Knights of the Hill Country (20 page)

“Before coming here today,” Blaine went on when the noise faded off, “I looked up the word
knight
in the dictionary, and do you know what it said? It said that knights are gentlemen, nobility, raised to honorable military rank, soldiers
trained to fight for their country. And that's our patriotic duty tonight. Our enemy's the worst kind of enemy, a team without honor. They might share these same hills with us, all right, but they sure don't share our traditions. Almost thirty years ago, an Okalah team cheated their way to ending the greatest string of wins any hill-country team ever put together, and they had to wait till the great T. Roy Strong graduated to do it. Are we gonna let 'em do it a second time?”

“No!” the crowd roared.

“Are we?”

“No!”

“That's right. Tonight, when we go on that field as the Kennisaw Knights, noble soldiers and carriers of the honor and dignity of our school and our whole town, I'll promise you this, by God, we're gonna stomp the Okalah Outlaws into the ground or we're gonna die trying!”

All at once, the crowd jumped up to its feet, the cheers bouncing off the walls and the ceiling, and the bleachers rumbling from stomping feet. You could practically see how the noise was swelling up inside of Blaine as he raised his fists in the air. He meant what he said. I believed that. He would die trying, if that's what it took.

After the pep assembly, Coach caught me by the arm and told me to come over to his office, said he had something to talk over just between me and him. Blaine heard him and asked me what was up.

“I don't have any idea,” I said. “As far as I know, I haven't done anything wrong.”

“Seems kinda strange.” Blaine looked suspicious. “Wonder why he didn't ask me to come over too.”

That was a good point, Blaine being offensive captain and all. “Maybe he just wants to go over some last-minute defense stuff,” I said.

“Maybe.” Blaine didn't look too sure about that. It wasn't like Coach to talk his ideas over with you. He just told you what to do and you did it. “Or maybe he didn't like that little speech you gave. I mean, what were you talking about?”

“Aw, surely he didn't care about that. He knows I'm not much on public speaking. Anyways, I better get over there. I'll fill you in on it later.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

I always felt out of place in Coach's office. Everything was so shiny and neat, and then there was me. I felt like I ought to go get my clothes ironed or something. He never was one of them coaches you hear about that asks his players over to his house or takes them out to the lake and feeds them on catfish and watermelon. You didn't come into his office and lay out your personal problems. He was all business all the time. Except today, he had a little more friendly to him.

First thing when I walked in, he went over and shut the door, and on his way back to his desk he told me to set down and slapped me a warm pat on the back.

“How'd you sleep last night?” he said.

“Pretty good.”

“That's fine. We need you in top form tonight.” He leaned back in his chair and made a little tent with his fingers in front of his stomach. “But that's not really what I called you in here for.”

“Well,” I said, “if it's about that little speech I made, I'm sorry it didn't make a whole lot of sense….”

He chuckled. “No, Hampton, that's not what it's about.” When he called me Hampton instead of Green, I knew he had something different from the usual game talk on his mind.

“It's a heck of a lot more important than that,” he went on. “You know how I sent off that game film to OU? Well, I got some word back about that. Nothing official, now, but still real, real reliable.”

That sure got my attention.

“And I'll just tell you this. They liked what they saw. They liked what they saw a whole lot.”

“Well,” I said, “we played some good ball this season. I'll bet our team could whup plenty of those 6A boys.”

“It's not the team I'm talking about.” Coach leaned forward and stared me in the eye. “It's you, Hampton. You impressed the hell out of some important people. And I wouldn't say this if I wasn't pretty certain, but things look real good for you at OU. Signing day's still a couple months off, but things look real promising.”

“Just me?” I asked. “They didn't say nothing about anyone else?”

“There isn't anyone else to talk about. We're a hell of a 4A team, Hampton. A hell of a 4A team. But unless someone really steps up huge here at the end of the season, I don't see anybody but you having much of a chance with any big-time college programs.”

I didn't know what to say to that—Coach didn't pass out compliments too much. But more than that, I didn't know how to
feel
. One part of me felt like jumping up on the desk and shouting
hurray!
But another part felt real let down. Football hadn't never been just about me. It was about the rest of the guys on the team too. And especially Blaine.

“So,” Coach went on, “the reason I'm telling you this right now is so you'll get out there tonight and play—not just like a 4A hotshot—but like the OU-caliber linebacker you are. You got that?”

“You bet, Coach.”

“All right, then.” He got up and come around the desk and shook my hand. “Finish off this game proud for us, son.”

When I come out of the office, Blaine was down by the
water fountain, pretending to get a drink. He wiped his mouth with his forearm. “Well, what did he have on his mind?”

“Oh, nothing much.” I couldn't look him in the eye.

He stood there and studied me for a moment. “It was about OU, wasn't it? Coach heard back about that game film.”

I never did have much of a poker face.

“Nothing official,” I said. “Just that they kind of liked it.”

“You mean they liked
you
.”

I didn't say anything.

“Good for you,” he said, but there wasn't much enthusiasm in it. “That's great.”

“Coach said there was still time for someone to step up and maybe make a big impression.”

Blaine started walking. “I ain't even worried about that. Five undefeated seasons—that's all I got on my mind, son. Five undefeated seasons. There ain't nothing bigger than that.”

There we was, under the lights again. A constant roar filled up the stadium. I bowled over two blockers, dodged a third one, and hammered into that Okalah tailback so hard I could just about feel the wind whooshing out of him. Five-yard loss. Okalah had to give up the ball. Again.

But Blaine was wrong. It
was
a game.

Or if you had to say it was something more than that, then it wasn't no war. Huh-uh. It was a song you could belt out at the top of your lungs, letting loose everything you kept inside and didn't know how to get out any other way. Whatever it was, I knew one thing for sure. I was having me more fun playing football than any time since grade school days.

“What're you smiling at?” Blaine yelled when I pulled my helmet off on the sideline. “We gotta get intense, son!”

I slapped him a good one on the back. “I am intense!”

Blaine tugged his own helmet down over his ears. “You better wipe that goofy-ass grin off your face before you fool around and lose us this game.”

I just laughed. I wasn't worried one bit. The more fun I had, the better I played. That whole first half I was all over the field, racking up one tackle after the other. Two pass deflections, four sacks, and one interception. Boy howdy. I hadn't never had a game to match this one.

That good old Kennisaw crowd went crazy with just about everything I done. I probably could've tied my shoe and they would've started chanting my name. Paper cups rained down, shoes and boots pounded against the stands, the band played wild, and the cheerleaders flipped end over end down the sideline. And best of all—better even than the news Coach Huff told me about OU—this time my mom was up in the stands, along with Tommy Don.

And the icing on the cake—Sara was up there too.

She had her a seat right on the fifty-yard line where I could look up and see her grinning any time I wanted. The way I figured it, win or lose, this right here was how football was supposed to be.

“Hey,” I yelled as Blaine started onto the field with the rest of the offense. “Have you some damn fun out there for a change, son!”

Blaine wasn't looking to have no fun, though, I don't guess. He hated them Okalah boys down to the last player, but he didn't hate no one as bad as number fifty-five, Covey Wallace, the outside linebacker. Covey was the big blond meaty kid he punched that night out at Wild West Days, and the two of them had been tangling it up since the first play our offense run and it was only getting worse now.

There wasn't but a couple minutes left in the first half, and
we got us some decent field position on the forty-five-yard line after Okalah muffed their punt. Our first play was a screen pass into the flats to Blaine. The timing was perfect. He caught it at a full run and made it around right end untouched. Last year, he would've ripped it for a long gainer, maybe even a touchdown, but not now. Covey Wallace tracked him down before he gained ten yards and laid him out flat. That wasn't all, though. He took his sweet time getting up off of Blaine, and before Blaine could pull hisself off the ground, damn old Covey tromped down on his knee— the bad one—on purpose. Man alive, it hurt me to watch it, and there wasn't no doubt Blaine would be out for revenge after that.

Back in the huddle, he took to jawboning Darnell so fierce you could practically see the spit fly. Sure thing he wanted the ball again, but it was too late. Coach done called for a pass to Jake. Blaine's job was to play decoy receiver, but there wasn't no way he'd settle for that right now. Instead, he charged straight into Covey Wallace, and this time Blaine was on top when the whistle blew the incomplete pass dead. He took advantage of it too, grinding his knee so deep in Covey's stomach it's a wonder that Okalah boy didn't break in half.

Dirty gets dirty back.
That was Blaine's motto from the get-go.

Didn't help the score none, though. Darnell got bottled up for a loss on the next play, and we was back in punt formation our own selves.

Halftime score: 0 to 0.

While we was in the locker room waiting for Coach to come in and give his speech, Blaine couldn't talk about nothing but Covey Wallace.

“You know what that fool said to me out there?” He slapped a backhand across my chest like it was me he was mad at. “He said, 'How's it feel, Keller? You ain't so tough when you can't get a sucker punch in first.'
Sucker punch!
I'll tell you what, that wasn't no sucker punch I laid on him. I hit him straight-on in the mouth with him looking right at me. It's not my fault he don't know how to duck.”

He was more than just a little worked up. I had to tell him, “Look, don't let that kid get to you. We ain't just playing one guy out there. We're playing a whole team.”

“Yeah, well,” he said. “You bite the head off a snake and the snake'll die.”

I didn't know what to say to something like that. Didn't matter anyways. Coach marched in about that time, and I don't believe I ever seen him look so grim. He didn't even face the team but stood over by the row of lockers with his back turned. Even the back of his neck looked mad! For a long time, he kept real still, not saying a word, like he was studying something on the metal locker in front of him, something serious, like an epitaph.

Then finally, without turning around, he started summing up the first half in a real soft voice. I swear, it was scarier than any yelling he could've done. The way he told it, you wouldn't have thought a solitary soul did a lick of good out there, but he gave it to the offense worst of all.

“It looks like the newspapers are right,” he said, not a drop of emotion in his voice. He could just as well have been talking about the weather. “We might have a halfway decent team if we had any offense at all. But truth is, we don't, not tonight. I wonder if that's gonna be the story in the paper again tomorrow. I wonder. Is that gonna be what this whole town's talking about for the rest of the year?”

Then a little steam started to build up in his voice. “What am I saying? That's what people's gonna be talking about for a lot longer than a year. They'll be hashing it over till a good hard rain comes and washes the whole town clean out of these hills. 'Cause you don't get chances like this but once every thirty years. Five undefeated seasons in a row. That's what it's all about right here and right now. I wonder, are we gonna blow that chance?”

There's where he usually would've gone into the old call-and-response routine, tossing out lines like a Baptist preacher and waiting for the congregation to throw the answers back. Building it up more and more, making us repeat our answers louder and louder till we're yelling our heads off, chanting, “Fight, Knights, fight!” But he didn't do that. This time, he just turned and walked out the door, leaving us with our mouths hanging open.

Blaine was the first to stand up. “Well, boys, he left it to us. We gotta figure out our own selves whuther we're gonna win this game or not. And there ain't but one way to do it, and that's to bring it to 'em hard and mean. We gotta roll out like thunder and come down like fire.”

I always said it. Blaine was a natural-born leader. “Whatta we gonna do, boys?” he yelled.

And we come right back with, “Fight!”

And there it went. We was the congregation again. No doubt about it. We was the congregation, and Blaine was the preacher, sparks in his eyes and his fist pounding the air. Only it wasn't salvation he was hollering about. It was winning. But I guess for Blaine them two things was pretty much the same.

Back out on the field, we took the first kick of the second half, and our boys bucked and elbowed their way clear down to the Okalah twenty-yard line before finally stalling out. On fourth and six, we tried us a field goal, but the ball slammed into the right goalpost and bounced off to the side, no good. Blaine collapsed down on his knees and shook his fists. Just a few feet in front of him—I seen it plain as day— Covey Wallace looked down and blew him a kiss. If Covey hadn't turned around and run off right quick, who knows what Blaine might've done to him.