The Kansas City Cowboys

by The Kansas City Cowboys (retail) (epub)

  I shook some feeling back into my right hand, and when Esterbrook was ready, I began. The crowd laughed so hard the stadium appeared to shake when I twisted off my left leg and danced to my right. They roared with delight as I bounced this way and that. Dude Esterbook was laughing so hard that he had doubled over right when I fired a fast ball dead center, just above the knees, that knocked Fatty down.

  “Strike!” the umpire yelled.

  Two pitches later, Dude Esterbrook carried his bat to the bench.

  “The hell happened to you, Dude?” the Giants’ left fielder Pete Gillespie asked.

  “Hell’s fire, Pete,” Esterbrook said, “I was laughing so hard I couldn’t see straight.”

  Pete Gillespie did not laugh after he too struck out.

  Roger Connor, the Giants’ first baseman, did manage to hit my fifth pitch, but Mox McQuery took only a few steps to his left to catch the little pop-up for the third out.

  A couple of cowboys—actual working, riding, cowboys—stood, drew their pistols—actual, working, firing pistols—and shot off a couple of rounds into the air. They were promptly arrested by policemen and handcuffed to the balustrade so they could watch the rest of the ball game. So could the coppers.

  Half of the seats in the stands at the Hole had remained empty when our ball game had started, but somehow word of my antics must have gotten out. By the fourth inning, the stands were nearly full and that laughter, whenever I began my can-can inspired delivery, had grown. Because of the heckles, jeers, and applause, no longer could I hear Cindy McKim’s voice if she was encouraging me. I couldn’t even see her because, when I stepped inside the pitcher’s lines, everyone stood. And laughed. Even the Giants chuckled among themselves, and at us … but mostly at Dave Rowe.

  “Hey, Rowe, never knew you to be a baseball genius!”

  “Rowe, did you teach that hurler how to dance?”

  “Rowe, is Silver as good in the hay as he is at pitching?”

  “Rowe, maybe you should try them moves when you bat next. You ain’t had a hit all game!”

  By the seventh inning, the laughing and jeering had ended. When I stepped up, got ready to pitch, it felt more like a church before the preacher started his sermon in the Hole.

  We led 7 to nothing. The New York Giants had failed to get a hit, and only four balls had gotten past the infield—all easy pop-ups—two to Rowe in center field, and one each to Shorty Radford in right and Jim Lillie in left.

  But I did not finish with a no-hitter. This was in August in Kansas City, and the Hole had turned into a sweat lodge. I had not pitched in a real baseball game in months, so my stamina did not come close to the strength and endurance Grasshopper Jim, Stump Wiedman, and Pete Conway had developed.

  In the eighth inning, shortstop John Ward and pitcher Jim Devlin walked, and Dude Esterbrook managed a single that just got underneath Charley Bassett’s fingers, allowing Ward to score. Pete Gillespie, however, struck out to end the inning. He broke his Spalding No. AA over his knees, threw the pieces of the bat at me, and had to be restrained by umpire Kerry Coffelt and Giants catcher Buck Ewing.

  I wasn’t sure I could even finish the game after we were shut down by the masterful Jim Devlin in the top of the ninth, but then I heard Cindy McKim shout, “You can-can do it, Silver!”

  That brought up a chorus that waved its way across the Hole.

  “Who can do it?”

  “Silver can-can.”

  “Who will do it?”

  “Silver can-can!”

  “Can Silver win?”

  “Yes, he can-can!”

  My face flushed, I lost my composure, and gave up a single to Roger Connor and a double to catcher Buck Ewing.

  “Come on, Silver King!” Cindy yelled. “I love you, Silver!”

  Joe Gerhardt and Danny Richardson went down swinging, and Mike Dorgan grounded out to Charley Bassett.

  We won, 7 to 1, and Fatty Briody flung his massive pillow of a baseball glove into the air, raced forward, and almost crushed me to death in his viselike bear hug.

  * * * * *

  “Did you see ’em, Skip?” Fatty badgered Rowe. “Did you see that? He was somethin’, wasn’t he, Skip?” Then Fatty anointed my sweaty head with Heim beer.

  “He was something,” Dave Rowe agreed. “Made a mockery of baseball with that sissy stuff. Hell, this darky boy with his silly teeth played more of a part in our win than this punk.”

  “Absolutely!” Mr. Joseph Heim agreed, patting Leviticus’ head, but he stopped Charley Bassett when our shortstop started to pour beer on me. “You can pour anything made by Adolphus Busch or the Main Street Brewery over anyone’s head, Charley. But my beer is to be drunk.”

  Taking Leviticus’ hand, Mr. Joseph Heim slipped the kid a Morgan dollar, and led him away.

  “How you feel, Silver?” Charley asked, after sipping some of Mr. Heim’s beer.

  “Tired,” I answered with all honesty.

  “But you can pitch tomorrow, can’t you?” Fatty asked.

  I tried to grin, but my muscles would not cooperate.

  “Maybe that little Negro did bring us luck,” Mox McQuery said.

  “Maybe,” Grasshopper Jim agreed.

  “Best hope so,” Dave Rowe said. “Because you’re pitching on the morrow, Jim.”

  That announcement didn’t bother me. I had nothing to prove to Dave, Fatty, or the National League. Besides, my arm and shoulder ached so much—as did my legs and ankles—I wanted a day to recover.

  I’ve never figured out how those dancing girls can do the can-can and keep right on smiling. Hell, they didn’t even break a sweat.

  * * * * *

  Luck is funny when it comes to baseball. And girls. And mothers.

  Grasshopper Jim pitched a fine game on Tuesday, but we lost 6 to 2. Pete Conway did not pitch well at all on Wednesday, and we lost 12 to 7. Mr. Joseph Heim fired Leviticus, our mascot. The poor boy, and his parents, were escorted out of the park by city police. That’s the kind of boss Joseph Heim could be. Fatty, bless his heart, took up a collection among our players and the Giants, and elected me to see to it that the boy and his parents got the money. “You’re the only one amongst us who wouldn’t keep this for hisself,” Fatty told me. I didn’t tell anyone that I saw Fatty stick a couple of greenbacks into his pocket before handing over the collection of cash and coin to me. It took me two days to find the family, but I did—and more than made up for the money Fatty had—ahem—borrowed.

  I did not see Cindy after my second victory in the National League, and I did not sneak out of the house to visit her. Mother was waiting for me outside the gates of the Hole—another reason it took me those two days to find our fired mascot. My mother did not grab me by the ear, and she certainly did not congratulate me on my great victory, but she did give me the coldest stare I had ever experienced in my life—and Mother had given me plenty of frigid stares.

  “You!” She pointed a finger at me.

  I thought I understood. “It was Fatty Briody’s idea,” I tried to explain.

  “I am not referring to that ridiculous pitching movement, a can-can …”

  “Then …?” My eyebrows knotted. I had no clue what she meant.

  “‘I love you, Silver.’” She said it with such mocking distaste, I stopped as if she had hit me with a bat. Even one of Dave Rowe’s Jesus-son-of-a-bitching-pig-shitting-asshole-damn-it-all-to-hell-bastard-loving-Christ had never sounded so malevolent, so vile.

  My cold stare might have matched Mother’s.

  “You must stay away from that … that … concubine!”

  That’s when I pulled away from Mother.

  “She’s not a concubine,” I snapped. “She’s a sweet girl. You heard her at the game today, Mother. ‘I love you.’ Well, maybe you ought to know something else. I love her, too!”

  She made as if to slap
me, but I leaped back.

  “Charles Frederick Koenig!” Mother screamed. My real name never got mentioned, even at the peak of Mother’s wrath.

  My anger, though, matched Mother’s.

  “All you ever wanted from me was to play baseball. And maybe that’s all I wanted for a while, too. But what I really wanted was to be a cowboy. A real cowboy. Not a Kansas City Cowboy. I never got a horse or pony. I begged for one every Christmas, every birthday. What did I get? Spalding bats, even when I could barely lift one. Eureka balls. Web belts, shoe plates, and Guth’s improved supporters!”

  “Silver!” The mention of a chamois-skinned men’s supporter did not have the same effect on Mother as seeing a Van Orden Shoulder & Skirt Supporting Corset had had on me.

  “This was all for you, Mother. Always. The only thing you ever wanted was a son who could play baseball … because you never could. Well, here’s all I want now. Not to be a cowboy. Not to have a pony or a horse or a friend like Dug Dugdale. I want Cindy McKim. And I aim to have her.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  My eyes opened but would not focus. Felt like Mike “King” Kelly was tearing at the inside of my skull with his massive bats. Sand from the Hole coated my tongue, lips, and throat. My stomach roiled, and every muscle in my body ached. I had not had one drink, not even a beer, and barely a glass of water, the previous night, but I did not know where I was. Slowly, an apparition appeared in front of me, standing over me. It spoke.

  “Did you sleep here all night, Mister King?”

  I tried to sit up, but could not make myself rise, could only groan. The apparition leaned down, and I felt strong hands, big hands—hands that made mine feel small like Cindy McKim’s—grip my arms. I felt myself being lifted as if out of a dark, hard coffin. My knees bent. My legs touched the ground. My butt still sat on something solid.

  “Rest here for a minute, sir,” the voice told me.

  Running my tongue over my chapped lips, I slowly remembered the argument with Mother, and then wandering the streets for half the night.

  The apparition had returned, was handing me a ladle of water. I drank. The water revived me, and I said, “Thanks.”

  “You sleep here all night, Mister King?” I was asked again by the giant.

  He was a black man, bigger than me, and wore tall, scuffed boots, duck trousers, a collarless muslin shirt, and a massive cowboy hat I had never seen the likes of, not even at Alfred Cronkrite’s store in the West Bottoms. He was a young man in his twenties; he seemed oddly familiar.

  “Want some more water, sir?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Three ladles later, I recognized the home bench at the Hole, but I still hadn’t placed the black man.

  “You know me?” I asked him.

  “Seen you play,” he said. “You pitch fine. Real fine.”

  I laughed. “Means you’ve been to two games,” I told him. “One in St. Louis. Unless you were in Denver early this spring.”

  I blinked, and, grinning, he took the ladle. “I was here Monday,” he informed me. “Never seen such moves or hard throwin’.”

  “It was a joke,” I told him.

  “Them Giants wasn’t laughin’ by the end. And I saw you and Dan playin’ catch that time near the Armour pens.”

  Then I remembered him. He was one of the cowboys sitting on the top rail of the pen when Dan Dugdale had roped Molly.

  The black man said, “My name’s …”

  “Hackett!” was shouted out some distance from us.

  Our heads turned to find Mr. Joseph Heim walking toward us. Behind him came Cindy’s father, Americus McKim, and Times sports scribe James Whitfield.

  Setting the ladle on the bench, the black cowboy stood, turned, and grinned the most sickeningly sweet grin anyone had ever mustered. He also thickened his accent like some actor in blackface doing a minstrel show at the Gillis Opera House.

  “This is him,” Mr. Joseph Heim announced to Mr. McKim and Mr. Whitfield, stopping a respectful distance from myself and Hackett. “Our new mascot.”

  “What does he have?” James Whitfield asked. “Three sets of teeth?”

  “Jes’ dis one,” Hackett said as he rubbed a big index finger across his uppers, which were straighter than mine. And, unlike, Mr. Whitfield, Hackett had all of his.

  “Well …” Mr. McKim began, staring at me, which caused my stomach to roil again. Did he know about Cindy and me? “What do you do?” he then asked, turning toward Hackett.

  “I’s the seventh chil’ of a seventh daughter,” Hackett said.

  Mr. Joseph Heim’s hands clapped. “That’s good luck. Great luck. And he’s an honest-to-God cowboy. Trailed longhorns from Texas all the way up to Montana. Ain’t that right, Hackett?”

  Hackett grinned.

  “He’s our new mascot, Mert Hackett,” Mr. Joseph Heim stated proudly. “What do you think?”

  “God help us,” Mr. McKim said.

  “Listen,” Mr. Joseph Heim said. “The Giants bring that thirty-eight-pound bulldog with them wherever they go. He’s their mascot. How many games have they won? More than us. Boston hired itself a mascot, some old white-washer or something like that, stays on the Beaneaters’ bench, and they aren’t a bad team. Whitfield here told me that Boston’s mascot is the seventh child of a seventh daughter. Well, Hackett is, too. We need a mascot. And you tell these gents what you told me, Hackett.”

  Hackett said boastfully: “I says … ‘I’ll fight that dog ’em Giants brings to this park, anytime. I’ll whup’m, certain sure, and then we’ll whup ’em Yankee boys.’”

  Whitfield did not respond to that, instead he turned his attention to me. “You’re here early.”

  “Doubleheader,” I reminded him.

  He pulled the pencil from atop its perch on his right ear, and fetched a notebook from his coat pocket. “You pitching, Silver?”

  “That’s up to Dave,” I said.

  “You look like shit,” Whitfield said.

  “He won’t look that way for long,” Mert Hackett said. “You waits. Waits to see how I fix’m up. Seventh chil’ of a seventh daughter. That’s luck. Best luck of any kind.”

  “And a real cowboy,” Mr. Joseph Heim added.

  The owners of our baseball team walked way, and Mert Hackett and I watched them go. When they had disappeared, I turned to study the big man, who looked at me and grinned.

  “What game are you playing?” I asked him.

  “Ain’t playin’ no game,” Hackett said, and stretched out his long legs. “But sure wish I was.”

  “They’re playing you for a fool,” I said.

  He chuckled. “As a cowboy, I earned a dollar a day. These days, I make that much slamming hammers into steers’ heads, and that’s a bloody job that most cowboys wouldn’t ever dream of doing. That beer man … Mister Heim … he says he’ll pay me five whole dollars for ever’ victory I win for y’all.” Mr. Heim had paid Leviticus only one dollar. “I get to sit on the bench with you boys, and watch some real, honest-to-goodness National League baseball … for free. Now, Mister King, you tell me who’s playin’ who for a fool.”

  * * * * *

  “Jesus …” Dave Rowe stopped his usual string of curses. He shook his head at Mert Hackett and Mr. Joseph Heim. “A damned rabbit’s foot is cheaper, you know. You want to find a good-luck mascot for us, Heim, how about a redhead with green eyes and a bottle of gin? What is it with you and darkies anyway?”

  Beside me, Mert Hackett just grinned, but I could see his right fist clench into a ball so tightly that his hand shook. His arms bulged with muscles, and it had to take a lot of strength, mentally and physically, and a great deal of fortitude to slaughter pigs, cattle, and sheep six days a week.

  “Seventh child of a …” Mr. Joseph Heim began to remind him, but Rowe cut him off.

  “I know. I kno
w.”

  As we all watched Fatty Briody marching toward us, Rowe bit off a mouthful of chewing tobacco, shoved the rest into his pocket, and said, “All right. Let’s see how good your luck is, boy. King.”

  I blinked, my name slow to register as I stared at the manager.

  “You’re starting. Both games.” He spun, tipping his ball cap at Fatty who was less than two feet away now, and said, “That suit you?”

  Fatty Briody could only grin.

  * * * * *

  Now, lest you think of me as some superhuman specimen, let me explain that our opponent that afternoon was the team from Washington, and the Senators played bad baseball. Really bad. Yet in that first game, they had a rookie hurler, a kid nobody had ever heard of, and he pitched tough. Really tough. Six-foot-one, but rail thin, and not more than twenty-three or twenty-four years old. Yet he threw with exceptional speed, mixed up his pitches, and kept us off balance when we came to bat. He did not have to do some silly dance to strike people out.

  Again, our crowd filled maybe a quarter of the stands at the start of that game, but word soon spread that Silver King was can-canning things again, and with the score tied at 2 in the sixth inning, people began filling the Hole.

  I came in, my shoulder hurting as though Papa had forced me to fill my hod with fifty pounds of bricks and mortar all day. Mert Hackett jumped up and moved behind me, then worked his massive hands on my shoulders, kneading and crushing, and dumping ladles of water over my arm and my sweat-soaked head.

  The kid pitching for Washington struck out Cod Myers and Jim Donnelly before Charley Bassett and Jim Lillie walked.

  “See,” Mert Hackett whispered. “He’s tirin’, too. You just watch yourself …”

  “Hell!” Dave Rowe yelled from the plate. “What the hell!”

  Cod had tried to steal third base, but catcher Barney Gilligan easily nailed him.

  “You dumb son-of-a-bitch!” Rowe roared. “I could have driven you both in. Dumb bastards!”

  “Rowe’s testy,” Mert whispered. “But you watch Gilligan. He bats first, and he’s mean. He’s also figured you out, King. Was I you, I’d shun that can-can nonsense and just fire inside. Fool looks like a baby tryin’ to hit an inside pitch.”