Blazer Drive (2 page)

Finally someone had the sense to shut the spotlight off. I walked off the stage with laughter roaring all around me.

And that was only the beginning of my problems with Stephanie.

For the next ten months, every time I looked at my MVP award I wanted to call her to say I was sorry. But I didn't know her name. We had never met. We didn't go to the same high school. And she probably hated me. I figured it would be crazy to call.

Besides, what would I say? Sorry I pulled your wig off in front of five hundred people? Sorry I let it hang from my zipper? And by
the way, why were you wearing a stupid wig in the first place?

So, day after day, whenever I thought of the awards dinner, I tried to think of hockey instead.

That should have been easy.

At the end of last season, I'd been a draft pick for the Buffalo Sabres, a National Hockey League team. By drafting me, they had secured the rights to me as a player. But it didn't mean I'd automatically make the team.

To improve my chances to play pro hockey, I wanted to be heavier and stronger. So each summer day after working on my dad's cattle ranch, I pumped weights and dreamed about playing for the Sabres.

Training camp for the Kamloops Blazers started late in August. I moved back into town from the ranch to play hockey. After that came the regular season. We practiced or played hockey almost every day through the fall and winter. Toward the end of the season, the team was in a tight race for first place. I was also in a tight race for leading scorer in
the league. Luke Zannetti, who was playing bad and had hardly scored in two months, wasn't even in the race. What else was there to think about?

Some girl with blond hair who probably hated me, that's what.

I mean, I tried to fool myself. I told myself I didn't care. But it bugged me that I never had a chance to say I was sorry. I found myself looking for her in the places I went in Kamloops. If I saw someone with blond hair on the street or in a shopping mall, I'd hope it was her.

But in ten months, I never did find her.

She found me.

It was during a hockey practice on an afternoon in February. Half the team played against the other half. Red jerseys against blue. There were ten minutes left in the game. I wore a red jersey. Skating along the boards, I tried to get the puck from my friend Gordie Penn, who wore blue.

He elbowed my head.

“Hey,” I said, pushing him against the boards. I mushed his head into the Plexiglas. “This is practice!”

“Just trying to look good,” he said. He grunted and pushed me off him. “There's a babe watching us. Take a look.”

“Not now,” I said, pushing him back into the boards. “I'm busy.”

“Busy?” he panted.

“Yup. Busy making you look bad.” I kicked the puck away from him and chased it.

Gordie grabbed my sweater and hung on as I dragged him. It didn't bother me. I'd added a lot of bulk from working out with weights all summer.

Ten steps ahead, Luke Zannetti was almost open for a pass. There was only one defenseman between us. Gordie was laughing as he hung on to my sweater. But I knew if I took one more big step, I'd be able to flick the puck into the air and put it just in front of Luke.

Which I did.

It was a perfect pass. It should have sent him in all alone for an easy goal. Except when the puck hit Luke's stick, he tripped. The puck kept going and Luke slid on his stomach. It was the kind of sloppy hockey
he'd been playing for the last couple of months.

Everyone on the ice laughed at him.

Coach Price blew the whistle and told us to take a breather.

It took Luke a few minutes to get up.

I skated over to him, taking off my helmet to get some fresh air.

“Next time,” I said, “I'll slow my pass down. Hate to knock you over like that.”

I was joking. I thought Zannetti could tell I was joking. We weren't friends or anything. Luke didn't have any friends. Still, because I was smiling, I thought he could see I was just kidding.

Instead of laughing, he dropped his gloves and swung at me.

His fist hit me solidly on the side of my face. I fell to my knees. He jumped on my back and started pounding my head. It had happened so fast I didn't have a chance.

It seemed like he pounded me for a long time before someone dragged him off of me.

I slowly got back to my feet. A couple of guys were holding him back. A couple of guys
held me too. I wasn't going to fight, though. Hockey is a team sport.

“What is going through your head?” I shouted. I could taste blood. I could also feel a marble-sized lump on my bottom lip. “If you can't play hockey, don't take it out on me!”

“Shut your mouth, Cowboy!” he shouted back. Luke's eyes were wild. He was a little taller than me but not quite as heavy. A lot of girls liked him because he was good looking with dark wavy hair. Not many guys liked him because all he cared about was himself.

Coach Price skated between Zannetti and me. Coach Price had a buzz haircut and a bent nose. He was wide too. He had spent five years in the NHL as a defenseman before becoming our coach.

“Knock it off,” he barked.

“Coach, he—” I tried to say.

“Knock it off,” Coach told me. “I don't want to hear a word.”

He turned to Zannetti. “And you know better. You're the team captain.”

“But—” Zannetti tried to say.

“But nothing,” Coach Price said. “We'll talk later.”

Coach spun on his skates and blew his whistle. “Five minutes of hard skating,” he said. “Fun time is over.”

Everyone groaned. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. That's one of the good things about Coach Price. He doesn't expect us to be silent robots. As long as we do what he tells us, we can kid around and he'll kid back.

So we all started skating laps. Fast, then slow, depending on how many times he blasted his whistle. As we skated off the ice at the end of practice, I finally saw the girl Gordie had been talking about.

It was the blond girl from the awards dinner. She was standing near the exit off the ice. We all had to pass her to get to the dressing room. Her light hair was a lot shorter than the blond wig, but it was the same girl. I could hardly believe it.

I thought of my bleeding lip and how she had seen me get beat up. I felt like a fool.

One by one, the guys on the team passed her. She ignored them.

My turn came. I tried to look the other way as I stepped off the ice. Maybe she wouldn't notice me.

It didn't work.

“Are you Josh?” she asked.

A couple of the guys behind me hooted.

She frowned at them and they shut up.

Great. The first time we had met, I'd pulled her wig off. The second time, she'd watched me get beat up.

“Yes,” I said, “I'm Josh. The guys call me Cowboy.”

I rubbed my nose like it itched and kept my hand in front of my mouth. It was the only thing I could think of to hide my bleeding lip.

“Stephanie Becker.” She held out a piece of paper. “My phone number. Can we get together this weekend?”

I took it. There was more hooting from the guys behind me waiting to get off the ice. I turned around and shut them up with a dirty look.

“That'd be great. But the team's going on a road trip for some out-of-town games,” I said.

“We don't get back until late Saturday. And I promised my parents I would drive out to the ranch to visit all day Sunday.”

“Monday then?” she asked. “Please? Call me on Sunday night if you can. We really need to talk.”

“About what?” I asked.

“It's so crazy I can't tell you unless we have lots of time.”

“After practice today? I can meet you at McDonald's.”

She shook her head no. Her eyes were a pale, pale blue. They looked pretty with her blond hair. Very pretty.

“I can't right now,” she said. “I'm supposed to get back to my folks' ranch.”

She lived on a ranch too? I liked her even more.

“Promise you'll call me Sunday night,” she said. “I want to talk as soon as possible.”

Like I was going to say no?

“Sure,” I said, “Sunday night. We'll get together on Monday.”

But, as it turned out, Monday was too late.

“Tell you what, Joshua,” Dad said, “you won't find any place in the world prettier than this.”

“Yup,” I said, blowing on my hands to keep them warm.

It was Sunday afternoon. Sunday mornings on the ranch were for church and family, and I had enjoyed the peace and quiet after the road trip. Now Dad and I were on horseback in the bright sun. We had ridden to the top of
a hill and were looking down on the valley. Dad was right. It was pretty.

Our ranch was about a half-hour drive southeast of the city of Kamloops, the biggest city in the interior mountains of British Columbia. The ranch covered most of the bottomlands of the valley. It also stretched high into the hills where we were sitting on our horses. There were bigger ranches around, but not many. We had three thousand head of cattle on over fifty thousand acres. Our work crew ranged from twenty to forty cowboys, depending on the time of year.

It had been a light year for snow, and most of the ground was exposed. As far as we could see, pine trees dotted the hills like dark green crayons standing tall on rolling brown paper. Behind the hills the peaks of the mountains cut against the blue bowl of the sky. They weren't as big and impressive as some of the Rocky Mountains farther east, but they were still pretty.

“Son,” Dad said as we admired the view, “I'd like to pass all this on to you someday.

I sure hope you make this ranch your home when you finish with hockey.”

My horse stamped the ground. It wanted to keep moving. The air was cool, and I could see the horse's breath as it snorted.

Dad grinned. “But I hope you play hockey for a long time before you get back here.”

“Me too,” I said. “I think if I can keep near the top of the scoring race, I'll have a real good chance at making the Sabres next fall.”

“It seems like it's going well,” he said. “But your mother fussed over you so much this morning, we really haven't had a chance to talk.”

“It's been a pretty good season,” I told him. “You probably heard the out-of-town games on the radio.”

“Three games, three wins,” he said. “And four goals and six assists for you. Sure, I've been listening.”

Dad moved his horse forward. I stayed beside him as we followed a wide path down the hill. I was as big as Dad now. In the saddle, all I had to do was look over to see his face at my level.

Under his cowboy hat, he has gray in his black hair. He also has deep wrinkles around his eyes. Except for the gray and the wrinkles, we look close to the same. He has a bigger nose than I do—almost too big—but his face is wide, so it seems the right size. Mom teases us about our big dimples when we smile.

“What's going on with Luke Zannetti?” he asked. “It sounds like the guy can't do anything right.”

Without thinking, I licked my lip. It was still sore where he had punched me earlier in the week.

“Luke's played better,” I said. “But his head is so big, he won't talk to anyone. But then, he never has. You know that.”

“Remember that, son,” Dad said. “You can be the best hockey player in the world, but it's who you are that counts.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“They made him team captain because he's older. They made you assistant captain because they respect you,” he said. “They also voted you MVP last year because they respect you more than him. Don't lose that respect.”

I tilted my cowboy hat back and scratched my head. “Dad?”

Our horses picked their way down the hill. I swayed in the saddle with the movement.

“Yes?”

“Each of the last four times I've visited the ranch, you've said that same thing.”

He laughed. “And I'll keep saying it. It's part of my job as your father.”

He pointed toward the top of another hill. “Let's go that way. I want to check on Big Boy. I wanted him to get some exercise, so we've got him fenced in with a small herd.”

Big Boy was our world-class Limousin bull. Ranchers from all over paid five thousand dollars each time they used him for breeding. Generally we kept him in a barn near the ranch house. He had cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars at an auction, and it wouldn't be smart to let him roam the hills.

“Exercise?” I asked.

“He's seemed a bit slow lately,” Dad said. Another grin. “Nothing like fresh air in the mountains to make you feel better. Right?”

“Right.” When I was in the hills away from hockey, I missed hockey. When I was playing hockey and away from the hills, I missed the ranch. I missed seeing Big Boy too. I remember when he was hardly more than a calf, and I was a lot smaller myself. I used to ride him and then feed him.

I think Big Boy remembered those days too, because he never did anything mean to me. Not that I'd try to ride him again. He weighed over a thousand pounds. Think of a small truck. That was Big Boy.

Before I could say anything about Big Boy, Dad pointed ahead of us.

“See it, son? A coyote.”

I did see it. It was down the hill near a stand of trees. About the size of a German shepherd dog, it had a big bushy tail. It stared back at us as we rode closer.

“That's one smart animal,” Dad said. “It knows I don't have a rifle. Otherwise it would be long gone.”

“I wonder what it's eating,” I said. “Looks like it's standing beside some kind of dead animal.”

Dad frowned. “I hope it isn't what I think it is.”

We rode closer. The coyote slipped into the bushes. Where it had been standing lay a dead cow. Blood was smeared on the grass around it.