Knights of the Hill Country (21 page)

Through the whole third quarter, the score didn't change. Us defense boys stood our ground and kept Okalah on their own side of the field, and their defense, truth be told, didn't play all that hot, but they didn't need to with our offense
misfiring like a forty-year-old pickup truck. At the end of the quarter, Blaine shouldered up to me, his hair sweat-pasted to his forehead, his eyes full to the brim with tired, and said, “What else can I do, Hamp? I'm giving it everything I got, but the team's not there for me. No blocking, bad timing, Coach calling the wrong plays. What do they expect me to do—win the damn game all by myself?”

I just popped him one on the back and told him to hang in there, figuring he must be clean wore out. It wasn't like him to put the blame off on other folks that way.

Finally, a couple minutes into the fourth quarter, our offense got her shifted into gear. Darnell zinged a perfect pass into tight coverage, and Jake scooped the ball up right before it hit the ground. It was about time we went to taking chances, and Darnell pulled it off with an amazing throw. Coach sent in the next play. Do it again.

Just like he was supposed to do, Blaine run out into the flats in case Darnell needed a safety-valve receiver, but it would've been better if he'd stayed in the backfield to block. Two Okalah linemen broke through and chased Darnell out of the pocket. Downfield, Jake was covered just like the play before, but this time Darnell was off balance with four big hairy arms reaching out to wring his neck. He tried to force the pass anyways, but as soon as it left his hand I knew it was a mistake.

The Okalah cornerback intercepted the ball at a full gallop, heading in the opposite direction. The sideline was wide open. There wasn't no one fixing to catch him now, but Blaine tried. I knew the pain in that knee had to be tearing through him from top to bottom, and you could see the hitch in his get-along worse than ever, but that boy had heart.
Then out of nowhere a red and white jersey flashed through the air, a diving block that sliced straight across his thighs, sending him plowing face mask–first into the grass. The Okalah cornerback was already dancing in the end zone when Blaine pulled hisself up and seen what I already knew. Covey Wallace'd cut him down.

Okalah missed their extra point try, but still, that touch-down sucked every ounce of energy there was out of our stadium. Even the electric lights seemed cold. But I didn't give up. Not even near it. If Okalah's second-rate defense could score six points, then ours could score twice that, and I was just the man for the job. All I needed was one good chance.

Okalah wasn't fixing to give me one, though. It was like their coach read my mind. They didn't do nothing but play conservative, running three safe plays and then punting the ball away down the field. They must've figured they'd ruther give the ball up to our offense than let our aces on defense get too close a look at it.

Then, finally, with a little over two minutes left in the game, I got maybe not a good chance, but at least a halfway decent one. Okalah had to punt from deep in their own territory again, and this time their line didn't play it safe enough. The gap couldn't have been more than two feet wide and only opened for a second, but that was enough. I hit it running full speed, but in my mind all the action slowed down: the ball reaching the punter's fingers, the punter's two big steps, his left foot planting in the grass, his right leaving the ground, the black shoe pumping into the brown leather of the ball.

Too late. I'd done blasted off already, flying over one blocker and then the one behind him, my arms stretched out
full length, my eyes trained on nothing but that ball. It hadn't no sooner left the punter's foot than I smacked it down with my forearm and sent it whirligigging off across the field. Jerseys—red and white and black and gold—flashed towards it in a blur. Whistles blew like crazy. When the officials finally got that churning dog pile pulled apart, my heart just about jumped out of my chest. There he was, smiling like it was his birthday, little old Tommy Nguyen with the ball wrapped up in his arms.

Kennisaw's ball on the Okalah fifteen-yard line.

It was like someone turned the electricity back on in our fans. The chant started up again, “Hampton! Hampton! Hampton!” I went over and put my arm around Tommy's shoulder to let that crowd know they needed to spread the love around some more, and sure enough they done it.

“Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!”

You better believe, running off the field, I was pumped up higher than a hot-air balloon. Crossing paths with Blaine, I grabbed ahold of his jersey. “Fifteen yards,” I hollered. “Just fifteen yards and an extra point, and we got this sucker wrapped up in Christmas paper.”

“Don't worry, son,” he hollered back. “I got that fifteen yards in my hip pocket.”

But just for a second, a shadow flitted over his eyes, and I wondered if he done flashed on the same memory as me. The time, not too long ago, when he said the same thing about Rachel Calloway.

All his years of playing football, Blaine wanted to be the one with the chance for glory. If a first down needed to be made, if a pass needed to be caught, if the team had to have one more score, you can bet Blaine wanted the job. But a feeling in my gut told me right now, with the pressure hanging
over the stadium like a big black thunderhead, he was wishing Tommy Nguyen'd recovered that fumble in the end zone instead of on the fifteen-yard line.

First play was a quarterback draw with Darnell following Blaine up the middle for four yards. Then Blaine took it off-tackle, gaining three more. Third and three. Darnell took a keeper into the middle again, but this time the Okalah line held tougher than a barbwire fence, and he didn't get as much as an inch. Fourth down.

Blaine got the call.

The thought crossed my mind that I should ask Coach to put me in as a blocker like Sawyer done with big bad James Thunderhorse, but I decided against it. Last thing Blaine wanted, besides losing the game, was to score a touchdown right now and still have the crowd go to chanting my name.

The play clock ticked down as Darnell stretched out his count, trying to draw Okalah offsides. When that didn't work, he gave it one more hut, and Sweetpea snapped the ball back. Blaine ripped forward, grabbed the handoff, and smashed into the line, head down low and knees pumping up high. Just like the old Blaine. Then for a second, his legs went traitor on him, and he stumbled, almost went down, but somehow found his balance and plunged on ahead, twisting and grinding, taking a hit from first one side and then the other, Okalah hands punching and poking and grabbing from every direction, before he finally crashed to the ground. A four-yard gain.

First down.

He done it, I thought. Wasn't no one going to keep us out of the end zone from this close now. But you know what they say. It ain't over till it's over.

Half the Okalah team must've been on top of Blaine, and
they wasn't in no hurry to get off. Finally, looking kind of woozy, he set up and shook his head back and forth like he needed to rattle his brain back into socket. In front of him, an Okalah player reached down a hand to help him up, and right then's when the bad feeling hit me.

Don't take that hand,
I thought.
Don't take it
.

But he did, and next thing you knew, he was standing face to face with Covey Wallace.

Now, from where I was, I couldn't see everything, but I'll take Blaine's word for it. Covey grinned a big ugly grin, leaned in, stared Blaine in the eye, and puckered his lips together. But he didn't blow no kisses this time. This time he spit a big juicy gob smack in Blaine's eye.

Blaine went off like a bottle rocket. Slammed his fist into the side of Wallace's helmet and kept on swinging—crazy roundhouse punches, first into one side of that red helmet, then the other, into the face mask, shoulder pads, anywheres he could make solid contact. Whistles blew right and left. Officials scurried up in a panic and pulled Blaine away. Yellow flags dove to the ground. The whole stadium froze solid.

Darnell and Jake run up from behind and hustled Blaine off down the field while the officials rounded up the Okalah captain for a conference. There wasn't no doubt what the outcome was fixing to be, though. Unsportsmanlike conduct. Fifteen-yard penalty. One minute and twenty-seven seconds left in the game and the end zone as far away as a cold Martian moon.

After the stadium lights shut down and every last car and truck abandoned the parking lot, Blaine and me walked up into the empty stands. The place looked small and hollow now with the fans gone and nothing but the stars and a few stray streetlight beams to light it. Blaine went up ahead, kicking aside paper cups and popcorn boxes, making his way to the very top row, where he set down even with the fifty-yard line. We'd already showered and changed into our Friday-night clothes, our “Mo” Bettas and Wranglers, boots and black letter jackets. Didn't matter what we wore, though. There wasn't going to be no victory parties tonight.

Slow and easy, I hiked up to the top row too. I had me a sharp pain in the hip, so it hurt to climb them steps like that, but at the top, I stood and looked over the concrete wall at the town out there. Course, it was too dark to make out the
actual buildings, but I could see the lights sprinkled down the hillside and into the valley, and I knew by heart what they all belonged to. Decker's Hardware and the bank, the old brick drugstore, Sweet's Café, and, at the far edge, Cole-man's Barbeque Hut. Places I'd been to a thousand times.

Then, to the north, climbing up Ninth Street Hill, the lights of the nicer houses shined through the trees, the houses with the wide front porches where girls like Rachel Calloway and Misty Koonce lived. Way across town from me and my mom's place and higher up the hill than Sara's. That was okay, though, I thought, picking out the spot where Sara's house was hid in the dark. There wasn't anything that special higher up on that hill anyways.

“We had that game won.” Blaine was setting there staring at the scoreboard like maybe, if he just concentrated hard enough, he could still change the outcome. “We had it won every which way but on the damn scoreboard.”

I looked up at the scoreboard too, but I couldn't make it change neither.

“Covey Wallace,” Blaine said. “I vote we go find that sonofabitch. He needs his butt kicked. Hard.”

“He's all the way back to Okalah by now,” I said. “They're probably out partying like it's the end of World War Four, and they're the only ones left on Earth.” I didn't care a dayold donut about getting back at anyone. The game was over. We lost. Scrounging around for some scrap of revenge wasn't going to change the score. Far as that went, I figured we'd be better off taking us a cruise out in the country, out to the dirt roads where the woods could swallow you up for a while, and you could feel like part of something a whole lot bigger than winning or losing.

“The play was dead, and he spits in my face,” Blaine went on. “Stands right there toe to toe with me, puckers them big fat lips together, and spits in my eye. What am I supposed to do, dance with the fool?”

“He was baiting you,” I said. “It's an old trick. They'll call a fifteen-yarder on you and toss you out of the game every time if you out and out bust a guy in the head.” I tried not to sound accusing about it, but I don't guess it worked.

“So, what the hell?” Blaine stood up, his face red as a chili pepper. “Is it my fault we lost the game? Is that what you're saying? 'Cause I'll tell you what, I wasn't the one that threw that interception they scored on. I wouldn't have never threw that ball if it was me.”

Not wanting to provoke him no more, I didn't answer right off. That stadium never seemed so dead-hollow quiet as it did right then. I shifted from foot to foot trying to think of some way to fill up that hollow feeling, but as usual I couldn't come up with nothing. Blaine was the talker, always had been. He won the argument every time, piled up words like truckloads of bricks, making walls out of them I couldn't break through with a sledgehammer. Sometimes I wondered if he even cared whuther them words was true or if he just wanted to come out on top.

“Let me ask you this.” He broke the silence first. “What do you think this is gonna do to Darnell? He's the one has to live with that interception. He'll have to read about it in the paper tomorrow and all week and every year after this when the Okalah game comes back around. He's gonna have to hear about it up and down the halls Monday and every day for the rest of the school year. He'll walk down the street and kids are gonna look at him and say, 'There goes the guy that
lost us the Okalah game and threw our five undefeated seasons out with the rest of the garbage.'”

“It wasn't just him on the field,” I said. “We was all out there tonight.”

Blaine shoved his hands in his letter-jacket pockets. “But that ain't what folks are gonna remember. They're gonna be looking for a scapegoat. That's how people are. And what do you think his girlfriend's gonna do? She won't want to have to mess with him now. No way. Her and nobody else's gonna want to have anything to do with the town goat.”

“Cinda's not like that,” I said. Cinda was Darnell's girlfriend, had been since sixth grade. “I don't think she even cares if he's on the football team.”

“Well, you're a whole lot dumber than you look, then. You think girls around here don't care about that? These girls living up in their big old houses, driving around their brand-new SUVs all over town, they want 'em a football player to show off.”

I glanced off at the lights on the hillside. “I think you're selling the girls around here pretty dadgone short.”

Blaine didn't even hear that, though. “Wouldn't surprise me none,” he said, “if Darnell's dad didn't blow his stack too. Next thing you know, he'll be kicked right out of the family.”

I had to give Blaine a close-up look on that one. All the sudden, I understood. He wasn't really talking about Darnell. Not at all. He was talking about hisself. He was afraid of folks calling
him
the goat. Whispering about him behind their hands every time he walked down the street. The topic of sports columns and town gossip and the butt of jokes down at the Rusty Nail. The guy whose girlfriend wouldn't never care for him again and whose dad would kick him flat out of the family like what happened to his brother, Billy.