Time as overlapping circles, then, not a line.
“You thinking about it?” Brainard demanded.
“I most certainly am.”
“And . . .?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Hell, Sam, it couldn’t be simpler.” He snorted. “You’re thinkin’ too damn hard.”
Maybe he had a point. Things were already complicated enough.
We reached Syracuse after midnight. The air was clear and cold, the dark sky strewn with pale blue stars. Inside our hotel on Clinton Square the feather beds were thick and soft. I sank into mine, drew up the quilt (Andy called it a “bedrug”), and said good night.
“Your first day awake with us was some sockdolager,” Andy said. “You handled them sharps slick as grease. I’ve heard a thing or two about McDermott. He’s a rough customer. Lucky for us you were along.”
I was exhausted but pleased. Some sockdolager indeed. God, what a day. Just before plummeting into sleep I wondered if I would wake up in the twentieth century. I suspected not. Did I want to?
Just then I couldn’t have said.
Saturday, June 5, exploded into my consciousness. A thundering crash sent us bounding from bed. Naked, shivering in the morning chill, we peered from our window at a chaotic scene. A four-horse brewer’s wagon had smashed into a butcher’s cart, overturning both vehicles. Carcasses from the cart lay strewn in grisly lumps. Horses screamed and struggled in their traces as the drivers cursed. Some beer barrels had burst on impact; others rumbled cavernously over the cobblestones.
Andy turned away. “Wisht we hadn’t looked. Seein’ empty barrels on a beer wagon always brings good luck, but this here . . .”
I yawned and scratched. “You believe in that stuff?”
He shrugged. “Like the tinker said of the wee folk, you don’t have to believe in ’em to know they’re there.”
Gray skies and cloudbursts had pursued us. Later that morning, between showers, Andy and I boarded a mule-drawn omnibus with Cal McVey, the muscular rookie, and the Wrights. We headed up Salina Street. Bells on the mules’ collars jingled cheerily as we clopped through the gloom toward the city’s northern edge.
George displayed stereopticon cards he’d purchased at the hotel. They pictured several of the mineral springs that lent Syracuse the nickname Salt City. George said he collected the views everywhere he traveled. I realized suddenly that picture postcards didn’t yet exist.
As we rode I noted how different George Wright was from his older brother: cocky and gregarious where Harry was self-effacing, even shy; wisecracking where Harry was sober. There was no strong physical resemblance either. George’s shock of dark curls and large hooked nose contrasted with Harry’s lighter coloring and regular features. Though twelve years younger, George stood nearly an inch taller and weighed ten pounds more. What they shared, I decided, was a quality of alert tolerance in their eyes and unmistakable authority in their manner. Harry was more a leader, but George too had powerful presence. I’d learned from Andy that their father was the resident professional at a posh Staten Island cricket club. He had coached Harry as a boy, who in turn coached George. The brothers were true rarities in America—second-generation pro athletes.
At a commercial spa near Onondaga Lake, we soaked ourselves in hot, salty baths for five cents apiece. I stood shoulder-deep in the steaming water, face dripping, muscles relaxing.
McVey stared at my cheek when I removed the soaked bandage. “That don’t appear to be healing normal.”
“Afraid you’re right, Mac.” I winced at the sting of salt. That morning the gash had shown yellow and purple on its edges, dark pink in the center. The translucent scab that had formed didn’t seem to be thickening. Had exotic nineteenth-century microorganisms infiltrated my system? If so, I was in trouble. Antibiotics were over fifty years away.
The sky was clearing when we returned to the hotel. It looked like the game would be played, though no word had come from our opponents, Syracuse’s Central City club. Concerned, Harry and Champion went to investigate. I left Andy to his nap and tagged along. So did Millar. We climbed into in a small hackney coach that Champion flagged.
“Where’s the field?” I asked.
“Fairgrounds,” Harry replied.
Arriving, we saw that there’d been a major foul-up. Grass waved knee high in the outfield. Sections of the fence had collapsed. A pigeon shoot was in progress. Nobody knew of a baseball game.
Champion’s face darkened. From Millar I’d learned he was a formidable trial lawyer in Cincinnati. Just then he looked like he wanted to indict the whole city.
“I’ll conduct a practice,” Harry said with forced heartiness. “It’ll sharpen our mettle for Troy.”
“Won’t sharpen our finances,” Champion said.
Harry turned to me. “Dick Hurley’s our single replacement. Should misfortune strike in Troy, Fowler, we may need help.” He smiled grimly. “Against the Haymakers, injuries aren’t exactly rare. We’ll see your goods this afternoon.”
Great, I thought. Cannon fodder. How nice to be wanted. But I felt a flicker of excitement. Rec-league softball had been a tame substitute in recent years. Baseball, the real game, carried a quotient of fear. I’d almost forgotten that.
Hours later, in baggy sweats and calfskin shoes borrowed from Mac, I tramped around the damp practice lot, a long, weed-stubbled expanse sandwiched between a smelly gypsum plant and a fenced-off cow pasture. Dwindling energy had narrowed my fears to a single focus: avoid total humiliation.
“You’re gettin’ it back,” said Andy, standing on first base beside me. A low throw from Waterman had just glanced off my fingers. “It’s easy to tell you’ve played.”
“Right,” I muttered. My hands throbbed. My legs were dead. My throwing arm ached when I raised it. “If I survive.”
In Captain Harry’s workout, each regular played his normal position except when hitting. Hurley and I worked our way around filling vacant spots. At the plate everybody got a dozen swings and ran out the last hit. Harry called situations—“runner on second, no outs”—and we played accordingly.
Very little escaped Harry Wright. He halted practice frequently to give pointers on individual plays. If he suspected somebody of slacking, he’d comment, “You need
