Blind Your Ponies Read online

  “Congratulations, boys. Big win, big win.”

  He set the towels on a bench and shuffled out. They regarded each other with surprise.

  “The old guy thought we won,” Pete said.

  “No,” Diana said. “He knows we’re going to.”

  IN A DOMINO’S they filled up on pizza as though it were a second chance and Dean protested. “There’s a McDonald’s in Butte.”

  The boys brought Dean around to the value of pizza and Sam figured that trying to sneak a McDonald’s past Dean was harder than sneaking a sunrise past a rooster. The busload rode home in the dusk of late winter with their flag tattered and dragging in the slush. They had to return tomorrow After-noon and play Harrison in the losers’ bracket, a consolation round to give the less talented teams a few more games with tournament atmosphere before they were swept aside. If tomorrow was the end of their dream, would it be over cleanly and quickly, or would it be unbearable carnage?

  Around the corner and past the Blue Willow, he coasted the little bus into town. For now at least they were home, in safe anchorage, where they could bail out the ship, plug the leaks, mend the tattered sails, and prepare themselves to go back out into the storm.

  “By the way, that was a terrific shot, Dean,” Sam said, glancing back at the Willow Creek freshman.

  The abashed boy didn’t respond, as if uncertain that his coach realized it had been a miracle, and that to say anything might be to incriminate himself.

  Despite their locker-room enthusiasm, Sam knew it would only be such a miracle that could save them now, and he feared he no longer believed.

  CHAPTER 57

  Sam stared into the open refrigerator, contemplating eating something after the journey home. He wasn’t hungry, but maybe food would wash the bitter taste of defeat out of his mouth. The front door slammed. Diana, with her crimson matador hat tilted and her eyes flaming, found him in the kitchen.

  “You’ve given up on them!” she shouted. “You’ve quit!”

  Sam was taken off guard by her fury. “What are you talking about?”

  “You walked out on us, me and the boys, in that locker room before the game!”

  “What in—”

  “Listen to yourself. You’re a great bunch of boys, we’ve had a good season, anything more will be frosting. You were announcing the season was over, for God’s sake! Pardon me, but I was under the illusion that the season was still going. The boys are under the same illusion.”

  Diana paced in the cluttered living room.

  “Yes… and look what happened,” Sam said, feeling himself going on the defensive. “Maybe it was an illusion, the difference between appearance and reality.”

  “Well, just maybe the boys heard your little deathbed talk and acted accordingly, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe they sensed the season was over because you were telling them it was.”

  “They did the best they could,” Sam said.

  Diana stopped pacing and, with her hands on her hips, she glared into his eyes. “All right, Sam, tell me the truth. Do you believe they can win? Do you believe?”

  “You mean tomorrow?”

  “I mean tomorrow and Saturday and all the way to Helena.”

  Sam paused. He stuffed his hands into his pants pockets. “No… as much as I want it, as much as I pray to God for it, I don’t think five boys can survive in the tournaments.”

  “Then you’ve given—”

  “I won’t set myself up again, not like that.”

  “Then you’ve quit living, you’re a ghost!” she shouted. She yanked off her hat and threw it onto the floor. “You’re not a loser, Sam. You’re a quitter. You don’t deserve these boys. You can’t ride on the same bus with them.”

  “I want to believe,” Sam said. “God knows I want to believe that, in the midst of the chaos and violence and unforeseeable madness, we can win.”

  “Well, it has to start with the everyday risks of getting your heart broken, like daring to hope and believe in the boys who idolize you. How many times have those boys had their hearts broken? How many times? But they keep playing, playing with their hearts, the way you taught them.”

  “I know, I—”

  “Have you ever seen one of them quit? You’ve seen them come to the bench when they were so exhausted they couldn’t stand, when they were so exhausted they couldn’t speak, and you’ve seen them go back out there, sometimes four against five, three against five, and play with every ounce of fire they can muster.”

  Diana flopped on the broken-down sofa amid videotapes and magazines and month-old newspapers. Her voice dropped off as if she were overcome with sadness.

  “You’ve lied to them. You’ve taught them to play with their hearts and souls and you play it safe so you won’t be hurt. You play chicken. I care about you deeply and it’s sad to see.”

  She looked up at him. Sam held his breath, he didn’t know what to say, how to respond to this barrage.

  “Sam, you’re afraid to take a chance, afraid to hope, to commit. Maybe I’ll have my heart broken again and again and again, but I know I have to keep trying, like the boys, because if I don’t, I’ve given my chance at life away. I know I might make another horrid mistake and the people I love will leave me and I’ll go through that terrible black hole, that awful loneliness and sorrow, but if I don’t live with my heart, if I don’t live with passion, I’ve already died.”

  Sam perched on the edge of the stuffed chair across from Diana and her words spun wildly in his head and he couldn’t catch up to them. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the heel of his hand. His heart raced. He’d been found out!

  “Don’t you think I know that Amy would want me to live and risk it all again?” he said. “I’m just not doing very well.”

  “What kind of flowers did they have at the funeral?” she said.

  “Amy’s?” Sam asked, trying to understand.

  “No, your funeral. You’re in love with your sorrow. Your heart’s at an unremitting, never-ending funeral of self-pity.”

  “No, no, it’s not self-pity!” Sam shouted. “Don’t you see? I know that millions of other people have had their loved ones ripped from their arms and slaughtered by monsters, torn from them by war and earthquakes and floods and tornados. That’s not it! I’m terrified that if I loved someone like that again and lost her, I’d lose my mental balance, I’d go completely insane.”

  Diana looked away. “Well, the boys need you right now. Of course you’re going to lose again. Of course you’ll be crushed with sadness again. But the joy you have in the risking, no matter how short, is far greater than all the sadness.”

  She stood, picked her hat off the floor, and moved toward the front door, the fury of her anger blown out. Sam followed her to the front door. He caught her by the arm. She turned and looked into his eyes.

  “Sam, if you’re afraid of being devastated again, if you’re afraid to risk loving again, you’re already dead. The monster with the shotgun killed you as surely as he killed Amy, the sadness has already won.”

  She closed the door behind her. Sam stood there, overcome. She cared about him deeply! What would he do about that? This incredible woman who would always be a physical delight to him, always a bright, intelligent mate in tune with the world, always surprising him with her insight and understanding, someone to love and cherish. Was she falling in love with a corpse? He felt the urge to find Andrew Wainwright and ride the bicycle built for two with him until dawn showed its face. He knew he wouldn’t sleep.

  He walked slowly into the bathroom and gazed into the mirror. Staring back at him was an old man, already dead, a Willow Creek ghost.

  DIANA WOKE WITH a surge of panic in her stomach, facing that familiar black, bottomless pit where she stood utterly alone, again. She realized how much she cared about Sam by how scared she was of being abandoned by him. Had she driven him away, back into hiding? She had been harsh, even cruel.

  The panic followed her all morning as they went thr
ough the motions of holding classes. She found excuses to go to his classroom twice and he seemed normal, friendly. She didn’t find the courage to bring up her tirade. The word had spread that the boys and cheerleaders should bring extra clothes and personal things to stay overnight. They were playing the second Afternoon game in the losers’ bracket. If they won that game, they would stay in a motel in Butte as a reward from the school board, saving them from rising at the crack of dawn at home Saturday morning to reach the civic center in time for a nine-o’clock game. Diana figured Andrew Wainwright was behind the motel money, and she guessed that several of the boys had never stayed in a motel. Dean’s entire baggage for the overnight was a toothbrush and a comb.

  When the gang gathered around noon outside school, Diana, as a token of apology, told Sam that she would drive the bus. He looked at her for a moment but recovered quickly as if to keep her secret safe. She figured she had to put her money where her mouth was, and if she expected Sam to overcome his terror, she had to start working on hers. It was a leap of faith for her. Instead of being responsible for one passenger, she bore the burden for a dozen. She strapped herself in the driver’s seat and caught several of the boys rolling their eyes and crossing themselves.

  The sixty-mile drive went without incident except for a few comments from the kids that if she didn’t step on it, it would be the baseball season. The boys seemed normal, horsing around at times and at others withdrawn into their private thoughts.

  “Banging your head against a wall uses a hundred and fifty calories an hour,” Curtis said to break a quiet spell and the gang almost threw him off the bus.

  “Stop the bus, Miss Murphy!” Rob called. “We have some road kill here.”

  “Open the doors, Miss Murphy!” Tom shouted. “We’ll throw him in the ditch.”

  Just a joke, just a joke. Steady, steady.

  Diana held course, caught her breath, gripped the wheel, and slowed.

  Sam seemed his normal self, sitting directly behind her and commenting on what they’d have to do to beat Harrison. Just the sight of the civic center rattled her already queasy stomach. Was Sam right after all? That it was dangerous as well as foolish to allow hope to set you up with expectations? Maybe she’d overdone it, maybe she’d been carried away with her obsession to win, to win against the madness, to win Jessica’s forgiveness.

  Is that what this was all about, to win Jessica’s forgiveness?

  She pulled into the parking lot and shut down the bus. She had gotten the team there safe and on time. She sighed with great relief and realized her armpits and forehead were wet with perspiration, her hands ached from gripping the wheel. Jessica’s memory momentarily broke her concentration and she tried to refocus on the present. The foreboding civic center appeared as though it would chew up and spit out their lost-looking little bunch, and she joined them as they walked into it.

  THEY’D GONE THROUGH their warm-up rituals when Sam gathered the boys in the locker room.

  “You’re a better team, but they have more players. So it’s crucial that everyone stays in the game. We can’t afford to lose anyone. We’ll play a tight zone, give them the long outside shot, then everyone on the boards. Have fun and learn something.”

  He clapped his hands and they shouted their chant.

  “Win! Win! Win! Win! Win!”

  The boys broke for the door and Sam glanced at Diana. She couldn’t decipher what she saw in his eyes, but there was something different there.

  When Diana walked into the arena, she spotted Denise Cutter at a balcony rail in her wheelchair at one corner of the stands. Sally Cutter and Andrew Wainwright flanked her in the nearly empty building. The handful of fans for either team clustered near midcourt on either side of the floor.

  Both teams desperately scrambled to find their basketball legs as well as their shooting eyes. They were trying too hard. They knew that if they lost, their season was over, and the seniors knew their chance to play organized basketball was most likely over for life.

  Diana lived and died with each turn of events on the floor, like an emotional yo-yo. Rob and Pete were keeping the team in the game with their spectacular outside shooting, but Pete went down with five fouls near the end of the third quarter and Dean had to fill the gap. It was the old scenario that always brought them down.

  The diehard Willow Creek fans tried to energize their boys but their vocal assaults echoed hollowly in the sparsely populated arena. Sam paced in front of the bench, shouting encouragement and instructions, and Willow Creek held their own. Tom was hobbling on his bum knee. Dean never stopped running on defense. Diana caught herself holding her breath while kneeling on the floor in front of the bench.

  With seconds to go and Willow Creek up by one point, a Harrison boy drove around Curtis and went up for a short eight-foot shot. Faked out momentarily, Curtis recovered in time to knock the ball away, but he fouled the boy as time ran out. The referee blew his whistle and raised his arm with two fingers pointing to the cavernous ceiling. Two shots!

  The ref waved both teams to the bench. The game was over, all but the final score. The scoreboard showed Willow Creek 54, Harrison 53. A Harrison player named Jimmy Hobbs walked timidly to the free-throw lane. The ref handed him the ball and backed away. Jimmy looked small standing there all alone in his sweat-soaked jersey, gaping up at the basket and rows and rows of empty seats. He dribbled the ball three times, bent his knees, and quickly put up the shot as if he couldn’t stand the tension. It hit the back of the iron and bounced harmlessly away. Harrison fans groaned softly. Willow Creek fans gasped.

  Diana gulped. Willow Creek was up by one point. One more shot coming. Overtime? She realized the whole team was on its knees beside her on the court. The Willow Creek fans were deathly silent, unable to raise a sound to distract the Harrison boy.

  The ref gave Jimmy the ball. The huge arena was so quiet you could hear someone coughing. Little Jimmy Hobbs took the ball, bounced it three times, bent his knees, held his breath, and flipped the ball toward the rim, a shot he probably made a thousand times in the basket at the end of his barn.

  Leaning forward with every muscle, Denise Cutter fell out of her wheel-chair while the ball was in the air, Diana later found out. Sam, next to her on his knees, set his jaw as if for a shotgun blast.

  Seemingly floating suspended in midair, the ball descended toward the rim and net. But Jimmy Hobbs had thought about it too long, felt the pressure too heavy in his veins, and the muscles in his shooting arm went tight. The ball hit the front of the rim and didn’t have the momentum to climb over. It fell hollowly to the hardwood floor, Jimmy’s prayer unanswered.

  For an instant no one moved. The sound of the errant ball hitting the floor hollowly echoed through the breathless arena. No one in the civic center moved.

  Then bedlam broke out.

  Tom leaped to his feet and shouted, “Sancho, my sword, my armor!”

  “Yeah, my lord!” Scott shouted back.

  “For each time he falls, he shall rise again!” the boys shouted together and they danced in a joyful huddle.

  The handful of Willow Creek fans joined the team in the celebration. Grandma Chapman broke into the team’s huddle, appearing pale, done in by the nerve-shattering game. “Guess who was in the Harrison stands, pulling bloody murder for Harrison?”

  No one had a clue.

  “The whole Twin Bridges team!”

  “So?” Pete asked.

  “Don’t you see what that means?” Grandma said excitedly. “It means they know you’re still alive and they’re scared to death of you.”

  “We’ll be their worst nightmare!” Sam shouted. “Every time they turn around, we’ll be on them like a bumpersticker!”

  Diana could see it in Sam’s eyes. She hoped he was back from the edge, that he and the team had stepped out of their deathbeds together and were ready to go on.

  After the teams went through the line congratulating their opponents, Diana saw Sam, off with little Jimmy Hobbs,
consoling the brave sophomore.

  The team headed for the locker room together.

  “We’re playing Saturday!” Rob shouted.

  “We’re playing twice Saturday!” Tom shouted.

  “Bodacious! We’re staying in a motel!” Dean shouted.

  CHAPTER 58

  They checked into the War Bonnet Inn, a large motel just off the interstate on Harrison Avenue, about a mile from the civic center. After they got settled in their assigned rooms and checked out the War Bonnet, they found a restaurant near the motel and nearly overwhelmed the place. Pulling tables up to large booths, the team ravenously replenished their energy while surrounded by the loving support of their partisans, who looked more like members of a traveling road show. Andrew Wainwright told the boys to order anything in the joint, that they didn’t have to worry about the normally allotted five dollars. Sam had the feeling he was back in high school, and the Willow Creek bunch jabbered and laughed and celebrated as if there were no tomorrow—or as if they knew that by tomorrow this team would be history.

  “We’re number one!” Rip shouted without his teeth in place.

  “Great game, great game!” Axel said.

  Still with an ashen tone to her face, Grandma reached across people and a booth divider to grab Peter by the cheek with her thumb and finger.

  “You were peaches and cream out there tonight, sweetheart.”

  Then she bent over the other way and gave Olaf a big kiss on the forehead.

  “You weren’t so bad yourself, honey.”

  Olaf blushed.

  By the time they were through eating—the boys putting away full dinners of steak or chicken, plus several desserts each—Rip was sound asleep in the corner of a booth. The party broke up, with most of them headed back to Willow Creek. The team and cheerleaders hoofed it to the War Bonnet Inn.

  Sam decided they wouldn’t watch the Friday night games. He was afraid they’d be getting too much basketball, thinking about it too much and going stale. It didn’t matter who won that night, Willow Creek would be playing the loser early Saturday morning. They knew the teams well enough, and he thought a relaxing night just hanging out, filling up on protein and carbs and forgetting about the games for a while, would be a healthy tonic. He planted Tom in front of a TV with ice on his knee and told him to stay put, that the boys would bring him whatever he wanted.