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The Pitcher
The boy named Raymond is as tall as Jewel and looks just as angry. He flips the rock up and down in his hand and says something I can’t hear. Joe’s head jerks away, his arm comes up. Raymond raises his fist.

Joe’s only eight. Raymond towers over him. “Hey!” I yell.

“Kitty!” Bill says through his teeth. “Shutup.”

Raymond turns and stares at us. Then he lets the rock fly. I duck behind Bill and cover my head as the rock skips through the gravel and lands in the ditch.

Raymond waves his hand off toward the creek. “This is our spot,” he says. His voice is hard and angry. “You don’t belong here.” He points up the road. “Go on that way.”

The Indian kids disappear through the brush.

I’m so angry — or maybe scared — I’m shaking.

None of us wants to stay and argue. We take off and get a good hundred yards farther before I can make myself stop and turn around. The road behind us is empty.

“Who is that kid?” I ask.

“The pitcher who swore at the coach yesterday,” says Jimmy. “Again.”

He bends down and touches his ankle — a big old goose egg, swollen and purple.

“So, you get to pitch tonight?” I ask Bill.

“Yeah,” he says. “That rock was probably meant for me.”

I want to get off this stretch of open road and away from those angry kids. “I don’t want to go swimming anymore.”

“C’mon,” Bill says. “They’re gone. We’ll find the path up here and forget about it.” But he just stands there, not going any farther.

Finally, Jimmy says, “Aw, let’s go home.” He turns away from the sun and limps down the road.

Bill shakes his head at me and Joe. “Not a word to Mom,” he says. No worry about that — she’d never let us go anywhere again if she knew.

I’m sweaty and dusty and scared. I don’t see any of the Indian kids, but I can hear them shrieking and laughing in the water. We start the long walk back toward Warm Springs.

At the curve at the end of the straight stretch, Bill calls, “Car!” and waves us off into the ditch. For once I’m glad he’s here to order us around. I didn’t even hear the engine.

I turn to see a roiling cloud of dust and gravel and then a battered black pickup bearing down on us. It skids to a stop just ahead and slowly backs up.

“Now what?” says Jimmy.

The pickup pulls alongside us and stops. The driver leans out the open window — an older Indian woman about my grandma’s age. “What’re you kids doing out here?” she asks. She has a deep blue scarf tied over her hair, and her face is creased deep, stern. I can’t see her eyes behind her dark glasses.

There is a pause. Bill points back up the road. “We were going swimming.”

“Your folks know?”

Jimmy nods quickly and so does Bill.

Then she peers down at Jimmy’s ankle. “Looks like trouble.”

Jimmy and Bill nod again.

“Back there,” the lady tilts her head, “is the swinging bridge. That’s the Indian kids’ swimming hole. Yours is about a half mile farther on.”

“Yeah,” says Bill. “We found out.”

She kind of chuckles, then says, “Long walk on a hot day. I’ll give you kids a ride home.”

I don’t want to walk anymore. Mom will have a fit if we take a ride with a stranger, but this lady is nice.

“No, thank you,” Bill says. “We’re fine.”

I’m disappointed. We’re never allowed to ride in the back of Dad’s truck, since it’s for official use only. And way too dangerous, Mom says. I notice Jimmy’s ankle. It’s purple and huge, and blood is dribbling down into his tennis shoe. We need to do something.

“A ride would be great,” I say quickly. “Thank you.”

Bill shakes his head at me, but I ignore him. “We live on the upper campus, right by the office,” I tell the lady.

She nods. “Your dad’s the new forest manager.”

How does she know?I wonder as we scramble up into the bed of the truck, and she takes off down the long road.

When we pull into the driveway, Mom is out in the yard watering the zinnias. She frowns when she sees us in the back of the pickup. We spill out of the truck bed as fast as we can.

As the lady comes around the front of the pickup, Mom sets down the hose and walks over. “Oh, hello,” she says, smiling and extending her hand. “I’m Mary Schlick.” 

The lady takes it and smiles up at her. “My name is Bessie,” she says. “I found your children out on Shitike Road.”

She’s wearing a cotton dress that goes down to the tops of the moccasins on her feet. The dress is navy blue and tied at her waist with a woven belt. An underdress in pink calico, tight at her wrists, shows under the wide sleeves draping over her shoulders. Mom told me it’s called a wing dress. When we first got here, I noticed that most of the older Indian women who go into the tribal offices next to our house wear them.

Jimmy hustles around the side of the house, forcing himself not to limp. I know better than to catch Mom’s eye, but Joe looks up.

“Honey?” she asks. “How was the swim?”

“Great, Mom, good time, gotta go to the bathroom.” And he jumps for the steps and slams the back door.

Bill and I hang back. I wonder if the lady is going to tell Mom the whole story about how we met.

“Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?” Mom asks.

The lady smiles and shakes her head. “Gotta get to McKenzie’s for the mail.” She climbs back into the pickup.

“Thank you for the ride,” I say, relieved that she didn’t tell Mom anything else.

I hurry through the house to my bedroom, sniffing for the hint of smoke that clings to Dad’s clothes after a fire. There’s nothing in the air. He hasn’t come home yet.

My bedroom window is open, shaded by the big locust tree. As I change back into shorts and a T-shirt, I hear Mom talking in the yard.

“Youpromisedme.” She does not sound happy.

“We stuck together,” Bill says, his voice calm.

“How come you didn’t swim?” she asks.

“What?”

The toilet flushes, and Joe opens the bathroom door. I wave him into my room. “Listen to this.”

Mom says, “. . . and nobody’s hair was wet.”

“It was a long walk. Before she picked us up.”

“And what happened to Jimmy’s ankle?” she asks.

Bill stalls. “We didn’t want to tell you this, Mom . . .” he begins.

Gee—don’t just give it to her!

“. . . but Joe was throwing rocks.”

Joe sucks in a big breath. I clamp my hand onto his arm and glare at him.Keep quiet.He looks like he is about to pop.

I can hear Mom’s sigh all the way in here. “Did he apologize?”

“Oh, sure. Jimmy wasn’t sore . . . well, he was sore, but it’s not going to hurt his catching or anything.”

Joe gets the wholeWhat were you thinking?lecture. I’m surprised that he takes it. But he scowls at Bill:You owe me.