Stumptown Kid (11 page)

The Stumptown Stormers practiced after supper every night. A lot of the parents and people from town had started coming to our workouts. Sometimes there were twenty-five or thirty people in the stands. Most seemed interested in hearing what Luther had to say, smiling and clapping when we did well. A few people just sat there and watched.

I wasn’t concentrating too good. Mom had been pretty quiet ever since my birthday supper. I was glad Vern wasn’t coming over anymore, but I kept wondering how long it would take before she would be happy again. She was talking a lot more about Dad. She’d say what a good man he was, and then she’d tell me the story again of how he saved his friend’s life, as if she hadn’t told me fifty times already. One time I saw her take his picture down from the wall to look at it closer. He was wearing his Army uniform, and he smiled into the camera. Her eyes got tears in them, and she dusted off the frame with her apron and hung it back up.

I wished I could hear her laugh again.

If Dad could come home, we’d be happy. I bet Dad would even help Luther coach our team.

That Friday night Luther was working us hard. This was our last practice before the game against Lobo’s team, and it was like he was trying to squeeze in every bit of coaching he could.

I threw some wild pitches. Luther finally came up and said in a quiet voice, “You’re not thinkin’ about what you’re doin’ this week, Charlie.” His eyes had a worried look. “How’s your mama?”

“She’s still sad.”

He nodded. “You want to take a walk later?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

I tried to keep my mind on the practice after that.

“When the ball’s in motion,” Luther kept calling out, “no one stands still. Anticipate where the ball’s going.”

“Follow through on those pitches,” he hollered.

“Touch the
inside
of those bases if you’re going for the extra base,” he yelled.

“Everyone has a job to do,” he shouted.

“Hustle, hustle, hustle!”

He stopped us once to practice bunting, which he called a “high art.”

“Turn toward the pitcher,” Luther said. “Slide your top hand about three-quarters of the way up the bat and pinch the back of it. Don’t strike at the ball when you’re bunting. Even major leaguers make that mistake. It should feel like you’re catchin’ the ball with the bat. When the ball comes in contact with your bat, it should be almost at arm’s length away from your body. And keep remindin’ yourself:
Watch that ball.”

He also showed us the drag bunt. It’s a surprise bunt, where the hitter stands as if he’s going to swing but suddenly turns to touch the ball with the end of the bat and immediately takes off running.

We practiced bunting both ways for a while till everyone seemed to get the hang of it.

When practice was almost over, Luther talked about sliding.

“You have a better chance of being safe if you slide,” he said. “So always slide if it’s a close play. It’s almost never too early to start your slide. Even eight feet away, you can start it. Ballplayers break their legs when they start sliding too late.”

He sat on the ground and showed us what our legs should look like in a straight slide, with the top leg straight and the bottom leg bent with that ankle tucked under the knee of the straight leg.

“So you slide in on that bent leg and your backside,” Luther said. “But if you’re running to second or third or home, and it looks like you might get tagged, watch what’s goin’ on. If the baseman’s goin’ to tag you, say, on the outside of the base, use a hook slide to the inside of the base. That’s like this.”

Luther made one leg straight and bent the other at the knee like the letter
L.
“And you touch the inside corner of the base with the toe of your bent leg,” he said.

“If you’re goin’ to get tagged on the inside of the base, you use the hook slide to the outside. Everybody get that?”

Heads bobbed up and down.

“A good way to practice sliding,” Luther went on, “is off a slide on the playground. You know those wax paper bags your bread comes in? Sit on those, and you’ll rip down the slide like greased lightnin’. When your body shoots off the slide at the bottom, get your legs in position and slide in. Okay? Everybody practice that before tomorrow.”

We all nodded and started to leave. “The game starts at two,” Luther called after us. “Be there one hour before the game.”

Everyone smiled, but I could tell they were nervous. They wanted to win the game real bad, but I don’t think anybody believed we could do it. We mostly just didn’t want to get killed.

Just then Mr. McNally came running from the parking lot, shouting. Mrs. McNally was right behind him, and she looked real worried. Everyone turned to see what was going on.

“Don’t anybody leave!” he shouted. “I got some news about this man who’s coaching our kids. You’re going to want to hear it.”

People stopped where they were. Luther frowned. His back was stiff, and he seemed to be watching everybody at once.

Mr. McNally stopped right in front of Luther. “I found out why Luther Peale is here in Holden!” he hollered. Everybody moved in closer to hear. “He had a reason for running from Tennessee, all right.”

“Well, out with it, Alvin,” Mr. Malone said. “What’ve you got?”

Mr. McNally waited a second or two more, like he wanted to stretch out the suspense as long as possible. “You folks didn’t mind that he was coaching our kids. Well, you’re going to change your minds fast. Because he’s a
murderer.
”

Luther froze to the spot where he was standing next to the batter’s cage. Everyone started talking at once. Finally Mr. Malone hollered to everyone to hush up.

“What are you talking about, Alvin?” he demanded.

Mr. McNally crossed his arms. “Seems he killed a man—a white man—down South,” he said, sounding real satisfied. “He ran off and ended up here, coaching our kids.”

Murmurs ran through the crowd. Even the kids were looking at each other and talking.

“Now, how do you know that, Alvin?” Kathleen’s mom shouted above the crowd. Everyone quieted to listen.

“My wife heard it,” Mr. McNally said, jerking his head toward her. Mrs. McNally put a hand over her mouth and looked at the ground. I couldn’t tell whether she was upset because of what she’d heard about Luther or because her husband was acting this way.

Mr. McNally went on. “I thought she was actin’ funny, and she finally came out with it. Our nephew heard it from Will Draft.”

My whole body went numb. Will
told!
How could he do that to Luther? Then I realized I’d done the same thing. Will wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t told him. I never felt so awful. Ever.

Mr. Malone turned to Luther, his face looking hard, like a piece of granite. “What do you say about all this, Luther?”

Luther unfroze himself and took a step forward. “What Mr. McNally says is true, sir. A man died, like he says.”

“What?”
Eileen cried. Her face squinched up like she couldn’t believe it.

“You
killed
somebody?” Walter asked. He looked like he might start bawling.

“Tell the rest,” I told Luther. “Tell them how it was an accident!”

“You knew about this, Charlie?” Mr. McNally shot me an angry look. “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

“Let Luther tell what happened,” Mr. Malone said.

Luther looked around at all the shocked faces. “It was an accident. I was pitchin’ an exhibition game with a white team. The batter had been drinkin’ a lot. I threw a pitch, a good one. But his shoulders were slumped over, and his head was hanging. And the ball hit him in the head. I never meant to hurt him.”

“If it was an accident, why’d you run?” Mrs. Malone snapped.

“Sheriff told me I oughta get out of town till the batter’s brother settled down,” Luther said. “He was tellin’ people he was going to kill me.”

“Well, you sure didn’t tell any of us about that, did you, boy?” Mr. McNally said. “You just said you hurt your arm and came up here looking for work.”

Luther stared at the ground and didn’t answer.

“How do we know he’s telling the truth now? Huh?” Mr. McNally shouted, looking over the crowd. He probably wanted to find someone to help him with all the yelling.

“Simple thing, Alvin,” Mr. Pink said with a calm voice. “We’ll have the sheriff check out his story. See if it’s true.”

“Okay, fine. Let’s take him down to the sheriff ourselves, right now,” Mr. McNally said. “Otherwise he’ll leave town, like he did after the murder.”

“Stop saying
murder,
” I cried. “It was an
accident!”

But nobody heard me this time. Everybody was talking, and Mr. Malone was guiding Luther toward his car. He said something to Mrs. Malone, waving her off and curling his finger at some of the other men to come with him and Luther.

“You goin’ to the sheriff’s office?” I asked Dr. Pritchard, who was standing next to me.

He nodded. “But Charlie, I think you’d better leave this to the adults,” he said.

“But I need to go. Luther’s my friend,” I told him. “He was helping me with baseball before we ever had a team.”

I didn’t tell him that this whole thing was my fault because I opened my big mouth to Will.

Dr. Pritchard gazed off a second or two. “Well, okay, Charlie,” he said. “But if the sheriff asks you to leave, you’ll have to go.”

“Okay,” I said.

We walked to the parking lot. I climbed into Dr. Pritchard’s car and we rode down to the sheriff’s office. There was a whole line of people, maybe a dozen cars, heading toward the same place.

“What does your mom think of Luther coaching you kids?” Dr. Pritchard asked.

“She likes him a lot,” I said. “We had him over for supper a couple times.”

Dr. Pritchard nodded. “I was impressed at practice tonight. Looks like he’s taught you and your friends some important skills.” He looked over at me. I guess I must have looked nervous because he said, “We’ll get to the bottom of this. Nobody will hurt Luther, you don’t need to worry about that.”

I just nodded and sat there, my stomach hurting because of what I’d done. Poor Luther.

Dr. Pritchard parked, and we got out of the car.

“Thanks for the ride, Dr. Pritchard,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go on ahead.”

I ran toward the sheriff’s office a half block away. I had to run around the people already heading up the walk.

“He should be run out of town for not telling us,” Mr. Roberts from the hardware store was saying as I passed.

But he did tell someone. He told me. And I let him down.

“Well, he sure knows his baseball,” someone else farther ahead in the line said. “I never saw anyone who can coach these kids like Luther can.”

I climbed up the stairs to the sheriff’s office and pushed my way inside.

Mr. and Mrs. McNally, Mr. and Mrs. Malone, Mr. Pink, Luther, and a whole lot of other people had crowded into the office. It was a small room with hardwood floors, two desks, and a bunch of file cabinets.

The deputy’s name was on his name tag. Don Mead. He looked like he didn’t know what to do with all these people pushing their way into the office. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

“We want information on the Negro,” Mr. McNally said.

“His name is
Luther,
” I said in a loud voice.

Mr. McNally glanced at me sharply and back at the deputy. “We want to know what happened down in Tennessee.”

Sheriff Engle opened a door to his office and walked out, frowning.

Mr. McNally kept on talking. “He killed a white man, and we heard his story. Now we want to know if he’s tellin’ us the truth.”

“You asking about Luther Peale?” the sheriff asked.

“We’re checking out his story,” Mr. McNally said.

Sheriff Engle nodded. “I paid Mr. Peale a visit at his campsite on the river when he first came to town. And I checked him out.”

“It was an accident, wasn’t it?” Mr. Malone asked.

“According to the sheriff I got hold of in Tennessee,” the sheriff said, “Mr. Peale threw a pitch that hit a batter in the head and killed him. Umpire and everyone else said it was a good pitch. The batter was drunk and hangin’ his head. It wasn’t Mr. Peale’s fault.”

“Well,” Mr. McNally said, “even if it was an accident, he should’ve told us about it.”

“And you would’ve acted like you’re acting now,” Mr. Pink said.

Mr. McNally turned red and scowled at the wall.

I let out a breath and peered at Luther through the crowd. Now he was safe. He looked calm, but he was listening to the talk around him.

“Seems that Mr. Peale’s brother took a beating from the batter’s brother that was meant for him,” the sheriff went on.

Luther’s head jerked up. “What?” he said.

“You have a brother named Amos?” the sheriff asked.

“Yes.” His eyes were blazing.

“Seems Ruckus Brody, the brother of that batter who died, mistook your brother for you,” Sheriff Engle said. “Amos is gonna make it, but he was beat up pretty bad.” He watched Luther’s face, and he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that.”

Luther’s eyes burned fire and he worked his jaw so the muscles were popping all over the place. Everyone in the room was quiet.

Mr. Pink cleared his throat. “Well, it looks like we can all go home now,” he said. “Thank you, Sheriff.”

“But make no mistake,” Mr. McNally said, his finger in Luther’s face as he left, “we’ll be watching you. And after the game tomorrow, I’m pullin’ my kids off the team.”

“Oh now, Alvin,” Mrs. McNally protested.

“I think we ought to thank Luther for giving Holden’s children the benefit of his expertise,” Dr. Pritchard said.

Mr. Roberts grumbled something under his breath on his way out of the office.

“You want a ride home, Luther?” Mr. Pink asked.

“I’d rather walk, thank you,” Luther said. His voice sounded tight like he was trying to keep control. He turned toward the door.

I walked up beside him. “Can I come with you?” I asked.

“Charlie, I think you should go on home,” he said.

“Can I at least walk you to the boardinghouse?”