Blind Your Ponies Read online

  In the dream, he was always in a car and Amy was entering a building, sometimes a Burger King, sometimes a supermarket, a movie theater, or a shopping mall. He tried frantically to stop her, to warn her. He tried to open the car door but it wouldn’t open. He’d try to roll down the window but there was no handle or switch and so he’d try to break the door open with his shoulder or smash the window out with his fists. He’d try to yell but nothing would come out of his mouth and Amy would disappear. No matter how he tried he couldn’t save her. He was afraid to go to sleep.

  And into the muddle of his life—his struggle to claw his way out of the past and into some portion of the present—came Diana Murphy. As difficult as it was in a high school of eighteen students, he had managed to duck any direct encounter with Diana, afraid that he would blush an array of shades if he had to look into her eyes. She was often gone, off to visit Ellie and Randolph Butterworth, a couple she had met who ranched over toward Cardwell. Part of him lived in terror of the moment when they would finally speak of how he had seen her that night. Another part of him longed for it, that intimate confidence shared, something intriguing and mystifying, something breathing a carnal and scary possibility.

  The door rattled. Sam looked away from the TV for a moment, listening.

  The knock came again, more distinct. He put his notepad aside and left the taped basketball game running.

  The light bulb on his porch had burned out weeks ago and he opened the door without immediately recognizing her in the gusty darkness. In a gray, quilted down coat and a crimson matador hat she held in place by the brim, Diana stepped into his house, her wind-kissed cheeks flushed and glowing.

  “Hi, Sam, it’s really howling out there.”

  She pulled off her hat and shook out her hair.

  “I saw your light. Am I interrupting anything?”

  “Oh, uh … no.” Sam nodded toward the television. “Just basketball.”

  Diana entered the living room and settled on the sagging sofa amid books, magazines, and stacks of videos. She watched the game in progress.

  “Is this on now?”

  “No. I’ve got it on tape.”

  Sam turned down the volume and picked several newspapers and magazines off the carpet, trying to cover his dirty dinner plate before she noticed it. He tripped and knocked a stack of books off an end table.

  “Sorry about that. I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

  He sought refuge in his tattered upholstered chair, praying that she wouldn’t ask to use the bathroom. Thankful for a diversion, he picked up his notepad, glancing at the TV with a businesslike manner.

  “I wanted to catch you at school,” she said. “But you seemed to disappear all week.”

  He loved her throaty voice.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, catching a strong scent of Diana’s lavender soap. “I’m watching a lot of basketball.”

  “I’d like to help out. You don’t have enough players to scrimmage. I played basketball in college and I could play defense or whatever you needed, I’d be another body.”

  Sam feared he visibly shuddered at the “B” word and he had difficulty finding his voice. Another body. How could he concentrate with her promenading her shapely anatomy around the gym floor while he tried to instruct his boys on a give-and-go? How could any of them? Here, Tom, you move up and screen Miss Murphy and try not to notice her sumptuous proportions as she rubs past you. He’d have to put Tom’s eyes out first.

  “Well, that’s good of you to offer. Maybe … now and then …” Sam said, trying to avoid her stare.

  “Why don’t you ask a few other people? I’m sure there’d be some who’d like to help and give the boys a team to practice against. I’ll bet some of the recent players would, if they weren’t working.”

  “Not many kids stay around here after high school,” Sam said. “No work.” He nodded at the game. “See that? A back pick on the center and Olaf rolls free for a backdoor slam.” Sam reversed the tape and they watched the San Antonio Spurs spring David Robinson for an easy slam.

  “That’s what I mean,” she said. “You need some bodies out there if you’re going to practice five-man basketball.”

  She put on her matador, tilted in an alluring manner. “I’ll be at practice Monday. I think you’ve got something here. I can see why you’re excited.”

  “Wouldn’t you like something? A Coke? Some coffee?”

  “No, thanks. It’s late.” She laughed and glanced around the littered room. “What are you doing, passively defying Superintendent Truly?”

  “No, my mother.”

  “I tack up posters off -centered,” she said, “just to see him grit his teeth.”

  She walked to the door and opened it, ushering in southwesterly squalls into the stuffy house. Sam followed her to the door and halfway out she paused, her face shadowed under her tilted hat. “Oh, and I’ll try to remember the lights in the girls’ locker room.”

  Sam caught his breath and tried to study her eyes in the darkness for signs of a rebuke or understanding. He caught them for an instant in a small shaft of light. He felt hot blood flowing through his face and ears.

  She smiled. “The shower out at my place is a joke.”

  When she left, he paced through the house again, stepping around and over things, forgetting all about the basketball game. He could hear the barren lilacs tapping Morse code on the faded siding and unwashed window panes. He stood motionless, listening. He’d never interpreted the signs correctly; he’d never heard the Muses clearly.

  Dousing the TV and lights, he fumbled out of his clothing and felt his way to the haunted bed. The wind rocked the house to sleep as he lay awake, and he heard the tapping on his soul. He couldn’t detect if it was a warning against hope or the dancing lilacs in Diana’s inviting garden.

  CHAPTER 16

  In class, Sam was utilizing the film Man of La Mancha to spark his students’ interest in Cervantes and his absurd hero, Don Quixote. Among the many posters on his classroom wall was one that advertised the film, depicting the lunatic knight attacking a windmill. The entire junior and senior class, eight of them, watched the video on the TV Sam propped up on his desk.

  Some of his students had shown only mild interest at the beginning, occasionally whispering to each other during the movie. But now, viewing the second half of the film, most of them quietly watched. Sitting off to the side, Sam observed their faces. As the story concluded, the kids hardly seemed to breathe, caught up in the drama of the peculiar old man following his quest with his fat little squire, Sancho.

  Aldonza forces her way in to see Don Quixote in his deathbed. He is failing and confused and Aldonza pleads with him. “You spoke of a dream. And about the Quest!”

  “Quest?” Don Quixote whispers.

  “How you must fight and it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose if only you follow the Quest.”

  “The words. Tell me the words,” he says.

  Aldonza speaks in time with the music.

  “To dream the impossible dream … But they’re your own words.

  “To fight the unbeatable foe … Don’t you remember?

  “To bear with unbearable sorrow … You must remember!

  “To run where the brave dare not go—”

  Don Quixote remembers and stammers.

  “To right the unrightable wrong.”

  “Yes,” she says.

  “To love, pure and chaste from afar,” he says with a stronger voice.

  “Yes.”

  “To try, when your arms are too weary. To reach the unreachable star!”

  Aldonza takes hold of his hand. “Thank you, my lord.”

  “But this is not seemly, my lady. On thy knees, to me?” He tries to rise in the bed and she holds his hand.

  “My lord, you are not well!”

  “Not well? What is sickness to the body of a knight-errant?” he says and sits up in the bed. “What matter wounds? For each time he falls he shall rise again—and woe to
the wicked!” He shouts, “Sancho!”

  Don Quixote stumbles out of his deathbed and calls for his sword and armor.

  Tom held up a fist and shouted, “Yeah!”

  Sam turned on the lights and raised the window shades. No one spoke.

  Then Tom broke the spell. “Did that dude really live?”

  “Did he ever,” Sam said. “A soldier who was seriously wounded, Cervantes spent five years in Africa as a slave, wrote over forty plays that never were successful, was imprisoned by the Inquisition and spent several terms in prison. After all this—and this is the good part—when he was old and sick and a complete failure to the world, he wrote what many have considered the world’s greatest novel, which he finished in 1615. He died a year later and no one knows where he was buried.”

  The kids gazed at Sam, moved by the story of this rusting, whimsical hero.

  “Does this remind you of anyone else in history?” Sam said.

  The students thought for a moment.

  “Mozart?” Louella said.

  “Yes, many similarities,” Sam said. “Unsatisfying success while living, never giving up, dying a pauper, a failure in his own mind, dumped in an unmarked grave, his genius recognized years later.”

  “Shakespeare?” Mary Shaw, the strawberry blonde junior, said.

  “Strangely enough, Shakespeare and Cervantes died within ten days of each other,” Sam said. “Anyone else come to mind?”

  “The Willow Creek basketball team,” Tom Stonebreaker said, his hawk-like eyes brimming with resolve.

  “You got that right,” Rob said.

  The bell rang and the other students flashed puzzled glances at each other, having no clue what Tom and Rob were talking about.

  Sam did.

  “KEEP THE BALL above your head!” Sam shouted at Olaf as they practiced bringing the ball upcourt with only four players. Scott, the ungainly freshman manager, and Sam played defense while Dean and Curtis did most of the running.

  For lack of a better name, Sam called the tactic “volleyball.” The boys lobbed high passes to Olaf who, keeping the ball in the stratosphere, passed it to an open teammate and then ran upcourt to set up again for a high lob.

  “If you bring it down they’ll take it away from you!” Sam shouted.

  Olaf caught the ball on the center line as Curtis tried to leap and knock it away. Sam blew his whistle.

  “Okay, hold it right there. Look at where your feet are, Olaf. Don’t set up until you’re in the front court, otherwise you’re going to get called for over-and-back. Okay. Let’s run it three against five. Pete, you come on defense.”

  They ran hard. Rob, Tom, and Olaf attempted to bring the ball upcourt against five defenders, over and over, switching everyone around except Olaf. He wanted them to feel normal four against five, confident, expecting it. The boys went at each other on the court, and Sam racked his brain for every possible situation they would encounter, every possible scene he’d witnessed in his five-year history of being outclassed and outmaneuvered.

  While Sam was absorbed in the scrimmage, he suddenly caught sight of Diana as she appeared from the girls’ locker room. He blinked, then sighed with relief. As if she had anticipated his worst fears, she showed up in baggy gray sweats that made her look boyish, except for the long dark brown hair she held in place with a gold headband.

  Sam worked the team on offensive plays, making Diana, Dean, and Scott play defense. He paid little attention to Grandma Chapman and Hazel Brown when they entered the gym and clambered into the bleachers, followed by the hobbling cat, Tripod. Pete acknowledged his colorful grandmother with a smile and wave.

  “Here are two more players,” Diana said with a lowered voice.

  Sam paused. “You don’t mean—”

  “Why not? They can stand, can’t they?”

  “I’m not going to ask them to—”

  “I will,” Diana said, and she trotted over to the bleachers.

  “You want me to play basketball?” Hazel Brown said.

  “Come on, they need us,” Grandma said.

  Sam frowned as the two women—a white-haired, one-handed grandmother in brown fedora and Reeboks and her fortyish, Volkswagen Beetle– sized friend in tentlike pants and bright orange sweatshirt—walked onto the court waiting for instructions.

  “Put Hazel on Olaf,” Diana whispered.

  The boys exchanged sideways glances and rolled their eyes. Diana was one thing, but this was downright mortifying. With Grandma and Hazel it became five on five, of sorts.

  Though Sam admitted that desperation breeds insanity, it wasn’t a bad idea. For a half hour, they walked through offensive plays. As the boys rolled off picks at half speed for layups, Grandma Chapman batted the ball out of Pete’s hands as he attempted a shot.

  “Hey, no fair!” Pete shouted.

  “Enough of this monkey business,” she said. “Let’s play ball.”

  With some trepidation and Grandma’s egging, Sam had them try it at full speed. He was shocked to discover that the older, unathletic women suddenly mutated into emotional, competitive jocks who took this scrimmage very much to heart. Grandma resembled a mother hen defending her eggs against marauding predators, clucking and huffing about with wings flapping.

  Hazel Brown—amazingly graceful and light on her feet for her bulk—was a load to handle and was possessive of the paint. Olaf tried to get into position, but after Sam’s instruction to shove him around, Hazel proved as tenacious as any opposing player Olaf was likely to run up against. Sam noticed that the more Hazel sweated, the more pungent her cheap perfume became. Because he allowed more contact than a legitimate ref would, the volunteers got away with murder.

  “Oh, excuse me,” Olaf said after bumping into Hazel.

  “Don’t you worry about being polite, boy,” she said and knocked him four feet out of the paint with a single heave of her belly.

  These makeshift, patchwork defenders in street clothes, baggy sweats, and house dresses took it all very seriously, shouting to one another and rapidly developing a highly competitive esprit de corps. Their enthusiasm far outdistanced their conditioning. Though quicker and more agile, the boys were taking their lumps in this strange combat with elbowing and clawing misfits.

  Sam was hoping no one else in the human race would witness this bizarre sideshow when, sure enough, Truly Osborn showed up along the sidelines. After almost ten minutes at full throttle, Sam blew his whistle with a sudden dread. He’d noticed Tom was favoring his knee. He thanked the recruits and sent the team to work on free throws.

  Grandma turned to Sam.

  “When do you want us back?” she asked, avoiding Hazel’s frown.

  “Oh … I don’t know. Maybe if you could come around four tomorrow?” he said without much time for thought.

  “We’ll be here,” Grandma said, as Tripod rubbed against her leg. She bent and scooped up her cat.

  “I don’t know about tomorrow,” Hazel said, red-faced and trying to catch her breath. “I must have lost ten pounds.”

  “What do you think of the Norwegian?” Grandma said as the two women shuffled to the bleachers to retrieve their coats.

  “Well, he’s clumsy,” Hazel said, wiping her brow with her shirt sleeve. “But he’s slow.”

  “Ha!” Grandma said.

  Truly marched over to Sam. He spoke out of the side of his mouth without a pause in his step or a hint of dissatisfaction on his narrow, expressionless face.

  “You gone completely out of your mind?”

  Sam sputtered for a reply, but Diana saved him, approaching the two with a look of concern.

  “Tom’s limping a little,” she said.

  “I noticed,” Sam said. He watched Tom on the free-throw line.

  “Oh, Mr. Pickett,” Grandma called. “We have a mascot.”

  She held Tripod high in the air. Sam nodded and then drifted toward the boys. His team practiced against a candidate for Weight Watchers and a woman old enough to be in any hospita
l’s geriatric ward, and now they were a team with a three-legged cat for a mascot. Perfect.

  “Your knee hurting?” Sam asked Tom as he shot free throws.

  “A little.”

  Tom swished a free throw. Curtis bounced the ball back to him.

  “Did you have a doctor look at it?”

  “No. My dad wouldn’t pay a nickel for a doctor. Said I’d have to pay for it myself ’cause I hurt it riding rodeo. I told him I’d walk it off.”

  Tom took aim.

  “I want you to go to a doctor I know in Bozeman.”

  “It’ll be okay.”

  Tom swished another. Curtis flipped the ball back to him.

  “Don’t worry about the cost, that’ll be covered. We have to find out what’s been damaged.”

  Tom took aim. “It’s just a little sore.”

  “Something like that could be serious,” Sam said. “We don’t want to make it worse or do permanent damage.”

  “I hate goin’ to doctors.”

  “He’s just going to look at it.” Sam frowned. “No more practice until you do.”

  Tom missed.

  CHAPTER 17

  Tom arrived at the end of Monday practice. With the bull rider missing, it had felt like the team was diminished by half. His appointment with the doctor had been scheduled for two-thirty, and when he appeared in the gym in his long duster and black wide-brimmed hat, everything stopped: balls ceased dribbling, words were left half spoken, and steps froze. Tom hobbled onto the court. The little drove of hope Sam had herded together in his chest stampeded in all directions. Dread gripped him by the throat. He caught his breath and forced his words past his thumping heartbeat.

  “Did you see the doctor?”

  Diana and the boys gathered around.

  “Yep,” Tom said without meeting Sam’s eyes.

  “What did he say?” Sam said.