Blind Your Ponies (33 page)

Against Dean’s shrill protests to wait until Bozeman and McDonald’s, they ate in Livingston at Martin’s Café, which was a part of the old Northern Pacific depot where, once upon a time, passengers used to get off passenger trains and eat on their way east or west. Now the enduring depot was a museum, like much of the old West, a spectator sport.

The team—“The Dirty Half-Dozen” as Tom now labeled them—along with the cheerleaders and coaches, was in a euphoric mood besides being very hungry. Diana subtly snuggled against Sam in the booth and he kept hearing the TV beer commercial that alleged “It doesn’t get any better than this.” The Willow Creek Broncs had taken apart Shields Valley in their own backyard. Unprecedented! Sam tried to take it a game at a time, to stay out of the future, to savor this spectacular, giddy present. They had all played well, striving to transcend ordinary efforts, given abilities. But Olaf outdid himself; Olaf transcended for thirty-three points.

When they rolled into Willow Creek close to midnight, the town was a ghost town and the Blue Willow was dark. Sam parked Rozinante in front of the school and everyone scurried through the cutting cold to their cars or pickups while he, Miss Murphy, and Scott hauled duffels of equipment into the building and locked up. With the games out of the way, Sam couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to see her, had to touch her. During the week he had wondered if that night was just an inconsequential one-night stand for her, and until their conversation, he feared it might have been. While he locked the gym door, Diana had scurried across the street to her Volvo and had the engine running. He dashed to her car and rapped on the roof as she pulled out into the street, apparently leaving. When she stopped and rolled the window down part way, he had no idea what he would say, standing in the middle of Main Street after hailing a cab and having no inkling as to where he was going or what to tell the driver.

“Are you
leaving
?” he asked.

“Oh… yes, I assumed everyone was going right home.”

She peered from the partially open window with an ambiguous expression.

“I just thought,” he said, “m-maybe we could… you know.”

He shrugged his shoulders and searched for the correct words.

Then he croaked like a teenager. “I’d like to see you.”

He stood with his hand on the edge of the cold glass, shivering and feeling foolish. She hesitated, gripping the wheel with leathergloved hands and staring ahead down the dimly-lit blacktop.

“I thought it was pretty late and we’d call it a day,” she said.

“If you’re too tired—”

“No, get in, you’ll freeze out there.”

Sam scooted around the Volvo and slid into the passenger’s leather upholstered bucket seat. She backed to the side of the road, killed the lights, and left the engine and heater running.

“I won’t stay long. I just want to… see you. It seems we’re never alone.”

She turned toward him. “Isn’t it fun when no one fouls out, when we have the five of them all the way. I had goose bumps watching Olaf, all of them—”

“And all I could think of all week was you,” he said.

He reached over and took her gloved hand. “I miss you,” he said.

She regarded him in the refracted light coming through the frosted windshield. Unwittingly he peeled the soft leather glove off her fingers as though it were something he had done all his life.

“I miss you, too, it’s just that…”

Gently pulling her toward him, in utter terror, he leaned across the console and kissed her softly. For a moment only their lips touched. Then, in an eruption of desire, they grabbed each other with unrestrained hunger.

They searched through winter coats and clothing like bargain hunters at a garage sale. The windows glazed over. Their partially discarded clothing became entangled on their arms and legs and door handles in their frenzied embrace. In the cramped front compartment of the richly-appointed sedan, he thought he’d need integral calculus to get her high-heel boots and tight jeans off. Somewhere on the passenger seat in a jumble of clothing, with Diana kneeling and facing him, they found each other. He thought he would die with the joy of it.

Headlights on high beam came into town from the north, and the lovers crouched as much as they could.

“We have to get out of here,” Sam said.

A familiar-looking pickup slowed as it pulled alongside the idling Volvo, and Sam recognized it through the frosty glass.

“Jeez, it’s Carter. We have to get out of here.”

The red Chevy pickup—probably with Louella, Pete, and even Tom if they hadn’t dropped him off —went past a car’s length and stopped, idling, as though the occupants were trying to decide what to do.

“Drive away,” she said.

“I can’t.”

He tried to free himself.

She kissed him deeply, destroying his concentration.

Sam reached over with his left leg and placed his foot on the accelerator. He shoved the shift lever into drive with his left hand and grabbed for the steering wheel as the car lurched up Main. The pickup didn’t move.

With one eye he peered around her cascading hair to see they were heading dead center for Willow Creek United Methodist.

“Holy Jeez,” Sam said.

He was driving drunk, in a state of intoxication from the unplumbed pleasure of her. He lunged with his left foot for the brake pedal, but his pants were caught on the shift lever, pulling the car into reverse. The Volvo stopped, shuddered, and started back up the street.

“We’re in reverse, we’re in reverse!” Sam said.

He fumbled for the shift lever.

Only able to see to the side, Sam tried to steer, gauging where the street was by the nebulous outlines of the passing houses, realizing that she cared little whether they were going forward or backward so long as they didn’t break stride.

“Their backup lights are on. They think we’re coming back to talk,” Diana whispered, able to peer through the fogged-over rear window.

“We can’t let them see us like
this!
” Sam said.

He fumbled with the lever and jerked the Volvo into some forward gear, fearing the automatic transmission would drop onto the pavement. The weaving sedan staggered forward as he managed to touch the gas pedal. Again they headed away from the pickup, which paused in the middle of the street, idling.

“Oh God, Oh God.” She moaned.

“You’re crazy,” Sam said.

He managed to make a slow-speed turn at the corner where the bicycle built for two observed from the shadows of the Blue Willow’s porch. They zigzagged over to the only other road in town that ran parallel to Main, a dirt road someone had the audacity to name Broadway. Sam swung a wide, shaky turn onto Broadway, the eastern boundary between hay fields, cow pastures, and town dwellings. Finding a spot beside a vacant lot with no street light, he reined the Volvo over and shoved the shift selector into park, turning his full attention to the inflamed woman in his tangled lap.

Suddenly the big red pickup came roaring around the corner, spraying gravel and skidding to a stop alongside the idling Volvo.

With the window rolled down, Tom’s voice came through the frigid air with a sing-song inflection.

“Miss
Muur
phy. Who you got in there with you?”

Laughter. The pickup’s engine revved, followed by honking.

“They can’t see through the frost,” Diana said.

The 4×4 Chevy spun away and Sam figured Tom was driving. The street became instantly dark and deserted with only their rapid breath and refrains of pleasure breaking the winter still.

Soon, a horrendous banging from under the car interrupted Sam’s trance. He thought the idling engine had blown up, the heater had exploded, the steaming radiator had burst. In a moment they both recognized the glow of fireworks. They surmised that the kids had snuck back and thrown a lit package of firecrackers under her Swedish sedan.

They collapsed in each others arms. Then something pounced on the hood of the car. Sam rubbed away the condensation on the windshield. It was the three-legged cat.

“See what I mean about being alone. Even the team mascot is watching us,” Sam said in mock disgust. “And you! You wouldn’t have noticed if the girls had gotten out and led a cheer.”

“You were good,” she said, still in his lap. “You were
so good.
”

“I was?”

“Yes.”

…

C
OACH
P
ICKETT LATER
learned that it wasn’t the kids after all, at least not the kids he thought, and he might have figured it out when he saw Tripod. When the gang dropped Peter off, after the Chevy’s second time around, Peter told his grandmother—who was waiting up to privately praise him for the spectacular win in the valley of the Shields—that Coach Pickett and Miss Murphy were out necking in Miss Murphy’s car. Grandma couldn’t pass up the opportunity, dug out a leftover package of firecrackers, and in her robe and furry bear-paw slippers, sneaked up on the Volvo with Peter. When Peter didn’t have the guts to light and throw, Grandma’s aim was accurate enough. Then the two of them scurried for the house, giggling all the way, and Peter guessed that both of them secretly wished
they
had someone to love.

Sam had called her several times on Sunday but there was no answer. Diana had appeared at school for all her required classes, including basketball practice, but outside of that she became as wary as a river otter. The gossip around school and town was that they got caught necking after the game and therefore a winter romance was surely blossoming. Sam noticed a few giggles from underclass students, but it wasn’t the full-blown scandal he had feared. He didn’t know how much Truly Osborn had heard of the incident when the superintendent stopped him on the way to lunch.

“There have been complaints about Peter Strong dribbling the basketball in the halls between classes. Talk to him about it. And Sam, I know I don’t have to remind you that teachers are expected to set a good example at all times.”

Tuesday night Sam ate at the Blue Willow, hoping, by chance, that she might do the same. He ended up eating alone, though Andrew Wainwright, in a finely-tailored suit, came over and sat a minute with him.

“You’re doing a good job with the boys,” Andrew said, “real good. With only six players, who’d have thought a month ago we’d have won two games and scared the hell out of Christian and Twin Bridges? A year ago, well, it would have been preposterous. You deserve a lot of credit.”

“The boys have responded to everything I’ve asked. We’re into transcending right now.”

“It takes a special person to draw that out of kids. I’m sure glad you stuck with it for another year.”

Sam wanted to disagree; it was these boys that kept him going, their
courage keeping him afloat.

“So am I,” Sam said. “I’m learning a lot.”

“Is there anything I can do,” Andrew said, “or the board can do?”

“Yes. We need new uniforms. We have every year’s model out there from
the past eight or ten, all with different shades of gold and blue, depending on how many times they’ve been cleaned. I don’t think any two match. We look like a team someone just found in the attic.”

“You’re right. I’ll talk to the others on the board. As you know, there’s never enough money, but I’ll get those uniforms.”

He stood and pulled on his topcoat.

“Keep up the good work,” Wainwright said. “I’ll see you at the game Friday.”

With that he went briskly out into the winter night and Sam followed his form until it disappeared in the darkness. What was Andrew Wainwright hiding from in Willow Creek? What wounds had he brought with him, what bloody smear followed him down that narrow blacktop highway into town?

“S
TOP AT
the post office,” Grandma said as Peter gunned Trilobite Friday afternoon on their way to Bozeman.

“Probably nothing but junk,” she said.

He stopped across from the Blue Willow. She hopped out and scurried into Mavis Powers’s front room. In a minute she came out with a multi-colored advertisement in hand and almost bumped into Axel, grunting up the steps in shirtsleeves and white apron.

“How you doin’, Grandma?”

“I’m cookin’,” she said. “Takin’ my sweetheart to town to get him some decent socks to play in tonight.”

She nodded at the bus. Axel turned and waved at Peter.

“Go get ’em, Pete! Sure glad you’re back!”

On the top step he turned and glanced at the sky, his apron flapping in the wind.

“Don’t stay too long. Looks like it’s gonna snow.”

“We’ll be back for early supper,” Grandma called and she climbed into the hippie bus.

Since his return, Peter had waded through a swamp of emotions that seemed to change within him by the minute, but above the confusion something felt right being here. He steered the rattling ’65 VW bus along the narrow secondary blacktop.

“What happened to all your socks?” Grandma asked. “You had more than a dozen new pair.”

“I gave some to Tom. He’s always forgetting his, and I probably left some in Saint Paul.”

“We better get a few for Dean as well. That boy’s in rags half the time.”

“Grandma, how come you always say you’re cookin’?”

“I haven’t told you my sea story?” she asked with some surprise.

“Nope.”

“Well, I used to read a lot when my eyes were better, back when your grandpa was gallivanting around the world in some ship. I read sea stories, like I was sailing along with him. One of my favorites was a story by Joseph Conrad about a sailing ship that was caught in a typhoon coming around the Cape of South Africa, sails ripped, waves crashing over the deck, the ship listing and being tossed around like a cork. The men, hanging on for dear life, lashed themselves to the riggings, sure they would die at any moment.
Watch out for those cows!
”

Peter slowed for three Black Angus loose along the road, grazing on the dry ditch grass.

“Never know where those buggers will jump,” she said.

“We’d be eating a lot of steaks,” Pete said.

“Well, anyway, the first mate shouts through the gale to the cook and asks him if there is any water—the men had been without water for more than a day. But everything on the ship had been turned topsy-turvy. They’d even seen their trunks and blankets and clothes floating up from inside the ship and off on the sea. The first mate looked like he was heading for the galley and the cook unlashed himself and shouted back. ‘Not you, sir, not you!’ Then he scrambled toward the hatch, shouting into the wind, ‘Galley! My business! As long as she swims, I will cook!’