We looked at each other.
“C’mon, friend Sam, let’s eat!” He whooped and steered me toward the door.
In the long dining room downstairs, black waiters in gold jackets cleared dishes and delivered trays to a dozen tables. I recognized Sweasy among a group sitting at one.
Andy halted behind a muscular young man with a shock of bushy hair who was bent over a New York Tribune. Looking curiously over his shoulder, I saw that the articles carried no banner headlines but merely one-column captions. I made out cuban revolution, and, next to it:
THE INDIANS
Continuation of the Outrages in Kansas—
A Panic Among the Settlers.
“This is George Wright,” Andy said. The young man looked up, displaying a prominent hawk nose and white teeth that flashed in a grin. He immediately put me in mind of a very young Joe Namath: cocky, likable, all-jock, probably had to fight women off.
“How’dya do,” he said pleasantly, accent heavily New Yorkese. He seemed to take my presence for granted.
We shook hands. I nodded at his paper. “What’s that about Indians?”
“Nothing new,” he replied. “The usual depredations.”
In Kansas?
“I’ve a pal in the army,” George Wright said. “Says you newspaper fellers puff the frontier, make up them bloody tales. I guess you’d know about that.”
So Millar had told them I was a reporter. “Your friend’s probably got a point,” I said.
“Figured so.” He flashed the Namath grin again, then his attention shifted. “Say, pass those battercakes!”
“George is the country’s kingpin ballist,” Andy said as we moved toward two vacant chairs at the crowded table. “His older brother Harry talked Champion into paying George top money to play for us. Nearly two thousand dollars! I guess it riled Acey some, but we’re lucky to have George at any price.”
Two thousand didn’t seem very much, I thought.
“I see he even scrubbed the blood outen your shirt,” a sibilant voice rasped as we were about to sit. “You’ve about turned my partner into a nursemaid!”
I looked into the unfriendly eyes of Charlie Sweasy. He had risen from his chair and stood rocking on his feet, flexing his shoulders. A prize meatball.
“Wasn’t no job to wash the shirt,” Andy said; then, quickly, “I told Sam about us comin’ up together in Newark, Sweaze.”
Sweasy’s eyes bored into me as if checking for weaknesses. I felt myself tensing. It was amazing how fast this little guy pushed my buttons.
“I’m goin’ by,” Sweasy said, shoving abruptly past me into the aisle.
“Your buddy’s a sweetheart,” I told Andy.
“Sweaze gets in a pucker sometimes, but he’ll come around square, you’ll see. Here, meet Dick Hurley.” Andy gestured to a sad-eyed, droopy-mustached individual just rising to leave. His dark hair was parted in the center. If Hurley’s face were paler, he’d have looked remarkably like Edgar Allan Poe, I thought. The same haunted quality in the dark eyes.
“Shhhh.” Hurley dramatically raised a finger to his lips. His eyes were bloodshot; a solitary coffee cup sat before him. “‘Sit patiently and inly ruminate the morning’s danger.’”
“What?” I said, startled.
“‘So many horrid ghosts,’” he intoned. “’O now’”—he tilted the finger so it pointed at a man farther down the table—“‘behold the royal captain of this ruin’d band. . . .’”
He was quoting, but I had no idea what. Maybe Hurley thought he was Poe. In my present state I didn’t appreciate it. Things were disjointed enough. “Okay, I give,” I said. “What’re you doing?”
Hurley looked smug, as if my ignorance were no surprise. “Henry the Fifth.” The bloodshot eyes held mine for a moment, then again he pointed. I turned and saw a well-built, handsome, bearded man reading a letter several places down, opposite Millar and Champion. “But soft,” whispered Hurley, “there ruminates noble Harry himself.” With that he walked away.
“Dick’s a study in waking up,” Andy said.
“He always quote Shakespeare first thing?”
“Like as not. He’s smart as a whip, took his university course at Columbia. He can recite for hours. Sweaze says he’s just showing himself, but I think it’s like music.” He lowered his voice. “Trouble is, most nights Dick drinks an awful, lot.”
Andy turned to the man Hurley had indicated. He was now folding his letter into an envelope bearing a three-cent stamp. “From Carrie?” asked Andy.
He looked up and nodded. He was older and more rugged-looking than the other players. Chestnut hair and whiskers framed the chiseled planes of his face, which looked made of brown stone. But striking among his features were his eyes: soft deer-brown orbs with startling depths, incongruous in the strong face.
“It arrived this morning,” he said. “She inquires particularly about you, Andy. Says she longs to hear you singing in our parlor again.”
“Your missus is a peach, Harry. Hope I find one like her. Sam Fowler, meet Harry Wright, our captain.”
He rose and we shook hands.
“He’s a big ’un, ain’t he, Harry? Got some use for a change first baseman?”
I would learn that “change” meant “backup” or “relief.” Wright appeared to consider Andy’s suggestion seriously, though he had been joking. “Have you played the game?” The quiet voice carried faint British accents.
I was impressed by his calm authority. And by a sense of integrity in the wise brown eyes that seemed to promise he would recognize and respect one’s best qualities. I found myself wanting to earn the man’s respect right away. Andy said later that Harry affected almost everybody that way.
“I did play a little ball,” I said cautiously. “Years ago.”
They both immediately glanced at my hands. Wright smiled. “Years indeed. Andy tells me you’re from Frisco. Do you know the Shepard brothers?”
“Uh, I don’t think so.”
“I played with them on the Knicks before they went west.”
Was he putting me on? “The Knicks?”
“Knickerbocker Club, New York. I understand the Shepards established the Pacifics in your city. Is it a sound sporting club?”
“I . . . didn’t play at that level.” I saw no point in relating that my high school and legion games took place almost exactly a century in the future.
“If you care
