Blind Your Ponies (7 page)

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.

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 right.

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.

“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—
J
am!
J
am!” 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.

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.