Blind Your Ponies Page 5

  “No one, and we won’t tell anyone you’re giving it a try.”

  “Giving it a try I would like to be while I am in America.”

  “We haven’t won a game here for a while so I can’t promise you much, but you could learn about the game. If you don’t like it you can let it go and no one will know.”

  “No one will know.” Olaf’s large blue eyes widened and his face brightened. He gazed down at Sam. “Then trying I will be. But feeling foolish I do not wish to be.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. Around here we all feel foolish when it comes to basketball.”

  CHAPTER 7

  After sneaking in and locking the door behind them, Sam and the new exchange student stood in the shadowy gymnasium. With some inner voice cautioning him against this dangerous investment of the heart, Sam tossed the ball to Olaf. The boy caught it stiffly.

  “Are you right-handed?” Sam asked.

  “Right-handed, ya.”

  “Place the ball in your right hand and flip it at the basket with your fingers.”

  Olaf carefully positioned the ball in his right hand and tossed it at the basket. It hit the backboard and bounced, the sound echoing in the empty arena. Olaf awkwardly retrieved it and moved closer to the basket.

  “Again, with your fingers.”

  Sam demonstrated, his hand fanning the air. “Flip the ball—fingers and wrist, fingers and wrist.”

  After a dozen more attempts, the ball finally kissed off the backboard and swished through the net. The Norwegian boy’s face lit up.

  “Good,” Sam said and clapped. “That’s the reward, that’s the joy. It says ‘perfect.’ ”

  Sam’s state of expectancy soared as he gently directed the boy through numerous drills and exercises. Standing on the court with this towering Scandinavian had an overpowering effect and led to instant illusions of grandeur. “That’s great. Good, good. That’s very good. Yes, yes, super!”

  When he jumped, Olaf rose so close to the basket it was startling. Sam felt himself growing more excited.

  “See this area right under the basket that’s painted blue,” Sam said. “That’s what we call the paint.”

  “The paint?”

  “The paint! When we’re on offense, when we’re trying to make a basket, you can only be in that painted area for three seconds at a time.”

  “Why is that?”

  “So big guys like you can’t stand under the basket and score a hundred points. It gives little guys like me more of a chance. If you’re in the paint more than three seconds, you have to give the ball to the other team. That’s called a turnover.”

  Olaf cocked his head, his expression one of confusion.

  “Only once for three seconds I am allowed in the paint?” “No, no, you can move in and out of the paint all the time, you just can’t stop and stand in there for more than three seconds. See, like this.”

  Sam slid into the painted area, stood there crouched for nearly three seconds, and then slid back out. He repeated the move several times and then had Olaf imitate him.

  After nearly a half hour, Sam called a halt for fear of overdoing it.

  “Good, good, that’s enough for now. Do you think you might like it?”

  “Like it? Ya, I think so. But very excellent is what I want to be.”

  “One last thing,” Sam said. “Here.” He tossed the ball to Olaf. “Stand right under the basket and see if you can jump up and throw the ball down through the net.”

  Olaf took the ball in two hands and tried to stretch to the rim.

  “No … try it first with one hand.”

  The graceless boy took the ball in one hand and dropped it as he attempted to jump. Sam lobbed it back to him and nodded. On the fourth try Olaf went up on his toes, and with a slight jump, flung the ball down through the net. He turned to Sam with a puzzled smile.

  “That is allowed?”

  “Oh, yeah, that is very much allowed. It’s called dunking the ball.”

  “Dunking?”

  “Dunking … you just dunked the basketball. Was it fun?”

  “Fun? Ya, fun. Are you given more points for the dunking?”

  “No, but it scares the other team.”

  Sam locked the gym door as they exited.

  “One more thing. We don’t want anyone to know about this until you make up your mind whether or not to join the team. Otherwise you might feel foolish if you want to quit.”

  “Not feel foolish, oh, ya, good.”

  “You can tell the Painters I’m helping you after school, and that I’ll give you a ride home.”

  “Ya, a ride home. But about the ball playing, I won’t be speaking.”

  “Good.”

  A FEW WEEKS LATER, Sam stepped outside after school for a minute of fresh air before he was to meet Olaf in the gym. The blustery fall afternoon lifted his spirits as he looked about. A bunch of kids were shooting a basketball on the outdoor court while waiting for the bus, Curtis Jenkins among them. Sam decided it was as good a time as any to talk to the shy sophomore.

  He knew that the boy’s whole life was laid out in front of him with virtually no room for choice. Tall, plain looking, moderately intelligent, Curtis seemed resigned to his life, one in which he’d undoubtedly follow in his father’s footsteps: working the land, growing hay and tending cattle, with nothing to look forward to after high school but the repetitive routines of the ranch. The oldest of four children, he would be expected to step in beside his father. If he married, he and his bride would pull a double-wide onto the home site and set up housekeeping a hundred feet from his parents. Accepting, reticent, congenial, he would follow the life he found himself born to, maybe never winning at anything, slowly mired in the sadness, never finding the joy.

  Sam ambled toward the court where Curtis had little trouble snatching rebounds from the shorter kids, three of whom were his younger sisters. He remembered the humiliating evening Curtis went through the year before when he had been thrown into a game at Twin Bridges and managed to turn the ball over the first three times he touched it. Sam noticed that the boy had grown taller over the summer and he hoped his coordination had kept pace.

  “Curtis!” Sam called.

  The boy glanced over at Sam and then took a shot. The ball hit the rim and came off into the frenzy of little rebounders. Curtis stepped toward Sam.

  “Mr. Pickett, did you know a cockroach can live nine days without its head before it starves to death?”

  The boy had the habit of starting conversations with bizarre facts, and Sam didn’t want to get sidetracked. “No, I didn’t know that, Curtis. Have you been practicing over the summer?”

  “No … not really. My dad keeps me pretty busy.”

  Sam felt a nervous flutter in his chest. In the past he simply announced when the first practice would be and then waited to see who showed up. This year he had hopes for a real team.

  “Are you going to play this year?”

  Curtis squinted at him for an instant and then watched the boys and girls scrambling after the basketball. Sam held his breath. Was the boy remembering the embarrassment last year?

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Good,” Sam said, exhaling. “You’ll be a starter this year.”

  The taciturn sophomore seemed to brighten for a moment and then a darkness clouded his face. “I don’t think Tom is going to play,” he said.

  “It’s going to be better this year, I promise you,” Sam said. “Have you seen Peter Strong shoot? He’ll be a big help.”

  “He says he’s not going to be here.”

  The ball skidded over to Curtis and he picked it up and bounce-passed it to one of his sisters as the bus pulled up in front of the school.

  “We won’t even have five unless we get Scott to play,” he said as he turned for the bus.

  “We’ll have enough, don’t worry. We’ll have enough!” Sam yelled, but Curtis had deposited a tumor in his coach’s belly. Sam had heard the rumor and h
e knew he couldn’t put off talking to Tom Stonebreaker much longer. But right then he had to give his full attention to smuggling Olaf into the gym past the vigilance of Carter Walker and Louella Straight, who followed the exchange student’s every move.

  Carter Walker had set her cap for Olaf the first day she laid eyes on him, but almost at the same moment, so had Louella Straight. Carter felt she had the better qualifications, being a sandy-haired, buxom girl who stood 5'10" in her stocking feet. But Louella, standing barely 5'1" on tiptoe, declared unequivocally that disparity in height made no difference in matters of love.

  Carter and Louella were the female half of the senior class. Friends since second grade, each secretly believed they were being rewarded by destiny for suffering so long without a boyfriend when the enormous, fair-haired Olaf Gustafson arrived there. Their infatuation with the boy was immediate.

  SHORTLY AFTER OLAF’S arrival, the two of them sifted through all conversation and information about him in search of any hint of a girlfriend back home. After exhaustive efforts, Carter found a way to confirm the fact that he had no sweetheart pining for him along the fjords: she asked him. When he said no, she knew it was fate.

  The first time Carter thought she had him all to herself, having invited him to a movie in Bozeman, he naively asked Louella along. Then the first time Louella sat him alone for a hike along Willow Creek—the town’s namesake—Carter happened along in time to share their excursion as well as their lunch.

  Since then, it had become a holy triad. Together, like happy triplets, they provided an active—if sometimes bizarre—social life for the boy, who had a busy schedule already, what with school work and clandestine basketball sessions. Fortunately, the Painters welcomed the girls, recognizing they were in a common effort to help Olaf beat back his homesickness and make him feel loved.

  THE COTTONWOOD LEAVES had turned orange and were already falling when Sam finally gathered the gumption to mention basketball to Tom Stonebreaker during lunch one Friday. Sam had put off approaching the veteran player as long as possible, sensing how troubled the boy was and fearing a negative response—a blow that would dismantle Sam’s pipe dream of coaching a competitive team.

  Though most of the Willow Creek kids dressed in typical American teenage fashion, Tom found his identity with Western attire, and at times could pass for a drugstore cowboy, the only difference being he lived on a ranch. Tom Stonebreaker gave the impression he had been conceived in cowboy clothes. Sam had never seen him without his thick leather belt—with large oval silver buckle—upholding his jeans, his first name tooled on its back and a wire cutter and bale knife attached.

  In his J. Chisholm–handcrafted diamondback boots—wearing them only when the weather was dry—Tom always seemed more confident, appeared to walk taller. He earned the four hundred and fifty dollars he paid for the boots breaking horses and he bought them a size too big so he wouldn’t outgrow them. He wore them like courage and always padlocked them securely in a locker when he played ball. Every student in the school, down into the grades, knew you didn’t mess around with Tom Stonebreaker’s diamond-back boots.

  Tom often came to town on horseback, having ridden from the west of town where he lived with his mother and father, a man known for his drunken fits of rage. The boy had come to school occasionally over the years with bruises on his face and dubious stories of how he’d gotten them. For someone so young, Sam sensed a presence about him, an intangible blend of rebellion, uncertainty, and bluff. Sam figured that though all the young girls hoped to marry Rob Johnson one day, all the younger boys wanted to grow up to be like Tom Stonebreaker. Sometimes Sam thought he, too, would like to grow up to be like Tom Stonebreaker.

  After playing basketball for three years under Sam’s direction and never winning a game, rumor had it that Tom had had enough and was hanging up his jock strap.

  “We’ll have a much better team this year,” Sam said, standing next to the table where Tom sat eating his lunch alone.

  “My dad says I have to work, that basketball is a stupid waste of time,” Tom said, “that hell will freeze over before we ever win a game.”

  “You can work the rest of your life, Tom. Do you really have work to do?”

  “Naw, there isn’t that much for me to do during the winter, at least so long as he stays sober. He’s just pissed, says we’re a bunch of losers.”

  “Maybe we’ll surprise him. I don’t have to tell you how good Rob will be, and though I haven’t seen him actually play, I think Peter could be as good as Rob.”

  Peter Strong’s notoriety had flourished during the fall, spread about the community by Grandma Chapman, and Sam hoped Tom had gotten wind of it.

  “Pete says he won’t be here for the basketball season.”

  “But what if he is? Think of it, two guards like Rob, and if you play, we’ll have three solid players,” Sam said.

  “Yeah, but then there’s Curtis and Dean who can’t play diddley-shit. We won’t win a friggin’ game.”

  Tom finished scraping a small bowl of chocolate ice cream.

  “Anyway …” He rubbed his right knee. “Hurt my knee last summer, Ennis Rodeo. I don’t think it’ll let me play anymore.”

  “Don’t you want to play?”

  “Used to, but I’m tired of losing, getting it stuck to me by other players. You’re not out on the floor, you don’t hear it. When I go into Bozeman and see kids from other teams, it’s embarrassing.”

  “You always played hard, Tom, you always did your best.”

  The 6'4" senior looked up at Sam with piercing eyes. “I don’t just want to do my best—I want to win!”

  Sam fell silent for a moment. A slumbering fierceness deep inside of him identified with Tom’s despair and his passion. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and slid around onto the bench, moving close to the husky senior.

  “If I could convince you that we will win this year,” he said in a confidential tone, “and if your knee is all right, would you play?”

  Tom regarded him with a puzzled expression. “How you gonna do that?”

  “Would you play?”

  “I’d love to beat the crap out of those smart-asses who stepped in my face for three years.”

  “Stepped in our faces,” Sam said. He remembered how Tom had almost come to blows on the court several times last season. “Okay, wait for me in my room after school. You’ll have to miss the bus, but I’ll give you a ride home. Will that work?”

  “I guess so, but it sounds weird to me.”

  “Don’t mention this to anyone. I’ll see you after school, and, Tom, we’re going to win.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  As Sam left the lunchroom and walked down the hall, the specter of Tom’s father rose in his mind, a brutal and violent man, the personification of everything Sam had been hiding from for all these years. He knew that he would have to work to avoid any confrontation with the volatile man.

  CHAPTER 8

  Thankful for an excuse not to go home after school, Tom Stone-breaker sat on a desk in Mr. Pickett’s classroom with his wide-brimmed black hat beside him. Sometimes he’d drive over to Cardwell after supper, hoping that Ellen would be glad to see him. With her you could never tell. He already knew some turkey in her class in Whitehall was after her.

  He gazed past the railroad tracks to the broad landscape of the Tobacco Roots, where the early snow blanketed their peaks and high ridges. Nowadays, the tracks only carried the talc train from the mine at Cameron to the plant in Three Forks, and the main lines through here were long abandoned and forgotten; Tom knew what that felt like.

  He looked forward to the coming rodeo season, his only source of excitement, appreciation, and applause. He was too ashamed to tell Mr. Pickett that it was his father who stuck it to him the most when they lost, calling the team the Geldings and calling his son a loser. More than anything, Tom wanted to show his dad he was wrong, although at times he caught himself believing that maybe his dad was ri
ght.

  Mr. Pickett broke Tom’s trancelike posture when he entered the room. “Are you ready?” the teacher whispered.

  “Ready for what?”

  “What you’re about to see is a secret, Tom, and I want it clear that whatever you decide, you won’t tell anyone.”

  “Okay, okay. I promise.”

  They walked down deserted halls and stairways, and Tom thought Mr. Pickett looked like a burglar who was about to empty out the school safe. At the gym door, the teacher glanced behind them and paused, listening. He unlocked the door and they hurried in. Mr. Pickett quickly relocked the door.

  “What’re you locking the door for?” Tom asked, feeling his skepticism grow.

  “To keep the secret.” Mr. Pickett grinned.

  The gym floors creaked and the fading afternoon sunlight filtered weakly through the narrow frosted windows. The aroma of sweat and floor wax blended with faint flavors from lunch hour.

  Tom stood in his diamondback boots and his black hat, his hands were at his hips. The coach walked to the bleachers and took off his sport coat.

  “Why don’t you take off your jacket, Tom? We can shoot a few baskets.” “You got me in here to shoot baskets?” He pulled off his Levi jacket and threw it on a bench.

  Big deal.

  Coach Pickett picked up a basketball and tossed it to him.

  “You’ve seen me shoot before,” Tom said. He dribbled several times and lifted a halfhearted shot at the basket. The ball hit the rim and came back toward him. Tom caught it.

  “How’d that feel?”

  “I missed. Did you get me in here just to see how it would feel?”

  “Yes! But I also brought you here because we’ll need you if we’re going to win this year.”

  The coach turned toward the boys’ locker room and hollered.

  “Olaf!”

  Tom glanced at the doorway as Olaf appeared, all knees and elbows, a scrawny scarecrow with long, lean arms, spindly legs, wearing gunboat Adidases, economy-size boxer shorts, and a T-shirt that read party animal.

  “What are you doing?” Tom said.