Читать книгу Buried Treasure - Jack B. Downs - Страница 19

12 / Freak Play at the Mound

Dylan raced in the front door and hurried down the hall. He bounded up the stairs, to discover James, sitting quietly. A game was starting down at the school. He was always misplacing his glove, and it wasn’t on his desk now. James saw his glance around the bedroom.

“Your glove’s on the closet shelf. If Stinger pitches, expect him to buzz you. Especially if you somehow manage a hit off him.” James turned his gaze back out the window. Dylan grabbed his glove.

“You’re not coming?”

“Not now. Maybe later.”

This was Dylan’s first summer playing ball with the older kids. James had taken him several times to play up at the school. James usually made sure they were on the same team, where he could back up Dylan discreetly in the field.

“You sure?” Dylan tried not to sound whiny. He really wanted to play, but was not excited about going alone.

“Ryan will probably be there. Maybe I’ll come up later,” said James.

The game started with Ryan Daggert pitching for the other side. Everybody on the opposing team liked to see Ryan on the mound. He would work hard to find the batter’s box, and the way he screwed up his face in concentration, you could usually tell where Ryan at least intended the ball to fly. Ryan was actually a good pitcher. The slower he threw, the more accurate he was, to a point. So he was also easy to hit. Since the other team usually ran up an early lead, Ryan was what one would call a starter, rather than a finisher. At some point, watching the other team wear down the base paths, his team would call for a pitching switch.

Halfway through the game, Stinger came from the catcher’s position to pitch. As he toed the rubber, his teammates smirked. It was fun to be on Stinger’s team. Stinger could be hit, but if you hit him once, he was like as not to “hit” you back.

In his first ups against Stinger, Dylan eked out a sickly grounder that snagged the grass at the feet of the third baseman and darted past him. The next time Dylan was up, he looked into the eyes of the pitcher and didn’t like what he saw there.

Stinger couldn’t distinguish a continent from an ocean, but he had no trouble keeping tally of the other team as they rotated to the plate. Stinger tossed two easy pitches wide. In his own way, Stinger’s intentions were as transparent as Ryan’s. But where Ryan was eying an imaginary box, Stinger was studying your profile.

Stinger nodded—to himself, Dylan was sure—not to any signal from the catcher. Then he launched into his windup. This was the lesson pitch, Dylan knew, and he fought the urge to step out of the box. The only thing Dylan didn’t know for sure was whether to duck, leap, or dodge. Stinger grunted as the ball left his paw. Dylan’s brain registered that it was in a straight line with his gaze. At the same moment, a whispered shit came from behind and below. Dylan closed his eyes and swung. He felt, rather than heard, the crack just above his grip, and his palms instantly tingled like they had been shocked.

He didn’t realize he’d closed his eyes until he popped them open. He was on one knee, genuflecting on the plate. His teammates were on their feet along third base, pointing at first. Dylan had been smashed, hard. But where? What remained of the bat dropped from his numbed grip. Dylan knew he was expected to lunge at Stinger, screaming and cursing. He crouched and turned, hoping his team would get to the mound right when he did. Startled, he saw Stinger curled on his back, knees up, eyes squeezed tight, his mouth gaping in a wide O.

Inexplicably, the other end of the bat lay placidly on the mound in front of Stinger. Dylan turned to his teammates, dumbfounded. The roaring in his ears focused.

“Run! Go, Dylan!”

Dylan looked again at Stinger. The large boy looked like a fish at the bottom of a johnboat, fresh caught and unhooked. Dylan could now see the bulging whites of the bully’s eyes. Dylan stumbled toward first base, tripping over the dropped bat-handle. He was standing with both feet on first base moments later, when it dawned on him the game was over.

***

The trees along Nash Street swished in a hot wind as Dylan and Ryan turned off Clarence Street. At the sight of Stinger gulping on the mound, everybody suddenly had something to do. Dylan had mumbled a half-hearted “hope you’re okay” before Ryan’s firm grasp swung him toward his bike. Dylan pulled away and Ryan shoved Dylan’s glove against his stomach.

“Trust me. Send a card,” Ryan hissed.

As soon as they had bicycled onto Clarence Street, out of sight of the field, Ryan had rounded on Dylan, cackling. “Man oh man, did you see his face? He looked like he was swallowing live electricity!” Ryan sucked his lips tight, imitating Stinger gasping. Despite his guilt, Dylan grinned, looking over his shoulder.

“I still don’t see how you got a hit trying to get out of the way,” Ryan laughed, and they pedaled racing away from the school. As they slowed on Nash, Dylan turned to his friend.

“Ryan, you know anything about what James has been up to?”

Ryan shrugged. “What do you mean?”

Dylan wondered how much to say. He didn’t want Ryan thinking bad about James. But James was in some kind of trouble. The boys slowed to walk their bikes.

“He’s been leaving out at night—or in the early morning—I don’t know.” Dylan palmed his own ball and flipped it behind his back, and up over his shoulder to Ryan.

Ryan snagged the ball with his outstretched hand. His glasses glinted when he turned back. “Daggett goes to the warning track, aaaaannndd PULLS IT DOWN, robbing Mickey!”

“I take it you mean Mickey Mouse. Mantle is washed up, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Ryan wound up, as if to bean Dylan. Dylan laughed, ducking. Ryan worshipped Mantle, the Commerce Comet.

“I hear some stuff, but you know. Guys might say a lot of stuff that’s just wind. But I tell you, I don’t get why James is wasting his time with Stinger or Scooter. Scooter! That guy’s a chop! And James keeps hanging with them, he’s down the tubes.”

Ryan’s tone dropped as they turned up the sidewalk at Dylan’s house.

They looked up at the sound of voices from inside.

His father’s low, steady voice was saying, “It wouldn’t do any harm to have left him stew in there for a day or two. Nothing you say seems to register—”

Nana’s voice interrupted. “My boys—our boys—are not going to be locked up like animals! I am surprised you would even consider letting that happen!”

They lay the bikes on the lawn and stepped up on the porch just as Sam pushed open the screen door. His expression was a dark scowl. His brow furrowed, and his lips were set in a thin line.

“Hi,” said Dylan. Sam paused at the door, as if he might have forgotten something inside, or as if he might have wished he’d forgotten something. Then he sighed and shrugged the screen door closed. The three stood on the porch in an awkward silence.

Sam nodded to the boys and licked his lips. He ran fingers through his thin hair. “Ryan.” Sam nodded at the lanky boy.

Dylan glanced at Ryan, then back to his father. “Is everything all right?”

Sam wiped a hand on his pants leg, and for a second, Dylan wondered if he’d been drinking. Dylan had never seen a person drunk—at least he didn’t think he had. But he had sometimes wondered about it, after his dad confided that he used to drink a lot.

“How was the game today?” Sam asked. He rubbed the back of his neck.

The boys grinned at each other, and Ryan started to speak. “Dylan kinda decimated the pitch—”

“I need to talk to you for a minute,” His dad interrupted, addressing Dylan. “Maybe you boys can get together later.”

Ryan nodded. “Catch you on the flip side, Hondo!” He handed Dylan his baseball and swung the bat onto his shoulder, glove shoved on the fat end of the bat. Ryan straddled the Hobbitmobile and pedaled back down Nash Street. Dylan watched him lift a hand to wave at Mr. Geise, who was tending his azaleas.

“Hondo?” His dad raised an eyebrow and gave a thin smile.

“Frank Howard. Left field. The Senators?”

“Oh. Of course! Hondo. So how was the game today? Did I ask you that already?” Sam stood sideways to Dylan at the top step, his hands jammed in his jeans.

“It was okay. Some guy got hurt. I tipped the ball, and somehow it ended up in the pitcher’s...uh, groin.” Dylan sat in the glider, watching Ryan’s back as he disappeared around the corner up Stockton Avenue.

“Game called on account of...the pitcher got racked?” His father chuckled. Dylan grinned, embarrassed.

“Something like that. Something exactly like that, I guess.”

“Friend of yours, this poor fella?”

Dylan looked back down the street, at Mr. Geise wrestling with a bundle of azalea cuttings. “Not really. The guys call him Stinger.”

Sam grunted, easing down onto the glider. “I hear that boy is bad news. I hear he’s also a friend of your brother’s.”

Dylan watched the expression on his dad’s face change. How did Sam know about Stinger and James? Dylan untied and retied the rawhide knot on his baseball glove.

“You say Stinger was at the game today. He was the boy you...”

Dylan nodded, looking up.

“You talk to your brother?” Without pausing, his father looked out over the street, lowering his already-quiet voice another notch. “He tell you he got himself arrested?” Sam said the last word like it was coated with lemon juice, sort of spitting it out.

As the words settled, Dylan wasn’t surprised. He felt like he was living with a boy he hardly knew.

“What did he do?” Dylan asked.

Dylan suddenly wished he could take back the question. Not, “Why was James arrested?”, but “what did he do?” He felt guilty assuming his brother deserved to be arrested.

“They say he broke into the back of Mr. Wilson’s store and tried to haul the safe out the door. Mrs. Potts across the street heard noises and called the chief.” Sam said the words quiet, his chin resting on his chest, his hands in his pockets.

Sam’s choice of words sounded odd to Dylan. He asked, “They say?”

Sam plucked invisible threads from the knee of his pants. “James was walking down Stockton towards home early this morning when the police stopped him. He had a screwdriver in his back pocket. Chief Munro says it looks like the jimmy marks on Mr. Wilson’s door frame might have been made by that screwdriver.”

“So what’s going to happen to James?”

Sam raised an arm to wave to Mrs. Duncan as she strolled down the far side of Nash with her dog Gemini. Right on cue, Buster shot from under the porch, loping across the yard. Buster and Gemini had a ritual as old as time, involving the sniffing of each other’s rears.

“We don’t know yet.” Sam sighed and shoved a stray lock of hair back off his forehead. “Chief is pretty sure they got enough to charge him, after they finish running fingerprints. Seems everybody in the world has touched the Wilson’s front door.” Sam sighed. “James swears he had nothing to do with it. No alibi though. He was caught on the street well before sunrise.”

Buster trotted back from his visit with Gemini and bounded up the stairs. Dylan sat up to nuzzle the panting retriever. “They going to put James in jail?” Buster scooped his snout under Dylan’s hand when the boy paused.

His father shifted on the glider as Buster’s tail swatted his knee. “I honestly don’t know what will come of it. I kinda think a little time in the pokey might get his attention, but mother is adamant that he be home until...” Buster moved to Sam to nuzzle his hands, which were clasped now in front of him. “As if he’ll stay home,” Sam said under his breath.

Dylan didn’t know what to say. He too was worried about James and the way he’d been acting, as if a dark wind blew the friendly brother away, and left a brooding, defiant boy in his place. Of course, James wasn’t really a boy anymore, not like Dylan and his friends. James was old enough to drive, certainly old enough not to cry when he got in trouble. And yet, James had been crying today. What was going on?

“I know it’s not my business, but does James ever lay a hand on you in anger?”

Dylan swiveled to look at Sam. “No. Never. We argue some, but that’s it. Why?”

“Chief told me he thinks James and some of his friends might have beaten a boy over Millwood way. A few nights ago. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” Dylan sensed he should say more, but he didn’t trust all his thoughts just yet. They seemed to be running in different directions. He wanted to blame his father for coming home and upsetting the ways things were. But James had been angry for longer than just the time Sam had been back. Maybe it had to do with when Nana had told them their mom had passed. Maybe before that.

His father said, almost to himself, “James doesn’t act like he has the sense to know when to lay low. I don’t know this girl of his, but I hear she’s nice. And if he’d just keep his nose clean, he might have some money coming his way from Mr. Thompson’s.”

Dylan nodded, not knowing what to say.

“Lacking the good sense God gave a woodchuck.” Sam smiled without humor. “Remind you of anyone you’ve ever known? Apples don’t fall far from the tree.”

Dylan colored. Sometimes he felt like his father was more honest than was fitting.

Dylan started to rise. “Um, is there anything else?”

His dad looked at Dylan, seemed to ponder something for a moment, and reached over to pat Dylan’s knee. “I don’t want to worry you. Boys will be boys sometimes. If you ever, you know, just want to talk…” Sam’s voice trailed off.

Dylan paused, and turned back to his father. “James can be kind of, I don’t know, moody. But I know he would never beat up some kid just for fun.”

His dad looked up at Dylan over steepled fingers. “I hope you’re right. What makes you say so?”

Dylan thought for a moment. “Because he’s a good fighter. Really good. And he knows it. Most times, guys like that don’t need to prove something. And they don’t just go beating up folks.”

Sam nodded slowly. “I hadn’t considered that,” he said.