Blind Your Ponies Read online

“Hi, Tom,” the Norwegian said with a smile plastered on his face. Olaf began skipping a spliced rope. He had mastered it enough to jump rapidly for almost half a minute before hitting a snag. When he untangled himself, he looked as though he was imitating a plucked flamingo.

  “Son of a bitch, is he going to play?” Tom said, tipping his hat back.

  “All right, Olaf, that’s enough for now,” the coach said. “Let’s use the ball.”

  Olaf tossed the rope aside; his straw-colored hair was tousled and his chest heaved from the exertion. Tom flipped him the ball. Olaf snapped a two-handed pass to Mr. Pickett. While they tossed the ball around, Tom fumed.

  “You turkey, you told us you didn’t know how to play!” He turned to the grinning English teacher. “That was the first thing we all asked him.”

  “That’s the secret. He’s learning and he needs lots of help. He has a long way to go in a short time, but he’s willing to work hard, and that’s what it will take from all of us, gut-wrenching hard work.”

  The coach caught the ball and kept it.

  “I can’t promise you anything, Tom, and Olaf can’t promise you anything. But I think we’ve got one of those extraordinary opportunities you have to grab before it slips away forever. If Olaf keeps working the way he has and improving as much as he has, we’ll have four players, including you.”

  Mr. Pickett nodded, and Olaf moved into the paint just in front of the basket. The teacher lobbed a high pass to him. Without a dribble, Olaf jumped, turned in the air, and slammed the ball down through the net. He looked at Tom with a big grin on his face.

  “That is allowed.”

  Tom stared in disbelief and the upcoming season loomed in his mind, how he’d watch the opposing teams swallow their tongues and piss their pants when the Jolly Green Giant in a jockstrap lumbered into view.

  “You can jam it,” Tom finally said.

  “Yam it? Ya, yam it,” Olaf said.

  “No—Jam! Jam!” Tom shouted.

  Mr. Pickett picked up the ball and tossed it to Tom.

  “You try it.”

  Olaf moved into the paint and Tom fed him a high pass. The awkward kid turned and hammered the ball down through the netting and left a hollow echo booming off the gym walls. Then, smiling as though they’d just won the lottery, Olaf and Mr. Pickett turned to Tom for his response.

  “Now, do you think any player from Twin Bridges could prevent Olaf from doing that?” the coach asked.

  “Hell no,” Tom said.

  “Could anyone from Gardiner stop Olaf from doing that?”

  “Nooo way!”

  “Do you think you would enjoy helping Olaf rain basketball leather down upon the brows of those opposing teams?”

  Tom held his breath for a beat and he stared at the other two grinning faces. “I’ve dreamed of that day,” he said.

  They traded high fives, laughing and hooting. Soon they fell silent, looking into each other’s eyes. Tom felt a vow had been taken, a bond formed, and they paused for a minute, letting it sink in. He knew he’d have to buck his dad about this, but he couldn’t wait for the season to begin, when he could start kicking ass.

  Willow Creek had four basketball players.

  CHAPTER 9

  The blacktop highway goes to Willow Creek to die.

  During her stay in Willow Creek, Diana had sensed an invisible flag of surrender fluttering over the town. Though there were more than a few well-off and even wealthy ranchers on neighboring land who coffeed and socialized in Willow Creek, a dark pessimism had firmly entrenched itself into the daily lives of its citizens like ticks. Here, people resigned themselves to a mediocre life, to an uneventful, aimless existence.

  For every house that was maintained, one had been left to the whims of sun and weather. For every yard neatly trimmed, one had gone to seed. For every trailer house spruced up with pride, there was another surrounded by discarded junk decaying and forgotten.

  Some people had journeyed here only to see their carefully woven dreams unravel, their once bright hopes fade or rust. Others, who had already given up on living, migrated to Willow Creek to settle into the dust, a place at the end of life, a place where their personal abandonment and isolation could be fulfilled.

  Diana wondered if Sam Pickett was one of these. Perhaps he was secretly drowning, up to his ears, struggling but losing, soon to become another Willow Creek casualty. As for herself, Diana believed she knew what she was doing. She was in Willow Creek for a brief detour on her personal journey of healing and regaining her balance. But try as she may she couldn’t ignore the graveyard crouched across the tracks to the west like a predator facing the withering herd, watching and waiting.

  After rummaging for half an hour into cupboards and a near-empty refrigerator and finding only a reluctance to cook after a long day at school, Diana drove from the old farmhouse she rented into Willow Creek. Traveling directly into the falling sun, she flipped the visor down and slid on her sunglasses.

  Suddenly, out of the blinding glare, a large rabbit appeared on the road.

  Oh God! Brakes! Don’t swerve! Don’t swerve!

  At the last second, the rabbit bolted to safety and the Volvo skidded and squealed to a dead stop. Diana’s hands were tightly locked on the steering wheel. Her face, her whole body, was damp with perspiration. She could feel her heartbeat in her temples and she struggled to catch her breath.

  Oh, God, she thought, it’s just a rabbit, happens all the time, just let it go. Her leg was locked rigid, her foot still jammed on the brake pedal. Her arms and hands trembled on the wheel and she forced herself to breathe deeply, a trick she’d learned to calm herself just this past year. She glanced in the rearview mirror for any cars or trucks. Then she slowly moved her foot onto the accelerator and crawled down the road, trying desperately not to lose it altogether.

  When she entered the Blue Willow’s dining room, Axel took one look at her and came barreling over.

  “Are you all right, girl?” He pulled out a chair at an unoccupied table and she dropped into it. “You look kind of pale. Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m all right. I just about hit a rabbit on the highway and it scared me a little.” Diana hadn’t planned on telling anyone; she scolded herself and didn’t want to give her fear any power.

  Axel laughed. “Don’t give it a thought, happens all the time around here. If you nail a nice big jack, haul it in here. We can always cook up some road kill.”

  His words cut her like a razor. She felt queasy and faint.

  Vera, Axel’s wife, pushed him aside. “You leave her alone, you old coot. Can’t you see the girl is upset?”

  Vera sat with her a few minutes and gabbed about the gossip of the day. When Diana first met Vera, the wrenlike woman’s nose was flushed as if she had a cold. But after a month, Diana realized it always looked like that. After calming down and chastising herself for not doing a better job of hiding her feelings, Diana convinced Vera she was fine and ordered a taco salad.

  Vera scooted off with her order and Diana exchanged chitchat with some of the people she knew. She soon found herself wishing Sam had been eating at this hour, imagining how she might invite herself to sit at his table.

  Axel Anderson, a balding barrel of a man in his late fifties, lived upstairs above the kitchen and dining room with his high-strung wife, Vera. They took over the Blue Willow with the hope of making the inn prosperous, much like the former owners, who themselves had hung on as long as possible before succumbing to the predictable fate of businesses alongside dead-end highways. Axel had a gnarled ear and the left side of his neck had a rugged scar traveling down under his collar. He spit and polished anything connected with the property as though a spotless and inviting restaurant off the beaten path would have the power to draw hungry customers out of thin air. As owner he was also bartender, waiter, dishwasher, cook, janitor, and anything else it took to keep the ship afloat. On any given day you’d never know whether that ship was sinking.

 
One of the relics Axel and Vera inherited with the place was the aging bicycle built for two that sat on the front porch throughout the year. Diana had found that the locals were protective of the old bike’s history and it was often difficult for a stranger to get an answer regarding the bike’s origins. The peculiar bike had become almost sacred in the eyes of the townsfolk, a trademark of the town, leaning there against the wall on the porch of the Blue Willow Inn, to be borrowed by whoever would like to take a turn around the town.

  The story went that one day, many years ago, a happy young couple rode the tandem bicycle from Bozeman on an all-day outing, and stopped at the Blue Willow for lunch. Local people were touched by their affection, by the look of their gentle faces as they gazed across the table and held hands.

  Then, something came up between them.

  One of them revealed something—people who tell the story are uncertain here—and the young man, it was said, stood up abruptly, knocking over plates and spilling water all over the tablecloth and onto the dining room floor. He stomped out of the inn, and soon afterward the lovely young woman quietly followed. In their anguish and hurt, they both ran off and left the bicycle leaning on the porch. For days people hoped the couple would make up and then, back together again, would remember that neither had taken the bicycle. Weeks went by, summer became fall, and finally, when the winter snow dusted the seats of the bike, the townspeople began losing hope.

  That was over twenty-five years ago and still the bike rested there as though the community expected that the couple would forgive each other and come back for it. Successive owners of the inn kept its tires inflated and replaced as needed and all parts in working order. Since neither of the lovers ever returned for it, the common sentiment was they never got back together, coloring the local legend with the bittersweet shades of a tragic love story. But Diana figured that tourists who noticed the timeworn bicycle would just assume it was decoration, like the many antiques inside the inn.

  She’d lost her appetite and gently pushed her half-eaten salad away. Just when she felt determined enough to dare the drive home, Sam Pickett walked in, wearing his running outfit. On his way to the back counter he nodded and smiled.

  She settled back in her chair and thought about how she’d see him running out the gravel road that curved past the graveyard, how she always got the impression he wasn’t jogging for fitness but trying to outrun something. She had tried running but it gave her too much time to think, so she preferred her excursions into the woods and river bottoms where she could lose herself tracking and observing.

  Sam came to her table and held a can of Mountain Dew.

  “Have a good run?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I got five miles in.” He wiped the arm of his sweatshirt across his sweating face.

  “Would you like to sit down?”

  “Oh, no thanks. I’m dripping and the aroma might kill your appetite.” He backed a step away.

  “Well maybe some other time,” she said, and clearly felt his reluctance to get too chummy on any social level.

  “I better get out of here before Axel comes with a deodorant spray.” He laughed and she sensed a warmth in his smile she’d never noticed before.

  “I hear you’re going to coach another year.”

  “Yeah, thanks for your input.”

  “Input?” she asked, baffled.

  “About coaching, and what a once-in-a-lifetime it is to have a seven-footer.”

  She laughed. “I guess I got caught up in that rush of excitement over Olaf. I didn’t mean to stick my nose in.”

  “No, I needed another perspective. And I really need something to do around here all winter.” He gulped the soda down.

  “Maybe it was bad advice. It looks like you won’t have a seven-footer after all.”

  “I know,” he said, then quickly frowned. “But we’ll have to make do with what we have, as usual.”

  He backed another step from the table and she felt a strange sensation shiver through her. Something in his expression leaked the smallest hint of something else, something she couldn’t name but had an inkling of joy; it made her want to smile.

  Sam glanced at a man exiting the bar and staggering to the front door. All the warmth drained from his face. George Stonebreaker stopped in his tracks when he spotted Sam.

  “Hey, Pickett, you gonna coach that bunch of losers again?”

  The voice of the huge, unshaven man in bib overalls, a denim work shirt, and a sweat-stained cowboy hat boomed for everyone in the Blue Willow to hear. Diana suspected he’d been at the bar four or five beers too long.

  Sam nodded and faced Stonebreaker across an unoccupied table.

  “Well, my boy ain’t playing, that’s for sure. He’s wasted enough time stumbling around with those other pansies. He show up, you tell him he ain’t playing this year.”

  “I can’t do that.” Sam spoke so quietly, Diana thought his voice had a quiver in it. “You’ll have to tell him,” Sam said.

  “He don’t pay me no mind anymore, got his nose up his ass. You tell him.”

  Stonebreaker pointed a meaty finger at Sam and he squinted. Diana could feel the tension in the hushed restaurant.

  “If he plays with those geldings you’ll answer to me, ya hear.” Stone-breaker slammed a fist on the table, rattling silverware and salt and pepper shakers. “To me!”

  Axel came from the kitchen in his white apron and rolled up sleeves. “You get on home now, George. Let these folks enjoy their meal.”

  Stonebreaker glanced at Axel and then turned back to Sam.

  “I don’t want him playin’, Pickett.”

  Axel stood next to Sam. “That’s enough, George,” Axel said in a soothing voice. “You head on home.”

  Stonebreaker abruptly stomped out and banged the screen door behind him. Only then did Diana see the baseball bat Axel held at his side under the long apron.

  The Blue Willow immediately went into a buzz and Axel, wiping sweat from his bald head with a hanky, apologized to the customers. Then he turned to Diana and Sam. “I’m not letting that man drink in here anymore. He’s a mean bastard and a sorry excuse for a human being. He can go do his drinking somewhere else.”

  When Axel headed for the kitchen, Sam set the can of Mountain Dew on the table.

  “Who said things were dull in Willow Creek?” he said and flashed a thin smile.

  Diana saw how the soda can shook in Sam’s hand. “Can’t somebody do something about him?” she asked.

  “I feel sorry for Tom,” Sam said.

  “Will Tom play?”

  He peered out into the darkness. “I don’t know.”

  CHAPTER 10

  It came after Sam that morning.

  Was it his confrontation with George Stonebreaker that had unearthed it? Was it because of that terrifying moment when he teetered between cowering under a table or ripping the man’s throat out with his bare hands? This feeling somehow always manifested, just when he thought he was doing well. He gobbled breakfast and hurried to school, but no matter how hard he concentrated on the students and lesson, it stalked him in his classroom, staring out from unoccupied corners, rising in the shadows, sucking the breath from his lungs.

  He force-fed his mind with pointless details and jabbered to his class like a nervous wreck. And when his mid-morning free period arrived, he fled from the building to the school yard, where a fresh, balmy southwesterly wind gushed across the mountain flanks and barnstormed through town.

  Sam spotted Dean Cutter chasing Helen Bates during recess. For years Sam had thought of Dean as a frisky grade schooler who, peering out of his thick lenses and habitually wearing a dog-eared maroon Kamp Implement cap, seemed to regard life in a happy-go-lucky way. Now the squat kid was a freshman and played an integral role in the expectations Sam was guardedly inventing. He didn’t know much about the family; Dean was the only Cutter in attendance. He had an older sister, but she had been born with cerebral palsy and didn’t come to school. In his
class that fall, Dean had shown little interest in academics but exuded a rough-and-tumble zest for life.

  Sam spotted Diana on the far edge of the playground like a homesteader’s wife. He waved and she waved back, as though they conspired to display warm affection for each other from a safe distance, and at close quarters had to be on guard, polite, and restrained.

  A United Parcel truck pulled up and the young suntanned driver hollered toward Sam. “You know where the Skogan place is?”

  “Yeah!” Sam shouted. “You have to go back to the fork north of town and go west until you hit 287, then southwest about four miles.”

  “Thanks!” the driver waved a hand as he roared off.

  On the wrong road, Sam thought, maybe his first day.

  Oh, God. It avalanched over him and he couldn’t hold it off. The lunatic had been lost. The outraged husband went to the wrong Burger King. His estranged wife worked at a Burger King four miles east on the same street. With the shotgun hidden under a long coat, he demanded to see his wife and when they told him she wasn’t there he went berserk and started shooting. It should never have happened, not there. It was a mistake, all a mistake.

  Sam tried to rid his brain of that voice. He clapped his hands over his ears and bent forward. Sweat immediately soaked him and he fought for breath. He had to escape, knowing his sanity hung in the balance, how he hung in the balance, entertaining the thought to just blind his pony.

  When he got up and turned around, Diana was there, close, looking into his eyes.

  “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”

  “Oh … no. I was …” He tried to laugh, to hold her off.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked with a tenderness in her voice.

  “No, thanks. I actually came out to talk to Dean.”

  He turned abruptly, then hurried toward the children. He retreated from the reflection in her eyes. He fled from the currents threatening to drown his soul.

  “Dean!” he shouted.

  The scruffy, nearsighted boy skidded to a stop and regarded Sam.

  “Could I talk to you a minute, Dean?” Sam wiped his face with a handkerchief.