King of the Mound: My Summer With Satchel Paige by Wes Tooke Read Free Book Online Page A

and held it out.
    His father glanced at the shirt and then at Nick, his eyes dark and angry. “Where’s your head? Don’t waste a good shirt on blood.”
    Nick went back to the clothesline and traded the shirt for a sock with a hole in the heel. When he got back, his father snatched the sock, wrapped it tightly around his thumb, and then stared accusingly at the saw, which was lying on the ground next to the wall of the cabin.
    “Want me to get a doctor?” Nick asked.
    “I’ve spent enough money on doctors,” his father said. “And I’m certainly not paying for a house call.”
    “Doesn’t Dr. Burnhill treat the players for free?”
    “I ain’t on the team,” his father said, his voice a low growl. “And I’m worth nothing to Mr. Churchill with a bum thumb.” He looked at Nick and shook his head. “We’ve got to be the sorriest pair in North Dakota. Nothing but damaged goods.”
    “That isn’t fair,” Nick said quietly.
    His father rolled his eyes. “Life isn’t fair. Not for people like us. And you better stop dreaming and figure that outbecause otherwise you’ll end up hungry like those farmers outside town. Or, worse yet, a washed-up ballplayer with a dead wife and crippled son.”
    The last words slammed into Nick’s stomach like a punch, and although Nick bit his lip to keep water from spilling out of his eyes, his vision still got blurry. His father gave him a long look, a strange expression on his face, and then turned on his heel and marched out of the yard toward town. Nick hoped he was going to see the doctor after all, because one of the older brothers of a kid at school had cut his thumb on a saw and died a few weeks later of tetanus. And while his father could be mean, Nick still didn’t want him to get tetanus.
    It was at moments like this that Nick most missed his mother. With every passing year he remembered fewer details about her, but in his memory everything had been different before she caught tuberculosis. His father had certainly changed at her funeral as if someone had thrown a switch. He didn’t laugh anymore, ever, and he talked to Nick only when he was mad or giving instructions. At least they had shared baseball before Nick got sick, but now that Nick couldn’t pitch they had nothing. In fact, his father didn’t even want him around—Nick was sure of that. Maybe he looked too much like his mother, or maybe he was just an unpleasant reminder, as his father said, that life wasn’t fair .
    “Are you okay?”
    The voice cut across the yard. Nick looked up and saw Emma walking toward him, a towel slung over her shoulder.
    Nick wiped his face on his shirt. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
    “What happened to your dad? My mom said he waswalking toward town with his hand wrapped in a bloody sock.”
    “He cut his thumb with the saw.”
    “All the way off?”
    “Nope.”
    “I’ve got an uncle who’s missing two fingers on his left hand. But he got them shot off in the war.”
    “You talk a lot,” Nick said. He felt bad the moment the words came out of his mouth, but Emma just smiled.
    “Not usually,” she said. “But I like talking to you. Maybe it’s because you actually listen.”
    Nick didn’t quite know what to say, so he just looked back at her. After a moment her cheeks turned red. “I’m going swimming,” she said after an awkward pause. “Want to come?”
    Nick shook his head. “I haven’t swum since . . . well, you know.”
    “What? Do you think you forgot how to do it or something?”
    “No,” Nick said. “It’s just . . .”
    As Nick’s voice trailed off, he considered her offer. While he didn’t really want to go swimming—or do anything other than sit on the porch—he knew if he stayed at the cabin, he was just going to feel sorry for himself.
    “Fine,” he finally said. “I’ll go.”

    Whenever Nick had gone swimming, it had always been in the Missouri River, which was wide enough in most spots that not even Moose Johnson, who had the