THE EVIL TRANSITION
Sick at heart, all his recent fears revived, Lefty watched his friend
step into the box and prepare to pitch. To the best of his knowledge
and belief Savage had not touched liquor for ten days, and his breaking
over now seemed to the southpaw like the beginning of the end. Whether
it was the cause or effect of that hateful change of personality, Locke
did not know; but he always associated drink with the evil side of the
busher’s character, and he could not now shake off the feeling that the
worst was happening.
Savage’s first delivery was a swift inshoot that cut a corner of the
pan, and was pronounced a strike. He followed it with two coaxers which
were disdained. Then came another shoot at which Billy Olds swung in
vain, and Lefty was conscious of a growing sense of wonder mingled with
that hope which is so hard to kill utterly.
Could it be possible that he had been mistaken? Savage’s manner was
not what it had been earlier in the game, to be sure. He had lost, in
a great measure, the snap and vim and swiftness of action shown up to
now――had become almost irritatingly deliberate. Also, his expression
had changed from keen, light-hearted gayety to heavy-lidded somberness.
But Locke had never seen the man pitch in a real game before. For all
he knew, this might be simply the prelude to a blow-up such as comes to
many pitchers at about this stage of a contest. Perhaps he had felt it
coming, and resorted to liquor in a desperate effort to brace himself
and stave it off.
All of this was unlike the man Locke had come to think so much of, but
the southpaw’s reluctance to believe the worst made him ready to seize
upon any possible explanation. Even when Olds fell upon the next ball
handed up and smashed it out for a safety, he did not lose hope. The
same thing had happened more than once in each of the previous innings.
Moore, next batsman, hit a slow bounder to Lewis, who made the mistake
of waiting for the ball, and was then forced to throw hastily. That
throw was wide, and dragged Ogan off the cushion, permitting Moore to
make the base by a single stride.
Savage took the ball from Ogan, and turned to glare angrily at the
shortstop. His lips moved, and for a moment it seemed as if a burst of
heated denunciation would break forth. In another second, however,
his teeth came together with a snap, and he stepped back into the box,
frowning heavily.
“Don’t blame him for being sore,” muttered Lefty to himself. “If he’s
on the verge of a blow-up, that sort of thing certainly gets a fellow’s
goat. Keeping his mouth shut shows he’s got some self-control left.”
The portsider was further heartened by the manner in which Savage took
the next batter in hand. Allaire did his best to bunt, but the pitcher
kept the balls high and close, and two fouls resulted, the second of
which came down back of third, giving Palsifer an opportunity to make a
circus catch.
Unfortunately these encouraging symptoms were of short duration. Locke
could not fail to observe that Savage’s work became slower and more
labored with each delivery. He started by handing “Brick” Forbes two
balls in succession. A single strike followed, then another ball, and
the pitcher was in a hole.
There was no similarity now to the debonair coolness with which the
Westerner had met the same situation several times before. His face
was set and tense, the mouth a single gray line. His lids drooped
until they seemed almost closed. His wind-up was dragging, as if each
movement was an effort.
Forbes swung savagely as the ball came across the pan, lifting a high
fly to center.
“Duoro will grab that,” murmured Lefty, his eyes following the white
spot sailing across the vivid blue. “He can’t miss it.”
The young fielder had ample time to get under the ball. It looked
like a certainty, and the base runners ducked back to their bags.
Unfortunately, by one of those inexplicable slips usually caused by
overconfidence, the horsehide struck Duoro’s mitt and trickled over the
edge to the ground.
Olds stretched himself for third, and a sarcastic chorus arose from the
infield, in which Locke could plainly distinguish the voice of Savage,
raised in a roar of fury. Olds made his base, getting there ahead of
Duoro’s throw.
The damage was done.
Still growling inarticulately, his face an angry crimson, Savage sent
over a ball which the captain of the Tigers lined out for a two-bagger,
scoring Olds and Moore. Sam Vogt fell on the second ball pitched to
him, smashing out a line drive between second and short. Laughing Larry
pulled off a marvelous mid-air catch, following it with some ground
flipflaps, from which he recovered in time to make a throw to the plate
that nailed Forbes in an attempt to score after the pill was captured.
Lefty drew a long breath and glanced sidewise at Kennedy, who had
scarcely stirred during the entire inning. The manager’s face was dark,
but, beyond the fact that he was far from pleased at the progress of
events, his expression told nothing.
The southpaw’s troubled gaze veered swiftly back to the figure of the
busher moving slowly toward the bench. In spite of what he had been
trying to make himself believe――that this was simply the natural manner
of a man struggling against an inevitable breakdown――there was dread in
his heart, which increased swiftly as he studied that forbidding face
with its lowering brows, drooping lids, and twitching lips.
Savage came straight on, head bent, slapping his glove at intervals
against his thigh. He passed Lefty without as much as a glance, heading
for a point a little to one side of the bench. The portsider stepped
forward. The continued suspense was growing intolerable. He must know,
one way or another, how matters stood.
“Brace up, old man, and don’t take it so seriously,” he said, with
forced lightness. “We all make a bull now and then.”
Like a flash the fellow whirled on him with a movement which suggested
the sudden snapping of hardly won self-control.
“Bull!” he snarled, his eyes gleaming through narrow slits. “That’s
what you call it, is it? Let me tell you this, Locke: I don’t want any
of your sympathy. You can save that for those bonehead friends of yours
who play ball like a bunch of bushers. What’s more, you can keep out
of my way from now on. I told you once before that I didn’t like your
brand, and I meant it. I pick my friends, and you’re not one of ’em,
nor ever will be. Get me?”
His eyes were wide open now, and from their baleful, evil depths came a
gleam of bitter hatred which sent a sickening sense of failure surging
over the man on whom they rested for a second before Savage turned and
walked away.
Lefty had found out what he wanted to know. His efforts to stave off
this moment had been without avail. The evil transition had come again.
The very worst had happened.