Graves' Retreat

by Ed Gorman

  “I was terrible tonight,” Les said.

  Harding said, “You shouldn’t think about that. You should just sit here and let this splendid night seep into your bones.”

  “We barely beat the second team. And it was my fault.”

  “Not entirely. Nobody played real good tonight. Not real good at all.”

  For a time Les said nothing. “I wish we had another pitcher.”

  “You’re being crazy,” Harding said. “And you’re not telling me the truth.”

  “About what?”

  “That’s what you’re not telling me. About what’s bothering you.”

  “Nothing’s bothering me. I’m just nervous about the game.”

  “Les, you’ve pitched for two seasons and never had any trouble at all. You’re the best ball player I’ve had in ten years of managing. And now all of a sudden-”

  Les sat there and looked at Harding in the fading light. Harding wanted some kind of explanation for Les’s performance, so Les decided to give him one. At least a partial one.

  Les told him about his experience trying out with Chicago a few seasons back. How he’d gone there a real hotshot and how for the two days preceding the actual start of training camp, he’d been fine, throwing every kind of pitch imaginable and throwing so fast and skillfully that even some of the pros had come over to watch him.

  But then came the day when he put on the uniform and took to the field and felt the hardened professional gazes of the manager and the owner and then-

  Then he tightened up and his fluid style became sluggish and strikes became balls and he beaned two batters and threw several pitches in the dirt and-

  And then he was out of training camp.

  ***

  Another yokel on his way back to Yokelville bearing the indelible mark of shame for being unable to make it as a real ball player-

  “You got scared,” Harding said gently.

  “Yes. I guess that’s what it was anyway.”

  “Scared was all.”

  “Well, whatever I got, it sure wasn’t good.”

  “Scared.”

  He looked at Harding. “Maybe that’s happening to me again.”

  “You don't have to let it.”

  “I don’t know how I could stop it.”

  “You pray?”

  “Sure I pray.”

  “Well, then go over to St. Patrick’s and pray your ass off. I always pray to St. Joseph. My old man was a carpenter. I figure that gives me special privileges. So get over there right now and pray to St. Joseph and mention my name. You’ll see a difference. I promise you.” Harding always made him feel better-he liked the man’s simple and passionate belief in his own personal world and code-and he wanted to tell him about it all-Susan and T.Z. and how he was getting drawn into a robbery he wanted no part of.

  But he couldn’t, of course.

  About Susan, Harding would simply say that he was playing out of his league and should find another game (Harding liked to put everything in sports terms) and about T.Z. and Neely, Harding would say go to the police. Harding was an honest workingman and he resented the easy way criminals elected to take. He would have no time for T.Z. and Neely, especially once he discovered they’d killed a man.

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Les said finally.

  “St. Joseph?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then go to it.”

  Les stood up, stretched his arms wide over his head. It felt good. “Well, at least we didn’t get beaten tonight, anyway.”

  “That’s right. You’ve got to think positive. And that’s how I want you to be at noon tomorrow.”

  “What’s noon tomorrow?”

  “That’s when Sterling gets here.”

  “But I thought the game was the day after tomorrow-”

  “It's still on for the Fourth. But they’ve decided to get here a day early so they can practice for a couple of hours in our park.”

  “Well, I guess that isn’t so bad.”

  “They’re showboats,” Harding said.

  “What?”

  “Showboats. Show-offs. They’re going to have something special planned for us tomorrow, wait and see. Something meant to intimidate us.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. But that’s their style. The time they played Minneapolis, they had their infield start singing every time a good batter got up to the plate.”

  “Singing?”

  “You bet. You know how that would break a fella’s concentration? You’re standing up there and you’ve got the bat in your hand and you’re one run down and you know you’ve got to swat it out of the park and the pitcher winds up and then suddenly the shortstop starts singing this song-”

  “Singing!” Les was astounded and broke into real laughter. “Those bastards!”

  “That they are, and more. They’re real circus performers, you wait and see, and they’ll do everything they can to intimidate you.” Harding threw an arm around Les. They walked down the length of the bench under the starry night, through the sweet and dewy grass. “You go say some prayers to St. Joseph,” Harding said.

  “I will, Harding. Right now.”

  “Promise?"

  “Promise.”

  “And why don’t you skip Pearly’s tonight.”

  “Don’t worry. I will. I need some sleep.”

  Harding gave him a little squeeze and said, “You’re a good man, Les. A damn good one.”

  Les nodded thanks and set off into the darkness, headed for St. Patrick’s. Praying did not sound like a bad idea at all.

  ***

  “Black Jake Early.”

  “The Pinkerton?”

  “Used to be a Pinkerton. Now he’s a free lance.”

  “Bounty hunter?”

  Neely nodded. He had turned up the Rayo table lamp and closed the curtains. In the small hotel room were the commingled smells of kerosene and tobacco smoke and whiskey.

  Neely said, “He must’ve gotten ahold of Dubbins.”

  “But how?” T.Z. still whined, childlike.

  “Who know? All that matters is that he found out.”

  “He’s going to come after us, isn’t he?”

  Neely took out the makings and began quietly rolling himself a cigarette. When things got very bad, this was how Neely got. Quiet. You could tell he was thinking and thinking deeply, but his hard Irish face gave you not a clue what he was thinking about.

  Neely licked the cigarette and put it in his mouth and popped a stick match with his thumbnail. He waited till he’d taken the smoke heavy into his lungs and then he said, “I’m worried about Les.”

  “What about Les?” T.Z. sat on the edge of the bed. He had his hat on now. He took it off and put it on without seeming to notice. That was how T.Z. got when things got bad. He went straight to hell.

  “You asked if Black Jake Early will come after us. He won’t. First he’ll go after Les.”

  “Why?”

  “Good Pinkerton training.” Neely exhaled bitter smoke. “I ought to know. I fought enough of the sons of bitches in my railroad days in Montana.” He took another drag, parted the curtain, looked out at the gentle night. “They get your family involved and then they’ve got somebody they can use against you. If you know your mother or your sister or your wife is being intimidated by the Pinkertons, then you tend to stay around to protect them.” He shrugged. “You stay around and they grab your ass. Every time.”

  T.Z. threw himself back on the bed. His fancy Texas hat went tumbling off. He resembled a seven-year-old who’d been told he couldn’t go to a certain birthday party. “If we’d gotten here a week earlier we could already have the money and be headed for Mexico. Now we’ll have to go without it.”

  “You’re wrong, T.Z.”

  T.Z. sat up. “How the hell we going to get any money with this bounty hunter in town?”

  “First of all, we don’t know for absolute sure that he’s here for us. Doubtful as it is, it cou
ld be some kind of strange coincidence. Second of all, the Mexes aren’t real nice to gringos who don’t have any money.”

  “But how-”

  “We need to think it through. How we get the money and get rid of Black Jake Early.”

  “He’s supposed to be good.”

  Neely shrugged again. “He’s supposed to be mean, is what he’s supposed to be. Mean isn’t necessarily good.”

  “He’s got my poster. You can bet on that.”

  Neely looked at him and thought: You’re helping me, kid. You’re making it easy for me. By the time I shoot you, I won’t feel a damn thing about it. Not a damn thing at all.

  Neely said, softly, “You get some sleep, T.Z. You know how you’ll get otherwise. Nervous and all.”

  Neely stood up.

  “Where you going?” T.Z. asked.

  “He hasn’t got my picture on that poster. Besides, there are things that need to be done.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Such as I need to contact your brother. Tell him how to handle Early when he shows up.”

  T.Z. looked at him. “This Early, he kills people, doesn’t he?”

  Neely smiled humorlessly. “Like I said, T.Z., being mean doesn’t make you good. If that was the case, every bullyboy drunk in every bullyboy tavern in America would be a tough guy.” He put some humor in his smile finally. “Now, you be sure not to leave this room, all right? With Early around, we don’t want to take any chances.”

  Good little boy-good little frightened boy-that he was, T.Z. said, “Don’t worry, Neely. You just do what needs to be done and I’ll be right here.”

  Neely put on his white Stetson with the brown leather band and said, “I’ll see you later then, all right?”

  “All right, Neely. All right.”

  Then T.Z. lay down and started staring at the ceiling and already his lips were moving.

  He was praying.

  The sight of pretty T.Z. lying there praying and on the verge of tears sickened Neely.

  He got out of there.

  ***

  To reach St. Patrick’s, Les walked along the river, skirting the Czech part of the town. From a tavern he heard accordion music and as he neared a bakery he smelled kolaches filled with poppy seeds and strawberries and slices of apple. Of all the ethnic groups in Cedar Rapids, the Czechs were probably the best cooks, with fine dishes ranging from roast goose to liver dumpling soup.

  When he reached First Avenue he saw a streetcar stopped for passengers and decided to board it. His uniform attracted enough attention from the elderly people aboard to embarrass him. The conductor getty-upped the horse and the streetcar pulled away.

  The ride was twelve blocks.

  On the comer of the church was a streetlight of the old sort. The lamplighter had been here already this evening. The stone church front looked steep, as if its cross were literally lost in the darkness above.

  Inside, Les dipped his hand in the holy water and crossed himself. He stood for a moment in the vestibule, watching the way the green and yellow and blue and red votive candles played in the gloom surrounding the altar. The air smelled of faded incense.

  He went up the wide aisle and genuflected and went in a pew where, without hesitation, he began praying. There were so many things wrong in his life. Nothing in Cedar Rapids had turned out to be as he’d hoped.

  Back in Illinois four years ago, when he’d finally gotten courage enough to leave his brother and Neely behind, Les had had two dreams. One was to play professional baseball. The other was to become a respectable citizen.

  He did not care if he carried a workingman’s lunch bucket or if he ambled down the street in a fine business suit-as long as he was respectable. For he’d never known that as a boy. Because of his father’s hidebound love for whiskey, they had lived in hovels, and even then they’d been turned out by landlords who drew solace from the misery of others.

  To be respectable-that was the real reason he’d retreated here to Cedar Rapids.

  And now-

  So he prayed. He tried the Our Father and the Hail Mary but they were only words, words he could not quite feel. So he put his grief and fear and dreams into simpler and less fine words-and began to feel the relief and comfort that Harding had promised.

  He was just about to go up and light a votive candle when the deep strains of a pipe organ startled him.

  He turned around in the pew to look up into the choir loft.

  And there, unbelievably, standing next to the organ, a hymnal in her hands, was the woman he’d longed all day to see.

  May Tolan.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Susan sat on the veranda of her father’s estate house, reading tonight’s edition of the Evening Gazette. There was a breeze at last and the house was quiet. Her mother was knitting, her father upstairs in his den, doing paperwork.

  She did her best to concentrate on the stories in the paper. She tried not to think of Byron and his impending visit ten minutes or so from now. She especially tried not to think of what she was going to tell him.

  She had been on the veranda for the past hour, so she’d managed to get through nearly every line of the paper.

  -There was the story titled a midnight raid: “The gambling den of McDonald’s, one of the half dozen that grace the city, was raided with good success by the police last night. About ‘the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world,’ Night Chief McDaniels and four men forced an entrance into McDonald’s den in the Southern hotel just in time to break up a very exciting game of ‘draw’ in which four or five well-known and highly respectable gamblers of the city were taking part.” The story went on to detail the fines and sentences dispatched the men by Judge Leach.

  -A man named Liddell was testifying in Huntsville, Missouri, against Frank James. The story noted that several times spectators hooted at some of Liddell’s alleged “facts.”

  -Lillie Langtry was appearing for the next few nights at the Greene Opera House in her own company’s production of W. S. Gilbert’s Pygmalion and Galatea. (If Susan hadn’t been planning what she’d been planning, she might have asked Byron to take her before Miss Langtry left town.)

  -There was a shoe sale at Geo. A. Cobban’s, with ladies’ shoes for as little as $1.50.

  -There was an editorial titled “The Kid Nuisance,” which was aimed angrily at dissuading parents from bringing infants to the opera house and having the howling brats spoil everybody else’s evening.

  -There had been a lynching in Magnolia, Miss., which described how a Geo. Lee, “colored, age 18, was arrested yesterday for assaulting a child of four years and lodged in jail. Last night a mob of 100 men came from McComb, took Lee from the jail and hanged him.”

  -There was a story about immigrants in trains “of eighteen cars each, who passed through Cedar Rapids en route to Dakota. They came from Toronto, Canada, and were for the most part good, healthy, honest-looking people who would thrive in any country.”

  Then there were the personal notes-a Miss Busbee was described as “Qpeen of the Rollers” at the Roller Rink and how the ladies of the First Baptist Church would give “a literary entertainment” a week hence, for which admission would be fifteen cents; and then, as always among the personals, there were sad notes; “Frankie, son of Mrs. Rosella Mumphrey, died Saturday, aged seven weeks and one day”; and a Mrs. Sargent of the Southwest side was being placed in the home for the insane.

  She was starting to reread some of these stories when she heard a rustling among the tall hedges that surrounded the veranda. Byron knew the secret path.

  He also seemed to know what she was about to say, because when he came through the hedges, his eyes were downcast and his mouth was a thin, grim line.

  “Hello, Susan,” he said, obviously trying to put some jauntiness into his voice despite the dead quality of his gaze.

  “Hello, Byron.”

  “I sure would appreciate a glass of lemonad
e. It’s so hot.”

  From the pitcher on the table, she poured him some lemonade.

  He sat in the chair next to her.

  She said nothing for a time and he seemed to understand that he dare not say anything, either.

  She watched the moon, the vivid, mysterious, silver moon.

  “Have you ever wondered about the moon?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “If we’ll ever get there, I mean.”

  “Sure,” he said again. “I told you about the French writer named Jules Veme.”

  She was silent again for a time and then she said, “I wonder if it will be more peaceful there.”

  He sighed, sensing where the conversation was heading.

  “When I was a little girl I used to run up to my room and hide in my closet with a pillow over my head, just so I wouldn't have to hear my father yell at my mother and my brothers. But no matter how far back in the closet I went and no matter how tightly I pressed the pillow over my head, I could still hear him. And I always did the same thing. I’d shake so that I couldn’t stop and then I’d begin to cry and I’d keep crying until I was literally exhausted. I lived under his tyranny all those years.” She stared at the moon again. “Now it’s time for me to leave home and start my own life.”

  “Susan, this afternoon-”

  Her voice was little more than a whisper. “I don’t blame you, Byron. I really don’t. I love you for your gentleness. You’re the most tender man I’ve ever known. But you’re no match for him. No match at all, I’m afraid, and he would rule our lives just the way he did when I was a little girl. And I couldn’t stand that anymore, Byron. I really couldn’t.”

  She had started to cry.

  He came to her, knelt before her and put his head in her lap. She stroked his head there in the moonlight and the rose-rich night.

  “I love you so much, Susan.”

  “I know,” she said. "I know.”

  “And I’m sorry I let him intimidate me.” He raised his head and got to his feet. He began pacing the flagstone veranda. “I-I have these plans.”