Holm, Stef Ann (20 page)

"Hey,
Cap, come on down. Let's get some dinner." Alex rounded the dugout's edge
and looked into the seats. Camille watched him do a quick scan of the area.
Tension stretched over his features. He put his hands on the railing, and in
one hop, jumped into the seats.

"Where's
that man who was sitting here?" he shouted to a spectator.

The
spectator's eyes widened beneath his bowler. "That crazy fellow with the
beard?"

His
arm lifted so fast, Camille hadn't been prepared for the aggression. Alex
grabbed a fistful of expensive suit fabric and knotted the man's lapel in his
fist. "He's not crazy."

"H-he
left."

"When?"
The word was sharp and urgent.

"I
don't know exactly when. He said he was going back to some place happy."

"Happy?"

"Uh—called
Harmony."

"Oh,
God." Alex stumbled back as if he'd been struck. He jumped to the ground
and, without another word, began to sprint toward the exit gate.

Camille
faced the players who'd returned to the dugout. "Gentlemen, you'll have to
see yourselves back to the hotel. Make sure you gather the bats and balls. No
visiting saloons this evening."

"We
didn't visit a saloon last night," Yank complained.

"That's
right. And you won't tonight, either," she went on. "We have to be on
a train for Washington, D.C. at ten o'clock in the morning.
Tomorrow,"
she
emphasized.

Then
she looped her pocketbook in the crook of her arm and snatched her notebook.
Picking up the front of her crepe voile skirt, she began to run, in a way in
which she'd never done before. She searched the crowd for Alex. She quickened
her pace when she caught a glimpse of white-and-gold ball cap.

Alex
had helped her win the game.

She'd
help him find Captain.

* * * * *

Blinding
fear gripped Alex's heart. The logical place to look for Cap was the train
station. Having lived in this city, he knew how to get there from here. But how
would Captain know? Alex had nothing else to go on aside from a hunch and maybe
a witness who'd seen which direction Cap had gone in.

Alex
was stopping a constable at a vendor's stand outside of the park to ask when
Camille came toward him in a rush.

"Two
people can look faster than one," she said, her breath corning in quick
pants. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes soft with sympathy.

He
should have told her to get lost. But his first priority was Captain. And she
was right. With both of them looking, one might catch something the other
missed.

"Have
you seen a tall man with a full beard come this way in the last half
hour?" Alex asked the man, who was uniformed in dark blue from his
gold-emblemed hat to his crisply creased trousers.

White-gloved
hand resting on the butt of his billy club, the officer gave Alex a quick
study. "As a matter of fact, I did."

"Which
way did he go?"

The
officer pointed to the street bordering Columbia Park. "Up toward Broad
Street. Say, are you one of the ballplayers?"

Alex
didn't answer. Automatically, he took Camille by the hand, and he propelled
them down the block.

"Look
for him while we run," he said. "He could be anywhere."

"All
right."

He
was glad she kept up with his pace. If she hadn't, he would have dropped her
off at the nearest shop and told her he'd come back for her later.

"Do
you think he could have found the train station on his own?" she asked
from his side, her steps light over the sidewalk.

"I
don't know. It's on Broad and Glenwood. We'll look there first."

Alex
didn't want to think about the possibility of not finding Cap at the Broad
Street station. Enough time had gone by that Captain could be anywhere—
disoriented, wandering, scared.

Dammit.

He
never should have been short with him. Alex didn't think Captain would leave
Columbia Park to find the train station in an unfamiliar city. The possibility
had never entered his mind. It should have. He'd failed Cap.

Alex
barely glanced at the street signs, the building numbers. The sights were
familiar to him, yet they'd changed in the years he'd been gone. He saw 26th
Street and veered through the intersection, cutting between carriages and
coaches. The cobblestones beneath his feet felt slippery because of the spikes
on his shoe soles.

"You
okay?" he called across his shoulder.

"Yes."
But she'd lost her hat and her hair was falling free of its pins.

The
musty smells of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers pressed in on the evening
air.

"I
don't see him," Alex said, and in seconds, he was flagging a hackney.
"We'll get there faster this way." Within fifteen minutes, they were
inside the train station, combing separate ends of the terminal, the ticket
booths, the baggage collection areas, the arrival and departure platforms.

There
was no sign of Captain.

When
they met back at the central clock tower, Alex looked at Camille. "I don't
know. I just don't damned know. He's not here. He could be anywhere."

"Maybe
the police—"

"You
think the police might have picked him up?"

"It's
worth finding out."

The
closest police station was the 12th Precinct on Monument and 33rd Streets.

The
clatter of horses hooves rang across the damp street as the carriage sped
along. The sky had blackened, glowing lanterns on street corners lending a hazy
yellow light to the returning fog.

Alex
set his jaw, unable to speak as the wheels rolled over the cobblestones. Guilt
consumed him.

Silence
blanketed them like the heavy mist that had begun to creep through the streets.
If he'd thought about it long enough, he would have realized he was so cold, he
had to keep his knees pressed together.

"Monument
and Thirty-third," the driver called as he reined the horses to a stop.

"Wait
here." Alex bounded out of the hackney and was inside the police station
before he could breathe. He went straightaway to the tall desk, where a
uniformed sergeant sat on a hip-high stool.

"I'm
looking for a man my height, black hair, black beard—"

"Alex?
Alex!"

Captain's
screams came from a hallway. Cap appeared, two men on either side of him,
escorting him toward the front of the police station.

In
a condescending tone, one of the officers explained, "We're taking you to
the hospital, laddy, where they'll take real good care of you. Woo-woo."
He chuckled.

"H-o-s-p-i-t-a-l!
No shave!"

The
other officer laughed while jerking at Cap, who fought to get free.
"Somebody stole his rudder. He's not on an even keel."

The
officers' chins shot up as Alex went straight for Captain.

"Shut
up," he warned them, advancing. "It's okay, Cap. I found you."

Captain's
gaze was glassy. His hair fell wildly about his face, and his screams were ones
of sheer terror. "No shave! No hospital!"

Bracing
Cap by the shoulders, Alex glared at the men restraining him. "Get your
hands off him. "Cap, we're going back to the hotel now. Not the
hospital."

"Alex,"
he sobbed. "I was mad at you. Just like you were mad at me. I tried to
find the train home. I got lost." Gazing through his rumpled hair with
forlorn eyes, he asked, "Are you still mad?"

"I'm
not mad, Cap. You're all right now."

"I
want to go home."

"We
are. Soon."

But
the weight of that promise settled heavily on Alex's shoulders. He wondered how
he was going to tell Cap they were going to Buffalo, and never going back to
Harmony again.

Camille
couldn't sleep. She couldn't think about anything but Alex. And Captain. And
what had happened.

Alex
had come out of the police station and taken Captain into the hackney, his arm
wrapped tightly around him. The ride back to the hotel was broken only by Cap's
quiet mumbling and shaky sighs.

Once
at the Euclid Avenue Hotel, they'd entered the lobby together, taken the lift,
and parted company on the fourth floor, she to her room at the front of the
hall, Alex to his and Captain's in the other direction. Alex hadn't said a
word. It had been as if she'd ceased to exist. His energies had been spent on
calming Captain, making sure he was comfortable.

In
the quiet of her room, Camille had washed up but she hadn't undressed for bed.
She couldn't. Not until she made sure Alex was all right. Reassuring Captain
had been his sole purpose, but she'd seen the look of utter grief on Alex's
face.

Taking
up her key, she left her room and walked down the near-dark hallway to knock on
Alex's door. She slowed her steps midway, noting a tall man's silhouette
outlined by the window at the end of the hall. A glowing red ember burned; the
smell of cigarette smoke lightly drifted in the air.

Alex.

She
began walking once more. She reached him, but he didn't turn to look at her. He
continued to stare out the curtainless window, the globe of light above him
hissing. The wick had been turned down, the illumination a faint spot of flame.
His profile to her, she noted his lips clamped around the cigarette, firm and
hard, as if he was trying to maintain a composure that was slipping.

In
the darkness, she followed his gaze to the lights outside that looked more like
milkweeds in the low fog, fuzzy and white, unclear. Much like her thoughts at
this moment.

Should
she have come to him? She had no business... and yet.... It was like Cap had
brought them together tonight. But it was more than that. She'd been drawn to
him. Physically. And now emotionally. Unable to help herself.

The
window had been opened, and now the chill of night seeped into the hall. Dew
glittered off the fire escape. The coo of pigeons could be heard from a perch
on the side of a nearby building.

"Thank
you for helping me."

She
hadn't been expecting him to speak, much less say that. His voice sluiced over
her almost as if he'd skimmed gentle fingers up her arms and across her lips.

He
brought the cigarette to his mouth, inhaled, and let out a slow and steady
stream of smoke. She watched him. The way he stood, the way he was dressed. He
wore no shoes, just socks. The hem of a ribbed cotton undershirt was tucked
into his trousers. Three buttons met at the throat. He'd kept them open. Barely
discernable was a sprinkling of dark hair. She'd wondered if his chest would be
smooth.

"You
would have helped me, too," she replied at last staring through the window
once more.

"Maybe."

A
tug of irritation made her frown. Why did he feel like he had to do that all
the time? Make himself look beyond caring. He did care. She'd seen him with
Captain.

"I
know it's none of my business, but what's wrong with Captain?"

Although
she couldn't see it, she could sense the muscles in his body grow tense and
inflexible.

A
long moment passed where Alex thoughtfully smoked his cigarette. She didn't
think he'd answer her. She was about to return to her room when his words came
to her.

"He
had an accident some years back. It damaged his brain."

"What
happened?"

He
held the cigarette between his forefinger and thumb and flicked it out the
window. "His mind went, that's what happened. He hasn't been right in the
head since." He still hadn't looked at her. "Cap's got to take a
certain amount of medicine every day."

"Do
you think it helps?"

"Yeah."
But then he slowly shook his head. "I don't know. I thought he'd get
better. I thought—" His voice broke. "He has his good days. And his
bad."

"I'm
sorry." The words seemed so simple. She wished she had more to offer him.
"I heard him say 'no shave' again. What does that mean?"

"It
has nothing to do with his beard. He was in a hospital that shaved his
head," Alex said while blinking at the lights across the city. "They
rubbed mercury over his bare scalp. You can imagine how that must have stung
like hell." His deep voice dropped to a mere whisper. "With all the
things he can't remember, he has to remember that."

Camille
felt helpless.

Alex
lowered his chin, running a hand though the hair that fell in his eyes. "I
can't do anything. I can't make him better. I can only watch him get
worse."

She
cupped his cheek with her palm. It seemed the right thing to do. He leaned into
her hand, a troubled sigh breaking on his lips. He finally looked at her. His
eyes glittered. Her heart broke.

They
stood there that way. Silent, a spell of kinship having cloaked them. It was a
moment like none she'd ever experienced.