The House of Daniel by Harry Turtledove Page A

don’t think he did. Without their fellow in the lime and the pumpkin and the skull with the fedora, we ended up whupping ’em good. Final was 9-4. I got one hit—not the homer I wanted, but a single. It would do. It would have to.
    â€œGood game,” the Metros’ manager said when he came over to shake hands after the last out. It didn’t quite sound like Now go swallow rat poison , but it was on the way there.
    â€œWhy, thanks,” Harv said. “Nice to see you let one of your colored brethren out of their section so he could sit with the white people.”
    The Amarillo man’s face congealed like fat in an icebox. “Cornelius, he sits where he wants to,” he said.
    â€œShits where he wants to? Well, ain’t that nice?” Harv went right on smiling. I would’ve punched the Amarillo guy, swear I would. Now I look back on it, though, Harv’s way was better. It hurt worse, and it would sting for longer. He hardly ever cussed, but he couldn’t resist that one. We gave old Cornelius something fresh to think on, too. Well, ain’t that nice?

 
    (V)
    Tulia’s fifty miles south of Amarillo. Only a couple of thousand people there, but Eddie Lelivelt told me they had themselves a pretty fair town team. It was one of the outfits the Amarillo Greys used to tangle with, and you can take that however you want—I guess they did.
    But the House of Daniel felt right at home when the bus chugged in there. Quite a few of the Tulia men were raising whiskers along with their wheat and cows. “Good thing you fellers won’t be here for Old Settlers’ Day month after next,” one of them said. “They give a prize for the best whiskers, and y’all’ve got yourselves a running start.”
    â€œHow big a prize?” Wes asked. “If it’s big enough, maybe we’ll come back.” He smiled so the local could think he was joshing if he wanted to.
    The bristly man from Tulia said, “It’s only twenty-five smackers. Wish it was more, but times is tough all over.”
    We’d seen that on the way down from Amarillo. Plenty of what had been farms weren’t any more, on account of nobody lived on ’em. Tulia wasn’t like Pampa; it didn’t have the oil fields to keep it going. It was hurting so bad, it could’ve been in Oklahoma.
    Maybe there were folks with nothing to fear but fear itself. I’ll tell you, though, plenty more with getting thrown out of work to fear, or getting foreclosed on and tossed out on the street, or not finding a new job if you’d already lost the one you used to have, or not being able to feed your kids and put clothes on their backs, or not being able to feed yourself and put clothes on your own back.
    Shack I’d lived in, getting foreclosed on would’ve just been a laugh. I’d been all those other places, though, and more besides. Would I have taken up with Big Stu if I hadn’t? Well, I like to think I wouldn’t have, any road.
    Tulia team called themselves the Ravens. No, I don’t know why. Because they did, that’s why. Socks and caps and uniform letters and piping, those were all green. Ever seen a green raven? Me, neither.
    But they beat us. They had a spotty-faced kid throwing for ’em, and he just rared back and flung, and we never could catch up to him. We managed one run, but they got three.
    I almost made the last out. I purely hate doing that. It’s like everything’s my fault then. I was proud of myself when I worked the kid for a walk. A round-tripper would tie it. A groundout to second wouldn’t, and that was what we got.
    After the last out, the Ravens started yelling and pounding on each other like they’d just licked the Wolves and they were all gonna get fat Series checks. Folks in the grandstand weren’t what you’d call sedate, either. Looked like the whole little town was there, or pretty