Blind Your Ponies (21 page)

Earlier, with three minutes to go, Olaf punched a ball into the bleachers when Joe Kelly tried to put one past him, and the ref called a foul, Olaf’s fifth. Dean looked as though he wanted to crawl under the bench rather than go out on the floor and entertain the crowd with his glaring blunders and miscues, and Olaf folded his frame onto the bench beside Miss Murphy. He had played fiercely but was still a liability, in the paint more than three seconds many times and shuffling his feet while handling the ball. Sam cringed when, twice, Olaf dunked the ball only to have it waved off because he traveled.

Now, down by three, with one minute left, Sam watched as the Bears brought the ball up and Garth McDonald, with Pete’s hand in his face, missed a jump shot from the side. Curtis grabbed the rebound and threw a perfect down-and-out to Pete as he raced along the sidelines. Grandma Chapman’s pride and joy streaked to the backboard and laid it in as Troy McDonald collided with him from behind.

One-shot foul, down 78 to 79.

Sam knelt in front of the bench, chewing on his ballpoint pen. Inflamed by the boys’ grit and fanned by the cheers of the cheerleaders, the home-town faithful were on their feet. Peter Strong toed the line, took a deep breath, and flipped the ball with fingers and wrist into the utter silence. Like the Prodigal, the ball remembered the way home. Tie game! 79 to 79.

The loyal Willow Creek crowd inhaled with an audible gasp, which was followed instantly by noisy cheering. Then, as if all sound had been sucked from the universe, the hometown supporters stood inanimate, limp, as the Lima team hustled into the front court, sure to deliver the doom that always befell Willow Creek in similar circumstances.

Sam knew they’d go to one of the McDonald boys, but so did Pete and Rob. The Willow Creek guards overplayed the Lima sharpshooters, preventing them from getting the ball until finally, out of desperation, Glenn Turly, an angular forward, got off a shot from the side. The ball rimmed the iron and spun out, then was grabbed up by Rob Johnson.

Eighteen seconds.

Rob dribbled the ball upcourt and looked for an opening, but the Lima boys stuck to him like gumbo.

Ten seconds.

Rob started a drive to the basket, pulled up short, and lifted a jump shot over the frantic reach of the defender. The ball seemed to hang in midair. No one in the gym took a breath. Caroming off the backboard, the ball glanced down onto the rim and came off.

Four seconds.

Tom went high to snatch the ball above the others and descended to the floor in a crouch. Without hesitation he exploded back through frantically thrashing outstretched arms to kiss the ball off the glass. The leather Spaulding sphere, obedient to the natural laws of the planet, descended at the proper angle through the iron hoop and nylon netting just as the time drained off the clock.

The nerve-jarring resonance of the buzzer—which had been the signal of merciful relief for so many years—was the first voice to proclaim the unthinkable. The scoreboard followed suit, displaying an astonishing rarity in the record books of recent history:
VISITOR
79,
HOME
81.

The miracle had happened! Willow Creek High School had won a
basketball game
after ninety-eight tries. Sam exploded from his prayerful crouch and raced onto the floor, embracing his exhausted cowboy forward as though he were a father welcoming a son home from war. Rob converged on them, and the two seniors nearly crushed Sam between them. They seized each other, pressing their foreheads together and emitting animal sounds, bellowing, howling, releasing four years of frustration and bitter disappointment, ending four years of indignity, shame, and humiliation. They were like grizzlies after a long winter’s hibernation, young eagles leaping from the nest in first flight, wolves reunited after years of separation.

Then the trio was engulfed by the team and student body and those staunch townsfolk who rushed onto the floor to join in the mugging celebration. Diana found Sam and hugged him with abandon.

“We did it! We did it!” she shouted, and in the midst of this spontaneous outpouring, he felt her tantalizing firmness against his chest.

The teams shook hands in line on the court and exchanged brief recognition and comments, which were good-natured, if sometimes forced. The Willow Creek boys, with bright happy faces, huddled on the floor with their coaches, chattering and praising one another.

Hazel happily forked over the locally famous ten bucks by slapping it into Grandma Chapman’s hand, these two women a part of the small loyal bunch that had witnessed the seemingly insignificant victory of one small-town school team over another. Undoubtedly others would raise an eyebrow when the score appeared in the
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
the next day, thinking it typo.

Truly Osborn caught Sam heading off the floor. “Well done, Sam, well done! Now that we’ve won a game, we can get back to some semblance of sanity around here.”

“Thank you, Mr. Osborn.”
But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Sam walked into the noisy locker room, and amid the moist odors of sweat, tape and exhaustion, he could smell the rare sweet fragrance of triumph. The boys, unlacing their dissimilar shoes and stripping off their soggy uniforms, had for the first time tasted the pure, intoxicating nectar of victory. Sam hoped they would soon become incurably and absolutely addicted.

T
HE CELEBRATION MOVED
down Main Street to the Blue Willow where Sam could see Axel was visibly upset that he had missed the unexpected triumph, sure he’d have to wait another three or four years for the next. The inn buzzed with an uncommon energy as the team ate and jabbered about every aspect of the game as they each remembered it, laughing and savoring the heady flavor of winning on their virgin palates. Dean laughed the hardest at his field goal attempt when, running wide open, he drop-kicked the ball off the scoreboard. Sam, holding the squat boy’s arm high like a victorious prizefighter, officially dubbed him the “Dutch Boy” who saved his town with his finger in the dike.

At a table with Hazel and Mavis, Grandma looked across at John English who stood at the bar.

“Hey, English, who won the game?”

John turned in reflex and then, catching himself, returned to his conversation, ignoring her.

“I believe I just saw a cow flying by!” Grandma shouted, and although John gave no indication he heard her, he certainly heard the laughter that followed.

Rip fell asleep in a chair next to the red player piano that Olaf pedaled with unrestrained joy, giving a beat to the spontaneous celebration that had been five years incubating and which most of the Willow Creek community—probably Christmas shopping in Bozeman—would only hear about when they awoke to a new day.

In the midst of the merrymaking, Grandma dragged Peter outside to take a turn on the bicycle built for two. Others followed out onto the porch in the mild winter night and they made a game of it, seeing who could ride down past the grain elevator, around the block, and back to the porch in the shortest time.

Though it looked easy, they soon found out there was more to it than riding single. Grandma and Pete did it in two minutes and eleven seconds, according to Axel’s second hand. Tom and Olaf took a turn, wobbling and weaving down the faintly lit Main Street with everyone on the porch howling and shouting, Olaf behind Tom like a grown man on a child’s trike, his knees higher than the handlebars, a grasshopper trying to stay upright on a quaking blade of grass. They made the circuit in two minutes and forty-two
seconds, having fallen over twice. When Tom got off, Hazel shoved her way through to the bike before Olaf could dismount.

“Let me take a round with you.”

“You can’t ride that thing,” Grandma said.

“Just watch me,” Hazel said, giggling as she hoisted her heavy body onto the tiny bike seat in front of the startled Norwegian.

The spectators on the porch exchanged incredulous glances while the two pushed off and teetered down the blacktop, the tires all but flattened by their weight, veering from side to side, nearly flopping to the left, then pitching to the right. They glided through the shadows like circus performers, the fat lady and the thin man on a tandem bike, out of sight past the elevator and onto the gravel.

“I wonder if the lovers will ever come back for their bike?” Axel said as they waited.

“Yep,” Rip said without hesitation. “One a these days they will, sure as shootin’.”

Back down First Street, nearly sideswiping a parked pickup, Hazel and Olaf rode, heading for home, bobbing and weaving toward the rowdy spectators, reaching the finish line in three minutes and seven seconds. Rob and Pete inspected the tires as Hazel puffed up the steps. She settled heavily in the rickety wicker rocker and nearly destroyed it.

Curtis and Dean took a turn and everyone could hear the Dutch Boy’s shrill whoops and hollers all around the block. Rob and Mary had the slowest time and were accused of parking on the far side of the block. Andrew Wainwright convinced Amos Flowers to climb on the contraption and it appeared as though the Tom Mix hat was driving.

When nearly everyone had taken a turn on the bike, Diana pulled Sam by the coat sleeve. “Come on, we can beat that time.”

Sam climbed on the back for power and Diana up front for navigation. They were off to a fast start with the roar of the gang behind them. They swooped and swayed and careened around the corner.

“We shouldn’t be doing this together,” Diana called.

“Why not?” Sam said, floating in the joy of this rapturous moment.

“They say that couples who ride this bike will have a falling out.”

“Do you believe in folklore?” he said as they took the third turn.

“You’re the English teacher, I stick to biology.”

Oh, how he’d like to stick to biology with the biology teacher!

They pitched around the corner and came to a faltering stop in front of the inn. Axel clocked them at two minutes and four seconds. They had won together on this night of winning. Sam mused over the legendary bike to which some attributed magical powers. Would it adversely affect his budding relationship with his assistant coach? They couldn’t very well have a falling out before they had a falling in. At least, if the bike held any enchantment at all, he could look forward first to the falling in.

As Diana put on her ski jacket she caught Sam who was still out on the porch.

“I’ll be leaving in the morning.” She smiled. “Why don’t you come out for a while if you can break free.”

“I’ll try.”

The look in her eye and the invitation in her voice sucked all the oxygen out of his lungs.

Sam checked his watch: ten-thirteen; it wouldn’t seem unreasonable. He gathered the boys and told them it was time they headed for home, that they would practice tomorrow afternoon with no letup. They didn’t protest, not even Tom, which surprised him.

He attempted to look nonchalant as he bid some of the other celebrants good night and worked his way out the door. Main Street was deserted except for a balmy mountain wind, and he quickened his pace, somewhat giddy with this strange and wonderful night. A new moon beamed a thin smile at him, lying on its back near the rim of the Tobacco Roots. Stars glimmered in the cloudless sky and animals scurried in the darkness ahead of him in a town of wild creatures.

Lima had a decent team in a conference where some coaches had to work miracles with baling wire and chewing gum, but teams like Twin Bridges and Gardiner and Manhattan Christian were another matter. Nonetheless Sam would savor this exhilarating experience and unparalleled feeling while it lasted; he’d deal with the other in turn. He felt an unfamiliar surge of pride, and he jumped high enough to click his heels. He wanted to tell someone about what they had done that night, but he didn’t know who.

I’m doing better, Amy, I’m doing better.

He banged through the front door and snapped on the lights as conflicting voices competed in his head:
Got to take a shower, shave, change clothes. Don’t go out there, just turn on the TV and get to bed early. Hurry, she may go to bed thinking you aren’t coming. You’re not ready for this! Tell her you were too tired. There’s danger out there, you know what can happen. Are you mad, turning down an invitation to Eden?

As though his fate were determined by some unseen hand, he hurried toward the magnetic vision of Diana standing naked in the locker room. A navy shower, pull on some clothes, no clean underwear, forget the underwear, a clean pair of jeans and his sexy soft cotton Levi shirt. Hurry, run the
electric shaver over his face, splash on aftershave, hurry, brush hair, brush teeth, socks, forget socks, pull on loafers, out the door.

Sam drove up the blacktop in his Ford Tempo and as he passed the Blue Willow, Grandma’s VW bus had pulled up at the back and the brake lights were on but not the headlights. Grandma? Peter? He checked his watch. Nearly eleven. Strange. But as he rounded the curve and headed north he discovered the voices were waiting for him in ambush.

D
IANA STRIPPED OFF
her clothes and showered the moment she got home, feeling hot and sticky from the night’s excitement and exertion. She kept asking herself why she’d invited Sam out. What would he think? Could she tell him, being that she was leaving in the morning for San Diego and Christmas with her parents, that she just wanted to have some time alone with him to talk and unwind? Why
did
she invite him out? Out of the shower, she pulled on a pink terry-cloth robe she’d never worn, and it felt sensuous against her tingling skin. Should she get fully dressed, jeans and sweater? She combed her hair and avoided eye contact in the mirror as if her own eyes would accuse her.

“We’ll just talk,” she said aloud. “Keep it light, nothing serious, a friendly good-bye. Offer him something to drink—I think there’s some wine—and we’ll just spend a nice quiet hour together and then he’ll go home … maybe a kiss at the door, and I’ll be safe on my way to California in the morning. Or, if we do make love, it’s just a physical thing, a basic need, that’s all, nothing to take seriously, people do it all the time.”