He squinted at the ceiling, thinking. "This is the ninth year they"ve held the county play-offs since you were on the team. Bigelow has won eight of them."

"You"ve got a softball team with a record of 1 and 8, a coach named Looney, and now you want to add an a.s.sistant coach in a wheelchair?"

"I"m counting on the Casey magic." He took my face between his hands. "I"m counting on the Casey who never gave up."

Hank always got to me. I would follow him forever, even though I"d send us both tumbling. I shook my head and tried to smile. "Okay, Blackshear. Let"s go see who I can knock down this time."

There are two categories of natives in Mossy Creek: the people who"ve been here all their lives and those who"ve left and come back. As one of those who left and came back, Hank appreciates progress but knows why Mossy Creek is special. He"s beginning to see what Ida Hamilton Walker and the rest of the older generation have been trying to preserve. I hate to admit it, but I"m beginning to understand, too. I feel safe, here.

Hank was even persuaded to run for the city council and was given the parks and recreation department as his responsibility. The job should have been easy; it would have been for anyone elsethere was no recreation department. But my Hank takes his duties seriously. So do the other Mossy Creekites. As we drove to the ball fields outside town, I noticed all the Beat Bigelow signs in shop windows and on b.u.mper stickers.

I unfolded a copy of the weekly newspaper and saw that the Mossy Creek Gazette had gotten into the mood. Even the front page touted the Fourth Of July All-Star Play-Offs. Hank hadn"t told me that Katie Bell"s Bellringer column confided that I"d agreed to help the Twelve-And-Under girls, but Sue Ora Salter made sure I got a copy of the Gazette every week. Sue has a big heart, but she"s as big a meddler as Katie. She"s just more subtle about it.

When we arrived at the practice field, it was painfully obvious that Buck Looney took all the hurrah as a mandate to win. Though the older girls" softball team was a shoe-in to win the All-Star tournament, and the co-ed team, on which Hank was the pitcher, looked great, the Twelve-And-Unders were, well, they were a big question mark.

With his ball cap pulled firmly down over his head and his stopwatch in hand, Buck had all the players lined up behind first base. They looked as nervous as paratroopers ready to make their first jump. Hank parked the van, came around to my side and opened the door. I heard Buck bellow, "We may not have much experience, girls, but we sure are fast. So we"re gonna run Bigelow into the ground. Kill "em. Stomp "em. I"m going to clock your speed. Are you ready?"

The girls simply looked at him.

"Trust me," he barked. "We"ll make those Bigelow sissies throw the ball around, and when the dust settles, we"ll win. Little Ida, you"re first. I want you to hotfoot it to second base, as hard as you can. Go!"

Ida Walker, the granddaughter of Mayor Ida Hamilton Walker, took off toward second, running as hard as her spindly legs could carry her. She was ferocious, but only eight-years-old.

"Go to third!" Buck yelled, swinging his arm in a furious circle. "Faster!"

Little Ida glanced back, lips narrowed in determination. "Yes sir!" That"s when she caught her right foot behind the base bag and tumbled into left field.

"Oh, for. . ." Buck let out a sigh and started toward her. "You"re not hurt, Little Ida. Get up."

Ida lay there for a minute, then sat up. One knee had turned into a raw sc.r.a.pe. Her lips went from firm resolve to impending tremble. Buck came to a stop beside her and frowned. "Be tough, Little Ida, like your grandma. Ball players have to suck it up!"

I didn"t have to be told that Little Ida had been compared to her tough grandmother all her life. She burst into tears. I glared at Buck. The idiot. Buck Looney might know how to coach burly, knot-headed teenage boys for our county high school, but it was obvious he had no clue how to deal with little girls.

"Hank, get me to the field!" I said, disconnecting my seatbelt.

"You sure?" Hank asked slyly. "What do you plan to do?"

What did I plan to do? h.e.l.l, I. . .I didn"t know what I could do. "Gimmie my bat and my wheelchair, and I"ll show you!" I"d figure it out when I got out there.

I refused to acknowledge Hank"s broad I told you so grin as he helped me into my chair and rolled me down the path to the field. "You aren"t going to hurt Buck, are you? We need him on the co-ed team."

"Possibly, but first I"m going to restore Little Ida"s confidence. Push me out there." I pointed at the third base dugout, where Little Ida sat hugging her wounded knee. Hank parked me beside her.

"Hi, Little Ida, I"m Casey. That was a real Michael Jordan move you made! Where"d you learn how to do that?"

The child stopped her sniffing and looked at me with eyes as big as robin eggs. "Michael Jordan? You mean Bugs" friend?"

"Bugs? Eh?"

"The commercial with Bugs Bunny," Hank whispered. He straightened and grinned at Buck. "Hey, Coach. Casey decided you were right. These ladies can use a woman"s touch."

"We need more than that," Buck grumbled. "Need a stack of hankies for everybody to boo-hoo into every time I look at "em wrong."

By this time, Little Ida was standing wide-eyed beside my chair, skinned knee forgotten. "Are you going to be our coach?"

"Of course not, silly," one of the other ballplayers said. The team gathered around my chair. "She can"t walk."

"You don"t need to walk to play great sports. You have to use your brain." I nodded somberly to Little Ida. "Michael Jordan uses his brain. And he"d be impressed with the way you run bases."

"Little Ida"s no Michael Jordan," another girl said. "The only reason she"s even on the team is because her grandmother is the mayor and her daddy"s the president of Hamilton"s Department Store. They"re donating the uniforms. She"s too little."

I saw pain watering Little Ida"s eyes again. She blinked to remain stoic, but I could see disaster in the making. Nothing ruins a team as quickly as hurt feelings between the players. And Buck was making no move to nip it in the bud. I took Little Ida"s hand. ">From now on, no one makes mean comments about any other player. That"s my rule. Okay? Now, does this team have a name?"

Little Ida sighed. "No, ma"am. We"re just the Mossy Creek Twelve-And-Unders."

"Well, if we"re going to use our brains, the first thing we have to do is think up a name. A name for the team-and good names for each other, too. We"ll only worry about player names, for now."

"Whatcha mean?" the dissenter challenged.

"Well, you know. The players on television always give each other nicknames. If we want to be tough, let"s think like them. Now, I"m Casey. My name is really Ca.s.sandra. But I"m named after a very famous ball player who once struck out. He was known as Mighty Casey of Mudville." They nodded. They"d heard the poem in school. "My daddy told me not to worry whenever I struck out. I might have missed that time, he said, but with a nickname like Casey I"d be famous one day."

"That"s true," Hank added. "And she was. Before she got hurt, she was being scouted for the Olympics. Her accident changed that dream, but she"s still Casey. She still knows how to play softball."

Little Ida smiled and ignored my wheelchair completely. "So what"s my nickname going to be?"

"Hmmm, I can"t say yet. Why don"t we practice our running for the coach, and we"ll think about it." I looked at the rest of the girls. "Coach Looney doesn"t expect you all to be a fast rabbit like Little Ida. He"s just trying to help you find a way to confuse the other team into making mistakes. The Bigelow team doesn"t expect Mossy Creek girls to run well and they"ll get so shook up at our gooney bird speed they"ll miss their throws, and we"ll get on base."

"Huh," Buck grunted. "All right, whatever. I guess I don"t need the stopwatch. Let"s just start over and see what we can do."

The girls obediently lined up again at first. I started to wheel myself off the field when Buck put his hand on my chair. "Why don"t you stay out here, so you can get a good close-up look at the girls? That way you can help us come up with their nicknames."

Two hours later, Buck and I knew we had four real runners, four tippy-toes runners, and four who would always be just slightly faster than turtles. "I thought this was the All-Star team," I whispered to Hank.

"Sorry, babe, we only had four teams, and some of the best girls weren"t eligible for the play-offs."

"Why not?"

"We got a lot of girls from Look Over, Yonder, Bailey Mill and Chinaberry. They don"t live inside the city limits of Mossy Creek, so the league doesn"t consider them eligible to play. All the girls on the Mossy Creek All-Star Team have to live inside Mossy Creek. Just like the Bigelow All-Star team lives inside Bigelow"s city limits."

"But Bigelow"s huge compared to us. There are 10,000 people in Bigelow. That"s not fair."

"I know. But the Bigelowans control the league"s board of directors. Buck says they pushed through the rule change a few years ago." He sighed. "We broke that rule just by signing the county girls up for regular season play. We did it, anyway. But our team will be disqualified from the play-offs if we include any girls outside Mossy Creek."

I growled under my breath. It had been a long time since I"d played summer sports, but nothing had changed. Everyone seemed to forget that the playing ought to be fun. Maybe it had been once, but the adults found out that losing wasn"t fun. So they began to make rules to keep everything equal. Or in the case of Bigelow, to ensure that Bigelow always won.

"Okay, ladies," Buck called as the sweaty little girls downed water from a cooler. "Practice again tomorrow at 3:30. Okay?"

"Is Casey coming?" a chorus of small voices asked.

Hank looked at me. Buck looked at me.

"I don"t know," I said. "Hank has appointments. I might not-"

"I"ll come and get you," Buck said quickly.

I glanced at the parking lot, where the only other vehicle was Buck"s red pick-up truck. "The last time I rode in the back of a pick-up truck was the Miss Bigelow County Parade."

"I"ll leave my truck with Hank, and we"ll drive your van."

Before I could shake my head, Little Ida put her hand on my arm. "Please?"

I looked at her, then at the rest of the girls, and made a decision I never thought I"d make. "I"ll come, Buck. And don"t worry, I can drive myself."

"Are you sure, Case?" Hank asked as we drove home. "I know I pushed you into helping Buck, but if it makes you uncomfortable, I"ll understand. I just thought it would give you something fun to do."

Not that I could teach them anything, but that it would give me something to do. That hurt, even though I knew he didn"t mean it that way. I didn"t try to explain. Today, I just didn"t want to go there. I remembered Little Ida"s hopeful eyes. "Of course, I"m uncomfortable. But they"re uncomfortable too. I"ll help them get ready, but I"m not going on the field on game day. Coaching from a wheelchair while a stand full of people watches me is not my idea of fun."

In the next week, with Grandma Ida offering encouragement, Little Ida became known as "The Rabbit," flying around the diamond like a demented bunny. All the other girls demanded their own nicknames. Soon, Buck was teaching Killer, Slayer, Boom Boom and Slick how to slide. My job fell somewhere between cheerleader and mom. The All-Star team was coming together. And, to my surprise, I was enjoying myself.

The next thing I knew, Hank was dragging me along to practice with his and Buck"s adult team, the Mossy Creek Mustangs. He failed to tell me that this team was also entered in the playoffs until I was appointed a.s.sistant coach and team scorekeeper. I was now an official member of the team. Not only did I have to watch the others play my game, I had to record it.

I smiled and pretended that didn"t hurt, either.

The Fourth of July dawned clear and hot. The mountains sucked up the air, and the sun couldn"t even find a cloud to hide behind. Hank was up early, making his rounds, feeding and treating his boarders at the clinic, then getting on the phone to rea.s.sure parents about the girls" chances of winning in the play-offs. I couldn"t believe this comfortable small town veterinarian was the same man who"d been determined to join the Angel Memorial veterinary staff as a surgical intern. He"d turned into his father, and the transition had come so easy to him. For me, it was harder to find my place in Mossy Creek society.

"Ready, Case?" Hank called out from the clinic door as I was washing the breakfast dishes at a special tub I set up on the porch of the farmhouse.

"Ready for what? It"s too early."

"We need to get into town. I want to check on the ball field."

There was no delaying him. Already dressed in his playing shorts and numbered tee shirt, he"d become a ball player with his toe on the pitching mound. I might as well get ready.

When I rolled myself out to the van, I found a package on the pa.s.senger seat. Hank had bought me a team shirt. The name on the back read Mighty Casey. And the number was the same as the one I"d worn in college-number 6.

"Like it?" Hank asked quietly.

I looked at him with tears in my eyes and nodded. "I don"t know what to say-"

A soft, whickering sound stopped me. I froze as I looked across the van"s front seats at Hank. "There"s something in the back of this van," I said in a low voice. "And it sounds like a horse."

"That, my s.e.xy wife, is not just a horse. That is a miniature mustang."

He opened the van"s side doors. I gazed at a tiny brown pony tethered inside a crate full of hay. His white mane and forelock were so s.h.a.ggy I couldn"t see his eyes. "Looks like a pony who needs a haircut, to me."

Hank laughed. "Well, for our purposes, he"s a wild, miniature mustang. He"s our team mascot. From now on, the Twelve-And-Unders are the Lady Mustangs."

I couldn"t help laughing.

In town, red, white and blue banners lined the gazebo. The fireworks started early when someone tied a bunch of balloons to the sword of General Augustas Brimberry Hamilton of Jefferson"s Third Confederate Division. The pigeons that normally rested on his broad-brimmed hat protested the distraction and retaliated by puncturing the balloons one by one.

Around the gra.s.sy square, booths had been set up where handmade leather goods, artwork and hooked rugs were offered for sale. Barbequed pigs and chickens were turning on spits. And deep iron pots of bubbling grease were frying catfish. A mountain of yellow corn was shucked and ready to be boiled. Later, there would be watermelon and pie-eating contests.

When we arrived at the ball field, Hank led the pony into our dugout and tied him to the chain-link fence beside a bucket of water and a pile of hay. As soon as the girls got there, they surrounded the pony with squealing delight. "What"s his name?"

"Uhmmm. . .Homerun," I said. "Yes. Homerun. We can call him Homer, for short."

"Homer, Homer!" they chanted.

"Oh, Casey, he"s beautiful," Little Ida said. "He"ll bring us good luck. Thank you!" I looked at her glowing eyes and those of the other girls, then met Hank"s gentle gaze. "Girls, I have to tell you that this whole idea was really-"

"Okay, okay, the hat was my idea," Hank said.

"What?"

He pulled a pony-sized baseball cap from his back pocket. It even had special holes cut in it for the pony"s ears. He fitted it on Homer"s head. The knee-high fake-wild mustang peered out at us through mounds of white mane. Homer looked like a sheepdog. Plus, he was now wearing a turquoise baseball cap with the name Lady Mustangs embroidered across the bill. "And look what our sponsor, Hamilton"s Department Store, has for everybody else." Hank opened a long canvas tote bag. Beautiful turquoise softball shirts tumbled out.

The girls cheered.

I rolled a few yards away, wiping my eyes. Hank followed me. "And, by the way, Case, you"re on the team program. Buck put you down as a coach. He figured you deserved it." I swallowed hard. I had a uniform, and I was on an official roster of two softball teams-the Mustangs and the Lady Mustangs. I never expected that to happen again. The lump in my throat refused to budge.

The girls" game started at noon under a broiling sun. Excitement was high as the turquoise-uniformed Lady Mustangs of Mossy Creek took the field. The stands were full, the girls optimistic. But at the end of three innings, the Bigelow Baronettes led the Lady Mustangs by five runs.

"Look, little ladies," Buck said, more patiently than I"d heard him speak before, "we"re ready to put in our secret plan. I want you next two batters to bend your knees and look like you"re going to hit it out of the park. Grit your teeth. Get mean!"

I took the floor. "Then, just squat there."

"You mean you want us to Wait on the pitch, don"t you?" the player nicknamed Killer asked, lowering her voice to mimic Buck"s.

I nodded. "Yes. Wait until the next inning, if you have to! But this inning, don"t, under any circ.u.mstances, swing."

Puzzled but following orders, Killer got set. Knees bent, arms up, she waited as the first pitch came in high.

"Ball one!"

The next pitch was a strike. Killer squirmed.

Buck called time and whispered into her ear.

She squatted lower.

The next two pitches were b.a.l.l.s followed by another strike. "Full count now," the umpire said, "Three b.a.l.l.s-two strikes."