Knights of the Hill Country (2 page)

It happened at the end of last season in the Okalah game. Everybody knew them Okalah Outlaws was the dirtiest players in the state, so it wouldn't surprise me none if they went after Blaine's knee on purpose. And that's what he said too. Swore he'd get even with them someday. What happened was, two of their boys hit him at the same time—the corner-back and that fat linebacker with the broken front tooth. It was the cornerback's helmet that speared him straight in the knee, but Blaine figured they was both in on the plan, a high-low hit to take him out of the game. Didn't work, though. Blaine's about as tough as an old ring-nosed rodeo bull—mean as one too when he has to be. He finished out the game, playing on nothing but guts and stubbornness, that knee burning from the inside out so bad he told me he was surprised his britches didn't catch on fire from it.

But he didn't tell nobody else and ordered me to shut up about it too. Said there wasn't nothing worth telling. You should've seen that knee, though, all swole up like a big hairy cantaloupe. He finished out the season without complaint one—Knights don't whine—and come summer he said he was as good as a brand-new Cadillac. But I knew better.

Out on the field the huddle broke, and I toed up to the sideline, yelling, “First down, boys! First down's all we need! Come on now, offense! Come on now! You can do it!”

The game plan was simple—bang it up the middle, eat up time and yardage. Blaine lined up in the I, and he did something probably nobody but me noticed. He pounded down on his right kneepad a couple times, like maybe he could wake up that stiff old knee and get the speed out of it again like he used to.

“You're the man, Blaine!” I hollered. “You're the man!”

Old Sweetpea Lewis snapped the ball off to Darnell, and Darnell wheeled around and slammed it into Blaine's gut. Our right tackle, Sweetpea's little brother Jackie, rammed his man back, and there it was, the crack of daylight Blaine needed. He had to get there, and he had to get there right now. But that knee sabotaged him from the get-go. You couldn't see it if you wasn't watching for it, but I knew he didn't get launched off as quick as he needed to. That hole in the line filled up with white jerseys and blue helmets faster than a summer storm taking over a clear sky, and there wasn't even a crack left for Blaine to shoot through.

Under my breath, I was telling him,
Go down, son. Just go down and take your medicine. Don't take no chances now.
But Blaine couldn't go down. This whole season, he'd come up short of the kind of football everybody was used to from him, and he had to make him a real statement before the season come unraveled on him like a third-string practice jersey.

He turned down along the line of scrimmage, heading for left end, but the Titans' big farm-boy linebacker had already charged that side. Dead end. Nothing to do but cut back the other way, but that damn bad knee went traitor on him again. By the time he got his balance back, it was too late. One Titan wrapped him up high and another busted his legs out low, and the football went spinning out across the ground like a loose hubcap after a three-car pileup.

There must've been eight men jumped on top of that ball, squirming like a bunch of copperheads on hot asphalt, and you couldn't tell till the officials pried the last one up who recovered it.

Wynette.

I could just about hear the air go whistling out of the fans on our side of the stadium. Blaine was still down, and he raised up slow, limping a little but trying to hide it, not wanting to give Coach Huff the least reason to set him out if we ever got the ball back.

Running out to take my position, I stopped him as the offense and defense crisscrossed paths. “You okay?”

He slapped my shoulder pad. “You get them assholes for me. You hear? I don't care what you have to do, but you get 'em.”

I nodded, snapping my chin strap down. It was hard to get me mad for myself, but I could damn sure get mad for a friend.

Less than two minutes left now, but two minutes can seem like a hot-August hour at the end of a close game. One mistake and Wynette'd pick up enough yardage for even their rubber-legged kicker to score a field goal, send the game into overtime. A bigger mistake this close to the end zone, and they might even score a touchdown. Game over. The five-year winning streak down the toilet and our chance at being legends flushed down with it. It'd be the defense's fault, but everyone would hang the blame on Blaine for fumbling. That'd be too much. I knew him better than anyone, even his own family. He wasn't built for carrying a sack of rocks that heavy up and down the streets of Kennisaw for the rest of his life.

Taking up my middle linebacker spot, I knew Wynette had
to pass. The smart play would be to shoot a short one out to the sideline, get out of bounds, maybe move the chains, but something told me that old camel-faced Titans coach would think that was too obvious right now. They'd try and be too smart for their own good.

I was right.

The center snapped the ball on a quick count, and the quarterback swiveled towards the tailback, and that's when I stopped time again. The tailback froze behind the left tackle, the quarterback leaning towards him like he was going to hand the ball off. A surprise running play. Only it was a fake and I knew it. The guard was already starting to pull back, which he wouldn't do on a run—nobody would run off-tackle in this situation unless they was crazy or stupid.

No, they was pulling the same play they nearly fooled me on a while ago. No doubt about it.

The easy thing to do would be to just lay back and wait for the split end to cut across the middle and bat the pass down or maybe even intercept it, but right now wasn't about the easy thing. Blaine told me to get them suckers for him, and, by God, I was going to get them.

First, I charged in like I was aiming for the tailback, but instead I dodged right into the backfield. The guard seen me, but I flew past him before he could pull his cleats up out of the ground. The quarterback wasn't looking at nothing but that big fat clearing I left open in the middle of the field. He planted and cocked his arm, ready to fire off one of them perfect spirals over the line to number eighty-eight. Man oh man, he could taste him a touchdown, sweeter than apple pie with ice cream on top.

But it was too late.

He wasn't throwing no more touchdowns today. He wasn't about to turn my best friend's fumble into no giant sack of back-crushing rocks. I smashed into him at full speed, banging my helmet straight into his shoulder, busting through him as easy as one of them paper banners the team runs through at the first of the game. Then, there it was, the ball bouncing loose, springing up with perfect timing into my hands. I didn't even have to slow down. I just tucked that ball under my arm and blew towards the end zone like a cool breeze in July.

I didn't spike the ball or dance. That's not my style. I only turned and watched as them black Knights jerseys stampeded towards me, ready to smother me with congratulations. The band kicked into the fight song, and the stands boomed, “Hampton! Hampton! Hampton!”

Like I said, that kind of thing don't give me the big head, but if I could've stopped time right then, I would have. I'd have froze that exact moment right there, closed it up in my fist, and took it home to show what I done. Maybe that finally would've made a difference.

After the game, we was out on Main Street in Blaine's old Blazer, stopped at the light just south of Jolly Cone, and these girls in their little red Mustang squealed down the road going the other way.

“Did you see them girls' faces when I mooned 'em?” Jake said, laughing.

Blaine checked him out in the rearview mirror and said, “Hey, yank your britches up, asshole. I don't want your naked butt on my upholstery.”

“Are you kidding me?” Jake said. “You spilled enough beer on these old seats last Saturday night. I don't think you're gonna have to worry about my butt germs for a good long time.”

“Besides,” Darnell said, “this has to be the oldest Blazer in
the history of the world. I'll bet it's the first one off the assembly line.”

It was our quarterback, Darnell Wills, and our wide receiver Jake Sweet in the backseat and me and Blaine up front. All of us fresh and clean from our postgame showers, large and in charge.

Blaine patted the dashboard and said, “Good old Citronella.” Citronella was what he called the Blazer. “She might be ancient, but, by God, she's loyal. And I'll tell you what, she's got a good pedigree too. Her first owner was George Washington hisself, and he sold her off to Buffalo Bill and he sold her to Babe Ruth and he sold her to Elvis Presley.”

That was Blaine for you. He always could lay it on thick.

“And old Elvis, he sold it to Emmitt Smith's daddy two months before he kicked the bucket on the bathroom floor at Graceland, and it was Emmitt sold it to me.”

“You're full of it,” Jake said.

“And on top of that, Citronella don't get jealous of all the girls I run in and out of that backseat back there.”

Darnell had to laugh at that one. “Now you're really full of it.”

“You ever seen anyone light a fart on fire?” Jake said.

“Yeah,” I told him. “We seen you do it last week, and we didn't want to see it then.”

Old Jake, he wasn't a half bad wide receiver, but he was always playing the fool. Sometimes he got on Blaine's nerves a little more than he done with the rest of us, especially this season.

“You fart on my seat, and I'll break your arm,” Blaine told him, and he only barely sounded like he was exaggerating it.

“What's the matter?” Jake shot back. “You still bent out of shape about almost losing us the game tonight?”

Anybody but Jake would've known better than to say something like that to Blaine.

Without the least warning, Blaine stomped on the brake pedal, and Citronella fishtailed to a dead stop right there in the middle of Main. He stared his Blaine stare into the rearview mirror. “You get your britches up right now, son, or I'm climbing back there, and we'll see who gets bent out of shape.”

This time there wasn't no exaggeration about it.

Jake tried staring his own stare back into the mirror, but it didn't hold up. “Jesus, Blaine, what's eating you? Can't you take a joke no more?” He started hitching up his jeans.

Blaine didn't bother to answer that but just kept aiming his double-barrel glare into the mirror till Jake got his belt buckled. Then he gave a nod, like,
Okay, you're off the hook for now,
and started back down the street again.

“Hell,” Jake said. “No one's worried about losing any games anyways. Not when we got old Hamp in there.” He reached over the seat and slapped my shoulder, but I just looked down at the dashboard. Last thing Blaine wanted to hear was how someone had to save his bacon.

“That's the truth,” Darnell said. “You was amazing out there tonight, Hamp.”

“Aw, I didn't do nothing the rest of you wouldn't have done.” I caught myself rubbing my palm along the short bristles of hair on top of my head. It's kind of a nervous thing I do when I get embarrassed. Blaine told me one time it drove him crazy, made me look like I didn't have no self-confidence, so I tried to quit, but it kept coming back.

“Man oh man,” Darnell said. “I mean, you straight-out laid it on that quarterback. He was stretched out down there on the ground so flat he looked about like some old piece of pizza you gotta peel up off the box with a knife. I'm sure glad you're on our team. I don't want no one laying me out like that.”

“That ain't no lie,” Jake said. “So tell me, Hamp, how's it feel to score an eighty-yard touchdown?”

I glanced over at Blaine. He didn't say nothing, but the way he was strangling that steering wheel, I could tell he was still pretty good and annoyed with old Jake.

“I don't know,” I said. “Why don't you ask Blaine? He scored one eighty-five yards and some change.”

“Aw,” Darnell said. “That was all the way last season, though.”

“That's right,” Jake said. “This year it looks like he's gonna need you to bail him out if we're gonna get us another undefeated season.”

Jake don't know when to keep shut up.

Blaine didn't stomp on the brake this time, though. He just snorted like he couldn't hardly be bothered with something so stupid. “That'll be the day,” he said.

“I don't know,” Jake kept on. “You better watch out or Hamp's gonna go off to OU without you, and you're gonna be stuck here riding up and down the strip and circling through Jolly Cone on Saturday nights right on through till you're sixty.”

“Shoot,” Blaine said. “Hampton's not mean enough for big-time college football. Not yet.”

We'd talked about going over to Norman to the University of Oklahoma together since we was in fifth grade, and this was the first time he'd said anything about how I wasn't
mean enough for big-time college football. I didn't like it. Sure, he was irritated at Jake trying to get his goat, but I didn't see why he had to take it out on me none.

“What are you talking about?” I said. “Didn't you see me flatten that quarterback? I bet you he thought I was plenty mean enough.”

Blaine smiled a little snickery smile. “Yeah, and I also seen you helping their man up on the sideline, patting him on the butt like he was your boyfriend too.”

“All that is is sportsmanship,” I said.

“It's soft is what it is. You can't let the enemy see you being weak. Ever. That's rule number one. You're a Knight, son. My dad told me back in his day, every team they played got scared just watching the Knights run on the field. It's the way they carried themselves. The swagger. That's how you keep on top. You can't let 'em see you look weak, and you can't let 'em see you hurt. And sometimes you have to be downright brutal. When it counts.”

We rode along without saying nothing for a moment. It never even crossed my mind to bring up what would've happened if Wynette'd scored them a touchdown on top of his fumble. But that's the way it always was with Blaine. He could think up an argument for his side quicker than a rich man's lawyer, but me, I had to mull things over, look them up and down and inside out, so by the time I come up with an answer, there's no one around to tell but my bedpost.