“You’re not sure it’s him,” Gran said. “No one saw him throwin’ at the barn.”
“Some things you ain’t gotta see,” Pappy fired back. “We ain’t seen Trot with a paintbrush, but we’re perfectly happy to believe he’s doin’ the paintin’. Right?”
My mother, with perfect timing, said, “Luke, who are the Cardinals playin’?” It was her standard line, a not-too-subtle way of letting the others know that she wanted to eat in peace.
“The Cubs,” I said.
“How many more games?” she asked.
“Just three.”
“How far ahead is Musial?”
“Six points. He’s at three-thirty-six. Baumholtz is at three-thirty. He can’t catch him.”
At this point my father was always expected to come to the aid of his wife and keep the conversation away from heavier matters. He cleared his throat and said, “I bumped into Lou Jeffcoat last Saturday — I forgot to tell you. He said the Methodists have a new pitcher for Sunday’s game.”
Pappy had cooled off enough to say, “He’s lyin’. That’s what they say every year.”
“Why would they need a new pitcher?” Gran asked with a faint smile, and I thought my mother was going to laugh.
Sunday was the Fall Picnic, a glorious event that engulfed Black Oak. After worship, usually a very long worship, at least for us Baptists, we would meet at the school, where the Methodists would be gathering. Under the shade trees the ladies would set up enough food to feed the entire state, and after a long lunch the men would play a baseball game.
It was no ordinary game, because bragging rights were at stake. The winners ribbed the losers for an entire year. In the dead of winter I had heard men at the Tea Shoppe ride each other about The Game.
The Methodists had won it for the last four years, yet they always started rumors about having a new pitcher.
“Who’s pitchin’ for us?” my father asked. Pappy coached the Baptist team every year, though after four straight losses, folks were beginning to grumble.
“Ridley, I guess,” Pappy said without hesitation. He’d been thinking about the game for a year.
“I can hit Ridley!” I said.
“You got a better idea?” Pappy shot at me.
“Yes sir.”
“Well, I can’t wait to hear it.”
“Pitch Cowboy,” I said, and everybody smiled. What a wonderful idea.
But the Mexicans couldn’t play in The Game, nor could the hill people. Each roster was made up of certified church members only — no farm laborers, no relatives from Jonesboro, no ringers of any variety. There were so many rules that if they’d been put down in writing, the rule book would’ve been thicker than the Bible. The umpires were brought in from Monette and were paid five dollars a game plus all the lunch they could eat. Supposedly, no one knew the umpires, but after last year’s loss there were rumors, at least around our church, that they were either Methodists or married to Methodists.
“That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” my father said, dreaming of Cowboy mowing down our rivals. One strikeout after another. Curveballs dropping in from all directions.
With the conversation back in pleasant territory, the women took over. Baseball was pushed aside as they talked about the picnic, the food, what the Methodist women would be wearing, and so on. Supper came to the usual quiet close, and we headed for the porch.
I had decided that I would write Ricky a letter and tell him about Libby Latcher. I was certain that none of the adults would do so; they were too busy burying the secret. But Ricky needed to know what Libby had accused him of. He needed to respond in some way. If he knew what was happening, then maybe he could get himself sent home to deal with the situation. And the sooner the better. The Latchers were staying to themselves, telling no one, as far as we knew, but secrets were hard to keep around Black Oak.
Before Ricky left for Korea, he’d told us the story of a friend of his, a guy from Texas he’d met in boot camp. This guy was only eighteen, but he was already married, and his wife was pregnant. The army sent him to California to shuffle papers for a few months so he wouldn’t get shot. It was a hardship case of some variety, and the guy would be back in Texas before his wife gave birth.
Ricky now had a hardship; he just didn’t know it. I would be the one to tell him. I excused myself from the porch under the pretense of fatigue and went to Ricky’s room, where I kept my Big Chief writing tablet. I took it to the kitchen table — the light was better there — and began writing slowly in large printed letters.
I dwelt briefly on baseball, the pennant race, then the carnival and Samson, and I wrote a couple of sentences about the twisters earlier in the week. I had neither the time nor the stomach to talk about Hank, so I got to the meat of the story. I told him that Libby Latcher had had a baby, though I did not confess that I had actually been nearby when the thing arrived.
My mother wandered in from the porch and asked what I was doing. “Writin’ Ricky,” I said.
“How nice,” she said. “You need to go to bed.”
“Yes ma’am.” I had written a full page and was quite proud of myself. Tomorrow I would write another page. Then maybe another. I was determined that it would be the longest letter Ricky had so far received.
Chapter 22
I was nearing the end of a long row of cotton, close to the thicket that bordered Siler’s Creek, when I heard voices. The stalks were especially tall, and I was lost amid the dense foliage. My sack was half-full, and I was dreaming of the afternoon in town, of a movie at the Dixie with a Coca-Cola and popcorn. The sun was almost overhead; it had to be approaching noon. I planned to make the turn and then head back to the trailer, working hard and finishing the day with a flourish.
When I heard people talking, I dropped to one knee, and then I slowly sat on the ground without making another sound. For a long time I heard nothing at all, and I was beginning to think that maybe I had been wrong, when the voice of a girl barely made it through the stalks to where I was hiding. She was somewhere to my right; I couldn’t tell how far away.
I slowly stood and peeked through the cotton but saw nothing. Then I crouched again and began creeping down the row toward the end, my cotton sack abandoned for the moment. Silently, I crawled and stopped, crawled and stopped, until I heard her again. She was several rows over, hiding, I thought, in the cotton. I froze for a few minutes until I heard her laugh, a soft laugh that was muffled by the cotton, and I knew it was Tally.
For a long time I rocked gently on all fours and tried to imagine what she was doing hiding in the fields, as far away from the cotton trailer as possible. Then I heard another voice, that of a man. I decided to move in closer.
I found the widest gap between two stalks and cut through the first row without a sound. There was no wind to rustle the leaves and bolls, so I had to be perfectly still. And patient. Then I made it through the second row and waited for the voices.
They were quiet for a long time, and I began to worry that maybe they’d heard me. Then there was giggling, both voices working at once, and low, hushed conversation that I could barely hear. I stretched out flat on my stomach and surveyed the situation from the ground, down where the stalks were thickest and there were no bolls and leaves. I could almost see something several rows away, maybe the darkness of Tally’s hair, maybe not. I decided I was close enough.
There was no one nearby. The others — the Spruills and the Chandlers — were working their way back to the trailer. The Mexicans were far away, nothing visible but their straw hats.