Yellow Mesquite Read Free Page A

slit eyes.  
    Harley stared in turn, unable to swallow. It was fifty yards back to where the horny toad had disappeared yesterday into the broom weeds.
      Harley eased from under the toolbar on the opposite side, went to the fencerow and picked up a heavy rock in both hands. He brought it back, lifted it above his head with effort, and brought it down on the toad with all his strength. A muffled plop and yellow pus shot into the dirt from underneath.
    His daddy turned, frowning. “What’re you doing there?”
    “Nothing.”
    “You stop that fooling around and get that tractor moving.”
    “Yessir.”
    Harley set the spark and the gas and then went around front. He stood humped over, holding to the crank. A moment passed; then he let go, went to the fencerow again and began to gag.
    His daddy looked up. “Hey…what’s wrong with you?”
    “Nothing.”  
    His daddy studied him. “You sick?”
    “No sir.”
    “Then how come you throwing up like that?”
    “I ain’t. I’m fine.”
    Another moment. Then, softer: “No, you better get on back to the house. Lay down awhile. Hear?”  
    Harley shook his head, spat out the taste of bile, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Wordless, he returned to the tractor. He took hold of the crank, gave it a sharp turn and it fired right up. He climbed up on the iron seat and knew without looking that his daddy was still watching as he shoved the clutch in, pulled the notched gas lever out two-thirds of its length, and nudged the shifter into gear between his knees.

Chapter 2
    Fastball

    T HE JULY SUN beat down,blinding off the windshields of cars and pickups parked behind the backstop at home plate. Dust kicked up from the ball field hung lazily on the heat before settling. Sweaty Separation fans meandered up and down the first-base line yelling encouragement and advice, while Blackwell fans claimed the territory behind third and home.  
    Seventeen-year-old Harley stood at his position just off first, watching Billy Wayne Hinchley on the mound, winding up for a pitch. Billy Wayne Hinchley was the new boy in town. He was short, his head too big for his body and his nose too big for his head even. There were pockmarks on his face and his eyes were little. Little and beady bright. His mouth was little too, and he had a way of talking out of the corner, grinning up one side until the greasy hank of hair hanging across his forehead caught in the corner, like a hook. That was Billy Wayne Hinchley, and there was no reason in the world for the girls to be acting so crazy over him.  
    Harley didn’t like the way Billy Wayne talked about the girls, the way he talked to them, bordering on the obscene. That in itself might whet their curiosity, regardless of their disapproval. Some of the boys thought it was funny, but in spite of his own raging hormones, he treated the girls with respect. His mother said you either looked up to people or down on them. It was all in respect. Too, he resented the way Billy Wayne had blown into town, acting right off like he was cock-of-the-walk. He supposed he was jealous, but he still didn’t see any reason the girls found Billy Wayne so interesting.  
    One thing Harley had to say for Billy Wayne: He could pitch a baseball. Separation scraped together a team each summer and played similar teams all the way up into the Texas Panhandle. It wasn’t just kids; grown men came in from the farms and ranches and oilfields. They were well into the season when Billy Wayne Hinchley showed up, but he tried out and damned if he couldn’t throw that ball like a pro. He could hit, too, which pitchers weren’t usually known to do. So Separation was moving up fast, from seventh to third in what was unofficially known as the “Prickly Pear League.”  
    And here they were, tied three and three with Blackwell in the bottom of the ninth, Blackwell’s Jimmy Phillips at bat, two outs and a man on second. Billy Wayne came out of his windup, the Separation crowd yelling