Blind Your Ponies Read online

  “In the back!” Mervin exclaimed. “Why is the tractor out in back?”

  Carl cringed, ducking his face from the locals, who seemed to be relishing this family soap opera. Something in Mervin told him to have mercy, knowing what it was like to lose when your soul ached to win. But another voice in him demanded he extract every ounce of justice after a lifetime of losing to his big brother, After years of ridicule and brutality and humiliation.

  “You were lucky,” Carl said under his breath.

  “Lucky! Lucky? Hell, our coach tried to hold the Willow Croak boys back so the score wouldn’t be too embarrassing.”

  A wave of light laughter washed across the café.

  “Luck? Think what it would have been like if poor little Willow Croak had had six boys to play against Christian’s twelve,” Mervin said. “It would have been a slaughter. That’s why Willow Croak cuts its team down to five, so they don’t wallop the big schools too bad.”

  The chorus of laughter swelled as the locals, who were mostly avid fans of the Class B public school, enjoyed seeing their closest rivals lambasted by the likes of Willow Creek.

  “Well,” Mervin said. “Let’s go find the missing tractor.”

  Mervin led the way and the three disgruntled Eagle fans dragged their abashed faces after him. Out the finger-worn front door, Mervin paused and fell in behind his seething sibling, who turned up the alley alongside the old creamery building and walked a full block. There on an inconspicuous side street, perched on a low-boy trailer, the classic John Deere endured in mint condition, its single stack skyward and proud, its green and yellow paint glossy, its large lugged steel wheels bright yellow—a powerful emotional symbol of authority to the Painter boys. Carl stopped and stonewalled with his arms folded across his granitelike torso. He had cranked the trailer off his pickup. Mervin hurried to fetch his pickup with the spring in his step and lightness in his heart of a young boy who had finally evened accounts with his brutal big brother.

  After hooking up to the trailer—guessing that Carl hoped he’d drive directly out of town—Mervin paraded around the main drag several times, honking and flashing his lights. Then he parked directly in front of the Garden Café. He couldn’t help but swagger through the door to the cheers and applause of many of the witnesses, some of whom had come out of the restaurant to inspect the impressive antique. Mervin settled in the booth where the three defeated had silently huddled.

  “Coffee on me… for everyone!” he shouted, feeling as though he’d pop the brass buttons on his OshKosh B’Gosh bib overalls, drawing another round of applause for his generosity.

  Mervin regarded his brother—who brooded fire and animosity in his cold gray eyes—instinctively prepared to duck the punch coming from out of their childhood, hoping it would come so he could defend himself by hammering his big brother into the checkered linoleum floor.

  “Now that we’ve finally gotten things straightened out, let’s drink some Coffee,” Mervin said, surprised at his own poise and balls.

  “How long you gonna let that ‘D’ set out there?” Carl said.

  “Until we’ve had our Coffee and visit. What’s the rush?”

  A grinning waitress brought a pot and set it on the table.

  “What do you think about the new weed-control deal the county is coming out with?” Mervin asked his brother.

  Carl stood, dropped two quarters on the table, and shouldered his way out of the café.

  “You better go too,” Mervin said, glancing at Lute and Sandy, “or he’ll be pissed at you. Conspiring with the enemy.”

  Sandy scrambled out of the booth and followed his friend. Lute picked up his cup and sipped.

  “You nailed his ass,” the dairy farmer said. “Never seen him so mad, but a bet is a bet. I hate to admit it, but your team played a helluva ball game. It ain’t just that Norwegian kid neither. You got some ballplayers there. Too bad you don’t have a few more boys. Never get far in that tournament with five or six.”

  After absorbing all the glory and celebrity he could milk out of the event with the tractor gleaming in the winter sunlight out front and after proudly paying the tab, Mervin drove slowly out of town and headed for Willow Creek. The John Deere “D” was going back to the place where it first worked the land, where it first lugged down and pulled through the rich topsoil, discovering the purpose for which it had been born.

  With a smirk on its face, the old tractor headed home.

  CHAPTER 52

  At Thursday practice, Sam attempted to keep his excitement off his face without his trademark Aviator glasses. When the boys came into the gym and began shooting, they each did a double take. Sam busied himself over a practice schedule on his clipboard.

  “What happened to your glasses?” Rob said.

  “I walked into the locker room, caught a horrific stench and I was instantly and miraculously cured,” Sam said. “Twenty-twenty vision.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Tom said.

  “They break?” Scott said.

  “No, I sold them to the Basketball Referees Aid Society.”

  Diana came from the girl’s locker room in her baggy grays.

  “You get contacts?” Pete asked with a smile of approval.

  “Yeah, and I’ll never find them again. I think they slid around onto the back side of my eyeballs.”

  “That rocks,” Pete said.

  Olaf said, “You are looking—”

  “Be careful, be careful,” Sam said. “This could lead to ten extra wind sprints.”

  “ … awe-full,” Olaf said.

  “Awesome, you dumb Norwegian,” Tom said, “awesome.”

  “You think this is awesome,” Sam said. “I had a vision last night—my fairy godmother told me not to shave again as long as the team won.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t think they allow gorillas to teach in Montana public schools,” Pete said.

  The boys laughed.

  “All right, listen up,” Sam said. He put his arm around Curtis’s shoulder. “Curtis, your layup broke Christian’s heart. Just when they thought they had us stymied, you stunned them. Your basket was the winning margin. Therefore, I hereby dub you Forget Me Not. Not the flower, but the player other teams better not overlook, or, when least expected, you’ll make them pay.”

  Sam tousled Curtis’s hair.

  “Forget Me Not,” Sam went on. “A player never to be taken lightly.”

  “Forget Me Not!” the other boys shouted and Curtis turned his eyes to the floor with the color of embarrassment in his face.

  “All right,” Sam said, “After stretching, we’re going light tonight, rest up a bit. We’ll walk through some offensive sets, work on the alley-oop and volley ball, and shoot free throws. The bus leaves tomorrow at two. We have a secret weapon for Gardiner. It will blind them like a laser and we’ll be able to shoot uncontested layups all night. The score will be 476 to nothing.”

  Sam turned to Scott, who sat on the bench with a cardboard UPS shipping box beside him. When Sam nodded, the team manager picked up the carton and trotted over. Scott opened the flaps and Sam reached into the box.

  He lifted the first golden nylon jersey from the carton. It bore the number 55. They responded as one.

  “Wow!”

  “Olaf, I believe this will fit you.”

  Sam handed him the pristine uniform and then pulled out the rest.

  “All right.”

  “Coool.”

  “Awesome.”

  “Bodacious.”

  “These were supposed to be here weeks ago. I’m sorry you didn’t have them sooner. Before you leave tonight, try them on, make sure they fit.”

  Sam paused.

  “We know how good Gardiner is. They know how good we are. It will be a terrific game. When you come out of the locker room tomorrow night, I’m wearing sunglasses. Now let’s get to work.”

  “How’d you manage this?” Diana asked while the boys examined their uniforms and draped them on the bleache
r seats.

  “Wainwright. I don’t know how.”

  “Wainwright seems to have a lot of pull.”

  “I think he also has a lot of money,” Sam said. “But he loves the team.”

  She squinted and regarded him.

  “Contacts, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Coming out of hiding?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Looks good.”

  “Thanks.”

  She turned to the boys.

  “Okay, on the floor!” Miss Murphy shouted and clapped her hands. All of them, including Sam and Scott, hit the hardwood to do their stretching.

  THEY JOURNEYED THE 125 miles to Gardiner, a small village with a mining-town ambience that was dissected by the irrepressible Yellowstone River. The enduring settlement perched on both sides of the river’s gorge like squatters hanging on by their toenails, the portion of town south of the river rumped up against the very edge of Yellowstone National Park. In fact, from the expansive, newly constructed gym, if the wind was right, one could nearly spit into that natural preserve where undoubtedly elk and bison and coyote turn an ear at the faint echoes of crowd noise wafting across the snow-glazed foothills on cold winter nights.

  The Broncs came out shining in their new uniforms and Sam, as promised, wore sunglasses for their warmups.

  “You going snot-nosed on us, Sam?” Fred Sooner, the Gardiner coach, said. “What’s with the shades?”

  “My team is so dazzling I can’t look at them without sunglasses.”

  “Yeah, well they do look better,” the burly coach said. “At least it won’t look like we’re playing the Salvation Army tonight.”

  Fred gazed across the floor at Diana, who fed the ball to the boys running layups.

  “Tell me, Sam, how do you get an assistant coach like that.”

  “Well, first you have to lose ninety games in a row and then the heavens feel sorry for you and send a biology teacher.”

  The game started and the fans were into it immediately. Most of the ruckus came from the Willow Creek delegation, led as usual in delirious vocal decibels by Axel, Andrew, Grandma, Amos, and as of late, with unmuzzled emotions, John English. Sam and Diana—becoming more animated and vociferous on the bench with each game—glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes during the first quarter when the boys played up to their new uniforms and then some, transcending all over Gardiner’s new gymnasium and all over Gardiner’s wide-eyed players.

  They looked smooth and relaxed and disciplined, a graceful flow of gold and blue, hustling on defense and moving with a gilded fluidity that overwhelmed the skilled Bruin players. Olaf had a monster dunk and slapped a Gardiner shot into Yellowstone Park. Fred Sooner was visibly alarmed. He called a time out in a panicked effort to slow down this Willow Creek onslaught which left the home team trailing early, 15 to 6.

  Gardiner gradually climbed back into it during the second quarter, finding the range from outside while the Broncs’ defense shut down their two best scorers from around the paint. Fred Sooner came up alongside Sam as they walked to the dressing rooms at halftime.

  “Your boys can be had, Sam,” he said with a tenuous smile and hustled off with his players.

  In the locker room Sam pondered Sooner’s words as he tried to anticipate the opposing coach’s moves. Willow Creek led 43 to 36. Three players had two fouls, including Olaf; the zone defense was working, taking the Bruins out of their usual offense.

  “What’s the key to this game?” Sam asked the newly eligible Dean as they huddled prior to returning to the gym.

  “That we have more points than they do,” the goggle-eyed freshman answered with a high-pitched enthusiasm.

  “No, no, how many times do I have to tell you?” Sam said, panning disappointment on his face. “The key to this game is that you don’t get your new uniforms all sweated up and wrinkled. You have to wear them tomorrow for the team pictures.”

  The boys laughed and lightened up.

  “Keep doing what you’re doing,” Sam said in the team huddle. “I don’t know where you learned to play like that. I taught you much worse.”

  Coach Sooner hadn’t been bluffing. In the third quarter his boys demonstrated their great acting skills. With Glenn Tuomey, a secondstring center, they attacked Olaf. The angular 6’2" boy would work into the paint, pivot, and drive deliberately into Olaf, throwing up his arms and ball with little hope of hitting the basket. The ref called a foul on Olaf. Sam came off the bench.

  “offensive foul! offensive foul!” he shouted, backed by the vocal dissent of the Willow Creek battalions.

  At the other end, Ben McShane, the 6’3" junior, rode Olaf’s back, and when the towering Bronc center made a move with the ball, the defender flopped backward onto the floor as if he’d been hit with a twelve-pound sledge. The inside ref called an offensive foul on Olaf.

  “Give him an Oscar!” Diana shouted.

  Sam held his head in his hands, unwilling to believe these Class C refs couldn’t see through this obvious sham, while the visiting spectators poured outrage down on the referee.

  The rest of the third quarter turned into a nightmare. Gardiner didn’t shoot until they had a boy near Olaf with the ball, and he would take it straight at Olaf. Though the Bruins picked up several offensive fouls, had many shots stuffed down their gizzard, and lost Tuomey with five fouls, it worked. With twenty seconds remaining in the third quarter, Olaf was whistled for his fifth foul.

  Sam sprang off the bench. All Willow Creekians rose to their feet, hollering their disgust.

  “What are you doing!” Sam shouted as he stormed onto the floor.

  “He drove into my man! My man didn’t move a muscle!”

  The short balding ref who made the call blocked Sam’s advance.

  “Get off the floor, Coach.”

  “You’re blind! Can’t you see what they’re doing? What kind of a ref are you?”

  The ref made a T with his hands and blew his whistle.

  “Technical foul on the Willow Creek coach!”

  The hometown crowd roared their approval, pointing their fingers at Sam with swooping gestures and chanting, “Oooowww! Oooowww! Oooowww!”

  Diana grabbed Sam’s arm and tried to drag him off the floor. The ref signaled the technical to the scorer’s bench and turned back to find Sam standing at his ear. Sam spoke with a friendly tone, looking at the back of the official’s black trousers.

  “Oh, Jeez, there’s something all over your pants.”

  “What?” the baffled man said, twisting to glance at his backside.

  “Oh, man,” Sam said softly, “I think you crapped in them.”

  Sam held his nose as the puzzled ref ran a hand over his rump.

  “Get out of here,” he told Sam with mounting anger.

  Sam leaned close again, cupping a hand to his mouth in a confidential manner. “It must be your call I smell.”

  The ref turned and made a sweeping gesture that looked as though he were throwing a javelin into the far wall.

  “You’re out of here!” he shouted.

  The Willow Creek followers stood and rained incensed boos down on the bald man’s head, the likes of Claire Painter and Truly Osborn outdone by no one. Sam stomped to the locker room, wanting to punch someone or something. He slammed the metal door behind him. There he languished like a bad boy sent to his room, dying a slow death, able to hear the muffled roar of the crowd without any interpretation as to its significance.

  DIANA RODE THE bench with Scott and Olaf, who wore Dean’s grubby cap. She did what she could to keep them in the game. Without Olaf in the middle, Willow Creek became vulnerable despite Rob’s leaping ability and Tom’s 6’4" brawny presence. It was like a downhill ride on a streaking toboggan with the boys desperately dragging their arms and legs, hoping the time on the clock would run out before they hit the bottom and went over a cliff into the river. But Gardiner’s tall back line began to overcome, and with twenty seconds to go
, Willow Creek was down by five. With a cool indifference to the pressure or the wildly lunging Kenny Green, Pete buried a shot from beyond the three-point line. The quick Gardiner guard crashed into Pete after he’d released the ball. One-shot foul; down by two.

  Diana called time out with eleven ticks remaining on the clock.

  “Okay, Pete, miss the shot, everyone on the boards, Curtis you slide along the baseline under the basket, if any crumbs come off the table, that’s where they’ll be. Remember, when you get the rebound, if you don’t have a put-back, try to get the ball to Rob or Pete, if you can’t, get the best shot you can. Just like practice, go around Hazel Brown and can it.”

  With everyone in the gym standing and shouting, Pete intentionally missed the free throw, trying to carom the rebound to Tom’s side. Ferociously ten boys crashed the backboard and scrambled for the ball amid flying elbows, spraying sweat, and the guttural grunts of their colliding bodies. The leather object of their passion skittered along the floor and hit Dean in the shins. He snatched it as if it were a fleeing chicken and looked for someone who knew how to pluck it. Ben McShane cornered Dean along the sideline. In desperation Dean struggled to find someone open. Drowning in panic, he bounced an obvious pass toward Tom. Kenny Green cut in front of Tom and intercepted the ball. The Gardiner faithful erupted. Green dribbled swiftly away as the Willow Creek team chased frantically to foul. Curtis dove at him but missed, sprawling across the gleaming hard-wood, and the final buzzer sprung the trap door that hung Willow Creek, 68 to 66.

  The homegrown crowd thundered a jubilation that undoubtedly cocked the ear of more than one nocturnal beast grazing the mountainsides. The Willow Creek fans slumped in hostile silence. The wild beast in Coach Murphy prowled close to the surface as Fred Sooner crossed the court to shake her hand.

  “Tell Sam he got outcoached,” Fred said.

  “I’ll tell him he got outreffed. See you in the tournaments, Sooner, and you better come up with something better than grade-school drama class. They have refs with two eyes up there.”

  IN AN ATTEMPT to avoid the anguish, Sam went out into the pitch-dark parking lot to warm up the bus. Before he climbed into Rozinante, he paused. There was something on the wind. He listened. There, across the hills to the south, coyotes howling. That chilling, solitary wail coming out of the wilderness, stirring something wild in him. He stood by the bus, cocking his ear, understanding their lament, the loneliness, the loss. It was all he could do to prevent himself from hiking off across the snow-crusted foothills and joining them—if they’d have him—all he could do to keep himself from getting down on his knees and wailing into the black Montana sky.