Blind Your Ponies Read online

  “Well, you came to the right place if you like being the underdog. Willow Creek spawns its own peculiar breed of underdogs.”

  “What did the doctor want?”

  “Just routine stuff, as usual.”

  She cut the article out of the paper and taped it to the side of the refrigerator that looked like a bulletin board. There was no longer any room on the door.

  “Let’s stick that up there so we can have a good laugh all next week. I think I’ll get everyone in town to send the guy a pumpkin, with the score written on it.”

  “Yeah, and we could fill the pumpkins with bullshit, real bullshit.”

  The two of them laughed as they planned their retaliation against a poor, dense newspaper reporter. But Pete felt the butterflies gathering in his stomach. He wanted to talk to the other boys. He felt scared, but it wasn’t about the game. It was something about Grandma.

  CHAPTER 62

  February lost its bite and people were beginning to believe that Willow Creek’s basketball team had influenced the weather: heavy coats came off, dead batteries started, stock found winter grass on open ground, ice melted in river ponds, and frozen water lines thawed. Frozen hope and joy also thawed in the glow of the team’s victories, pulling the community together again, bringing laughter and optimism into uncounted lives.

  With the challenge game hanging over their heads, Sam sensed that the whole community had put life on hold, a town caught in amber as a fossil insect with its wings spread. The team had never advanced beyond the District Tournament.

  On Monday, the gloom and cold returned in the form of mountain snow showers. Sam had sleepwalked through his eighth and ninth grade classes and was in a high state of anxiety to get on the road. In lieu of the school’s fight song, Sam played the soundtrack from Man of La Mancha on the journey to Butte. It relaxed them, took their minds off the game, and the team sang along with the familiar score as snow flurries brought on the darkness.

  Even Curtis and Dean picked up on it, and of course Scott, who had long before been dubbed Sancho. Pete came up front and knelt in the aisle to Miss Murphy, singing “Dulcinea” with his arms spread to her, and Olaf and the cheerleaders backed him up with the refrain. The music had its entertaining, soothing, happy effect, but as Sam guided Rozinante into the city, he slowed down, timing it so the soundtrack would be rendering the “Impossible Dream” finale as they pulled into the civic center parking lot. He swung open the doors, and into a swirling snow the boys came out of the bus on fire, the ultimate effect Sam was looking for.

  When they were dressed and ready to go out onto the floor to warm up, Sam had them sit on the benches.

  “When I was a boy we had an ice storm,” he told them. “I had been looking forward to going to the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on Saturday afternoon. My mother said I had to chip the ice off the sidewalk before I could go, that we could be sued if someone fell and got hurt. It was a couple inches thick and we had a long sidewalk. There was no way around it. So I took the ice chipper and went out and chipped like a madman. But my mind wasn’t on the ice. The ice was something that was in the way. As I chipped, I was already sitting in the theater, eating popcorn, and enjoying Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

  Sam paused, glancing at each of them.

  “Do you want our journey to end here in the cold?”

  “Nooooo!” they shouted.

  “Do you want to give up here on a lousy Monday night?”

  “Noooo!”

  “All right. Gardiner is the ice. The Divisional Tournament is the movie. Let’s go chip ice!”

  “Yeeaaahhhh!” they responded, and Sam opened the door, releasing them into the long concrete corridor.

  Tom had run off and forgotten his J. Chisholm diamondback boots under a bench. Sam hesitated as Scott hustled after the team. Diana closed the door and turned to him. They embraced, hugging each other fiercely.

  “No matter what happens tonight, those boys will be all right,” she said softly, her mouth beside his ear. “You’ve respected them for the remarkable boys they are. Now they’ve come to believe in themselves. Nothing that happens out there can take that away from them.”

  Sam could not respond. He gave her a squeeze and released her, trying to locate his contacts in his sloshing eyes. He opened the door. They went into the arena, knowing that’s where they would find their heartbeat.

  The Butte Civic Center seemed colder than usual, as though someone had forgotten about the challenge game and neglected to turn up the thermostat. Sam was startled by the number of people behind the Willow Creek bench, far outnumbering the Gardiner fans, who had to come some hundred and twenty miles further. Or was it that the Gardiner faithful felt confident that their Bruins would eliminate Willow Creek as usual and were saving their gas and motel money for the Divisional Tournament? Andrew had rented two fifty-passenger buses and he had vowed he would fill them both. Scanning the crowd, Sam spotted Truly Osborn, John English, Amos Flowers, and Denise Cutter.

  Neither coach came unprepared, and Gardiner jumped into a trapping zone press, attempting to force the Broncs into costly turnovers. Sam hadn’t been asleep all weekend either, and he crossed up Fred Sooner’s brain circuits by starting Dean at guard and moving Rob to a forward. Rob’s tremendous rebounding ability would be enhanced with him closer to the basket. This also wrecked Gardiner’s plan at matching up with the Willow Creek players, and Rob ended up with a forward who lacked the foot speed and quickness to stay with him. And then there was Tom, resting his knee on the bench and itching to get into the contest.

  With the excellent athletes Gardiner had, the Bruins concentrated on double-teaming Olaf and crowding Rob and Pete. This left Curtis basically unattended. The gangly boy had become a seasoned player through their schedule, and he drilled his first shot.

  It became a superb high school basketball game with fans from both sides cheering, groaning, and slapping high fives. Dean drove two Gardiner guards nearly batty with his pestilent pressing and the Norwegian hammer was dominating the paint. Gardiner rotated fresh men into the game and Sam tried to hold the pace down, using his timeouts judiciously and alternating Tom and Dean to keep their defense off balance. At the half it was Gardiner 31, Willow Creek 29.

  The locker room was quiet. Everyone tried to swallow their fear and act normal, avoiding the terrible concept of sudden death. They iced Tom’s knee and the jittery boys listened as Diana informed them of how many fouls they each had, Dean in the most trouble, with three. Sam tried to combat the mental strain by speaking quietly to them individually, praising them, instructing, calming, when inside a horrendous storm assailed his vitals. He had the sensation of being so close he could touch it and yet being so far.

  The moment arrived when they had to go out and play what could be their final half of basketball. Sam searched the concrete walls for words, any words, but the pressure became numbing. Then Pete, in a high-pitched Dick Vitale whine, interrupted the silent trance.

  “Coach, could you tell us what’s the key to winning this game?”

  Sam could have hugged him, he’d done it.

  “Well, it’s quite complicated, you see. The key is for us to have more points at the end than they do.”

  Dean chuckled, then Olaf. Smiles spread among them. The boys rose off the benches and shouted, firing each other up. Tom glared into his team-mates’ faces.

  “There’s no way we’re going to lose this game.”

  “Yeah, let’s go chip ice!” Pete said.

  “Yeeaaahhhh!”

  Sam paused and allowed them to rush through the cement corridor into the unknown.

  THE SECOND HALF became an accounting of time. It became a free fall in which you had no way of knowing if your parachute would open at the end, or if indeed you had a chute. Olaf slid down the lane and stuffed one and Willow Creek crept to within three. Kenny Green, their thin, quick guard, hit a jumper from the side and the Bruins were back up by five. The ebb and flow drained t
hem all, players, spectators, and coaches, parceling out hope and snatching it back, filling them with optimism then turning it into dread, at once promising victory then flaunting defeat.

  “Four!” Sam shouted. “Set it up! Four! Four!”

  Dean fouled out in the middle of the fourth quarter, but with Tom and Dean alternating throughout the game, Tom’s knee was rested. Tom nodded at Sam and carried his fire onto the court. Olaf, Tom, and Rob ravaged the defensive boards time after time, giving the Bruins only one shot, and Sam thought he could feel a slight shift in the momentum, a faint turning of the tide. Diana was hoarse from shouting and no one in the civic center was in his seat when Tom Stonebreaker faked his man inside and pulled up for a short jumper. Willow Creek was ahead by one with fifty-three seconds on the clock! Sam leaped from his crouch at the edge of the floor, pumping a fist in the air.

  “Blow them away! Blow them away!”

  Gardiner hustled into the front court and attacked the Willow Creek zone, snapping the ball around the outside.

  “De-fense! De-fense! De-fense!” the Willow Creek fans roared.

  A pass inside. The 6'4" McShane put up a quick shot, but Olaf rose into the air and swatted it away. Willy Lawrence, his black curly hair matted with sweat, recovered the ball and squared up to the basket from beyond the three-point line. Open for a moment, his graceful shot went home. Gardiner 68, Willow Creek 66. Thirty-seven seconds.

  Gardiner gave up their zone press and fell back tight, guarding against a breakaway layup. The Willow Creek faithful hung onto one another and held their breath. Pete brought the ball up quickly. The Bruin defenders swarmed, playing it tight, forcing the Broncs out on the floor. Olaf cut across the middle, looking for a high pass, and two defenders rode him like a horse. This left Curtis alone on the side. He broke down the baseline and Pete sent a special delivery with a bounce pass. With everyone in the arena standing and shouting, Curtis caught the ball, dribbled once on his way to the basket, and hit the backdoor off the glass. Kenny Green crashed into him trying to deny the layin.

  The Willow Creek crowd exploded. Tie game, with Jenkins at the freethrow line for one shot. Fourteen seconds on the clock.

  “Time out when he makes the shot!” Sam shouted to Rob. “Time out when he makes the shot!”

  At the line, with the Gardiner fans roaring their distraction, Curtis bounced the ball three times. He twirled the ball in his hands and spread his fingers on the seams. Looking at the ball, he took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. He flexed his knees and raised his vision to fix it on the rim. With a spring in his legs and a flip of his wrist, he propelled the dimpled leather toward the basket. It fell as true as sunlight.

  Willow Creek 69, Gardiner 68.

  The rabid townsfolk cheered and danced up and down, high-fiving and slapping their neighbor on the back. Gardiner called time out, and the Broncs came to the bench, drenched in sweat and eager to finish it.

  “Listen up,” Sam said with his heart thundering in his ears. “Tight zone, everybody moving, hands up, make them throw it from the band seats. And when they do…”

  He paused and regarded each of them.

  “When they do, we put five bodies on the boards. They only get one shot. Don’t foul. When you get the rebound, clear it quickly. They’ll try to foul you. They’ll try to stop the clock.” Sam clapped his hands. “Okay, let’s punch the ticket to Helena!”

  With arms out, legs slightly bent, feet moving, and eyes focused, they met Gardiner bringing the ball upcourt with fourteen seconds remaining. Swiftly, the well-disciplined Bruins moved the ball around the perimeter of the zone with crisp passing. Kenny Green came across and put a pick on Rob. Rob tried to slip around it but Willy Lawrence was open for a blink. The courageous Gardiner senior faced up and took the jump shot with nine seconds left. All eyes followed the arc of the ball; all hearts hesitated; time stopped breathing.

  Though it looked true, the ball carried the burden of the shooter’s doubt. It hit the back of the rim and bounced high in front of the basket. Inside his man, Rob tracked the ball with unflinching eyes, timed his leap, and elevated above the desperate tangle of outstretched arms and bodies. For an instant he controlled the ball with fingertips above the others. But rather than try to grab it, he flipped it toward the other end of the floor to the shocked surprise of everyone in the building.

  Seven seconds.

  The ball hit at midcourt and bounced away.

  Six seconds.

  The players on both teams stood transfixed for an instant with the bouncing, unattended ball draining the clock. The Willow Creek fans began to grasp the meaning of what was transpiring on the floor. Their roar came on like a wind storm. Two Gardiner players, with agony in their faces, raced after the fleeing ball as if it were their life’s blood. The ball bounced and bounced and then rolled away, squandering the final seconds of their life as a team.

  Five seconds… four seconds… three seconds.

  Ben McShane caught up with the ball just before it rolled out of bounds. Frantically he turned and fired a pass to Willy Lawrence near the center of the court. The desperate boy caught the ball, but before he could whirl and launch a shot, the buzzer cut through the thunderous uproar.

  The Willow Creek boys embraced Curtis in wild jubilation while their fans went berserk. The stunned Gardiner players held their heads in their hands and slumped to their knees before the ashen faces of their disbelieving followers. Sam and Diana hugged each other and were swiftly smothered by the outpouring of rollicking spectators. Sam thought he caught a glimmer of tears in Fred’s eye as Coach Sooner took Sam’s hand and shook it vigorously.

  “Good job, Sam. Your boys deserved it. Go get’em at Divisional.”

  “Thanks, Fred. You have a fine bunch of boys.”

  The burly mentor plowed through the crowd, trying to keep an unperturbed exterior. Diana and Sam fought their way to the boys. They had done it! They had won on Monday night and would go on to Helena. They huddled in a tight circle, face to face.

  “Hey, coach, we cleaned the sidewalk!” Pete shouted.

  “For the Twin Bridges I am looking!” Olaf yelled.

  “They’re slamming off their radios in Twin Bridges right about now,” Sam said. “They can’t shake us. We’ll be a reoccurring nightmare they can’t escape. We’ll be a boil on their ass. We’ll be a disease they can’t cure. We’ll keep coming and coming and coming. If we can’t be better than them, we’ll outlast them. We’ll never quit. We’ll never give up! We’ll never give in!”

  “Yeeaaahhhh!” they shouted, and the huddle bounced along the hard-wood court. “Win! Win! Win! Win! Win!”

  AXEL SPREAD THE word that the Blue Willow would be open until the last dog died, and everyone hurried the sixty miles through the melting slush to bring their bright victory home and unwrap it in Willow Creek. By ten-thirty it was hard to find a parking place within a block or more of the inn. Cars and pickups inundated the vacant land around the railroad tracks. During the last part of the trip the team had given in to their exhaustion, becoming quiet and allowing it all to sink in. But when Sam cocked the bus door open in front of the Blue Willow, allowing them to spill out and into the humming inn, the wild cheers and excitement that welcomed them rekindled their enthusiasm and relit their pilot lights.

  “They’re here! They’re here!” Grandma Chapman shouted, plowing through the crush to her grandson. Amos Flowers slapped Tom on the back and the two cowboys regarded each other with affirming smiles.

  “I told ya, I told ya, by God!” Rip shouted.

  With standing room only, the game continued nonstop through instant replay in their minds, festooned with drama and flaring color, tapes that would be stored in their memories. People stood taller. Voices rang with confidence. The unacquainted smiled and chattered and laughed freely. Celebrants patted the boys on the back and praised them, offering to stuff them with anything available on the menu. The elation permeated the inn like fresh oxygen, uplifting them, giving the t
imid voice, the downhearted joy. Everyone within miles of Willow Creek had clambered on the bandwagon, standing on the running boards, sitting on the fenders, clinging to the roof, boasting they’d been riding there all along.

  Almost speechless, Sam sat at a table people vacated in deference to him, absorbing this rare moment. He was trying desperately to enjoy this for all it was worth while at the same time frantically praying that this wasn’t the fulfillment of their quest, that they still had miles to go before they slept.

  Lost in the mingling crowd for the moment, he felt numb, as though he were floating above it all, drifting, giddy, in a state of consciousness over which he had no control. For this moment in his life, he was insulated against the struggles and loss to come by the celebrating Willow Creekians and the triumph of his team. He attempted to stay in the present moment, to relish it. The sounds around him seemed far off, the milling people hazy, and time had no meaning. He was drunk. Sam Pickett was intoxicated with the true nectar of the gods, and his only thought was a plea for mercy that it would not be his only taste. For the first time he heard someone else entertain the lunacy that had recently taken root in his heart.

  “If they keep playing like this, these boys could make it to State.” Grandma Chapman wove through the crush toward him, heading for the door. “Good game, Coach. The boys done like you showed’em.”

  Sam smiled at her. “You’re not leaving already are you?”

  “I’m afraid so. This winning is harder on me than losing.”

  Sam tracked her brown felt hat as she walked out the door. He understood.

  Someone started the school song, and the cheerleaders picked up the beat and led the way with their strained and croaking voices. Many didn’t know all of the words or even some of them, but they hummed along and made up their own. Diana made her way through the boisterous fans and slid in next to Sam.

  “You see what you’ve done?” She waved her hand at the crowd.

  “That’s what’s so strange, I don’t think I have anything to do with it.”