Page 32 of Ring of Fire


  Billy nodded to himself. "Okay. I can throw this ball. Nothing fancy. Just a clean throw." Kicking off easily, he unleashed another side-arm fastball. Right down the pipe and a little high, but Karl swung mightily at it, eyes shut and shoulders straining, and managed by sheerest accident to catch the bottommost corner of the ball. Which sent the ball back over the catcher's head and into a nearby clump of bushes.

  That was the highlight of the next few batters. Karl took two more swings but never got close to the ball again. The next batter, a younger boy Billy had never seen before, tried to hit the ball while diving backward out of the way. At least he kept his eyes open. Billy decided to slow down on the smaller kids a little, but the next still proved no match.

  Then the teams traded places, but Conrad motioned Billy to stay on the mound. It seemed fair enough to him. One of the older boys from the work crews led off and Billy increased the speed a little. The boy took a swing late and Billy decided to try a curve. The big soft melon ball broke only about six inches, but the German youth still had no luck hitting it. Nor did the younger boy who followed him.

  The bright core of fun at playing started to fade. These guys are no challenge. They're pathetic. My arm will turn to spaghetti before one of them hits me. He looked around the outfield. The dozen or so kids in it were standing talking in pairs, or sitting on the ground playing with straws or with their chins on their fists. Looking next to the batter's box, Billy saw Conrad step up to the plate. He perked up a bit. Conrad was as big as he was and probably older. With shoulders. Hmm . . . Maybe.

  Billy tried another curve. Harder. This one broke better and Conrad swung at it hard but awkwardly. Flatfooted. Billy noticed he never took his eye off the ball, but the curve flummoxed him and the ball sailed past.

  Billy motioned his catcher back a few more feet on the next pitch. Conrad had set up a little closer to the plate, but Billy had a feel for the ball now. He let loose an overhand fastball a little inside, and watched Conrad jerk the bat inward and down, grazing the top of the ball and bouncing it to the catcher.

  Billy threw the next pitch almost exactly the same except half speed. Conrad, now set up a little more off the plate, over-swung and missed entirely.

  After one more desultory inning, most of the kids had had enough and the game more or less broke up.

  "Well, that was fun," Billy muttered under his breath as he watched the German kids moving away in small clusters. He guessed baseball was not much of an attraction anymore. Well, no one but a hardcore fan liked a pitchers' duel. Especially with only one pitcher. And I'm the only hard-core fan or player left. Yippee. He slumped over to where he'd left his pack. Conrad waved to him from a cluster of the bigger kids, who did not look like they were leaving just yet. The big German kid approached him with a strained look on his face.

  "How?" he began in uncertain English. "You . . . ?" and completed the question with a throwing motion. Billy sighed and nodded, holding out his hand for the ball. Maybe if I show them some stuff, and they have the gumption to practice it, they won't be so totally hopeless.

  He beckoned them all into a semicircle, and began to demonstrate baseball pitching mechanics in mime. He showed both his usual overhand delivery, and the sidearm throw he used sometimes when he was tired or the other team had him figured out. They watched him intently, pointing to something he'd done and arguing with each other, or trying to catch his attention and mimicking his movements to see if they were doing it right.

  He pulled his baseball out of his pack and handed it around, showing its hardness and how he gripped the seams, then switched to their cloth-stuffed ball, and mimed out his approval of its density from a fielding standpoint. He showed them his glove, removing it from its usual place nestled snugly in his pack. They oohed and ahhed as if he'd pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

  Then a couple of them started arguing over something, which got the rest jabbering again, most eagerly nodding, a couple still looking a bit puzzled. Then they all moved out to take positions and try out what they'd learned from Billy's impromptu baseball clinic. He put his ball and glove back in his pack, slung it over his shoulder, and got out of their way.

  Conrad stopped him before he left, though, gesturing toward the plate. What now? Batting lessons? But the German boy wanted something else. He made it clear when he crouched behind the catcher, then looked back at Billy and pointed to the ground where he stood. Billy couldn't help but chuckle. Now they want me to be the bad guy!

  Standing back there, trying to judge balls and strikes, it didn't take him long to realize that batting lessons were also needed. But what the hell, it was sort of like playing baseball. And it was better than going home.

  * * *

  "And then they had me umpire!" Billy said.

  His mother laughed and handed him another biscuit. "I bet it wasn't easy explaining strike zones to them."

  "No, it wasn't. I could only think of about one word in ten that I needed. I really—"

  "Then you should have paid more attention to your language lessons in school," his father said, frowning.

  Billy gritted his teeth. "That's what I was going to say."

  "You need to get your head around reality, Billy. Playing baseball is no excuse for not being here to do your chores."

  "What chores? Polishing cars that no one'll buy because they nationalized all the gasoline? I did my chores for the day! I worked my butt off on that farm and earned some time off! You got a problem with that, take it up with Mr. Hudson! What were you doing all day?" He knew that was a mistake as soon as he said it. He looked at his plate and started shoveling food into his mouth.

  "What was I doing? I was trying to find some way to make a living, to keep food on this table and a roof over your ungrateful head, that's what I was doing! I have two trucks from the army that need suspension work, and I needed you here to help with them, not gallivanting off in some hay field, pissing away time that could be spent helping this family!"

  "Then you should have damned-well said something about it!" To hell with supper; he'd go hungry before he put up with another second of this. Dammit, Dad, you used to be proud of me! He shoved back from the table to leave.

  "Billy, sit down and finish your supper," his mother said. "After working the farm all day, you should know we can't afford to waste food. And don't swear." She turned to his father as he sat back down. "Keith, that is enough. He did his work for the day. He earned his afternoon off. If you didn't tell him you had things for him to do, that's your fault, not his."

  "He should know there are always things to do," his father grumbled, but stuffed a large bite in his mouth, and chewed it angrily.

  "Be that as it may, he was doing other things we've been told need to be done. Working on his language skill, for one. Do you think he can be teaching those boys, and playing with them, and not pick up more German? For another thing, he's finding common ground with them, which may be even more important here and now than working on those trucks. The more things we can find—or create!—in common with the people around us, the less the army will have to defend us against, and the more people it will have to do it with. So don't think of it as wasting his time. Think of it as . . . improving foreign relations."

  His father swallowed his latest over-large bite. "I still need him here!" He jabbed his fork at his plate for emphasis.

  "Well then, I suggest you put him on the payroll and pay him for the work he does for you, since that will be time taken from other useful things he could be doing. You can make up a work schedule, and go over it with him in the mornings before he leaves."

  Billy smothered a snicker at the look on his father's face—if he hadn't just swallowed, he might have choked. He looked like he might, anyway.

  Billy's mother smiled much too sweetly. "That will, of course, also serve several purposes. It will teach you to talk to Billy, and schedule things, instead of just assuming he can read your mind, and taking his help for granted." She turned that smile on Billy. "And it
will teach you the discipline and responsibility that comes with having a real job."

  Billy looked at her, looked at his father, thought of having him as an actual employer, and quickly swallowed the bite he was chewing before he choked on it.

  * * *

  The work on the trucks took up three evenings, and even with the mechanics from the mine workers to help, it was just as heavy and dirty as the work in the fields, if not more so. They wound up dog-robbing heavier leaf-springs from old farm equipment to support the armor hanging on the trucks. The shocks were a hopeless cause—no matter what they put on, the extra weight and nearly nonexistent roads would soon trash them. The army would be in for rough rides in the near future. But the contract was done, and Billy's evenings would be free until his father found another.

  Billy and his mother watched as his father dutifully entered Billy's pay into the account books, then they went to the bank to transfer the money into Billy's savings account. His father goggled a bit at the amount already in there from Billy's work on the harvest crews. Billy suppressed a smirk until he noticed his mother wasn't suppressing hers, at all.

  They left the bank with his father shaking his head. His mother looked across the street, smiled to herself, and said lightly, "Excuse me. I'll meet you back home." She started across the street. "Miss Abrabanel? Could I have a moment of your time, please?"

  Billy looked at his father; his father looked back. They both shrugged, two men together, baffled by the ways of women.

  After dinner, Billy called some of his teammates and arranged for them to meet at the hay field after the work crews knocked off. With gloves, balls, and bats.

  * * *

  The next day, Billy, Vern, Steve, and a couple other team members gave a clinic on the fine art of baseball, passed out gloves, and coached two separate games on opposite ends of the hay field. The refugees were joined by several of their Grantville peers. Strangely, Billy's mother and Miss Abrabanel showed up and watched for a while, talking and occasionally gesturing at the players. They didn't stay long, and Billy soon forgot about them. The games went on until it got too dark to see the ball, and the youths found themselves walking home in the near-inky blackness of night.

  Even with his father having a claim on his time, and the abysmal lack of talent among the Germans, the remainder of the summer passed much easier for Billy. Something like baseball was better than nothing at all.

  * * *

  "Pass the sausage, would you, Billy?"

  "Sure, Dad." He handed the platter across the table. "Oh. I was talking with Mister Kinney, today. He's worried about Joey, what's going to happen to him, and I was thinking . . . well, Todd's working out okay, isn't he?"

  "Yeah, he's a good worker. Why?"

  "I thought that since Todd's doing well, maybe there might be a job that Joey could do? He's going to need to be able to support himself, too. I mean, he's nowhere near as smart as Todd, and he probably couldn't help with actually making the nails, but maybe he could dump them in the barrels, or bring bar stock, or help Todd keep the shop cleaned up? There's a lot of stuff to do that doesn't take any real skill."

  His father sighed. "What do you want me to do, hire every Special Ed kid in the area?"

  "You've hired one, already," his mother commented. "Why not another?"

  "Martha, I am not a charity! Georg had a lot of doubts about hiring a 'simpleton' like Todd. He'll give me hell about even thinking of hiring someone he'd class as the village idiot! I may supply the building, but he's the one who actually runs the business."

  "Surely a used car salesman can sell him on the idea. . . ."

  "If you'll recall, one thing I like about this new business is that I don't have to feed people lines of bullshit anymore, so do tell me why I should feed a line to my partner. And I sold new cars, too!"

  "Nobody says it has to be a line, Dad. Just see if there's anything he can do. Todd really likes Joey, and when Joey's around, I've never seen Todd lose focus like he does around other people. It's like he's looking out for someone who's worse off than he is. So it might even make Todd a better worker."

  "And if you or someone else can't find a job for Joey," his mother said, "the churches are going to have to set up a charity for him. Or the government will have to start a welfare program. His parents aren't going to be around forever. Which would be better, for him to be a productive citizen, or a charity case?"

  "All right, all right, quit ganging up on me! I'll talk to Joey's parents and see what he can do. If he's got the ability to hold a job, I'll bring it up with Georg." He snorted, then muttered angrily, "Hell, I'll even put it in terms of charity. Christian charity. It's about time all this religious hoo-hah was good for something besides an excuse for killing people."

  "Thanks, Dad."

  "Don't thank me, yet; I haven't done anything."

  Billy shrugged. "You said you'd look into it. That's all I asked."

  "I . . . um . . . hmm . . . You're welcome." He cleared his throat, then turned back to his plate with a puzzled frown.

  Huh. Weird reaction. Billy wondered about it for a second, then shrugged it off. He reached for the bowl of porridge, and served himself some of the ubiquitous glop, when he saw his mother glance at him with a pleased, and rather proud, smile. Wondering what in the world had brought that on, he started eating, bending over his bowl with a puzzled frown on his face.

  * * *

  WHACK! Conrad hammered the ball with a swing of the white ash bat worthy of a Teutonic war god. Billy's head tracked up and over his shoulder. Quickly. The ball wobbled as it arced high into the air. The crowd of children roared in astonished approval as, despite its great altitude, it cleared the tree line to the north for a home run.

  Vern's head was shaking in disbelief, and Billy grimaced at the grinning teenager rounding the base paths at a lope. The locals seemed to be learning baseball all right. Too darn fast. That was the second solid hit Conrad had had off him today, and the longest hit Billy could remember seeing off anybody, anywhere. What's he been doing, sneaking lessons with the army from Mr. Simpson? Wilhelm was still off in the trees looking for the ball when Conrad crossed home plate.

  As the storkish Saxon was mobbed by his elated teammates, Wilhelm finally emerged from the forested slope. Billy held up his glove to signal Willi to throw the ball in, but the outfielder held onto it and trudged up to Billy in the diamond's center. He drew near, and silently held out the baseball. One seam was split down an entire side, and its yarn insides trailed out like some soldier's innards after a hard battle. From the pale look on Wilhelm's face, it might have been a soldier.

  Vern ambled up to the plate, took one glance at the split ball, and said, "I have another in my game bag."

  "This was my last one that isn't autographed," Billy said. "How many are left?"

  "Some, I'd guess, around town."

  Billy frowned and said nothing. There was nothing to say.

  Vern put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, we're aiming for eighteen-hundreds tech, right? The game got started back then, so we just roll the equipment back to match." He grinned. "Walter Johnson started on dead balls, and you pitch like him, so you'll match, too!"

  Yeah, right. Go back to dead ball days, go back to sandlot games. Glorified Little League, that's all it'll be. Ever. He stifled a sigh and nodded, forcing a smile for Vern's sake, knowing his friend would be hurt if Billy didn't at least pretend he'd been cheered up.

  * * *

  The day had started bad enough. "I will not accept any 'the dog ate my homework' excuses!" Miz Mailey had said at the beginning of the year. How about a "the cat shredded my report then used it for a litterbox" excuse? He'd even brought the two pages that weren't fouled to prove it.

  Then the day got worse. The bus passed huge smears of blood all over the road, and what he could swear was a pile of bodies just off the shoulder. Someone on the other side of the bus had seen a dead horse. What the hell was going on?

  He found out soon after a
rriving at school, and suddenly the shredded report wasn't very important anymore.

  * * *

  The line moved up. Billy heard the younger students pounding up the stairs. No one called them down for running in the halls today. Desks and cabinets screeched across the floor—metal to barricade the stairs. Metal to block bullets. The line moved up. Another senior took a baseball bat from Mr. Trout. A club to fend off swords. Wood to block bullets. The line moved up. Smooth wood pressed into his hands. Snakes started crawling in his stomach.

  "Herr Trout!" Conrad's voice came over his shoulder. "I take the bat; he takes the balls." The lanky German eeled past Mr. Trout into the athletic equipment locker, reappearing the next moment with the bucket of baseballs. He plucked the bat from Billy's hand, and hung the bucket over his arm. The snakes quit crawling.

  "Conrad, are you nuts?" Mr. Trout said. "They'll be wearing armor and helmets!"

  "Open-faced helmets, sir," Billy replied. "No, he's right. Randy Johnson keeps a bucket of balls beside his bed for home security and never had a break-in. Nobody wants a ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastball in the teeth."

  Mr. Trout nodded shortly. "All right, if you think it'll do you more good. Just don't hit anybody standing in front—" He stopped with his mouth open, then closed it. "Never mind. You don't hit anything you don't aim at." He turned to hand out the last two bats, and the boys headed for the gym.

  Conrad looked at Billy. "This is true? You hit only where you aim?"

  Billy smirked slightly. "Yeah, pretty much."

  "Ah. So the time you almost took off my nose was deliberate?"

  Looking at Conrad standing there with a bat in his hand, Billy took the better part of valor. "That . . . was one of the not-quite times."

  Conrad cocked an eyebrow. "Try not to have any not-quite times today."

  This time the snakes didn't crawl; they simply bit. Billy jerked his head in a nod. "Yeah."

  * * *

  Half a dozen students ran the north bleachers out from the wall with a rumble like distant thunder. Or the pounding hooves of approaching cavalry. The gym doors shut behind them with a hollow boom, then came the rattle-clatter of Jeff Higgins setting the top and bottom catches, and running a chain through the handles to padlock them shut.