The Runner (11 page)

Bullet moved up to the two hundred meter mark, halfway around the track. Two members of the Crisfield team were running both of these races, which put them at a disadvantage. But they were strong starters, which gave them some chance—in those leagues—of competing: not that day, though, the Acorn runners had been well-coached, had trained hard. Crisfield took the bottom four positions in the two hundred. Bullet wrote down the results, then moved to stand near the group by the starting line, to time the four hundred meter, once around the track. There, waiting for the gun to sound, his finger poised over the stopper, he could watch the start close up. Eight tense bodies, each in position at the far right edge of the lane, waited. The gun went, he pushed down. The runners were away.

Into the first straight they were bunched. Acorn was running that little guy again, and he pulled out ahead, legs pumping, head slewing as his shoulders swung, setting the pace fast. At the turn, about halfway around, he fell apart, dropping rapidly back, his legs loose and awkward. The three other Acorn runners started to move forward at that time. The field stretched way out. Bullet watched. Only one Crisfield runner could stay near the leading pack, and he trailed them by increasing distances. Watching, noting the strategy employed by the opponents, Bullet wondered why the Crisfield runner couldn't keep up—his legs were strong enough, he had the shoulders and chest to go with them. He marked the time across the line, 55
seconds, and then, several seconds later, the three remaining Warriors. The little guy stumbled last across the line, his face furious, ashamed.

Acorn's timer, whose long arms and legs marked him as probably a vaulter, looked over at Bullet. His eyes sparkled, then he muted his enthusiasm. “They finally decided to put some money into track,” he said. “Our youngest coach—with the blond crew cut?—he ran for West Point. The eight hundred. He knows what he's doing. Tactics too.” He waited for Bullet's reply.

Bullet didn't say anything, just moved off to report in. He couldn't stand these good sports types. The team had been well-trained and they ran better—why apologize? The other boy fell into step with him. “You're S. Tillerman, aren't you?”

“Yeah.”

“My name's Hurley, George Hurley.”

So what.

“I've heard about you. I'm pleased to meet you. I don't run cross-country.”

Buzz off. Why don't you.

“You've been state champion for two years, haven't you?”

Bullet nodded, wishing the guy would get off his heels. He walked faster. He couldn't stand these guys, with their good-sport faces and rich-kid haircuts and professional quality track shoes.

“Are you going to try the Nationals this year?” Hurley asked.

“No,” Bullet said, letting all of the anger that was building up out in his voice. The kid finally got the message.

Bullet entered the times and returned the stopwatch. The coach moved to the center of the track, where the long jump pitch had been dug. Bullet stayed back, at his distance.

Long jump always took a while, as jumpers were eliminated after a couple of rounds. Bullet watched the jumpers—the near sprint up the approach, the spring into the air, the midair kick to
gain distance, then the heels digging into the sand to land at farthest extension. You could see in the long jump how the body worked, muscles and bones together, how the machinery was put together. You could see the muscles tense for the spring, then hang loose for a second before gathering themselves up around the bones to push forward; and finally, stretch out—extended along the length of the leg bones, and the arm bones too. All the bones with their weight and length worked with the muscles to pull the jumper's body forward. Tamer was their best long-jumper, but he was landing with his feet tucked under his knees, using his ankles to take the shock of landing. He only got a fourth and Bullet saw the coach move up to talk at him.

Bullet threw the javelin, which he didn't mind. It gave his chest and arms some warm-up, and he liked the dead stop feeling all along his skeleton as he landed on his brake foot and swung the throwing arm around, picking up the shock of the stop to add to the force behind his throw. A couple of the Crisfield throwers were disqualified for overstepping the throwing line, but Bullet never made that mistake. His reflexes were too good. He got a second with 115 feet. He guessed that none of Acorn's hot-shot coaches was a javelin man. One fifteen wouldn't even place you in most meets.

The morning went on. They ran two middle-distance races, then the four hundred meter hurdles. Bullet watched the hurdle race with some interest, leaning on the top rail of the fence, the sun warm on his head and shoulders. The Acorn team took the hurdles higher than they had to, almost doing a split in midair over the bar. They were awkward about it, and sometimes even came down on top of the hurdle, but they got height that way. The Warriors, except for Tamer, just ran over the fences, which were so low in these leagues that they looked all right. Tamer, however, approached each jump as the opponents did, but with
more coordination, as if he knew what he was doing. He took a good lead, his heavy thighs moving him well for the thirty-odd yards between jumps, always taking off from his right foot with no break in stride. Bullet watched the way the left leg lifted and extended, the right leg got pulled up and folded in, but held horizontal. You landed on your left foot into a full run. Bullet could feel along his muscles how to do that. When he came to fences or obstacles in cross-country, he took them like the high jump essentially: slowing down to get into position, lifting his body up and over, then getting back into stride as quickly as possible. The hurdlers got a forward lift, really a part of the run, and their landings moved right back into stride. Leaning against the wooden rails, Bullet felt his leg muscles trying it. His legs wanted to land on the right foot; he'd have to push off with his left—that felt right.

He skipped the pole vault, sitting aside on the grassy hillside watching the sky instead. It was past noon, but nobody would be hungry until the meet was finished. They'd stop at the Dairy Queen on the way back, to stoke up on hamburgers and milkshakes. Bullet let the feeling of the hurdlers' jumps run down his legs, trying to get from his arms what they would be doing. He'd seen hurdlers like this before, he thought, but he'd never connected how he might use their approach. He wondered why, but only in passing. The only way to see if it worked was to try it, and it was a waste of time to think about why he hadn't thought to try it before.

The cross-country started off flat, then went up a long, slow rise. Bullet took the hill smoothly, steadily, every stride increasing the lead he'd gotten at the start. Over the top of the hill, taking the down-slope as steadily and smoothly, he smiled to himself: it promised to be a lovely run, all three miles of it, and whoever thought to start it off with a hill would surely have some interesting ideas about how to continue it. The course branched off to
the right, for its two-and-a-half-mile loop. Bullet ran, fast. He kept his eyes on the path ahead. They'd mark the course if it diverged. Fields and a tumbled-down rail fence—he had to do some quick shuffling to get his left foot in position for the jump, and he whanged that ankle against the top rail of the fence landing; but when he came down onto his right foot and strode off without hesitation, he knew the technique would suit him. Splashing through a broad shallow creek, the water icy, his foot slipped along the side of a buried rock and he went down. He turned the fall into a start, pushed himself up off his ankles, came dripping and muddy out of the water and ran. The markers took him straight across a field of tomatoes. The dessicated vines hung on tipi-shaped skeletons. He dodged around those that came into his straight line, feeling his weight shift, shoulder to ankle, as he cut them as close as possible. Running fast. Arms pumping. Eyes on the path ahead.

He slid down into a gulley, scrambled up the far side over fallen tree limbs and emerged into a stand of pines, an island of trees between pastures. A few milk cows grazed in the field he ran past, beyond a barbed wire fence. The uneven ground rolled under his feet. The muscles across his back pulled and released, smooth as waves on the water. Another stand of pines and an unexpected fence, the red ribbons tied on either end. The tumbled wood stuck up at odd angles with a few nails coming out. It was low enough to run over, almost, without any change of pace, but he wanted to work on the hurdling jump. He approached the low obstacle at a dead run, pushing himself off with his left foot, reaching out with the right, remembering how the hurdlers had looked. He almost cleared it; something hooked his left calf, down to the ankle. Landing, he absorbed his forward motion with his right leg and brought his left knee up, forward, into the steady pace of running fast.

When the paths rejoined, Bullet increased his speed—up two beats. He pushed it up the slope, then relaxed down the opposite side, careful not to let the descent upset his pace or his balance, which was the danger in a downslope, especially at the end of the course. At the final stretch he ran full out, knees high, chest high, and didn't stop until he was well beyond the crowd at the finish. He stood straight, with his back to them looking over the oval track, breathing deeply. A good run.

The coach came over to congratulate him and tell him his time. Bullet nodded, wiping sweat away from his eyes. He went back to stand near the finish line. The coach said something to him, but he didn't hear it clearly. “Your leg,” the coach repeated.

Bullet looked down. Blood was swelling out of a long cut on his left leg, the way blood did just before it started to really clot. His lower calf was streaked with dried blood. He went over to wrap a gauze bandage around it—one of the nails probably. Not too deep, but it shouldn't have happened. You could expect bruises and surface lacerations on a good, tough course, but not a cut that would strip off a flap of skin. He tied off the gauze and drifted over to where the three blue windbreakers stood in a line, the coaches watching the top of the hill to see who would appear.

The blond one spoke in a low voice. “You didn't expect to beat him, did you?”

“I'd like to have come a little closer.” The head coach spoke crossly. “It's been over three minutes, and we've trained them on this course.”

“The kid's a natural,” the blond answered, moving his head to look at the man the was talking to, which brought Bullet into his line of vision. “Speak of the devil,” he said. He was tall, muscular and held himself with military erectness. “Nice race, Tillerman. I was just saying, I'd trade my right arm for the chance to give you some real training.”

Bullet's chin went up as he clamped down on a surge of pride. A compliment was only worth what the man who paid it was worth, and he had no reason to value this guy. Who did he think he was, anyway? Thinking because he was full-grown and had run himself . . . It made Bullet angry, as if he needed training, as if he'd want this guy to train him anyway. “You've got a fence with protruding nails on the course.”

“We know our own course.” The blue eyes challenged him.

“That's illegal.”

The guy eyeballed him. “Is it?” he said. “Are you complaining?”

Bullet stared right back at him.
What do you think?
After some long seconds, he walked away. He didn't know what the subject of the low conversation behind him was, and he didn't care.

A figure in blue shorts staggered to the top of the hill and began an awkward descent, legs too stiff. Another figure in blue crested, then a bunch, mostly blue with one red. They straggled down the hillside, not even on the path. The leader tripped over his own misplaced feet, rolled and stopped, stretched out. It took him a few seconds to get up again, and in that time he was overtaken by the man behind him. Coming down the hillside, one of the grouped runners pulled ahead, the guy in red, as if the sight of the finish gave him the strength to take another try. It was, from the color and size of him, Tamer. He didn't hurry the downhill and moved into the final stretch still running. There were four runners on the stretch, strung out and moving without any coordination, arms loose, eyes a little wild, mouths open, stride uneven. Tamer was too slow to catch them up, but he had his stride. As he came closer, Bullet could see the muscles at his neck straining, and the bunching of those along his thighs. His whole body was wet with sweat, so that his skin shone as if it had been oiled and his tank top stuck to his torso, showing where the ribcage underneath was wrapped around and around with bandages.

As the runners crossed the finish line, they fell down onto their hands and knees. The three Acorn coaches moved over to get them out of the way, to pull them to the back of the crowd. There they left them, crouched on all fours. Tamer ran himself out of the way, as if his body was a machine running down. He fell onto the grass and lay there. The coach moved over to talk to him, then called to Bullet. “Get a water bottle.” The coach went back to wait at the finish line. Bullet stood over Tamer, the plastic bottle in his hand. The big back heaved.

“You feel okay?” Bullet asked. Sometimes athletes did bust a blood vessel, or have a heart attack, depending on the kind of strain they put themselves under. Young, apparently healthy guys.

“I feel like shit,” the muffled voice answered. Tamer rolled over onto his back. He opened his dark eyes. “Tillerman. I should have known.” He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, it was to make an accusation: “You white bastard, you knew it would be harder than the practice course.” Lying flat, he clenched his fists against his hips. “And
he
wouldn't tell us how bad it would be because then we wouldn't sign up, and if he didn't have the runners he couldn't put you in the field.” He looked up at Bullet, his anger controlled. “It's been a long time since Whitey outfigured me.”