All-Star Pride (6 page)

I felt good too. I was sweating freely, my lungs were huge air pumps and my muscles were loose and relaxed. I stepped onto the ice for another shift. The clock showed just over three minutes left in the first period.

The face-off was to the left of the net in our end, with our line the same as it had been since the beginning of the series. Jeff Gallagher was at center, Miles Hoffman at right wing, me along the boards at left wing. Nathan Elrod played left defense directly behind the face-off circle, and Adam Payne at right defense covered the front of our net.

The ref dropped the puck, and Jeff picked it clean out of the air, pulling it back to Nathan. He took the puck behind the net. Klomysyk, the giant right winger, charged after him. I waited along the boards, open in case Nathan decided to pass it in my direction.

He did.

Unfortunately, Klomysyk—between Nathan and me—got just enough of the puck to slow it down as it went past him. The puck wobbled and skidded as it trickled along the boards toward me.

Not good. I'd have to wait far too long for the puck to reach me.

It gave the Russian defenseman time to leave his position on the blue line and flash toward me. I knew he was coming, but there was nothing I could do except swing my body around and try to trap the puck in my skates. Better to hold on for another face-off than try to do something fancy and risk losing the puck.

I held my position at the boards and concentrated on keeping the puck trapped when the defenseman hit me. He bounced off
my shoulders and took another run. It wasn't him I was worried about. I knew Klomysyk would return from behind our net and take a full charge at me in revenge for the hit I'd given him in game one.

Nathan later told me that Klomysyk had the butt end of his stick out about a mile when he hit me.

I didn't see it.

It felt like I'd been rammed by a rhino horn, followed by the rhino itself. Something brutally hard slashed across my right cheekbone, just beneath my protective visor. My head cracked into the glass above the boards, and I spun around and toppled face-first onto the ice.

I pushed myself up. I couldn't figure out why the ice below me was sticky and red. Then the pain hit, and I realized how badly I'd been cut.

I saw more red. Not the red of my blood— of which there was plenty spurting from a gash across my cheekbone—but the red of the temper I tried never to lose.

I roared as I scrambled to my feet.

There was a confusion of players all around, and I bellowed as I flung them aside. Wherever he was, Klomysyk was going to pay. I saw him on the other side of the linesman who had whistled the play down and was skating in to see if I was okay. It was wrong. Very wrong. But I roared again and charged toward Klomysyk.

The linesman put his hands up to stop me, then changed his mind and jumped aside.

I must have looked like Frankenstein's monster to Klomysyk, with my hands outstretched, my cheek slashed wide open, and blood on my mouth and neck and shoulders. Or it could have been my eyes. The guys told me later it looked as if my eyeballs had rolled into the back of my head and I was a man totally out of control.

Which I was.

Klomysyk backpedaled a few uncertain steps.

I was still roaring, still gaining speed, throwing my gloves off as I closed in on him.

Klomysyk turned his back on me and skated as fast as he could.

I chased, fueled by absolute rage.

Klomysyk took a peek over his shoulder and picked up speed. I might have been mad, but he was afraid for his life.

Fear proved to be faster than anger.

I chased him all the way to their end, all the way to his net.

He hid behind the goalie, who had moved a little way up the ice.

I threw the goalie aside as if he were made of Styrofoam.

Whatever Klomysyk saw in my eyes, it told him to do one thing.

With the goalie gone, he raced the few steps back to the net, grabbed the crossbar and fell to his knees at the same time. He pulled the entire net down on himself.

I couldn't stop my dive in midair, so I tumbled into the netting, trying to rip through the mesh to get at him.

That's where both linesmen and the referee finally managed to capture me—on top of the net trying to punch my way through the mesh to get at Klomysyk.

They pulled me away and dragged me back toward our players' box. Sanity finally returned, time slowed and I felt as stupid as I must have looked.

My bleeding didn't slow down, though. And there was a thin line of red splotches the length of the ice where I'd chased Klomysyk.

As they led me off the ice, Klomysyk finally decided it was safe to crawl out from beneath the net. The entire crowd whistled at him. A part of me wondered whether they whistled at him for the dirty shot he had given me or for hiding in the net.

The major part of me, however, was just trying to keep my balance as weakness hit me. During the intermission between the first and second periods, a doctor worked quickly on my face, taking thirty stitches to close the cut. Before the second period had even begun, the side of my face had ballooned so badly I couldn't see out of my right eye.

As much as I tried, I couldn't convince the coach or doctor to let me play the rest of the game. I was forced to sit in the stands,
just above our players' box. More than a few Russian fans made a point of stopping by to shake their heads with sympathy, saying angry words that I guessed meant they were as disgusted with Klomysyk as I was.

It also made me feel a little better that my thirty stitches helped us during the second period. Klomysyk received a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct. It meant we had a man advantage for all five minutes, and our team scored three goals while the Russians were shorthanded.

It didn't make me feel better, however, to see the guy with the goatee and the eyepatch again, here in St. Petersburg, six hours of high-speed travel away from Moscow. And it made me feel even worse to see him with Nadia. They were on the opposite side of the arena, high up in the stands where they were nearly invisible among the crowd of people.

I wondered why I felt so jealous to see him playing with her long hair and whispering in her ear. After all, I was nothing to her. And it was becoming obvious she was someone not to trust in any situation, let alone in a
country where I could easily get lost and never be found again.

As the second period continued, however, I couldn't keep my eyes from constantly looking in her direction. We were up 4–1 with nine and a half minutes of play left in the second period when I glanced in her direction again.

The eyepatch guy had taken her by the elbow and was leading her up the aisle. At the top of the aisle, it looked like she tried to pull away from him.

He yanked her toward him.

She pulled back again.

So quickly I wondered if it had actually happened, the eyepatch guy slapped her across the face.

Coach Jorgensen had told me to stay in the stands right above our players' box. He had told me to wait until the second period ended and then return to the dressing room to join the team.

But Coach Jorgensen's attention was on the game, not on me.

I spun out of my seat and dashed upward, away from the players' box. I pounded up the
steps of the aisle. At the top, I turned right and sprinted through the oval concourse that would take me around to the other side.

Most of the spectators in the rink were in the stands, watching the game. The few Russians wandering throughout the concourse wisely moved aside as they saw me running. And it was probably a good thing too. Since the vision in my right eye was blurry and my balance was off, I'm not sure I would have been good at dancing around them, not at the speed I was running.

I didn't know what I was going to do or say when I reached Mr. Eyepatch, but I wasn't going to need Russian to let him realize what I thought about him hitting Nadia, especially if this involved the danger for her I thought it did. Whatever had happened in the black market could not have been good, and he was obviously connected with it, even if I didn't know how or why.

It probably took less than thirty seconds to make it halfway around the oval. I'm big but faster than I look. Even then, arriving so quickly, I was barely in time to see them.

Mr. Eyepatch had pushed Nadia through a double-wide exit door at the far end of the concourse. If the slap to her face hadn't been enough indication of trouble, this confirmed it. Nadia was supposed to always be near our team. Should any major incident take place, she would have to translate for us. So I guessed if she was leaving, it probably wasn't by her choice.

I started running again.

The crowd roared, and part of my mind told me the Russians had just notched a goal. I didn't spare the ice a glance.

I burst through the doors.

Sunlight battered my eyes. Although it was mid-evening, St. Petersburg was far enough north that, at this time of year, the days were so long the sun barely set for more than a couple of hours.

My head seemed filled with pounding blood. I wondered if any of my stitches had broken open. I blinked away the sudden light, heaving for breath. My right eye filled with tears. I rubbed the tears away, and when I was able to focus again, I saw the two of
them rounding the corner of the outside of the building.

Again, like a fool, I rushed forward.

Unlike ice arenas and major stadiums in North America, this one did not have acres and acres of parking lots. Not enough Russians could afford cars. The tiny parking lot was deserted. I didn't have to worry about knocking anyone over.

I rounded the corner and ran into deep shadow. Buildings pressed in all around this ice arena, and I dashed forward into a narrow alley alongside the arena.

What a mistake.

Mr. Eyepatch stepped out from behind an old truck. At full speed, I almost speared myself on the huge knife he held waist high in my direction. I managed to throw myself to the side and dodge the knife.

I stopped a few stumbling steps later, turned to face him and gasped for breath.

He snarled something at me in Russian.

I didn't move. There were only those couple of steps between us. Up close, even in the shadows, I could see how his face was
filled with pockmarks. His hair was short, lined with gray. The goatee, too, showed gray. The eyepatch covered his right eye. His left eye glittered black with hatred.

He snarled more Russian.

I couldn't think of anything to say. He held a knife; I didn't. Big as I am, the knife made up for a lot of his disadvantage in size. Especially the knife he held, a big bowie knife with notched ends.

He waved it at me and stepped forward.

I stepped back and bumped into some garbage cans.

Again, more nasty Russian, probably curses. More knife waving.

“Goreela,” Nadia's voice floated out from beside the truck, “he asks why you have turned on him.”

There was a slight scuffling, and she came into view. Two of her. My vision was blurring. I also saw two trucks, two of Mr. Eyepatch and, worst of all, two of the murderous knives.

“Tell him he shouldn't hit you.” Wet warmth was running down my face and
onto my neck. I realized it was blood from my stitches.

“You came out here because he hit me?” Her voice was filled with disbelief. “You risk everything for something as simple and meaningless as that?”

Simple? Meaningless? Why did she sound so old as she said it?

Mr. Eyepatch spoke to her without taking his glittering black eye off me.

She replied in Russian, explaining, I guessed, what each of us had just said.

He laughed. It sounded as mean and hollow as one of Chandler's laughs.

“Tell him to put that knife away before I get really, really mad,” I said. I hoped my voice didn't sound as shaky as I felt.

“You simple boy,” she told me. “Have you no idea what you've done?”

I had a good idea. Too good. I'd backed myself completely into a set of garbage cans. With a madman ready to rip my stomach apart. All for a girl who didn't seem too impressed that I had tried to defend her.

Mr. Eyepatch slashed the air in front of me.

I tried pulling back and knocked over a garbage can. It clattered on the pavement. He laughed again.

I had never felt more alone. I'd been raised on a farm and had learned how to be tough against the weather, against hard work, against the bitterness that had made my father hateful toward life. In hockey, I'd learned how to be tough against uncaring coaches, against opponents who wanted to crush me and against all the lonely hours of missing my family during the months on the road.

But I had never learned how to fight for my life.

Nadia shouted something at Mr. Eyepatch in Russian. Her voice sounded desperate. Was she begging him not to do this to me?

Another slash.

This time I fell backward. My vision was betraying me. With blurred vision in one eye, I had trouble getting my bearings.

He moved forward.

I kicked at his knee.

He laughed and jumped back.

I tried pushing up. In the rotted garbage
spread all around, my hand touched cool metal. The metal of a garbage can lid. I watched him close in on me. He was taking his time, licking his lips like a cat watching a crippled mouse.

I felt for the handle of the lid.

He moved forward again.

Nadia continued to plead with him in Russian.

I closed my fingers over the handle and jumped to my feet. He seemed surprised I was so quick. But it only set him back for a heartbeat, and then he slashed forward again, bringing his knife from his waist up toward the center of my ribs.

I brought the garbage can lid around and managed to shield myself.

His blow was so hard that the knife tore through the metal, missing my hand by inches and stopping just short of my stomach.

He yelped.

It was too late for him. I brought my other hand around, and it caught him on the side of his jaw.