The Big Rock Candy Mountain Read Online Free

In the very first inning he caught an Oasis man trying to steal second, caught him by three feet with a perfect ankle-high peg. After that the opposing baserunners took short leads and went down only with the crack of the bat. When he came up to bat the first time, Mason was out on a screaming grass-cutter that the first baseman tried in vain to get out of the way of, but in the fifth he drove in two runs with a thunderous triple that chased the centerfielder far back in the wild mustard. Helm, pounding Elsa on the back, announced three times that it would have been a homer sure except for that trick knee.
    In the seventh inning the score was tied, eight to eight. The first two Oasis hitters were easy outs. The next one was a slugger. The stocky youngster on the mound took his time, mopping his neck with a bandanna between pitches. Squatting on his hams behind the plate, Bo Mason talked it up. Easy out, easy out! Give him the old dark one.
    The pitcher wound up and threw. Strike! The hitter swung so hard he had to put the end of his bat down to keep from falling. “You need a little oil on your hinges, son,” Mason told him, and the stands hooted. Next pitch, ball. Next one, ball again. Mason’s soothing voice went out over the infield. “All right, boy. Can’t hit what he can’t see. Right down the old alley. Let him swing like a shutter in a cyclone. Feed it to him, he’s got a glass eye.”
    The next pitch was grooved, and the Oasis slugger rode it deep into left field. The fielder lost it in the sun, and the runner went down to second, his feet pumping quick explosions in the dust. A strained look showed him the fielder still chasing the rolling ball, and he legged it for third, where the players on the sidelines waved him frantically home.
    Mason, his teeth showing in his dark face, waited spraddle-legged in front of home plate. The relay from the short stop reached him two steps ahead of the runner, who swerved, skidded, and scrambled back for third. He was in the box. The crowd was on its feet, yelling, as Mason chased him carefully back, holding the throw. He faked, then threw, and the runner reversed and tore for home again. But the ball was there before him, and the catcher blocked the baseline. The Oasis man put his head down and butted through under Mason’s ribs, and Mason, as he was plowed out of the path, lifted the ball and tagged him, hard, on the top of his bare head.
    The sound of ball on skull cracked in the heat, and the grand-stand let go a long, shivering “Ahhhhhhhhhh!” This might mean a fight. They stood higher in the stands, eyes joyful and faces expectant. “Atta boy, Bo!” they said. “Atsy old way to slow him down!”
    Karl Norgaard was standing by the buggy wheel, his pinkish hair damp. He was concentrating on the figure of the Oasis man, slowly pushing himself up from the dust with his flat palms. Karl’s voice rose with him in the expectant hush, thin, tremulous, singsong: “Batter we gat a doctor. Ay tank he ban sunstruck.”
    The stands exploded in mirth that rode the thick hot air and echoed off the elevators. The Oasis man scowled, looking at Mason, standing just off the baseline with the ball in his hand. Contemptuously Mason pulled off his mitt and turned his back, walking over to the Hardanger bench. With his head down the Oasis man started after him, pursued by the hoots of the spectators, who began to jump down from the lower tiers to get in on the scrap. But other Oasis players grabbed their fellow’s elbows and held him while he stood in the clover, fists balled, swearing. Then abruptly he jerked himself loose and ran back into centerfield, and the crowd settled back.
    After that there wasn’t much to the game. Hardanger batted around in the eighth; the final score was sixteen to nine. After the game Helm yelled until Bo Mason came over, and as he stood talking at the buggy wheel Elsa forgot her dislike for