Tackle Without a Team (9 page)

“Why?”

“You’ve given me an idea,” Scott replied. “Could I borrow your tape recorder for a few days?”

“Oh, I think I know what you’re up to. You can keep it for as long as you need to.”

He grinned. “Thanks, Jeri.”

They wadded up their napkins, dumped them into the trash container, then waved to Monk and Elmo as they headed for the door.

“I’ll walk you home, then get my bike and ride over to Coach Zacks’s house,” Scott said.

“Okay.”

It was about twenty minutes later when Scott pulled up into Coach Zacks’s driveway on Cornwall Lane. He set his bike up on
the stand and went up the front porch steps to the white-paneled door. He knocked, and a few seconds later a tall, dark-haired
woman with glasses answered.

“Hi. I’m Scott Kramer,” Scott said. “I’m one of Coach Zacks’s football players. Is he in?”

She looked at him a moment before she said, “Yes, he is. Just a minute.”

She left, and in a moment the coach appeared. “Hi, Scott,” he greeted. “Come on in.”
Coach Zacks led him into a spacious living room.

“Sit down, Scott,” Coach Zacks said, easing himself into an armchair. “What can I do for you?”

“I just wondered if we ah … if we can get a practice game with the Greyhawks,” Scott said, feeling a trifle nervous.

Coach Zacks smiled. “The team you used to play on? That’s an idea. As a matter of fact, it’s a
good
idea. Why? You have any special reason why you’d like to play against them?”

Scott shrugged. “Yeah. A very special reason,” he answered and took a deep breath. “I just can’t tell you what it is right
now,” he added quietly.

At Tuesday’s practice session, Coach Zacks informed the Cougars that they would be playing the Greyhawks the next day. Not
even Scott knew before then that a game had definitely been arranged.

Scott had felt nervous about it ever since he had talked with Coach Zacks. Now that the game was ready to be played, he felt
more nervous than ever. He was glad Coach Zacks hadn’t pressed him into explaining why he’d like the Cougars to play against
his former team. That was a secret he couldn’t tell anyone. Not until the right moment came, anyway — and he hoped it would
be sometime during the game.

Kickoff time was six o’clock. The Cougars won the toss and chose to receive.

Monk Robertson kicked off at the thirty-five, a low, shallow kick that went for thirty yards. Arnie Patch caught it and advanced
it to the Cougars’ forty-four, where Bill Lowry brought him down.

“Hey! You finally did it!” Scott heard Monk yell at Bill.

Bill looked at him not too pleasantly. “What do you mean … I finally did it?”

“Made the first tackle!” Monk exclaimed, running over and slapping Bill on the back. “Congratulations!”

Scott grinned. Not every guy on the team received such sparkling accolades from the Greyhawks’ arrogant fullback.

He saw Kear slap Bill on the hip, and, for a moment, Kear’s and Scott’s eyes met. His mouth opened to say “Hi, Kear,” but
Kear looked away before he could. After a few seconds Kear trotted off to join the rest of the Greyhawks.

Scott had a feeling he couldn’t explain. He had never played against his own team before
— or what had once been his team. And, even though Kear was sore at him, playing against him didn’t seem right.

Somehow I’m going to make him realize I’m not the stinker he thinks I am, Scott promised himself. And with luck I will today.

“Huddle!” Zane Corbett barked.

The Cougars quickly gathered.

“Forty-six … on three!” Zane said.

They broke out of the huddle and formed on the line of scrimmage. Scott’s heart began to pound the instant he was face-to-face
with Sid Seaver. He expected to see some evidence — some telltale sign — in those dark eyes that would reveal Sid’s guilty
conscience. But Sid returned his look as if nothing else was on his mind except the matter at hand: the football game.

I’ll wait until I find the chance to get close to Rick, Scott thought. It’s Rick I want, anyway. He’s the one who framed me.
For all I know Sid might be innocent of the whole thing. He’s the quiet one of the two. Rick might not even have told him
about framing me. He probably
didn’t trust Sid to keep quiet, even though Sid was the reason behind it all. Only Rick had the guts to think up that Seaver
Double Threat idea.

“Down! Set! Hut! Hut! Hut!”

Carl snapped the ball. Zane grabbed it, pedaled back a few steps, then handed it off to Barney. Barney broke through tackle,
sprinting at Scott’s heels as Scott bumped the Greyhawks’ tackle and guard — his old teammates Roy Austin and Chuck Bellini
— in an attempt to wedge a hole between them.

It was a good run. Barney got the ball to the Cougars’ forty-eight.

Second and six.

Barney carried again. But this time he fumbled the ball on the Cougars’ forty-nine, and the Greyhawks recovered it.

“Oh, no!” Zane moaned.

Barney was angry, too. Scott could read the disgusted look on his face. There was one consolation from the loss of the ball:
the opportunity to get face-to-face with Rick Seaver.

He got his chance on the second down, after
he broke through the line and tackled Rick for a two-yard loss.

“Hi, ol’ buddy,” Scott said, grinning. “Stuck any grass into somebody’s duffel bag lately?”

Rick stared at him. “What’re you talking about? You nuts?”

“You only wear your sunglasses and your uncle’s pith helmet when you’re a spectator at football games?”

“Are you crazy? You’ve lost your buttons, you know that?”

“I don’t think so,” Scott said, his smile faded.

“Huddle!” Rick shouted to his men.

Scott turned his back to him, feeling better now that he had broken the ice. But Rick was a tough nut to crack. What else
could I say that would break him? he wondered. How could I get Rick to confess that he had framed me? That was the big job
now.

In four plays the Greyhawks got the ball to the Cougars’ four yard line, and each time Scott had the opportunity to be face-to-face
with Rick, he repeated his innuendos but with variations: “Come on, Rick. You know what I’m talking
about. You know who put those joints in my duffel bag. And you know —”

“I
don’t
know!” Rick shouted, staring at him hotly. “Now stop saying that! Is that why we’re playing this game? So that you can get
at me?”

Scott matched his stare. “I could’ve phoned. But I figured you would hang up on me. This is the best and easiest way.”

“The best and easiest way, is it? I don’t believe you, you know that?” Rick said, boiling mad. “No matter what I say —”

“That’s right,” Scott cut in. “No matter what you say, because I know you’re the one.”

Rick’s fists were clenched. His eyes were like steel.

“Go ahead, hit me,” Scott said. “That would really prove it, wouldn’t it?”

The Cougars’ defense held like a brick wall in every way it could, short of causing heavy penalties. As usual, the guys played
rough. Seeing the two teams together confirmed Scott’s belief that, despite what had happened, he was still a Greyhawk at
heart. Sure, a few of his old
teammates got rough at times, too, but they always played fair and for fun.

The whistle shrilled with the ball on the one yard line.

“First down!” the ref shouted. “Cougars’ ball!”

The Cougars tried an end-around run that went for eleven yards. On another try Don Albright carried again but fumbled. Kear
Nguyen scooped it up and sprinted into the end zone for a touchdown.

For a moment Scott caught Kear’s eye, flashed a hint of a smile, and pumped his fist. No matter what he thinks of me, I’m
still his friend, Scott thought. I’m glad he made the touchdown.

Monk tried the point-after kick and put it straight between the uprights. Greyhawks 7, Cougars 0.

Before the half was over, the Greyhawks scored again on a pass from Rick to tight end Karl Draper. But this time Monk’s kick
missed the uprights by three feet. Greyhawks 13, Cougars 0.

It seemed, Scott thought, that Coach Zacks’s
hope of beating the pants off the Greyhawks wasn’t going to come true today. There was still plenty of time, though, for the
Cougars to make a comeback.

During intermission, Scott couldn’t think about anything except for his brief encounters with Rick Seaver during the first
half. It bothered him that he still had no definite proof. What good was it to continually harass Rick if no one had witnessed
the crimes — for crimes they were — or if Rick didn’t confess to them? No good at all.

The second half started off with a bang. Barney Stone kicked off for the Cougars and managed to unleash one of his longest
kicks. It sailed to the Greyhawks’ twelve yard line, where Elmo George caught it and carried it back to their nineteen before
Scott tackled him.

Scott wasn’t sure how to judge the expression on Elmo’s face as he put out his hand and helped Elmo to his feet. “Surprised?”
he said. “Remember, I’m a Cougar right now.”

Elmo grinned. “Yeah. I can see that,” he said.

The Greyhawks tried two running plays, totaling seven yards, then Rick pedaled back and
unleashed a long pass intended for split end Karl Draper.

Karl was about to catch it, when Arnie Patch, the Cougars’ lightning-footed running back, snatched it from his grasp and bolted
down the sideline for a touchdown. It was a sixty-eight-yard run, and the Cougars’ fans applauded like crazy.

Barney booted the ball between the uprights for the extra point. Greyhawks 13, Cougars 7.

It wasn’t until three minutes before the third quarter ended that Scott found himself staring down into Rick Seaver’s face.
Rick’s helmet had been knocked off when Scott tackled him for a six-yard loss on the Cougars’ thirty-eight yard line, and
now Rick was down on the ground with Scott on top of him.

“What did you do with the money you found in Kear’s wallet, Rick?” he whispered harshly. “Spend it on yourself and your girlfriend?”

“Sure. He took her out to dinner, didn’t you, Rick?”

The voice came from Bill Lowry, who had fallen on his knees next to Scott and Rick and was slowly rising to his feet.

“Yeah, sure,” Rick said. “I bought a big dinner for us. Now will you get off my —?”

“A big dinner for five bucks?” Bill Lowry cut in. “Oh, yeah! Maybe at McDonald’s! Or Burger King!”

He chuckled as he rose to his feet, shoved Scott aside, and extended a hand to Rick. “You heard him, Scott. Get off his back.”

Scott, rolling off Rick, looked up into the sweating, masked face of the Greyhawks’ big right guard. His mind was churning
rapidly, dredging up all the facts he could remember about his two frame-ups. From the corner of his eye he saw Rick rise
to his feet and walk away, casting a cold, hard glance back at him, muttering something Scott couldn’t hear.

“Wait a minute, Bill,” Scott said, as the burly guard started away, too. “How did you know there was five dollars in Kear’s
wallet?”

Bill’s eyes widened. Then he laughed. “Who doesn’t know it? Everybody knows it.”

“No, Bill,” Scott said. “Nobody knows it except three people. Four, counting Kear’s mother. Kear, me, and the person who had
stolen his wallet.”

“Baloney!” Bill snorted and started to walk away.

Scott grabbed his arm, just as the whistle shrilled for the start of the next play. “No. It’s no baloney, Bill,” Scott said.
“You took that wallet from Kear while he was watching the Cougars-Tigers game, didn’t you? Then you took the five-dollar bill
out of it, went to the clubhouse, and put the wallet in my duffel bag.”

“You can’t prove nothing,” Bill snapped, yanking his arm loose and starting to walk away again.

Again Scott caught his arm. “It was you, then, who put the joints in my duffel bag. Why, Bill? For Pete’s sake, what did I
ever do to you? Why did you frame me so that I’d be kicked off the team?”

Bill looked around furtively as if he wanted to make sure no one else was within listening range. “Because I got fed up being
made a fool of all the time, that’s why!” he exclaimed. “No matter what I did, I got bawled out. More than anybody else. Did
the coach care that I was trying my best? No! He just kept bugging me … reminding me to get on the stick. Know
how many times he’s said that to me? A hundred and one times! Well, I got sick of it.”

“So you picked me as the scapegoat.”

“Yeah. I guess I was jealous. You’ve been going big guns, and me …” He shrugged. “I’m just a dumb guard.”

“Then, to make matters worse, you stole Kear’s wallet,” Scott said. “You
knew
he’d blame me for it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I was sitting there, and I saw it sticking out of his pocket,” Bill said, his voice almost a whisper. “It was an easy
steal. I figured you’d be blamed because you’d want dough to buy more joints.”

“Thanks, Bill,” Scott said, trying to keep himself from punching the big tackle in the mouth. “Thanks a bunch. I like you,
too.”

“Bill!” a voice shouted. “Get your tail over here, will you?”

The whistle shrilled again.

“Five yards!” the ref shouted, pointing at the Greyhawks. “Delay of game!”