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  SLIDER’S SON

  Slider’s Son

  Rebecca Fjelland Davis

  Copyright © 2017 Rebecca Fjelland Davis

  Cover design by Wendy Bateman

  ISBN: 978-1-68201-061-7

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, in entirely coincidental.

  First edition: September 2017

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published by

  North Star Press

  19485 Estes Road

  Clearwater, MN 55320

  www.northstarpress.com

  “I would rather be ashes than dust!”

  – Jack London

  “Don’t hope. Don’t try. Just do.”

  – Dr. Bronstein

  Part One

  What Happened That Summer

  July 1937

  Larkin, North Dakota

  One

  Play Ball and Hold Your Nose

  Grant O’Grady slid into his place at the dinner table.

  Mamie frowned at Grant. “You’re late, son. Noon whistle was ten minutes ago.”

  “Sorry, Mom. We had two outs and two strikes on them and had to finish the third inning. And something stinks, but we can’t find it.”

  Grant’s sister Shirley looked up from the book she thought she was hiding in her lap. “You stink.”

  “Stop it,” Mamie said. “No way to talk.”

  Six-year-old Harley squirmed. “Grant, were you pitchin’?” He whirled his arm in a wild baseball pitching motion.

  Grant glanced at his mom, then back at Harley. “Yup.”

  “You get ’em?” Slider, Grant’s dad, asked, without looking up from the newspaper that was folded beside his plate, a spoonful of mashed potatoes poised near his mouth.

  “Alfred, hush,” Mamie said. “You’re encouraging him.”

  Grant grinned. “Yup. With a slider.”

  Slider looked up and winked at Grant, out of Mamie’s line of vision. “How’s the elbow holding up? Healing okay?”

  Grant rubbed his right elbow and shrugged. “Okay, I guess. Only hurts a little, mostly when I get tired. But, Dad, something stinks behind home plate—”

  Harley whirled another make-believe pitch and his hand caught his glass of milk, sending it scooting across the table, splattering milk all over the oilcloth table covering as it went.

  Quick as a flash, Mamie’s hand shot out and caught the glass, her movement so fast the glass was still half full in her hand.

  “Holy mackerel, Mom, you could play shortstop with those hands.”

  Slider laughed. “Fastest hands in the county. That’s my Mamie.”

  “Hush!” Mamie’s face turned red. “See what you started? Grant, grab a rag. Harley, that’s no way to behave at the table. You know better.”

  Harley sank into his chair, lip out.

  Grant jumped up from his chair, snatched the sink rag from its nail under the basin, and mopped the streak of milk from the oilcloth. He swiped up a couple drips that had hit the linoleum floor, too. He put the milky rag into the basin.

  “While you’re at it, Granty, did you wash?”

  Grant hated it when his mom called him Granty, but he turned back to the basin, pumped two shots of water into the dishpan, and scrubbed. Good thing. The water turned gray with baseball-diamond dust. He tossed the dirty water out the back door onto Mamie’s daisies.

  “Who’s Amelia Ear-heart?” asked Shirley, ten, reading Slider’s newspaper headline upside down from across the table. “Amelia Earhart Still Missing,” said the bold print.

  “A woman pilot,” Slider answered. “Her plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.”

  “And they can’t find her? Why not? Where is she?”

  “She disappeared, so nobody knows why,” Slider said, scooping up the last of his pile of mashed potatoes. “And if they knew where she was, they wouldn’t be sayin’ she was missing, would they?”

  “Are they looking for her?” Shirley asked.

  Grant wiped his hands on the flour-sack towel on another nail, his stomach rumbling. “You ask too many questions.”

  “Do not.”

  “She was flying around the world,” Mamie said. “Imagine that.”

  “What’s the Paci’c Ocean?” asked Harley.

  “Like a giant lake,” Grant said, wiping his hands once more on his pants and scooting back onto his chair, “only bigger than the whole United States.”

  Harley frowned.

  “I might be a lady pilot,” Shirley said. “I wouldn’t disappear. Maybe I’ll be the first lady pilot to fly all around the world.” She glared at Grant. “Alone.”

  Grant ignored her. “Dad,” he said, slipping a chicken leg and thigh onto his plate in one movement, “There’s a horrible smell behind home plate.”

  Slider stopped spooning a second serving of mashed potatoes, his favorite food in the world, into his mouth. Mamie hated that he ate them with a spoon, but she had given up on changing his habit. Slider set down his spoon. “What kind of horrible?”

  “Rotten. Like dead animal. Only worse than any dead animal I ever smelled. Worse than a bunch o’ skunks. It’s bad. You can hardly breathe.”

  Slider picked up the other chicken thigh. “You boys look for dead deer or coons or weasels or anything? Check the ditches?”

  “We looked everywhere. It stinks most by the houses. It’s . . .” Grant glanced at his mom again. “It’s coming from Little Joe’s house. And there’s nowhere for an animal to get in. We checked.”

  “I thought the Thorsons went on vacation,” Mamie said. “To Reservation Lake and to visit Mrs. Thorson’s family.”

  “They did. They’re gone,” Grant said. “House is locked.”

  “They left when?” Slider asked. “Friday?”

  Slider was county sheriff, and his real name was Alfred, but everybody called him Slider or Sheriff Slider instead of Sheriff O’Grady—because he pitched for the town league baseball team, the Larkin Meadowlarks, and threw the wickedest slider in the state, folks said.

  Folks also said that Grant inherited his dad’s arm. At least until he broke his elbow last winter. Grant wanted nothing more than to pitch in the big leagues. Secretly, he wanted to be the next Bob Feller, who was supposed to pitch for the Fargo-Moorhead Twins before the Cleveland Indians swept the seventeen-year-old pitcher onto their roster right out of high school. But Grant had to live up to his own dad’s reputation right here in Larkin first.

  Slider took a bite of meat off the thighbone. “Maybe I’ll come ump your game after dinner,” he said with his mouth full.

  “Really? That’d be the berries, Dad.”

  Grant got up to clear the plates while Mamie and Slider were still drinking pale coffee.

  Shirley got up, huffed, and slid a Bobbsey Twins book from her lap onto the chair. “I don’t know what’s your rush. I could have sat there another five minutes.”

  “Sorry, sis. Gotta get back to my game. And Dad’s going to ump, so I want to get there fast. I can throw harder if he’s calling pitches.”

  “And everybody will complain that your dad’s on your side if he calls everything strikes when you pitch,” she said. She lugged the kettle of water from the stove, where it had been warming through dinner for dishwashing. She dumped half the kettle into the basin and crumbled some soap flakes into it. “Maybe I should come play for the other team. Even things out.”

  Grant rolled his eyes.

  “I could, you know.”

  Grant nodded. “I know. You’re better than half the passel of them. But the
guys would never let me hear the end of it if a girl came. Sorry, Shirl.” He poured more of the hot water into the rinsing pan by the drain board.

  “When I’m a famous lady pilot, you’ll wish you’d let me play.”

  “Tend your work, young lady,” Mamie said. “Don’t let your ideas get too high-falluting.”

  Shirley glowered and dropped silverware into the dishwater. Harley carried his plate to the drainboard. “I can play ball.”

  “Someday, Harley,” Grant said. “Not today.”

  “That’s what you always say. When’s someday, anyway?” Harley stuck out his bottom lip again and plunked down in the door between the kitchen and the living room with his wooden locomotive that Uncle Neil had carved for him last Christmas.

  “What do you think the stink is?” Shirley asked.

  “Probably some animal crawled under the foundation and is rotting,” Grant said. “It’s at Little Joe’s house for sure. And it’s bad.”

  After Grant and Shirley finished the dishes, Slider grabbed his own baseball glove. “Let’s go.”

  Grant and Slider walked side by side to the ball diamond, Grant swinging his glove in one hand and tossing a baseball up and down in the other.

  Orland Bjelland, Frank Swanson, and Sammy Phelan were already on the infield, playing catch.

  “Hello, Sheriff Slider,” Orland called. “You gonna investigate the stink?”

  “Dad’s going to ump!” Grant said.

  “That’s swell! Too bad for you, Frank,” Sammy said. “Now you gotta swing at every strike.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said, “but you’ll never match Little Joe for catching. Can’t catch as good as a half-breed Injun.” Little Joe Thorson was Grant’s regular catcher, and nobody else could catch Grant’s fast pitches all the time. Mrs. Thorson was a beautiful Mandan Indian, and Big Joe Thorson was a big white Scandinavian drunk.

  “You’re just a piss-ant,” Sammy said to Frank, jumping to catch a high throw, “’cause Grant struck you out this morning.” He tossed the ball to Orland.

  “I couldn’t breathe,” Frank said, “the stink was so bad. And it’s even worse now than it was this morning. Peee-uew.”

  “It’s hotter, too,” Slider said. “That might be why.” He walked to the wire backstop and hooked the fingers of one hand in it, still holding a ball in his glove with the other. He stood, looking toward little Joe’s house, his nose paying attention like a dog’s, and then he turned and tossed the ball to Grant. “Wanna warm up, son? How’s the elbow feel?”

  “It’s okay. Barely hurts at all.”

  They threw back and forth while the other boys trickled into the field and warmed up, too, throwing to each other in pairs and squares since they only had four baseballs among them.

  Grant and Frank had their own store-bought gloves, but nobody else’s families could afford gloves. Some of the boys used their dads’ or uncles’ hand-me-downs, big fat-fingered cowhide contraptions with padding on the palm. Some had homemade gloves—leather work gloves with worn-out socks stuffed inside for padding.

  Grant, on the mound, toed the strip, and wound up. He let a fastball fly down the shoot. Slider snapped it in his glove and stood. “I wish I had a catcher’s mitt. Where’s Little Joe when you need to borrow a mitt?”

  “On vacation,” Sammy said. “Visiting his Indian relatives.”

  Slider grinned. “I know. That’s what is called a rhetorical question, Sammy.”

  Sammy’s face turned red, and he threw an especially hard, high one at Orland, who missed it and had to trot to the outfield to retrieve it.

  “Batter up!” Slider called, and took his place behind home. “Top of the fourth inning.”

  Tim Sutton went to the mound for the other team. Grant trotted to the Meadowlarks’ dugout, where he and his whole team pulled their shirts over their noses to keep out the stink.

  In the last inning, with two outs on the other team, Frank was up to bat. Grant wound up, threw a fastball, and Frank watched the pitch go by.

  “Strike!” Slider said. “Right down the pipe.”

  “I know,” Frank said, “But I could hardly see it. So durned fast. And I can’t breathe with this stink.”

  “Quit bein’ a sissy and swing,” Sammy said. “I’m breathin’ it, too.” He tossed the baseball back to Grant. “Keep ’em comin’ fast like that, Grant.”

  “Keep it up, Grant!” Orland yelled from the outfield, where he covered left and center fields because he had the fastest legs and glove of them all. “You’re gettin’ your arm back for sure.”

  If Grant had a chance to make the majors when he turned seventeen, just like his hero Bob Feller, he needed to be able to strike out ol’ Frank easy as pie.

  Frank swung at the next curve ball and missed.

  “Come on, Frank,” yelled Sue, the runner on first base. His real name was Seward, but none of the boys called him anything except Sue. “Swing like Babe Ruth!”

  “He’s retired,” Frank yelled back. “Or don’t you know that much?”

  “Swing like Lou Gehrig, then! Just hit me home!”

  Grant wound up and threw a slider.

  Frank swung low for all he was worth and missed by a fraction of an inch, almost going down with the centrifugal force of the bat.

  “Strike three!” Sammy screamed, snagging the pitch as it dug into the dirt just behind home plate. “You’re outta there!” He leapt from his catcher’s crouch, the ball in his mitt. Sammy waggled his mitt at Grant. “And I finally caught one o’ your sliders!”

  Sue came trotting across the infield and muttered to Grant, “Doesn’t matter if we have an ump or not. I can’t get home no matter what.”

  Grant said, “Glad we’re on the same team when it matters in the league games.”

  Grant’s team won six to one. The boys gathered their bats and gloves.

  “Sheriff Slider, can we go with you to investigate the stink?” Orland asked.

  “Naw. You boys run on home,” Slider said.

  Orland sighed but turned to head home like the rest of the boys. They all had chores to do.

  “How’s that elbow?” Slider asked Grant. “Got a few more pitches in you?”

  “Not bad. Sure I do.”

  “Want to throw me a couple more? Work on that outside curve?”

  Slider showed Grant how he could position his fingers, move his wrist, and release the ball for an outside curve. Grant tried it, and got it right twice.

  “Better, son. Keep at it.” Slider straightened up. “I got to snoop around for this stink. And that might be enough for your elbow for one day.”

  Together, Slider and Grant walked toward Little Joe’s house, and the smell worsened with every step.

  “Three days,” Slider said, mostly to himself. “And it’s hotter ’n blazes.” Slider walked around the foundation, looking for cracks. He saw nothing big enough to let in anything larger than a mouse.

  When they’d walked around the front side of the house again, the Widow Larson came out her front door. “Sheriff Slider. What’s that dead stink? Stinks to high heaven. It’s got in my house now. It’s too hot to shut the windows to keep it out.”

  “When did you first notice it, Edna?”

  “Yesterday morning. By last night, it was getting bad. This morning, it was worse, and it’s been raising hell itself all day long. Seems to me to be coming from that Indian woman’s house.” She nodded toward Little Joe Thorson’s.

  Slider nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Now don’t go by me, and she’s a right nice person and all, but I don’t reckon an Indian knows how to keep a proper house.” She settled down on her front porch wooden chair, watching Grant and Slider.

  “Yes, she does,” Grant said. “It’s clean as a whistle. I’ve been in there—”

  “Let it go, son,” Slider said. “Isn’t worth it.”

  Grant frowned at his dad and closed his mouth. They went around the side of the house, out of her view. “Dad? Why’d you say to let
it go? Widow Larson shouldn’t say that about Mrs. Thorson.”

  “Can’t change some folks’ ignorant opinions about Indians, son. Not worth wastin’ your breath.”

  At the back door, Slider fished his knife out of his pocket, slid it into the keyhole. He stopped and frowned. “Look, Grant. Somebody else messed with this lock. See that?”

  Grant nodded. He could see metal scratch marks on the keyhole plate, and some chips were missing on the edge of the door where the latch went from the door into the doorjamb.

  Slider wiggled the knife. And wiggled it. Took it out and put it back in, upside down. Wiggled some more.

  Finally, the lock clicked. Slider turned the knob, pushed, and the door swung open. The wall of smell inside the house smacked them in the face. Grant almost threw up on the spot.

  Two

  Discoveries

  Slider took a deep breath outside and pulled his shirt sleeve up over his nose. Grant untucked his shirt from his pants and pulled the bottom of his shirt up over his mouth and nose again. It stank so bad, his eyes watered. He’d never smelled anything this horrible in his life. Pigs were nothing, nothing, compared to this. Skunks seemed like flowers.

  Slider looked around, and stepped inside.

  Grant followed close behind, holding his shirt against his face.

  “Check Little Joe’s room, and under the bed, everything upstairs,” Slider said. “They got any pets that could have died?”

  “Nope. None. Mrs. Thorson never wanted animals in the house. She says animals belong in the wild. And then, too, Little Joe said if he brought some stray critter home, his ma was afraid what Big Joe’d do to an animal if he found it inside when he was drunk.”

  Grant checked Little Joe’s tiny room. Nothing except some dust bunnies and two library books under the bed. Little Joe had no closet, but Grant checked behind a pair of clean pants and a shirt hanging on hooks by the door. Nothing, and nowhere anything could be hiding. Then he looked through the girls’ room, checked under their bed and inside the chiffarobe standing by the door. Nothing. The room was bare except for a wooden board supported by cinder blocks that held two rag dolls, one book, and a collection of pretty rocks.