by Honey
A side of his mouth lifted in amusement. "I never knew that."
"Now you do. Whiskey made me feel like a lightning bug, glowing from the inside. All dewy-eyed and warm."
He smiled. "Well, beer's entirely different from any kind of whiskey. But you can warm up to me anytime you like."
"I'm not altogether certain I want to chance beer. I don't believe I'm cut out for alcoholic refreshments. Not to mention," she added, giving him a stern frown filled with reprobation, "I have instituted restrictions against liquor, you know."
"And I have the day off honey." Using an opener, he removed the cap and a soft burst of air came from the top. Handing her the beer, he opened the other one; his knuckle cracked as he did so.
She didn't immediately take a taste of the beer. She stared at his hand. His fingers. His knuckles, which seemed swollen.
"Every finger in my right hand has been broken at least twice. You just put adhesive tape on them and keep on playing. Two fingers together make the good one work the bad."
"Have you hurt yourself a lot while playing?"
"As much as any player."
"Do you get aches and pains?"
"A guy like Cy would say no." Alex took a long, slow drink of beer. The slight swell of his Adam's apple intrigued her as he swallowed, then lowered the bottle. "I'll admit to having them. Right now, I've got a tightness in the knob of my pitching shoulder. I could use a good rubdown at Bruiser's Gymnasium back home."
"I don't think they have a gym in Dorothy."
"Probably not."
They sat for a while, then Camille brought the bottle of beer to her lips and took a try. It wasn't wholly as bad as she'd expected. It certainly didn't carry the same bite as her father's liquor. This had a rather pleasant mellow, if not quenching, taste as the heat began to wane in the twilight.
"Well?" Alex gazed at her while removing his Stetson and setting it on the cap of his denim-clad knee. "What do you think?"
Truthfully, this was a slice shy of heaven. Sitting here with him, the now deep blue-violet silhouettes of clouds scudding by, the distant glow of fire sparkles on wands waved by children. She could hardly lift her voice above a whisper. "I think this is the most wonderful time I've had since we left Harmony."
After a short moment of silence, he said with a tinge of regret lacing his words, "I wasn't talking about that. I meant the beer."
Blushing, she chided herself for having revealed something more than was needed.
He brought the back of his hand to her cheek; she fought the instinct to lean into him. He rubbed his knuckles down to the column of her neck. The caress was gentling, reassuring. "But I'm glad you told me, Camille."
They sat in silence a while, eating cornflakes and drinking beer.
Alex's voice broke the spell. "I wonder how Cap's getting along."
"Hmm, yes. I'm sure Dr. Porter is making sure he takes his medicine." Camille chewed on a few flakes. "I wonder if my gladiolas have come into bloom. Leda's watering my garden while I'm gone."
"You got over that ladies' Garden Club thing?"
"I suppose as best as I will."
They grew quiet once more.
Camille dared to broach a subject that had never been settled between them. "Were you disappointed that you quit baseball?"
If she expected a ready answer, she'd been deluding herself, because one wasn't forthcoming. In fact, he didn't give her an answer at all. In the sky below, skyrockets and torpedoes and salutes of various calibers began to fire off in showers of color. The bombs and whistles bombarded the night, and after a moment of calm, a fresh assault began, seemingly aimed at what looked to be the bell tower of the schoolhouse rather than straight up.
As the noise level rose, cheers reaching them up in their private retreat, Alex said something in such a low voice, she wasn't sure she heard correctly.
An explosion of white and blue rained down as he repeated, "I killed a guy."
She said nothing, her pulse having slowed until it seemed to cease altogether.
He spoke the words again; his voice was without inflection. "I killed a guy. That's why I quit baseball."
She stared across at him, her heart lurching. "Alex... you didn't." Shock caused the words to wedge in her throat and she had to force them into sounds. "You couldn't have."
"I didn't mean to."
Through the din of the roaring fireworks, she breathed two words: "What happened?"
Alex rubbed his jaw with his fingers, then thoughtfully scratched at his throat. He kept his gaze ahead, as if he couldn't look at her. "I've never talked about it out loud. What happened is in my thoughts every day. But I've never spoken the words, heard them with my own ears. It's condemning enough to have them haunt my mind."
She was shocked. Devastated. Oh God, the man she had feelings for was a... killer. My God.
"Did you know him? What did he do to you?" Her questions came out in shaky rush.
He put his palms on his knees, the Stetson falling beside him. "We were playing the New York Giants in Baltimore Park. I was up at bat with their catcher riding me. We didn't get along well. In fact, I hated him. He hated me. Rusie was pitching and he gave me a spitter too far on the outside corner and I took it. I wanted a piece of it so bad, I overswung and knocked the catcher on the side of his head. He went down." The anguish in his heart was audible in his tone. "A catcher's mask doesn't save a guy's head. The bat whacked right through the wire and knocked him out. Right there, on home plate, I ended a man's life."
Her throat closed; the beat of her heart steadied to a hard pounding. An accident at the plate. That wasn't something cold-blooded.
Camille quietly asked, "Who was he?"
Alex stared at the stars and the powder smoke fanning over the clouds. "Joe McGill."
A breeze touched them. How utterly horrible for Alex. Horrible. She felt his despair.
"It happened three years ago. The day we played our first game against Boston last week."
"Oh, Alex..." She reached out and took his hand, squeezing, wanting badly to comfort him.
"His spirit was out there when we played the Somersets." As he faced her, the fireworks illuminated his somber expression. "That's why I went to church. I lit a candle for him."
Warm moisture filled her eyes. "I don't know what to say."
"What can you say? I ended a man's life, then wanted penitence for it by lighting candles. It's nothing compared to Joe's being here."
"But it was an accident. You didn't mean to."
"Doesn't matter. I still swung the bat. I took everything from him. He had a good career. He could loop them over the infield better than anybody I ever saw." He grew thoughtful a moment, then continued after a sip of beer. "He could do a lot of things well." Alex looked up at the sky, as if searching for Joe McGill's heaven star. "He was a checkers champion on the road. He could play several opponents simultaneously and beat them all. He was a good billiard player, too. A fair fisherman, and a hell of a poker player.
"You know," he went on reflectively, shrugging slightly, "we had a hell of a lot in common, but we never knew that about each other when he was playing for the Giants."
A skyrocket flared in the blanket of night that swaddled the Fourth. "His father was a drunk, roughed him up. His mother was never around, so he ran away from home when he was twelve. He grew up in a sandlot, just like me. Things like that, it makes people understand each other. Only me and Joe, we never talked about it. We were never friends."
"I never knew any of this..."
"People only talk about the legend. The stats, the pennants. George had the papers play up my career rather than that June day. It was dusted over. Accidents in ball happen. You don't dwell on it. It's bad for the team. For the owners." His voice faded. "The attendance."
He grew quiet once more.
"That's why you quit baseball," she said softly.
Alex went for a cigarette, lit it, and talked through the smoke leaving his mouth. "And that's why I
should quit today."
"But you won't, will you?"
"I can't."
She understood his words to mean that baseball was in his blood, his body, and his mind.
When she looked at him, she could almost see the grief running in him so deeply, it was a physical hold on his heart.
They sat without talking further. Smoke curled above Alex's head. A firefly flickered past. A missile whizzed by, shuddering in a flash of red. She was grateful he told her about Joe McGill. Now she understood.
Blinking back tears, Camille knew she would never forget this night—being with Alex Cordova, sitting on the roof of a red-and-white barn, their knees brushing, chinking beer and eating Kellogg's cornflakes out of the box. Watching fireworks as they bloomed into a palette of colors on a night sky's canvas. Listening to the shrill shrieks of the rockets, the oohs and ahs of
the crowd in the distance, the lowing of cows in the pasture, and the steady rhythm of her heartbeat in her ears.
This was the closest she'd ever felt to another human being. It was humbling. A gift to cherish. And it made her fully aware of how easy it would be to fall in love with Alex.
If she hadn't already.
Chapter 18
"Cap?" Alex took in the clean-shaven jaw of the man sweeping in front of Plunkett's mercantile. Facial features that had been hidden for so long were now defined, jolting Alex from his walk and holding him in place. A tightness caught in his chest, and the blood in his veins chilled as he stared. Little by little, warmth returned as a war of emotions raged within him. It was like looking at a photograph of what once was—a person Alex had once known.
"Hey, Alex." Captain stilled the broom and gazed at him with a wide smile. His rich black hair had been clipped short and combed into place with pomade. "You're back."
"Yeah." He proceeded slowly, unable to take his gaze from Captain's altered appearance. Without the facial hair, small lines at the corners of Captain's mouth were noticeable. "We just got in a couple of minutes ago."
"They told me your train broke in Dorothy, Wisconsin. Wisconsin is an easy word to remember. I don't have to spell it."
Captain didn't usually remember details like town names.
The brown eyes that had looked at Alex with confusion over the past few years now seemed somewhat sharper. "That's how come you didn't play the Athletics yesterday afternoon."
"That's right." Alex looked hard at Captain, his thoughts going in all directions with uncertainty. It wasn't just his lack of beard and mustache and his trimmed hair that made him seem different. He stood taller; his skin color wasn't as pale as moonlight anymore. "We had to forfeit the game."
"Forfeit. F-o-r-f..." His dark brows furrowed. "How do you spell that word, Alex?"
"F-o-r-f-e-i-t."
Captain rested the broom against the mercantile's wall and took out a pencil and small tablet from his back pocket. "I'll remember that word now because I'm going to write it down." He carefully wrote out the letters, then folded the cover over the page and stored the tablet back in his trousers.
"Are you doing okay, Cap?" Alex took in his white shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and the string apron around his waist. His body filled out his clothing better than it had before.
"Now I am. I wasn't feeling very good for a while after you left. I was sick every day." He spoke with resonance and clarity. "I couldn't come to work. I've been staying with the doctor at his house. Today's my first day back. I was worried Mr. Plunkett would fire me. But he didn't."
Alarm pulsed through Alex. "What happened? Did you get a headache that was worse than other times?"
Captain felt his jaw and smiled as his fingertips worked over the skin. "Did you notice I shaved?"
Alex went along with Cap's change of topics even though his mind was spinning. "I did, Cap."
"I shaved myself. The doc watched me to make sure I did it right."
"You look swell." Alex gave him an approving smile, then slowly asked in a quiet tone, "What made you do it?"
Captain's expression turned serious. "I wanted to see what I looked like."
Alex lifted his head with a brief nod. "Well, that's good." There was more to this than Captain was telling, or maybe even understood. Not once since his accident had Captain expressed an interest in seeing his face. He'd been too afraid of a razor to give shaving any consideration. What had made him change? "Do you know why you got sick? Did something upset you and you have to take a lot of your medicine?"
"No." Captain reached for the broom and began to sweep once more. "I haven't had my old medicine very much lately. Dr. Porter said—"The thought was cut short as his face lit with excitement. "Hey, Alex, I kicked his ass at checkers. Every time. The doc never won a single game. When my stomach hurt, to make me not think about how bad I felt, we played checkers." Each sweep of his broom was executed with fluidly moving muscular arms; it reminded Alex that Cap was still a very strong man—something Cap had forgotten at times when he had hidden behind his hair. "I'm teaching Hildegarde how to play. She's not very good yet. I kick her ass, too. But sometimes I let her win because she's a woman and because I think she's pretty. Do you think that's cheating, Alex?"
No medicine lately? Playing checkers with a pretty woman?
"No, Cap, that wouldn't be cheating." Listening with bewilderment, Alex found it hard to stay focused on what Cap said. His thoughts were frozen amid the questions of why Captain looked and sounded different. Why the doctor had quit giving him his medicine. "I've got to go do something."
"Okay. I'll see you later at the baseball game. I'm going to watch from the front row."
"That'll be good. I'll see you."
Alex headed directly for Dr. Porter's office, confused and filled with an anger that put a briskness in his walk. Who did the doc think he was, altering Captain's medicine? The physicians at the Baltimore Hospital had urged Alex to keep Captain on the doses they'd written for him or else he could suffer seizures. He made sure Cap got the proper amounts each day, at the same time of day, and he'd done so for the past seven months since taking him out of the hospital.
Certain things agitated Cap at times, but he stayed in a routine in most cases. Keeping him comfortable on his medicine while Alex got the money to take them to Buffalo was the most important thing.
And that damn doctor had slacked off What if—
But Jesus. Captain looked and sounded better.
Alex grabbed the knob to Dr. Porter's office and yanked the door open. If it hadn't been for the fact the doctor had a patient sitting at his desk, Alex would have unloaded on him. The woman turned to see who'd come into the office. In his current state, Alex could barely recall who she was even though he was working on an order for her and her husband.
After several seconds, he said, "Mrs. Wolcott."
Her smile was pleasant. "Hello."
"Mr. Cordova," Dr. Porter said, rising from his chair. "I'll be with you in a moment."
"I'll wait outside." Alex shoved through the door, stuck his hand in his trouser pocket and withdrew his pack of smokes. He shook one out and lit up, gazing across the street at the newspaper office. His thoughts went in different directions. Captain, baseball, money, hospitals, medicines, what was, what could be.
He still wondered about the wisdom of telling Camille about Joe. It was a hell of a thing to admit... To a woman who made him feel hope.
Hope that he could fix Cap.
Hope that maybe he could come back to Harmony one day.
Hope that there could be a chance.
But hope was a dangerous thing to have. When dashed, it could wear a body down.
The door to the doctor's office opened and Mrs. Wolcott stepped outside with the doc behind her. Her condition showed, a soft swell of her belly from the baby she carried. Motherhood suited her, gave her a radiance that put a rosy color in her cheeks.
He tipped his hat to her. "I'll be finished with the cradle this week and I'll bring it by for you, Mrs. Wolcott."
"We won't be needing it for another five months, but I'll be glad to have it early so I can make up some quilts the right size." She gave her thanks to the doctor and went on her way.
Alex was inside the office before being asked, and as soon as the door closed, he went off like a trip wire. "Captain told me you didn't give him his medicine on a regular basis while I was gone. That he got sick."
"He has been sick," the doctor said, and he would have continued.
But Alex cut off the man's words with an angry yell. "What in the hell happened?" He strode to the desk and turned with a quick jerk. "I gave you the medications with directions. The state hospital told me that if Cap didn't have that elixir every day, he could have an attack and get really bad oft Goddammit, I'm not going to let him slip back into that man he was that first month in the public hospital."
He'd worked himself into a cold sweat, his palms damp. He was barely able to control his hands from trembling.
The doctor's compassionate voice intruded on the room. "Sit down, Mr. Cordova."
"I don't want to sit down," he replied in a hard tone.
"I think you'd better. I have something to tell you." Dr. Porter rounded his desk and sat in the large leather chair. He took a fob from his vest pocket. On the end was a tiny key, small enough to fit into the double-door pine cabinet on his left. Once one side was open, Dr. Porter reached for the bottles on one of the shelves. They were Captain's medicine bottles.
Alex still stood, watching the doc set them on his desk. Foreboding clamped over him. He told himself his fears were premature. Nothing was wrong. There was no good reason to be feeling as if his breath had been cut off. But looking at those bottles, then looking at the doc, his confidence ebbed. He grew filled with such self-doubt, it was a physical pain that tensed his muscles.
"How long has he had this medication?" Dr. Porter asked.
"Three years."
With his weathered hands folded before him on several charts, he gazed acutely at Alex when next he spoke. "Then for three years, Captain was slowly being poisoned."
