Steve Hamilton - The hunting wind

“Why even bother? After what she did to you?”

“I remember it so well,” he said. “How it felt. Back in 1971, when I realized she was just setting me up. All those things she said to me. All those lies. It was so easy to believe, because I wanted it to be true. I wanted it too much. When I was finally done playing out the string in baseball, when I finally went home, I knew I had to start acting like a real grown-up. My father’s business was doing well. Everybody was expecting me to take it over someday. I tried to do it the right way, Alex. I tried to work hard, the same way my father did. But then when the real estate market crashed out there… I was afraid I was going to lose everything. Again. The same feeling, everything going down the drain again. There was this woman, one of our clients. She was very rich. She liked me. I could talk her into anything. It was so easy, Alex. It was so easy.”

“Okay,” I said. “A con man is born. I can fill in the rest. But you still haven’t told me why you came back in the first place. Before you knew anything about Harwood, when it was just you deciding to come back here after all these years. You could have made things right with your family. You could have tried at least. Why did you come back here?”

“Think about it,” he said. He managed a weak smile. “When was the last time everything was good, Alex? When was the last time I was on top of the world?”

“When, Randy?”

“When I was pitching for Toledo, and Alex McKnight was behind the plate, that was the last time I had it right. That was the last time I felt like I could do anything I wanted to. After that, it was all downhill, Alex. On roller skates. Before I went down for good, I had to come back one more time. Just to see if I could be that person again.”

I just shook my head.

“And Maria. This is kind of crazy, but I may be the only person in the world who can understand her now. After everything I’ve done, you know what? You can love somebody, Alex. You can really love somebody, even though you know you’re using them.”

“Randy, that’s the most depraved thing I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s true,” he said. “I’ve been there. My family will never forgive me, Alex. And I don’t blame them. The people I’ve hurt, the people I’ve taken money from. They’ll never forgive me.”

“She barely remembered you,” I said.

“She remembers me.”

“No.”

“That’s what she said to you. I know she remembers me.”

“Yeah? You know that?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because we’re the same,” he said. “That’s how I know. We’ll always have a connection.”

“A connection,” I said. “That’s good. That’s real good. How about this instead? You know her so well, you gotta figure she’s got a lot of money stored up after all these years. Am I right?”

He didn’t say anything.

“You’ve worn out your welcome everywhere else. You know you’re about to take your last fall, so you figure, Why not? You’ll come back, see if you can tap into her again. After all these years.”

“No.”

“It was a long time ago. You don’t have much leverage. But you know she’s running something now. You get in on it. Or you threaten her, tell her you’ll scare away the mark, or God knows what. You’d think of something. Am I getting warm here?”

“No.”

“This was your last chance. Take her down, whatever you had to do. Take the money and run. Where else were you going to go, anyway?”

“You got it wrong.”

“Give me one reason why I should believe you.”

“Because I can’t lie to you.”

“You could lie to anybody,” I said. “You could look God himself in the eye and tell him the sky is green.”

“Not you,” he said. “I could never lie to you.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because you’re my catcher.”

“Come on, Randy. Enough with that. It was thirty fucking years ago.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m telling you the truth, and you know it. I’ve got no reason to he to you now. In your bones, you know it. You just have to trust me.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

“You believe me, right?”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“Tell me you believe me. I gotta hear you say it.”

“Randy…”

“Say it, Alex. Tell me you believe me.”

“Let me think about it,” I said. “I get nervous when people tell me I have to say things.”

“Is there really a cop outside?” he said. “Right now?”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t come in yet. He must have heard us talking.”

“Maybe he’s asleep. Do you think we’d wake him if we sneaked out of here?”

“I think he’d wake up, yes.”

“We could tie these sheets together,” he said. “And go out the window.”

“I hope you’re not serious.”

“I’m never serious,” he said. He rubbed the bandages around his neck for a moment. “Is she safe?” he finally said. “Tell me that much.”

“She’s safe,” I said. “Harwood’s dead.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

He thought about it. He didn’t ask me anything more.

“You want me to get the doctor now?” I said.

“Yes. I need some water.”

“You should call your family.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You know. You talked to them.”

“Call your son,” I said. “Terry, the catcher. He’ll want to know.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll do that.”

There wasn’t much else to say. When I finally said good-bye to him, I wasn’t sure how much I should hate him. In a way, he was exactly the same person I had known back in 1971. Now, almost thirty years later, after all the trouble he had caused me, I still couldn’t make myself hate Randy Wilkins. No matter how hard I tried.

And I still didn’t know if I believed him.

I drove home, four and a half hours straight north in the middle of the night. The sun was just coming up as I crossed over the Mackinac Bridge. There was still snow on the ground in the Upper Peninsula. As always, it felt like a different world. Maybe that’s why I came up here in the first place. And why I’ve stayed so long.

I went to my cabin and slept a few hours. When I got up, I found my old catcher’s mitt and wrapped it up in a cardboard box. I addressed it to Terry Wilkins, care of the UC-Santa Barbara Athletic Department. I got myself cleaned up and took the box to the post office.

And then, of course, I went to the Glasgow Inn for lunch. Where else was I going to go? Jackie was there waiting for me with a cold Canadian. He asked me about everything that had happened. I spent the rest of the afternoon telling him about it.

Around dinnertime, a wheelchair came through the front door. For one sickening second, I thought it was Harwood’s ghost come to get me. It was Leon, both of his ankles still in casts, his wife pushing the wheelchair.

We all had dinner together, and I got to tell the whole story again, this time for Leon. After dinner, I told Jackie to mix me up a vodka and root beer. “One slinky, coming up,” he said. It was truly awful.

We drank to the past. To money and to lies. To youth. To crazy left-handed pitchers.

We drank until the sun went down again on another day, keeping the fireplace fed and staying close to its warmth. Even when it’s springtime in the rest of the world, the nights are still cold in Paradise.