“P-Pearl?”

“The poor creature whose life you just placed in jeopardy. She had babies-pups-kittens-whatever one calls the offspring of that marsupial. You placed them all in jeopardy.”

“I didn’t see any b-b-babies, Henry.”

“Still, she has five or six. They ride in her pouch. That belly-flop may have injured or killed them.” He climbed to the window and ducked through it like King Kong squeezing through a slit in a detergent box.

Henry’s anger kept me from asking him more about his lie. Surely it hadn’t taken him all night to walk around the pond and bring a possum up the fire stairs. But, if it had, I’d called him a liar and shown myself a scapegoating petty brute.

Later that day, before our final game with Quitman, Mister JayMac came into the dining room. He had Euclid with him, a scared ragamuffin in a one-armed headlock, and he addressed us with the poor kid helpless in front of him. With his free hand, Mister JayMac knuckled Euclid’s hair… softly. You got the feeling, though, a sudden move from Euclid would turn that soft touch into a hurtful grind.

“Darius has been gone for almost three days,” Mister JayMac said. “Have any of yall laid eyes on him since Tuesday?”

I glanced down the table to where Henrv sat, a mound of squash, collards, fried eggplant slices, and popcorn okra piled on his dinner platter. He caught my glance and barely visibly shook his head.

“How bout Euclid there?” Sosebee asked. “Does that little picaroon know anything?”

“Claims he doesn’t,” Mister JayMac said. “Could be lying. But for now I’m not asking Euclid, I’m asking yall.”

“Darius don’t check in and out with us,” Trapdoor Evans said. “Why should we know moren the boy?”

“All right, then,” Mister JayMac said. “From this moment on, I regard Darius Satterfield as AWOL.”

“As what?” Fadeaway Ankers said.

“Absent without leave,” Muscles said. “AWOL.”

“As if our team were like unto the Army?” Henry said Army the way a Holy Roller would say Episcopalian.

“Insofar as I require that sort of dedication, yes,” Mister JayMac said. “Furthermore, it appears Darius has deserted us.”

“Which reminds me.” Fadeaway looked at Henry. “You’ve still got our bet money, Jumbo. We’d like it back.”

“You lost the wager. The money is no longer yours.”

“Well, it was never yours, Jumbo. So pass it on back to us fellas it rightfully belonged to.”

“You lost the wager,” Henry repeated. “The money shall go to Charlie Snow’s widow.”

“On whose authority did you decide that?” Mister JayMac said. “Vera Jo’s being well taken care of, I can assure you.”

On whose authority? I looked at Henry again. Would he confess we’d spoken to Darius after the funeral yesterday?

“Do you believe, sir, that the funds of a lost wager should go back into the pockets of those who haughtily wagered them? I do not, even as I deplore the impulse to gamble.”

Mister JayMac looked stymied. When Euclid began to fidget, he pulled his forearm tighter under Euclid’s chin, and the boy steadied down again. “How many of yall object to giving the fifty to Mrs Snow?”

“Jeez,” Fadeaway said. “I shore aint crazy bout it.”

“Okay by me,” Evans said sullenly.

Jerry Wayne Sosebee said, “Let her have it. A widow’s a widow. Bible says to care for em.”

“I’ll give the money to her.” Henry didn’t specify how or when, but nobody thought to call him on that because when Henry gave his word, you could trust him on it-which made me recall, and regret again, the possum-on-the-steps business.

Mister JayMac let go of Euclid, who rubbed his neck. “Eyes out for Darius. Anybody sees him, let me know. Meanwhile, I’ve put a new lock on his apartment. Somebody, possibly even Darius himself, visited the place last night and made off with some of his belongings. Euclid says it wasn’t him. Anyway, yall stay out of there. It’s off-limits.”

Just like The Wing & Thigh, I thought.

“If he’s not at his mama’s, Euclid can sleep on the kitchen porch. Show him some courtesy when he’s out there.”

“Will do,” Muscles said, speaking as our captain.

“LaGrange beat the Seminoles again last night,” Mister JayMac said, changing the subject. “We’re still three back. We’ve got to beat Quitman again to make our weekend series against the Gendarmes profitable-to rebound completely from our deficit.”

“N I go?” Euclid said.

Mister JayMac waved at him like he would’ve a buzzing June bug, and Euclid banged into the kitchen. The balloon of worry inside me deflated a little; I could breathe again. Euclid, pressed hard enough, might’ve spilled the news of my midnight visit to the buggy-house apartment.

“Any yall looked at our schedule beyond this weekend?” Mister JayMac asked.

“We play LaGrange again next week,” Muscles said. “Two games away before we hit Cottonton for three more.”

“If we lose to the ’Birds tonight and play like slew-foots against the Gendarmes, we could be eight or nine games out of first by Thursday night-with less than a month to play.”

“Accentuate the positive, sir,” Muscles advised. “We also play the Gendarmes our last three homies of the season.”

“If we’re down eight or nine by Friday night, that last series won’t mean mouse-scat, Mr Musselwhite.”

“Nosir, I guess not.” Everybody sat quiet while we mulled the crucialness of our next few games-crunch time, today’s sports hacks’d call it. Then Muscles said, “We’re sure going to miss Charlie, Mister JayMac.”

“If you’re alibing in advance, you’d better-”

“I try not to alibi,” Muscles said, barb-sharp. “Alibi or no alibi, we’re going to miss Charlie a lot.”

“We’ve got a roster spot to fill,” Dunnagin said. “We can’t play our next dozen or so games with nineteen guys when LaGrange and everybody else have twenty.”

“I’m working on that.” Mister JayMac banged through the door into the kitchen. The rest of us went gratefully back to eating, and Kizzy came in with three hot peach pies on a big lacquered dowel rack.

We beat Quitman again. Henry hit two glowing, cometlike homers, but I had a measly single in five plate appearances and didn’t score a run.

That night, Henry heard me crying and sat up. “You did well, Daniel. Not once did you strike out. The Hellbenders won. No need for tears.”

“S nothing to do with the d-d-damned game.”

“Then what provokes this despondency? Mr Snow’s death? Mr Satterfield’s departure? Euclid’s bereavement?”

Who wouldn’t’ve been depressed? I sure had causes enough.

“Tell me,” Henry prompted.

“My f-f-father,” I said. And that was so. Partly so, anyway. Maybe more than partly.

48

Next morning, early, I sloughed downstairs and sat in a rocker on the porch facing Angus Road-to take the air and clear the dustbunnies out of my head. The lawn lay fresh-mown and dewy. A gray catbird tiptoed over the clippings looking for crickets, grubs, earthworms. I’d watched it for maybe ten minutes, occasional jays or mockingbirds swooping down to inspect the lawn too, when a figure on a bicycle came through the gate and pedaled up the drive towards McKissic House.

The rider wore a split-seam khaki skirt, bobby sox, and a pair of black and white shoes that kids after the war called squad cars. She stood off her seat to get more traction, and her bike squeaked and clattered, swaying from side to side like a boat in a heavy chop. The rider on that contraption was Phoebe. She dropped her bike like a hot rivet and bounded up the porch steps.

“Danny, you seen Miss LaRaina?”

The question-at six-thirty in the morning, even a Saturday morning-seemed damned abrupt.

“My mother,” she added.

I’d known what she meant, I just hadn’t expected to speak to anyone so early. I shook my head.

“Does that mean you aint seen her or you don’t think she’s here or you jes don’t plan to talk to me?”