“—misunderstandings,” McDermott finished. “Your meaning’s taken. I’ve a word of advice, too—instruct your big boyo there to consider before assaulting others. Trouble lies in that for him.” He shook his head dolefully and turned away. Le Caron’s mouth twisted in a thin smile, his eyes still fastened on mine; then he followed McDermott into the crowd.
“If Red Jim’s companion is who I suspect, you’ve made quite a pair of friends,” Harry said, stooping over the box. “Fowler, did you realize that all of our money, over five hundred, is here?”
Champion strode up, frowning. “Who were those men?”
Harry explained what had happened. “Our guest showed rare courage,” he concluded. “Or exceptional foolhardiness. In any event he saved the day.”
Champion rubbed his jaw, no doubt considering how close they’d come to packing for home. He extended his hand. “Fowler, you’ve done us a most valiant service.”
I’d had the thought earlier that maybe the best thing for me would be to try to hook on with a New York daily newspaper. Now as we shook I waited for what I hoped would come.
“Is there a service we can perform in return?”
Ah, good man. “How about letting me travel with you—I’ll repay the costs—until we get to Manhattan?”
“That’s ten days.” He glanced at Harry, who nodded. “Very well. From the funds you rescued we can surely advance you that much, to be repaid at your earliest convenience.” He gazed at me thoughtfully. “Meanwhile, considering the nature of our forthcoming contests and your proven capacity, there is a task you might handle.”
“Sure, what?”
He handed me the cash box. “Safeguard this.”
I wasn’t wild about it, but under the circumstances my choices were limited.
“I might have something for you also,” Harry said.
“Oh?” What had I let myself in for?
“You mentioned that you’d played baseball.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Look up Charlie Gould, our first baseman. See if his extra uniform fits you.”
Chapter 4
Gould wasn’t too happy about it. “’Lo, Fowler,” he’d said, his gravelly voice amiable at first. We shook hands. I said I’d heard that he was the only native Cincinnatian on the nine. He beamed. Then Andy told him what Harry wanted—and he nearly crushed my hand. As if the grip weren’t enough, his fingers seemed coated with iron.
“You put something on those things?” I asked, prying myself loose.
“Benzoin.”
“Charlie’s our human bushel basket,” Andy said. “Holds any ball he can reach.”
“I saw him today.”
Gould’s pomaded mustache bristled. “Harry’s lookin’ for a change player?” He sized me up. At six three, I had him by a couple of inches.
“Don’t have a clue,” I said.
Gould’s gray eyes were set a fraction too close, giving him a perpetually worried look. Flaxen ringlets curled over his temples, and below his curved blond mustache was an elongated Vandyke. He stood with military stiffness, frowning. With obvious reluctance he handed over his spare uniform. I’d have empathized with him if my hand weren’t still smarting.
Andy introduced me to the other two players I hadn’t met. Cal McVey, the youngest Stocking at nineteen, glanced up and mumbled, “Hi’dy.” His short-cropped sandy hair complemented long-lashed brown eyes and peach-fuzzed cheeks. His father made pianos in Indianapolis, where young Mac’s baseball skills had first caught Harry’s attention. Andy claimed Mac could coax music out of anything. He seemed a nice, shy kid, but I wouldn’t have wanted to wrestle him: his torso looked powerful; rolled-up sleeves revealed massive forearms. He and Gould—and Sweasy on a smaller scale—formed the club’s muscle contingent.
The final Stocking was Doug Allison, the catcher I had marveled at during the game. Up close he looked like a hayseed, with coarse auburn hair standing up in cowlicks. He had apple cheeks, a lopsided grin, and nearly as many freckles as Andy. I stuck out my hand.
“Cain’t just now,” he said in a high nasal twang, shaking his head mournfully. He held a hand up. The fingers were gnarled, the joints huge and red, the palms swollen purple.
“Don’t you ever wear a mitt?” I said.
“To practice sometimes lately,” he replied, a bit shamefacedly, “Here, could you pass over that arnica?”
Andy handed him a bottle of bitter-smelling yellow oil. I watched in fascination as Allison peeled off his shirt and oozed the stuff over a multicolored mass of welts and bruises covering his chest and arms.
“Ouch,” he said.
Ouch indeed, I thought.
Framed in the windows of our parlor car, the sun was an amber ball plunging behind low, wheat-covered hills as we rolled out of Rochester on the New York Central. I sat playing whist, quite the dandy in my new pleated frock coat and ruffle-front silk shirt with green stripes—the latter a gift from Brainard. A high starched collar squeezed my neck. Knee-cramping stirrups stretched from tapered trouser bottoms under my insteps.
“Deuce of trumps’ll do,” Sweasy chortled, slapping down a card. “You boys don’t win much.”
In two hours’ time and half the distance to Syracuse, I’d lost every bid I attempted. Waterman, my partner, an intense competitor, shuffled the deck with a sharp crackle. “I’d have a thought before studyin’ the tiger with Fowler in some faro joint,” he said sourly.
“Come again?” I said.
Waterman grunted.
“Freddy thinks you’d be advised not to visit a gaming house,” Sweasy translated, grinning maliciously. “Leastways, not with him.”
A few seats ahead, the rookie McVey blew “Camptown Races” on a harmonica. Andy was right, he was pretty good. Next to him, George Wright started to sing, off-key.
“Appears you owe us four thousand dollars,” Brainard said, studying the point totals.
“Add it to our bill,” I said.
Sweasy studied me. “As a card operator you’re a piece of work.”
“Piece of something,” Waterman muttered.
I yawned and smiled. Since my encounter with Le Caron they’d begun to include me in their “sizzling.” A tacit form of acceptance—except from Sweasy, whose barbs verged on outright insults.
George finished warbling and flashed his toothy grin. Earlier I’d heard Millar ask him about his game-ending play. George just shrugged and said, “I could always throw with either arm.”
The younger Wright was something.
