories. I asked if he’d ever heard the name Umla-Meq, but that name was unfamiliar. We both wondered about the Stones I carried — Ray a little more than I.
Finally, the day came for Solomon to leave. St. Louis was turning green with spring and it was a fine bright day. He and Mrs. Bennings said their good-byes inside, she acting as if it was just another day, but I knew better. Outside, after he’d hitched the mules and climbed in the wagon, he tossed me the little round cap off his head. “Here, kid,” he said, “zis will make you safe, smart, and rich.” He waved once and was gone.
Four days passed and I hadn’t seen or heard from Ray. Then, he burst into my room one morning and wanted to know which way Solomon had headed west. Had he taken a northern or southern route? I said I didn’t know, but probably northern, because he had mentioned a man in St. Joseph named James he wanted to see and if he went that way, following the railroad as was his custom, he would stop at the Missouri — Pacific Railroad in St. Joseph to check on new lines and track. Ray said this was bad because there was a big storm about to form and there would be tremendous rain and flooding in that part of the country. I almost laughed, but he was serious, so we told Mrs. Bennings that she ought to wire St. Joseph and warn him. She thought that was silly, but when it came to Solomon her feelings were clear—“better safe than sorry.”
She sent the telegram and we waited for a reply, but none came. One day later, news broke of a devastating storm that raged through the Great Plains and created hundreds of flash floods and destruction everywhere. Mrs. Bennings feared the worst. Two days after that, Ray disappeared without a word. I looked for him in the pool halls, outside the saloons, around the levees, and all his usual street corners. He was gone. We never heard from Solomon.
I felt lost again and I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do next. Solomon had asked me to “watch over” Mrs. Bennings and that’s what I would do, but somehow, I still had to find Sailor.
That night, my dreams were filled with driving rain and mules and baseballs and pistols and wind. Everything kept splitting apart and everyone was screaming and crying and running for dry ground and a safe place to hide. In the middle of it, calm as could be in a bowler hat, there was a boy waving to me and saying something I couldn’t quite understand. I woke up soaking wet from my own sweat and took a deep breath, then a thought crossed my mind. even if you can predict the weather, you can’t predict the “Weatherman.”
The next day was May 4, 1882. I would be twelve again.
3. ARMI-ARMA (SPIDER)
It was Independence Day before Mrs. Bennings and I really talked about it. Solomon’s absence in body and spirit, by wire and by letter, was absolute. We hadn’t heard a word from him or about him. Mrs. Bennings kept busy and never mentioned it. She might have had an extra nip or two in the evenings from her bottle of Old Bushmills, but that was the only outward sign I could see that she was worried. After chores, I spent most of my time combing the piers and levees looking for traces of Ray. He had vanished as completely as Solomon.
At breakfast that morning, Mrs. Bennings suggested I accompany her to Sportsman’s Park for the day. She had tickets to the baseball game between the St. Louis Browns and the Chicago White Sox and after the game there would be a fireworks display. I told her I’d be glad to go. I loved baseball and she loved fireworks.
There were several thousand people there and after she bought us both lemonades and we made our way through the shouting, sweating crowd, we sat next to each other in the grandstands. That was my first professional baseball game. I took in everything at once. I loved it. I still think the few minutes just before a game starts are the most exciting. Mrs. Bennings turned to face me, oblivious to the hoopla around us.
“I think it’s gettin’ to be downright rude of Mr. Birnbaum to not be tellin’ us whether he’s alive or dead.”
“I think we’ll know soon,” I said. “I think we’ll find out he’s just fine.”
She looked out at the field, started to say something else, then didn’t. She watched the whole game and never spoke. The Browns won and the sun went down and the fireworks began. She took off her wide-brimmed hat and some of her black hair fell loose from the bun on top. Her blue eyes flashed in the fireworks. For a few minutes, she looked more like a child than I did. Then she said, “I’ll not be waitin’ to learn.”
“Learn what?” I asked.
“The truth,” she said.
After that, Mrs. Bennings’s spirit changed. For better or worse, only time would tell. She still worked hard, but her heart wasn’t in it. She spent more and more evenings in the saloons and taverns on the south side. I followed her for a while, “watching over her” as Solomon had asked, but after a time, I quit. It was her life and she seemed to want it that way.
I spent all of my free time at the ballpark, hanging around with other boys, sneaking into a game when we could and trying to get the ballplayers to talk to us. Most of them would and I became good friends and errand boy for one of the most notorious players, the “Whirling Dervish,” Billy Covington. He was a great second baseman and
