The House of Daniel Read online

  Across the road, the old gal who’d told me Pa’d headed west had the radio on so loud I could hear Amos ’n’ Andy inside my place. She’s deaf as a brick. She had power in her house, though. We never did. If we had, they would’ve shut it off ’cause we couldn’t pay the bill.

  Power. I laughed, not that that was real funny, either. With any kind of power, I would’ve been good enough to play pro ball, maybe claw my way up to the bigs, even. I can run. I can catch. I can throw. You play center field, you’ve got to be able to do those things. But my hitting’s on the puny side. Always has been, dammit. I went to a tryout for the Dallas Steers once. Soon as they saw me with a bat in my hands, they said, “Sorry, sonny,” patted me on the head, and sent me on my way. They reckoned they could find better.

  Worst of it is, they were right.

  After I packed, I didn’t have a thing to do till I caught the bus for Ponca City the next morning. I carried the lantern into my room, blew it out, and went to bed. I could still hear Amos ’n’ Andy from across the street. I didn’t care. With a full belly and a little cash, I didn’t care about anything, no more than a dog would. You’re poor enough, life gets pretty simple.

  * * *

  I ate stale bread for breakfast instead of coughing up another quarter at the diner. Then I lugged my sorry suitcase to the Red Ball Bus Lines station on East Maple. The bus wouldn’t set out for another hour and a half after I got there, but I could do nothing at the station as well as I could at home.

  Better, even. They set out newspapers in the waiting room—today’s Enid Morning News and the Tulsa Tribune from day before yesterday. Pa didn’t know how to read and write, but I do. I’m glad I do. It’s handy and it kills time, both. I grabbed the Tribune. It had a funny page, and the Morning News didn’t.

  The hour and a half turned into two and a half—the bus came late. I was ticked but not surprised; Red Ball did things like that. The Tribune had a story about a king—or maybe he was just a minister—way on the other side of the ocean who promised he’d make everything run on time. Big Stu would’ve bet against him, I expect.

  A guy who looked like a drummer and another one who looked like he’d maybe be a werewolf at full-moon time got off the bus when it finally did chug in. Me and a colored fella, we climbed on. He went to the back. I sat a couple of rows behind the driver. The bus wasn’t anywhere close to crowded.

  For twenty miles north from Enid, US 81 and US 60 are the same road. Then 81 goes north into Kansas; 60 swings east. The road wasn’t close to crowded, either. A few trucks, a few flivvers, us. A few carpets overhead. Costs about the same to ship by magic or by wheels. If it didn’t, one would run the other out of business.

  Kids played baseball in the fields by the highway. A lot of ’em should’ve been in school, but they played anyhow. I never did any such thing—and if you buy that, I’ll tell you another one. White kids, colored kids, Injun kids, they all just played, together and separate. They’d sort out the rules of how things worked when they got bigger. I must’ve seen half a dozen games by the time 60 forked off 81. There’s Pond Creek and Lamont—little, no-account places—and then, eventually, there’s Ponca City. It’s about sixty miles from Enid. It only felt like forever ’cause the bus went so slow and stopped at every other farmhouse, seemed like.

  Halfway between Pond Creek and Lamont, it stopped in the middle of nowhere. Driver said something that made a lady cluck like a laying hen. I leaned out into the aisle to look through the windshield. A load of rocks was spilled across the highway, and a carpet down beside it on the verge. The only way the wizard on that carpet could’ve looked glummer was if the rocks had smashed a car and the folks in it. Drunk or just sloppy, he’d fouled up his spell some kind of way.

  We wouldn’t make it to Ponca City or even Lamont till those rocks got cleared. We all piled out of the bus—even the lady who’d clucked—and started shoving. The unhappy wizard helped some, too. So did a family in a Hupmobile. A couple of farmers brought their mules.

  The clucking lady wagged a finger in the wizard’s face. “Your company will pay for this!” she said, all angry.

  “I am my company,” he answered.

  “Then you will,” she said, which sure didn’t turn him any more cheerful.

  I wasn’t what you’d call happy, either. I muttered some ungodly things while I hauled rocks. Just what I’d need, to mash a foot so I couldn’t run or smash a finger so I couldn’t throw or hold a bat—or swing a good right at Mitch Carstairs.

  But my luck stayed in. I didn’t hurt myself; I didn’t even rip my pants. We finally cleared a path wide enough for the bus to sneak through. The passengers climbed aboard. The family got back into their car. The farmers took the mules away. And the damnfool wizard just sat there on his carpet with his head in his hands like he’d dropped the last out in the bottom of the ninth and cost his team the game. I know that feeling—I wish I didn’t. It’s not a good one.

  We left Enid late. We had trouble on the road. So we got to the Ponca City bus station later than late. One guy in there waiting for the bus. Oh, he was hopping mad! He cussed worse’n I did shifting those rocks, and a lot louder. It didn’t do him any good, mind, but he was too steamed to care.

  I carried my suitcase to the roominghouse where the Eagles stay when they come to Ponca City. It was only a few blocks from the one where Charlie Carstairs’s kid brother was staying, so that was handy. I’d made up some song and dance about why I was in town a day ahead of the rest of the team, but I turned out not to need it. Soon as the landlady—widow woman—saw who I was, she nodded and said, “Heard you were comin’ early. I’ll put you in Seven tonight.”

  Heard from who? I wondered. But I didn’t need to be Hercule Sherlock or whatever his name is to cipher that out. Big Stu knows folks all over Oklahoma—into Kansas and Texas and maybe Arkansas, too. One of ’em must’ve put a flea in her ear.

  Room 7 was a lot less crowded than it would be with four or five of us in there like usual. I picked the bed with the mattress that was less swaybacked. With luck, I’d get to keep it—well, half of it—when the rest of the Eagles came up from Enid.

  You stay at a rooming house, you have supper with the rest of the lodgers. That’s part of the bill. Not a fancy supper, or they’d charge more. I wasn’t fancy. Where else would I go? Ponca City didn’t have a diner anywhere near as good as Big Stu’s. One of the gals at the table—a secretary or something, I guessed—looked nice. Not I want to run off to the Sandwich Islands with you, sweetie nice, but enough to keep my mind off the pinto-bean soup and tinned peas boiled all gray.

  She didn’t even notice me—she had eyes for one of the other fellows. So I finished eating, I put my dishes in the sink like a good boy, and I went back to my room. Nothing much to do in there, so I did nothing for a while. Not like I didn’t have practice doing nothing back at the shack.

  * * *

  Must’ve been about nine o’clock when I cinched my belt a notch tighter. Then I put the knuckleduster in one front pocket of my trousers and the blackjack in the other. I walked around in there a bit to make sure the pants stayed up all right. They were fine, so I slipped out of my room, out of my roominghouse, and over toward the one where Mitch Carstairs stayed.

  Good thing it wasn’t far. I didn’t know my way around Ponca City real well, and it was dark as the inside of a zombie’s brain out there. I wore a cross around my neck to fight off the vampires, but having faith helps, too. I wasn’t feeling what you’d call faithful just then, not with the job I had ahead of me.

  I might’ve walked right past the place if a car hadn’t picked that second to turn. The headlight beams speared out and lit up the brass numbers—527—on the building. It was yellow brick, two stories high: bigger than the roominghouse where I was.

  When I tried the front door, it opened. I figured it would. People still come and go at that hour. More brass numbers over the doorways showed which room was which. I slipped down the hall, quiet as I could, till I
got to 13.

  Light leaked out under the bottom of the door. That made me let out a sigh of relief—he was home. What would I have done if he’d decided to spend the night playing bridge with his buddies? Wait in the bushes till he came back? I’d had notions I liked better. It was dark out there, and I wasn’t sure I’d recognize him at high noon. I mean, I knew what Charlie Carstairs looked like, but I didn’t have any promise Mitch looked the same way. Big Stu should’ve given me a picture. I should’ve thought to ask for one back in Enid.

  But I didn’t have to worry about any of that now. I slipped my right hand into the brass knucks. I made a fist in my pocket while I knocked on the door with my left hand.

  Somebody moved in the room. I could hear it over my pounding heart—no, I wasn’t used to the rough stuff. This was worse than facing a wild fireballer with the bases loaded and the team down two in the late innings.

  The door opened, it seemed like in slow motion. Yeah, I was that tensed up. Only I couldn’t haul off and coldcock the first thing I saw on the other side. If something had got fouled up some kind of way, if it wasn’t Charlie Carstairs’s brother, I’d feel bad about whaling the snot out of the wrong guy. Big Stu probably wouldn’t pay me the ninety he still owed me, either. Odds were he’d take the first ten out of my hide.

  Then the door got all the way open. I started to ask, You Mitch Carstairs? As soon as the guy in the room went Yeah or Uh-huh or Who wants to know?, I’d let him have it.

  Only I couldn’t. Even the question clogged in my throat. Because it wasn’t a guy in the room. It was a girl.

  She was somewhere near my age. Dark blond hair in a permanent wave, green eyes, pert nose. Prettier than the secretary-type gal back at my roominghouse. Not actress pretty, I guess, but not far from it. “Yes?” she said to me, her voice deep for a girl’s.

  God damn Big Stu to hell and gone! He didn’t say anything about a girl. She complicated everything—in spades, she did. But I needed that money the way I needed air to breathe. So instead of what I’d meant to ask, I came out with, “Where’s Mitch Carstairs?”

  Those green eyes got a little wider. “I’m Mich Carstairs. I don’t think I know you.”

  I felt like she’d sucker-punched me, not the other way around. And I realized I hadn’t even known what I was doing yet when I swore at Big Stu in my head before. He’d had a magic done, looking for Charlie Carstairs’s kid brother, and the wizard said Michelle and he heard Mitchell. Or maybe the wizard screwed it up. I didn’t know, and I still don’t.

  But I did know that, no matter how bad I needed those ninety clams, I didn’t need ’em bad enough to beat up a dame to get ’em. I’m no vampire—I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t do what Big Stu wanted done, not if my life depended on it. That I might be laying my life on the line by not doing it … I didn’t think about that, not then. Fool that I was.

  Real fast, I said, “No, Miss, you don’t know me. But you’re Charlie Carstairs’s sister, aren’t you? Charlie Carstairs over in Enid?”

  “That’s right.” She gave kind of an automatic nod. “Has something happened to—?” She broke off.

  “He’s fine—now. So are you—now. If you stick around Ponca City for even another day, though, you won’t be.” Once Big Stu found out I’d messed up, he’d send some guys who didn’t worry about what they hit as long as they got paid. Still fast, I went on, “Get out of town. Get out of state. Go to California.” Yes, I had Pa in my head. “Just go, quick as you can. Git!” I might’ve been shooing a stray dog.

  Her eyes got wide again, wider this time. “I can’t do that!”

  “Sister, you can’t do anything else, not if you want to stay in one piece. I know what I’m talking about.” I pulled out my right hand with the knuckleduster still on it. If I’d tried to take the damn thing off, it would’ve looked like I was playing pocket pool. She saw what it was, of course, but she didn’t raise any fuss. She must’ve seen I wasn’t about to use it. After I stuck it back in my pocket, I said, “Yeah, I know, all right. Some pieces of work, you just can’t do.”

  “Thank you,” she said quietly. Her mouth twisted. You want to know how pretty she was? She was still pretty when it did, that’s how pretty. For all I know, she might’ve got even prettier. When her face cleared, she nodded once more, this time to herself and not to me. “All right. I’ll be gone tomorrow. I don’t know where. I don’t know what I’ll do. I haven’t got much money, but—”

  “Neither do I,” I stuck in. “Why d’you reckon I came up here?”

  “Thank you,” she said again, even softer this time. Then she closed the door on me: not slammed it, but closed it. I didn’t mind. We’d already said everything we had to say to each other, hadn’t we?

  I got the hell out of there. I hoped she got the hell out of there, got the hell out of Oklahoma, come morning. Well, I’d done everything I knew how to do. If it wasn’t what Big Stu wanted … I was almost to the roominghouse front door when I really and truly realized I’d just crossed the guy who ran a lot more of my home town than the mayor ever did.

  The door opened. A man—I guessed he was one of the lodgers—came in. He was skinny and sad-looking, with worn clothes and gray hair getting thin at the front. He could’ve been anybody. He paid me no special mind—I could’ve been anybody, too. Some other lodger’s friend, or maybe a new lodger he hadn’t met yet.

  Only I wasn’t anybody, not any more, or not just anybody. I was somebody dumb enough to get Big Stu pissed off at him. In Enid, you couldn’t get much dumber than that. Big Stu’d wanted to hurt Charlie Carstairs through his kid brother, only she turned out to be Charlie’s sister. He couldn’t hurt me through anybody else. Everyone I might’ve cared about was either dead or gone. No, he’d have to pay me back in person.

  All of a sudden, what I’d told Mich Carstairs looked like pretty good advice for me to take, too. The farther away from Big Stu I got, the better off I’d be. If I had any smarts, I’d hitch a ride or hop a freight or jump on a carpet the way my old man did. If I had any smarts, I’d do it tonight. I wouldn’t wait for sunup. The sooner, the better.

  But I didn’t have any smarts. What I had was a game tomorrow. I couldn’t let the other Eagles down, not even on account of Big Stu. Hal Snodgrass, our backup outfielder, he was slower’n an armadillo after it meets a Model A.

  I almost hoped a vampire would try to jump me while I walked back to my boarding house. Maybe I’d fight him off and work out some of what I was feeling. Or maybe he’d get me and turn me into something like him. Then I wouldn’t care about anything past my next drink of blood—cow or sheep or coyote blood, or maybe I’d go after people, too, if I was bold.

  No vampires, though. Nothing but the stars shining out of a clear, dark sky. The air was cool, close to crisp. Pretty soon it would get hot and sticky and stay that way for months, but that hadn’t happened yet. The skeeters hadn’t come out, either. Without so much on my mind, I might’ve enjoyed the walk.

  My landlady hadn’t locked the front door. I’d timed it all fine—about the only thing I’d done right since I got to Ponca City. I went to my room, laid myself down, and tried to sleep. Took a while, but I did it. I don’t remember the dreams I had. I do remember they were the kind you’d want to forget.

  (II)

  We would play the Greasemen at half past two. We had to make sure we could get the game in before dark. They were already starting to play under the lights even back then. It was risky, though. You really have to tame salamanders or electrics before they get along with wooden stands. So I’d heard of night games, but I’d never seen one and I’d sure never played in one.

  Not then, I hadn’t. Been some changes made since.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. The widow woman’s breakfast was as grim and cheap as her supper. Still and all, you can fill your belly on bread. I’d done it often enough in Enid. The bad, bad times come when you haven’t got enough bread or anything else to fill up your empty.


  I went down to the room at the end of the hall and took a bath after the folks there who had regular jobs headed off to do ’em. Didn’t have to hustle so much that way. Other people weren’t pounding on the door and yelling for me to hurry up in the name of the Lord.

  I was slicking down my hair and combing a part into it at the mirror on the chest of drawers in my room when I heard a commotion in the front entryway. I knew what that had to be, and it was. The rest of the Enid Eagles had made it to Ponca City.

  They all whooped when I came out to say hello. Ace McGinty must’ve been running his mouth but good. “Hope you’re not too tuckered out to play today!” he called to me.

  “Ah, stick it,” I told him.

  Which was the wrong thing to say, of course. “I thought that’s what you were doing,” Mudfoot Williams said. He was our third baseman. His name was Zebulon, but he’d been Mudfoot since he was a kid. He hated shoes more’n anything, and went barefoot whenever he could.

  Him and Lightning Bug Kelly (who always had a smoke going, even when he was catching) and Don Patterson, our top pitcher, threw their bags into the room with me. The other guys got their rooms. Nobody stayed in ’em long, though. We put on our baseball togs, grabbed our gloves and shillelaghs, and headed on over to Conoco Ball Park.

  It’s on the southwest edge of town, over by US 60. The diamond in Blaine Park is better kept up, but all of the Greasemen except a couple of ringers work in the oilfields, so they play on the company field. We got there a couple of hours before game time, but a few people were already in the stands. Not one whole hell of a lot to do in Ponca City. Well, Enid’s the same way.

  Rod Graver played short for us, and managed, too. He was about thirty then, not slick, but steady, which you need if you’re gonna ride herd on a bunch of ballplayers. He’d got up to B ball in the pros. He might’ve gone further, but his brother hurt himself and he had to come back and take over the farm work.

  Him and me, we threw a ball back and forth to loosen up. After a few minutes, he came over and asked, “You do what you needed to yesterday?” He talked low, but he knew I hadn’t come to Ponca City early so I could dip my wick. That meant he talked to Big Stu. It meant Big Stu talked to him, too.