Gameday Decision

This one’s about… Buck Roy alone at The Cottage. Bloodgrass Twice Life takes in a baseball game. Unhittable pitch meets inexorable slugger. Dolores does no needlework.

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Buck Roy was bored enough to count the knot holes in The Cottage’s ceiling twice. He was plannin’ a third count to settle the question. Everybody else was somewhere better. Ballerina Billy was out in the stable, doing something to a horse shoe that involved more singing than he felt was called for. The rest of The Crew had scattered into Holbrook, chasing whatever was movin’ nice. Even Boss had gone quiet behind his own door, hours back, something rare enough that nobody in The Cottage was gonna trust it. That left Buck Roy alone with a deck of cards he’d already run through. Three times, and the drinkin’ was purty well done for now. He stood and stretched, then went out the back to the little patio Boss built. Flagstone and a rail was all it was, really, but it surely caught the night air better than the front. The dark out here was a good kind, cold and clean, stars like embers over open country. Buck Roy leaned on the rail a minute, working a flavored toothpick, not thinking about much of anything. He figured this night wasn’t offering anything better than sleepin’ did. That’s when he turned around and ran into a shiver. His eyes instinctively went to the back fence. Nothing there, just fence rail, just dark, just the shape of the stable roof, he told himself twice. He believed it the second time, and went back inside. In the alley behind the fence, low enough that even a careful search saw nothing but shadow among shadows, Bloodgrass Twice Life let out a breath real slow, through his nose, and settled onto his heels. He’d watched Buck Roy’s whole tiny evening from that spot. The pacing, the drunk solitaire, the stretch, the walk to the patio rail, back inside. He was patient, because it was the only tool that worked for him. Take your time. The young man felt him, near the end there, small flicker of animal sense, but it was a heartbeat too late to matter. Through the cottage window, lamp-lit and small, Buck Roy settled himself at the table against the wall and picked his cards up, none the wiser. Bloodgrass watched him through a knot hole in the fence for a while longer, like a writer who knows the ending and only waits for the moment to write it down.

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Buck Roy come outta that cottage window faster’n a night bullet. Because Bloodgrass Twice Life had a fistful of collar and no more patience. Wasn’t much fight in it. A forearm on the throat, a knee where needed, and Buck Roy was face down in the alley behind The Cottage, gagged with his hands lashed. Bloodgrass hoisted him onto the waiting mule. The same mule Buck Roy took off Connor Lynch, with the Remington rifle in the scabbard, back when Buck Roy stole Lynch’s ten dollar hat at the necktie party. Bloodgrass lashed him down like he was packin’ freight. “You ain’t killin’ me,” Buck Roy said, instead of askin when the gag slipped enough. “No.” “Why not?” Bloodgrass swung onto his horse, got the mule reins and bumped the horses going. “Counted coup on you already when I took the watch back. You never felt it. That’s accounted. No honor in killin’ you, boy.” He clucked his horse, heading east. “A boy your age, real mean just like your Daddy. But slow like your Dad never was. You’ll get yourself killed without any help from me. But not today. Today I need you breathin. And quiet.” “You couldn’t never stand next to my Daddy. Boss would unscrew your head.” Bloodgrass reached over and tucked the gag back into Buck Roy’s mouth. “First time I seen Boss Hartley, I had a knife on his throat, and lashed him to a mule just like you are now.” He told Buck Roy about his Daddy’s eyepatch. And his own.

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Boss Hartley was face down in the dirt near the creek bank, hands clawing into damp silt where scrub willows kept a patch of shade. Bloodgrass knelt right beside him in the grass. It started an hour before under the hot, indifferent glare of noontime. They met by the bend in the creek. A warrior with a reputation for trackin’ a man by the smell of his horse sweat, and a Jayhawker Captain caught on open land with nowhere to run. Bloodgrass hadn’t even raised his gun. Without even thinking, he had Boss by the hair and a knife at his throat. He offered Boss choices, with the calm certainty of a priest reading from a dead book. He beat him and lashed him to a tall mule. Then he brought the mule over to his camp in the grassy dunes by the brook, and cut the bonds. Boss flopped off the mule, barely conscious from the beating. He tried to crawl, but lacked the strength. Bloodgrass, who checked the bounty sheets at every lawman’s desk, chose to strike fear in the captive first thing. Establish authority. “I’m gonna spend three days takin’ my time with you, mister. Gonna cut pieces off.” He kicked Boss in the ribs. “Probably pull your guts out through your belly button. Stretch ‘em a half mile and let the creatures do this for me.” He leaned down and laughed. Rubbed his chin like he just had an idea. “Little…game of chance, mister. Roll the Bones.” He showed him the bone dice. Put ‘em into a leather cup and let Boss see him shake ‘em good and slapped the cup onto a rock, upside-down. While Boss looked at the dice, Bloodgrass drew his knife and took Boss’ right eye slick and swift, tossing it into the creek. Plop.

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Back in the present, Bloodgrass told Buck Roy, “I ain’t unkind, son, just plain. We ain’t got no more business, with that watch back in my pocket. It’s about your Daddy now. Hundred dollar bonus.” Buck Roy didn’t say much to that. He rode the rest of the forty miles to Burnham pretty quiet. Burnham was close to the territorial line. It had exactly two things going for it, come harvest season: a rail siding, and a baseball rivalry with Concho that got more serious than the size of either town. The Burnham Traders, sponsored by the trading post needed a shortstop, one who could hit. Two seasons ago, a man name of Craig Jones showed up, with an accent nobody could place, and with that bat, nobody cared. Jones had been in a bit of a slump, part of two seasons now. Ever since the Canyon Diablo Train Watch left his pocket, in Buck Roy’s hand back in Kansas. He checked the watch again. His watch by rights, taken off him. An event he never discussed, and now the watch sat heavy and strange, here in his palm. Like it recognized him but didn’t approve of how long it took. Some things came back whether a man asked for ‘em or not. He’d learned not to ask for ‘em. He wound the watch out of old habit, but winding never seemed to matter. He put the watch back in his vest pocket. When they got to Burnham he tied Buck Roy, the mule and everything to the equipment shed, out behind the outfield fence.

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Inside the shady, wood-paneled quiet of the Medicine Wagon, the afternoon air smelled of damp sawdust and the faint, sweet trace of lemon verbena water. Outside, the muffled thud of boots and the low hum of the crowd for the Burnham pennant game came through the batwing doors. Inside, the four women had carved out a comfortable enclave of cool detachment. The light inside was soft and gold. The air smelled of beeswax and a faint coffee aroma. The four women had the big table. A half-finished crazy quilt, a tin of glass beads, two mugs of stout, and Marilee’s embroidery hoop shared the surface. Marilee stabbed her needle through the black silk, muttering, “This thread has a personal grudge.” Mildred didn’t look up from her quilt. “You chose the dramatic color again. Drama always fights back.” Maddie sat sideways on a crate by the window, stringing turquoise. Every few beads she glanced toward the bleachers filling outside. “Crowd’s getting thick. I can already hear Donal arguing with somebody about the batting order.” Dolores hadn’t touched the work in front of her. She sat with her gloves still on, parasol leaning against her knee, watching the condensation slide down her mug. Marilee noticed. “You’ve been quiet since the train, Dolly.” “I’m fine.” “You’re never fine when you say it like that,” Mildred said, still stitching. “You’ve got that look again. The one that says you’re measuring people for a coffin and a wedding dress at the same time.” Dolores’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. “I’m allowed to look.” Maddie tied off her strand and held the bracelet up to the light. “Looking’s free. It’s the deciding that costs.” Marilee set her hoop down. “The deciding can wait. The first pitch can’t. If we stay in here any longer the whole town will think we’re hiding.” Dolores stood, smoothed her skirt once, and picked up the parasol. “Then we won’t hide.” She moved toward the batwing doors. The others gathered their things without another word. Beads clicked softly into the tin. The quilt was folded. Traveller’s springs creaked once as they stepped out into the noise of the gathering crowd.

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The Biscuit Eaters had come over from Concho Valley on Donal O’Donall’s wagons, with half the town riding along to watch. Maddie Covington had her notebook out and her editor’s hat on, covering the pennant race for the Gazetteer with a gravity most reporters reserved for territorial elections. The pitcher for the Concho Valley Biscuit Eaters warmed up along the third base line. He was a lean, quiet man, Svensen, who threw a ball that was doin’ things it shouldn’t be doin. Dropping late, risin’ when it shoulda been fallin, reachin’ the catcher’s mitt a half-beat late. Nobody asked Svensen too many questions. This year, in the late 1880 season, people specialized in not asking ballplayers too many questions. Medicine Wagon had rolled into the ballpark just as the crowd was filling the bleachers. Now, Med took one look at the field, the two players of the moment and the electricity in the air. He let out a low whistle. “Well howdy,” he said. “Somethin’s gonna happen here.” They watched the Traders dugout, as Bloodgrass Twice Life strolled up with a beer bottle. He killed the drink and put on a jersey with “JONES” across the shoulders, still unbuttoned as he pulled a huge train watch out of his gold plaid vest, and aimed the hour hand at the sun. Medicine Man pointed at the sideline. “There’s Svensen, walkin’ around on two legs same as you or me, throwin’ a ball same as any other man. Except he ain’t the same as other men.” Lynch’s boot had gone from a dull glow to something more like a slow burn, the moment they crossed into town. Standing here, watching the pitcher warm up, he finally understood why. That kinda pitchin’ just wasn’t natural. He asked Med, “That’s Svensen from Donal’s story?” Med nodded yeah and climbed off the bench, scanning the crowd like a man doing business. Lynch noticed his own mule tied to the equipment shed.

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The game started normal enough. First inning, first outs, lazy but attentive crowd settling in for something they figured could take a while. By the third inning it stopped being ordinary, but in a way that visitors wouldn’t notice. ‘Craig Jones,’ actually Bloodgrass Twice Life, came up to bat, bases loaded, with the watch in his pocket, and the moment his thoughts formed around it, something inside that was previously slow…snapped back into place, clear as high desert morning. Svensen wound up. He paused before releasing, eyes scanning the players and coaches around the backstop. That was how you knew somebody was stealing. The way those people acted. The ball left his hand doing that thing, that one thing it only did by Svensen’s hand, dropping and rising in a manner that insulted the laws of physics. Craig Jones’ eye tracked not only where the ball was, but where it was going to be, the Liminal Watch connection to Svensen granting perfect timing. The bat met clean, a sharp CRACK that carried out across the terrain and into the desert. The crowd came off the bleachers, a single screaming animal. Lynch, watching from behind the backstop, felt the courthouse page in his boot go warm and strange, syncing itself for one impossible heartbeat to the flight of the ball, Svensen’s pitch, the watch ticking in Bloodgrass’s vest. For that one heartbeat, the whole field hung in time, suspended. Ball at the top of its arc, Svensen frozen mid-follow-through with an expression on his face that wasn’t disappointment as much as recognition, Bloodgrass rounding first with a grin he hadn’t worn in three weeks, counting points with one hand up as the crowd chanted “ONE! TWO! THREE! FOOURR!” The moment broke, time resumed its ordinary cadence, the ball came down well past the fence. The Traders half of Burnham went feral with joy. Svensen didn’t argue the call, though Donal O’Donall was waving his hat frantically. He just watched Bloodgrass round the bases. One professional watching another one handle a business he understood. He tipped his cap when Bloodgrass crossed home, and Bloodgrass tipped his hat in return, both grinning broadly. Burnham Traders leading at the Seventh Inning Stretch 4-0. Concho scored two runs, one off a stolen third base and a bobbled throw. Afterward, with half of Burnham three drinks into celebrating the Traders 4-2 win for Game One, Lynch found Bloodgrass by the equipment shed, cutting Buck Roy off the mule.

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“You’re givin’ him back,” Lynch said. “To his Daddy. Not himself. Boss’ll collect him. I got no further use.” Bloodgrass looked over at Lynch, mouth pressed flat. “Listen, brother. It needs sayin. Your mule’s got opinions. Didn’t care for the company.” Lynch smiled and took the lead rope, shakin’ his head. He pointed at the watch chain, just visible at Bloodgrass’s vest pocket. “Is that what I’m thinkin’ it is?” “Just borrowed time, brother,” Bloodgrass shrugged, easy. Over past the rail siding, Med stood with his hat off, looking south, down the line toward Concho Valley. A page recovered at St. Johns. A page found in Marjory’s barber chair. A watch that kept its own hours, and a page in a ‘dead’ man’s boot, which had only just started answerin… things. Med put his hat back on. “Well,” he said, to nobody. “That’s handled. Game Two oughta be a real humdinger!” Lynch didn’t pay much attention. His mindful thoughts drifted toward whatever Concho Valley, The Widow in Black and his forgotten name still had waitin.

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