The House of Daniel (5 page)

So I turned the knob and walked inside. A couple of men did sit in the dining room, smoking and shooting the breeze. One of them was the beat-down-looking older fellow I'd passed on my way out before. I nodded to him to show I remembered, and he gave it back. Then I went on down the hall.

No light under the door from room 13 now. Well, that didn't have to mean anything. I knocked, waited, and knocked again. Nothing but quiet on the other side of the door. Oh, maybe she was at a picture show. But maybe she'd listened to me after all. I could hope so—I could, and I did.

Out I went. I got another nod—a suspicious one this time, I thought—from that gray-haired guy. If he never saw me again, it wouldn't break his heart. If I never saw that boarding house again, it wouldn't've broken mine. And I never did. I've had my heart broken a few times since—life is like that. But the boarding house had nothing to do with any of 'em.

It was full dark, dark dark, by the time I left. I was heading back to the place where the Eagles stayed when a voice spoke to me out of the night: “Hey, buddy, wanna take all your troubles away?”

If that voice sounded like it belonged to a pretty girl, I bet I would've gone with her. Chances are I would've spent my cash and got up with more troubles than I'd lain down with. It didn't, though. It was a man's voice, a colored man's, deep and smooth and buttery. He didn't seem to want to knock me over the head or anything. No, he had the kind of voice that could've sold sand in the desert.

“What are you talking about?” I asked him—that's how smooth and slick he was. I knew better. Nobody who calls to you like that is out to do you a favor. He's out to do himself one. I understood that. I answered all the same.

“I work for a conjure man,” he said, and I bet he did. Maybe that was how come he sounded so good—his voice could've had a little spell on it. He went on, “Let me take you to him. The way you're stompin' along, I can tell somebody done you wrong. Once my master gets done, though, he'll fix you up so you never care about nothin' like that again.”

I didn't know I'd been stomping along. For all I can say, I hadn't been, and he was just spinning out a line like a spider to see if I stuck. But after that I wasn't stomping, and I know that for sure. I was running, running harder than when I chased down the liner that musclebound first baseman tagged. When the colored fella said
fix you up
, he meant
turn you into a zombie
. I sure wouldn't care about anything after that. Being a zombie's worse than dying and going to hell. Looks like that to me, anyway. When you go to hell, at least you know why. Zombies don't—can't—know. That's what makes 'em zombies.

Where would I have wound up? On a farm out West, pulling beets out of the ground forever? More likely at the Conoco works, rolling oil barrels around the way that zombie at the mill in Enid rolled flour barrels. One of the Greasemen might've seen me and laughed.

I tried to cock my head while I ran, so I could hear if the colored fella was gaining. He wasn't—he wasn't even chasing me. The bastard didn't need to bother. Way things are since the Big Bubble busted, getting rid of all your worries looks pretty damn good to more and more folks. Who cares what you do afterwards? You sure won't.

No, the conjure man's helper didn't need me. He'd find somebody else instead, somebody desperate enough to be glad to go with him. Then he'd be happy, and his boss would be happy, and Conoco would be happy, too. Everybody'd be happy—except for the somebody else. He'd be a zombie, sorrier than damned.

I had just slowed down from my wild run to a walk when a vampire jumped out at me from behind a parked Willys. Fry me for a catfish if I can tell you what the police and magic patrol were doing that night. Not keeping an eye on the streets between those two rooming houses—I can tell you that. Twice in a couple of blocks! I might as well've been in New York City, not Ponca City.

“Give me your blood!” the vampire said when he reached out for me. He talked the same way I did—none of that mush-mouthed foreign stuff. So he couldn't've been one of the ones who brought being a vampire to the States from the other side of the ocean. He'd been an ordinary Joe till one of them or one of the ones they got got him.

Which didn't mean I fancied his fangs punching into my neck. I whipped out my cross, quick as I could, and stuck it in his face. The cross flared, bright like a welding torch. I'd had to use it once or twice before, but I'd never seen it do anything like that. I must've had a lot more faith than usual, I guess because I was just thinking about zombies and hell and all.

“Arrh!” The vampire flinched away from the shining cross.

“Go kill a cow if you need blood that bad,” I said.

He made a horrible face. “I've been doing that too damn long. It's like eating grits without butter or salt all the time. I want something with some taste to it.”

“Well, you can't have me. Go on, git, or I'll make you sorry.” I eyed him. He was a miserable, scraggly excuse for a vampire. He'd likely been a miserable, scraggly excuse for a man, too. “Sorrier, I mean.”

He said something Pa would've belted me one for if he'd heard it out of my mouth. That didn't do him any good, either. So he slunk off, head down, in the direction I'd come from. Maybe he'd run across the conjure man's helper. I could hope so, anyway. Could the conjure man make a vampire into a zombie? Would the vampire want him to? Could the vampire get the drop on the conjure man's helper and drain him dry, or would the lousy bloodsucker get magicked away before he could bite? All kinds of interesting questions, and I'd never know the answers to any of them.

I came up with another one just before I got back to my rooming house. What would Rod have been telling the other Eagles about me while they were eating dinner? One more thing I didn't know the answer to yet, but there I figured I'd find out pretty darn quick.

Worrying about that might've been what gave me a fit of the shakes after I went into my room. Oh, I expect running across the conjure man's helper and the vampire within a couple of blocks of each other had a little somethin' to do with it, too. I'd got away from them. Could I get away from what I'd done? I mean, what I hadn't done?

I'd give it my best shot, same as I had with the Greaseman's line drive. Maybe I'd get lucky twice. In the meantime … In the meantime, I slid under the bedclothes and tried to fall asleep. I surprised myself—I did it.

Lightning Bug and Don and Mudfoot came in a while later. Quite a while, I'd guess. They'd done some celebrating, all right. They tried to keep quiet, but when a drunk does that he only makes more noise.

“See, he's here,” Mudfoot said. “Ace was full of it—he don't got no girlfriend in town. He just hung around and hit the sack.”

Well, Mudfoot had it partway right. Since that was closer than he usually came, let's leave it right there. I pulled the covers up over my head and did my best to go back to sleep. Damned if I didn't make it, too.

*   *   *

“Nope.” Next morning after breakfast, I shook my head at the rest of the Eagles. “I ain't goin' back to Enid with y'all.”

Don looked worried. He had a heart as fine as his fastball—and about as wild. “Rod told us you might have troubles in town,” he said, and by the way he said it I would've bet that wasn't all Rod said, not by a long chalk. “With us at your back, might be things wouldn't look so bad.”

More than half the team nodded. Rod didn't, and he didn't look too happy that so many did.
I
was happy—they really did like me. That made me feel good, but nowhere good enough to go back. “Thanks, boys, but I'll try Ponca City a while,” I said. “Nothin' in Enid for me, and not one of you bums can tell me different.”

They kind of shuffled their feet and stared down at their shoes, but nobody tried to make me think I was wrong. Don did ask, “How come you reckon you'll come across anything here?”

I shrugged. “Call it a change of luck. One of these days, could be you'll see me shagging flies in a Greasemen's uniform.”

They all shook their heads and made hex signs like the ones you use against the evil eye. Then they gathered round me and slapped me on the back and shook my hand and told me what a swell fella I was. One or two of 'em shoved money in my pocket, and it's not like they had a whole hell of a lot more than I did.

Yeah, Rod Graver shook my hand, too. “Shall I tell Big Stu you've set up shop here?” he asked.

“Tell him whatever you please,” I said. “You will anyway.”

He made a face, as if to say,
Hey, it's not my fault this guy gives me my marching orders. He gives 'em to the whole town
. He wasn't exactly wrong, as I had reason to know. But he wasn't exactly right, either. He stuck out his hand again. I took it. Why not? It wouldn't hurt anything. Of course, it also wouldn't help.

The old cars full of Eagles all started up, which is always a worry when you've got an old car. They pulled away from the curb. The guys waved till they turned the first corner and got out of sight. I stood there on the sidewalk, wondering what the dickens I'd do in a town where I knew nobody and nobody knew me.

I could stay in the roominghouse a while—it was cheap. But it'd be the first place Big Stu looked for me, so I'd best find a different one. I started walking, not going anywhere in particular but sort of heading downtown. Ponca City's a little smaller than Enid; I wouldn't take long to get there.

Downtown Ponca City looked like any other downtown about the same size—well, except that the city hall put me in mind of a Spanish mission dropped where one purely didn't belong. The train station. A couple of picture houses. A hotel that looked like it needed business. A doctor's office, and a lawyer's, and a dentist's, and a spectacle-maker's. An apothecary's shop.

Some more shops and stores. Most of them looked like they needed business, too, even though it was Saturday morning and they should've been jumping if they ever were. Same as you'd see in any other downtown, a good many shopfronts were closed, boarded over. You could kind of tell how long since each one went under by how many layers of flyers and posters were pasted on the boards. Some of the old paper was all raggedy, and fluttered in the breeze. Some of the posters were so new and fresh, they looked like they'd gone up right before I ambled by.

And dog my cats if they hadn't. BALLGAME TODAY! they yelled, and underneath it was that day's date written in by hand. The posters had a picture of two men in baseball uniforms with a big old lion's head, mouth open and roaring, embroidered on the chest. The ballplayers looked like lions, too. They wore their hair down to their shoulders or past 'em in a mane, and they had mustaches and shaggy beards to go along.

THE HOUSE OF DANIEL! the poster said, in letters bigger even than the ones for BALLGAME TODAY! In smaller type, it went on,
Today, the world-famous touring baseball team comes to your town! Be there to enjoy the show!
More handwriting said they were playing the Ponca City Greasemen at the Conoco Ball Park, and that it'd cost fifty cents to get in.

The House of Daniel! I knew who they were. Any semipro ballplayer would have, and does to this day. They were the best of our bunch, like the New York Hilltoppers are in the big leagues. They're based in a little churchy town up in Wisconsin or somewhere like that, but they barnstorm the whole country. They play the year around, too. For the winter, they head on out to the West Coast, where the weather stays good. Or they go south of the border, or take ship to the Sandwich Islands.

They beat the St. Louis Archdeacons once. They've barnstormed alongside big-leaguers, and had 'em on their team once they got too old to stick in the majors. They've played against the top colored teams, too, in places where the laws let you do that.

They aren't part of a league or anything—never have been. So they're semipros, just like the Enid Eagles. But they're semipro royalty, and the Eagles … ain't.

Funny how none of the Greasemen said anything to us about this game. Or not so funny, I guess. They didn't want us to know, for fear we'd make our own matchup with the House of Daniel. This way, they got the bragging rights and their share of the big gate, and they left us with hind tit.

No, not
us
. I wasn't an Enid Eagle any more. It hadn't sunk in yet. I didn't realize till that moment how much it hadn't sunk in.

I started west and south, back toward the Conoco Ball Park. I didn't know downtown Ponca City real well, but by gum I knew how to get to the field. I wanted to see how the Greasemen stood up against the House of Daniel, and I wanted to see those traveling hotshots go through their paces.

And … I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, my mouth falling open. I stopped again, at the roominghouse, and stuck my spikes and glove and uniform in a sack I begged from the widow woman. If I could somehow sweet-talk the House of Daniel into taking me along with 'em, I'd go so far and so fast, Big Stu'd never catch up with me. Even if they said no, which they likely would, how was I worse off? You got to try in this old world, or nothing happens a-tall.

 

(III)

“What you got in there?” The ticket-seller pointed at my sack when I gave him four bits. “Don't want nobody chuckin' bottles or nothin' at the House of Daniel guys. Could be they wouldn't come back here no more.” That would've hurt Ponca City where it lived—right in the old wallet.

“Ain't gonna chuck this stuff at 'em.” I showed him my baseball gear.

He recognized the uniform, even from the little bit he saw. “Oh. You're one o' them damn Eagles.” His lip kinda curled up. “Well, go on in. They won't be lookin' for no riffraff like you.”