Knights of the Hill Country (19 page)

Tommy Don nodded, his eyes narrowed down. “You really did some detective work, didn't you? That's good. I'm proud of you for wanting to protect your mom that way. That tells me a lot about you and your character.”

“That's okay,” I said. “But it still don't mean Mr. Keller or Mr. Ritter was wrong about what happened.”

“No, it doesn't.” Tommy Don rubbed at his chin. He was
all serious now. “But it seems like to me you have your suspicions or you wouldn't come ask my side of it. That takes integrity right there. It means you're asking questions for yourself instead of taking the word of a couple of folks who didn't even play on the team.”

“Mr. Keller played on the team,” I cut in. “Blaine told me. He played right alongside T. Roy Strong his last year.”

Tommy Don shook his head. “Frankie Keller was three years younger than us, and he was the equipment manager. Go back and look at the yearbook again if you don't believe me. But I don't care if he goes around telling people he played for the Dallas Cowboys. He can say he scored forty touchdowns in the Super Bowl if he wants to, but as for what I did, I'd just as soon tell my side of it myself.”

He stopped and looked out the window for a second, I guess gathering up the past into a story. “First off, I loved Kennisaw football. Loved it. We were a phenomenal team too. Five undefeated seasons in a row, and I played for three of those seasons. Well, two and a half. And old T. Roy was a great player. He was beautiful to watch on the field, no doubt about it. But he wasn't the best player on the team.”

My eyes must've about half bugged out of my head when I heard that.

“I know it's hard to believe,” Tommy Don went on. “T. Roy with his state records and his Super Bowl rings— they'll never stop telling tales about him. And don't get me wrong, I liked T. Roy. We were tight. You should've seen us. We about ran these old hills ragged. But Bo Early was the real best player on the team. Man, could that guy run. You might as well've tried to tackle the wind. They used to tell a story around here—maybe they still do—about T. Roy throwing a
touchdown pass for a hundred and nine yards and thirty-five inches or something like that. Problem is, that never happened. What really happened was Bo Early took a pitch in the back of the end zone and ran that far for a touchdown. I was there. It was the most glorious thing I ever saw. But they stopped telling stories about old Bo a long time ago.”

“How come?” I was so caught up in the story, I about forgot why I come over in the first place.

“Let me ask you this.” Tommy Don leaned forward. “How many black kids do you have on your team?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I never set down and counted 'em. You mean including juniors and sophomores?”

“That's just my point. You have quite a few, enough that you don't even bother to keep track. But when I was in school here, there was only one black kid in the whole school, Bo Early. I guess you didn't notice that when you were looking through the yearbook.”

“I guess not.”

“It was a lot different back then. The guys on the team liked him all right, and they loved the way he played, but they didn't hang out with him when practice was over. He had two friends in the entire school, me and T. Roy Strong. Of course, no one ever tried to give T. Roy a hard time about it, just because of who he was, but some of 'em said some pretty harsh things to me. Not a lot—everyone thought I was pretty crazy anyway—but enough to know there were some ugly ideas floating around.”

I caught myself clenching my fists, thinking about someone pulling that kind of stuff on me about hanging out with Darnell or any of the other black guys I hung out with. “I'll tell you what,” I said. “I'd sure give some fools a good piece of
my mind if they tried telling me not to hang out with my buddies.”

“Even if they were your own teammates, good old Kennisaw Knights just like you?”

“None of my teammates'd say nothing like that.” And it was true. No one would have told me I shouldn't be friends with Darnell. But on the other hand—if I wanted to be honest with myself—I had to admit there was times when some of the white boys would be setting around, maybe drinking some beers, and jokes got told or words got used I sure wouldn't want any of my black friends to hear. And I never spoke up the way I should have.

“Maybe they wouldn't,” Tommy Don said. “Maybe it'd be something else, something you don't even hardly notice at first. But back then that was how most folks thought, even the grown-ups. Especially the grown-ups. But Bo was so good at football everyone in town was nice to him. To his face, anyway. And I'll tell you what, it would've been him breaking all the state records our senior year if it hadn't been for what happened that one day out in Leonard Biggins Park.

“There Bo was, sitting on a picnic table with Amanda Cox.” Tommy Don smiled. “Amanda Cox—whew!—that girl was something else. Grown men just about wrecked their pickup trucks when she walked down Main Street. But she was white as the inside of an apple, and back then if you were black, you just didn't go around sitting on picnic tables with the likes of blond-haired, blue-eyed Amanda Cox. Not in Kennisaw. Of course, she was enjoying it every bit as much as Bo, but here came three guys from the team, ready to start up trouble. They weren't even good enough to tie the laces on Bo's cleats, but they laid into him with a buncha bull about
how he oughta know his place. Big mistake. Bo wasn't the type to sit still for anyone telling him what his place was. Now, there being three of them and just one of Bo, they got the better of him in the end, but I guarantee they didn't look as much like they won a fight as like they just got spit out of the wrong end of a cement mixer.

“That wasn't the end of it, though. At the next practice, word got going around about Bo and Amanda, rumors saying a lot more went on between them than really did, and how Bo had the audacity to fight back when the others came over to stand up for her honor. As if those idiots cared about any girl's honor with the way they were always lying about their own girlfriends.

“Anyway, we were setting up to run the offense, and Coach calls Bo's number. T. Roy handed off to him as smooth as ever, but right then the offensive line just stood up and put their hands on their hips and let the defense rumble in and pile all over Bo like an avalanche crashing down. I don't think T. Roy knew about if beforehand. I know I sure didn't, but Coach had to know because he didn't say a word to anyone about it. Just blew his whistle and told us to line back up, called Bo's number again, and it was the same thing. The offense stood there and let Bo get slaughtered.

“I asked Coach if he wasn't gonna do something, but he just told me to shut up and take my position. So for the third time, he called Bo's number, and the line let the defense in like before, everyone stampeding at Bo, the whole team piling on, arms and legs flying everywhere. And then after about ten seconds, here came Bo, bulling his way out the other side of that pile, and no one could catch him then.

“Coach blew his whistle till he got red in the face, but old
Bo just kept on running clear to the end zone, and when he got there, he turned around and set the ball down as calm as could be and walked off the field. When I saw that, I knew what I had to do. I didn't even have to think it over. I just took my helmet off too and walked right after him. Coach hollered and hollered, ordering me to get back to my position or not come back at all, but I kept on walking.”

“What'd T. Roy do?” I asked, even though I pretty much knew what the answer had to be.

Tommy Don leaned back in his chair. “T. Roy? He stayed. I looked at him as I passed by and asked him if he was coming with us, but he just shook his head. We didn't run together much after that, and I never played for the Knights again.”

“And Bo Early? Did that pretty much end his chances right there?” For some reason, I expected he probably ended up living in a cardboard box down under the railroad trestle, but that wasn't how it turned out.

“Well,” Tommy Don said. “He didn't play any more high school ball, but he did play in college while he was earning his degree. He's an attorney in Tulsa now. A good one too.”

I looked down at the hard gray floor. “No one ever told me that side of it.”

“No.” Tommy Don cocked his head. “I didn't figure they did. That's how it is with legends. The greater they sound, the more must've got left out.”

That was something I had to save and think about another time. It was getting late, and all the sudden, I was real tired. Old Samson in the Bible story probably felt about the same way after his haircut. “I appreciate you talking to me,” I said, making sure to look Tommy Don in the eye. “I had a friend of mine tell me there might be another side to what I got told, and I guess she was right. You cleared some things up for me.”

I stood up and Tommy Don did too.

“I'm glad you came over,” he said. “Maybe you could do me a favor before you take off. I've been working on this painting all afternoon, trying to get the right feel to it. Maybe you could take a look at it and tell me what you think.”

“I don't know much about painting,” I said. “But I'll give her a look-see.”

At first, I couldn't tell what in the world it was supposed to be. The whole painting seemed like it wasn't nothing but a mishmash of colors changing from a kind of blue-black up top to purple to red to gold and then down to bronze. Truth be told, I didn't know what to say, so I just stood there gawking till a strange thing happened. That painting seemed to reach out and yank me right into it. There I stood, smack in the middle of them colors, and I realized what they was. The different shades of the sky at sunset, leading down to the ground. And I swear, I could smell the earth and hear the breeze and feel the cool of the evening coming on. Stars would be wheeling out soon and then the moon would circle over and change the colors of everything.

“It's spiritual,” I said.

Tommy Don put his hand on my shoulder. “Thanks. That's what I was trying for.”

“That's the first painting I ever looked at,” I said. “I mean
really
looked at.”

“Well, if you want to talk painting some, you're welcome to stay on awhile. I'm always looking for someone who understands what I'm trying to do with 'em.”

“Thanks,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand. “I'd sure like to, but there's somewheres else I have to stop off before I head home. I think I got some apologizing to do.”

That old Kennisaw High gym was packed to the rafters, sophomores up in their section, the juniors over in theirs, and then the seniors closest to where the football team set. With the seats filled, most of the teachers stood around on the floor underneath this big long banner that told us to go out and make history tonight.

After Coach Huff finished off his pep talk, I was next in line. The microphone there at the scuffed wood lectern was too low, so I had to lean way over to speak into it. Usually, I hated talking at pep rallies more than about anything, but this time I knew exactly what I wanted to say.

“Tonight, we have us a chance to do something not too many teams ever get to even try for.” My voice come out soft and a little muffled from leaning in too close to the mike, so
I paused for a second and then tried raising the volume up a notch. “And I'm here to say right now we better finish off our work quick 'cause I got plans to jump up out of bed early tomorrow morning and go for a long, long walk in the country.”

For a second, the crowd waited—I guess they wasn't sure whuther I was finished or not—but when I stepped back away from the lectern, they busted loose with a good-size cheer, just like they knew what I was talking about. Me, I looked up into the top of the senior section and smiled. I done already picked out where Sara was.

Turned out, apologizing to her was one of the easiest things I ever done. All the explanations I run through my head on the way over to her place from Tommy Don's didn't matter worth a day-old donut. When I got there, she come out on the front porch and we stood over by her dad's wheel-chair ramp, and all I said was, “I'm sorry.”

She didn't make me feel ten different kinds of bad before making up neither. And she sure didn't start acting like she owned me the way Blaine said. She just shined them brown eyes on me and said, “I'm sorry too,” and invited me to come inside.

We must've talked for an hour in that converted-garage library of theirs. Some guys, if they'd been setting close to a girl like I was, they'd have probably started in on the kissing and wrestling, but that wasn't my style. Nothing against them guys, but I realized I had me my own pace. Maybe I should've been born in a different time. One thing I do know, though, when I walked home that night, I sure didn't have the feeling anymore like I was a tree that fell down in the forest with no one around to hear it.

Darnell was the next one up at the lectern and he gave it a deep, smooth voice almost like a disc jockey or something. “We're gonna get it done in the first quarter,” he said. “We're gonna get it done in the second quarter. And you better believe we're gonna get it done in the third quarter. And then in the fourth quarter, we're gonna come back and do it all over again!” He punched his fist up in the air. “Fight 'em, Knights!”

The cheers busted loose again, growing louder and louder as Blaine walked up to take his turn. He was always dramatic about it when he got up there. He adjusted the microphone for his height and tapped at it to make sure the sound was right. For a good long moment, he stared into the stands, moving his eyes from section to section, pulling everyone in with his dead-serious glare. Finally, the cheers simmered down.

“Tonight, we ain't just playing a game,” he started. “Games are for children. This is war!”

There went the cheers again.

He waited them out, then started back in. “Tonight, the Knights'll be more than just a football team. For a lot of years, our town's had a reputation and tradition that's burned as bright as a torch on a cold, dark night. We're the keepers of that flame, and we mean to light up these hills with it!”

That one got the crowd more juiced up than ever, yelling and clapping and stomping their feet on the bleachers, making that loud, low rumble that gets you right in the stomach.