Blind Your Ponies (40 page)

Sam sprang off the bench. All Willow Creekians rose to their feet, hollering their disgust.

“What are you doing!” Sam shouted as he stormed onto the floor.

“He drove into my man! My man didn’t move a muscle!”

The short balding ref who made the call blocked Sam’s advance.

“Get off the floor, Coach.”

“You’re blind! Can’t you see what they’re doing? What kind of a ref are you?”

The ref made a T with his hands and blew his whistle.

“Technical foul on the Willow Creek coach!”

The hometown crowd roared their approval, pointing their fingers at Sam with swooping gestures and chanting, “Oooowww! Oooowww! Oooowww!”

Diana grabbed Sam’s arm and tried to drag him off the floor. The ref signaled the technical to the scorer’s bench and turned back to find Sam standing at his ear. Sam spoke with a friendly tone, looking at the back of the official’s black trousers.

“Oh, Jeez, there’s something all over your pants.”

“What?” the baffled man said, twisting to glance at his backside.

“Oh, man,” Sam said softly, “I think you crapped in them.”

Sam held his nose as the puzzled ref ran a hand over his rump.

“Get out of here,” he told Sam with mounting anger.

Sam leaned close again, cupping a hand to his mouth in a confidential manner. “It must be your call I smell.”

The ref turned and made a sweeping gesture that looked as though he were throwing a javelin into the far wall.

“You’re out of here!” he shouted.

The Willow Creek followers stood and rained incensed boos down on the bald man’s head, the likes of Claire Painter and Truly Osborn outdone by no one. Sam stomped to the locker room, wanting to punch someone or something. He slammed the metal door behind him. There he languished like a bad boy sent to his room, dying a slow death, able to hear the muffled roar of the crowd without any interpretation as to its significance.

D
IANA RODE THE
bench with Scott and Olaf, who wore Dean’s grubby cap. She did what she could to keep them in the game. Without Olaf in the middle, Willow Creek became vulnerable despite Rob’s leaping ability and Tom’s 6’4" brawny presence. It was like a downhill ride on a streaking toboggan with the boys desperately dragging their arms and legs, hoping the time on the clock would run out before they hit the bottom and went over a cliff into the river. But Gardiner’s tall back line began to overcome, and with twenty seconds to go, Willow Creek was down by five. With a cool indifference to the pressure or the wildly lunging Kenny Green, Pete buried a shot from beyond the three-point line. The quick Gardiner guard crashed into Pete after he’d released the ball. One-shot foul; down by two.

Diana called time out with eleven ticks remaining on the clock.

“Okay, Pete, miss the shot, everyone on the boards, Curtis you slide along the baseline under the basket, if any crumbs come off the table, that’s where they’ll be. Remember, when you get the rebound, if you don’t have a put-back, try to get the ball to Rob or Pete, if you can’t, get the best shot you can. Just like practice, go around Hazel Brown and can it.”

With everyone in the gym standing and shouting, Pete intentionally
missed the free throw, trying to carom the rebound to Tom’s side. Ferociously ten boys crashed the backboard and scrambled for the ball amid flying elbows, spraying sweat, and the guttural grunts of their colliding bodies. The leather object of their passion skittered along the floor and hit Dean in the shins. He snatched it as if it were a fleeing chicken and looked for someone who knew how to pluck it. Ben McShane cornered Dean along the sideline. In desperation Dean struggled to find someone open. Drowning in panic, he bounced an obvious pass toward Tom. Kenny Green cut in front of Tom and intercepted the ball. The Gardiner faithful erupted. Green dribbled swiftly away as the Willow Creek team chased frantically to foul. Curtis dove at him but missed, sprawling across the gleaming hard-wood, and the final buzzer sprung the trap door that hung Willow Creek, 68 to 66.

The homegrown crowd thundered a jubilation that undoubtedly cocked the ear of more than one nocturnal beast grazing the mountainsides. The Willow Creek fans slumped in hostile silence. The wild beast in Coach Murphy prowled close to the surface as Fred Sooner crossed the court to shake her hand.

“Tell Sam he got outcoached,” Fred said.

“I’ll tell him he got outreffed. See you in the tournaments, Sooner, and you better come up with something better than grade-school drama class. They have refs with two eyes up there.”

I
N AN ATTEMPT
to avoid the anguish, Sam went out into the pitch-dark parking lot to warm up the bus. Before he climbed into Rozinante, he paused. There was something on the wind. He listened. There, across the hills to the south, coyotes howling. That chilling, solitary wail coming out of the wilderness, stirring something wild in him. He stood by the bus, cocking his ear, understanding their lament, the loneliness, the loss. It was all he could do to prevent himself from hiking off across the snow-crusted foothills and joining them—if they’d have him—all he could do to keep himself from getting down on his knees and wailing into the black Montana sky.

He cupped his hands and howled, imitating the wild creatures as best he could. Then he held his breath, listening, hoping for a reply, a reply of acceptance and healing. It came, a coyote off to his right, a barking, howling song
on the wind, but Sam couldn’t understand the words, couldn’t translate the message. Was it a note of joy or a word of warning?

On the bus Sam noticed tears trickling down Dean’s face as though his fishbowl lenses were leaking. Sam realized he had held out on the young boy, only expounding half-truths when he talked him into coming out for basketball. He had neglected to tell the fledgling about how bad you feel when you lose, and worse, how ashamed when you believe it was your fault. Sam tried to soothe the pain by announcing they would stop at McDonald’s on the long trip home, but not even a Big Mac with fries would stem the young boy’s sorrow. Like it or not, he was growing up.

Mervin was up early Saturday morning, tinkering with the John Deere “D” , trying to find some fault with his brother’s maintenance, trying to shake the residue of the Gardiner loss from his head and heart. He felt damn proud of Olaf, who had played like a warrior, only to be cheated out of a chance to win by that goddamn referee who shouldn’t be allowed to work a grade school game. It had been worse than that professional wrestling on TV, the way the Gardiner boys faked being hit and flopped all over the floor. As long as they played dirty to get Olaf out of the game, Mervin wished Olaf had coldcocked one of them and got his money’s worth out of his fifth foul.

He knew something else was stuck in his craw that he couldn’t shake. Olaf, who was still sleeping in the house, would be leaving in a few short months and Mervin didn’t know how he’d take that. He realized he’d grown to love the boy, and something more he’d never admit to a soul. He figured he loved the boy more than he’d ever loved his four daughters. Something had grown up between him and the boy, something he never had with his girls. He dreaded losing Olaf come summer, and he tried not to think about it.

He had made room for the old tractor in a back corner of the metal machine shed he had built seven years ago, a godsend in winter and bad weather days when he had to work on a piece of machinery.

Mervin had drained the crankcase on the “D” but, to his disappointment, found the oil fresh and clean. He was removing one of the steel wheels when he felt a presence in the metal shed. He turned and started! Claire was standing there in her winter coat, watching him. She wasn’t smiling and he realized he’d never seen the expression on her face that she showed him now.

“I want to say something to you that I’ve wanted to say for thirty years,” she said and she moved closer to him.

Mervin felt his throat tighten. He laid down the heavy wrench and wiped his greasy hands on a rag. Something in him wanted to run.

“When you courted me, I realized you weren’t a romantic man. But I came to think it was more than that, that there was something broken inside you, muffled,” Claire stepped closer to him.

“And there was something frantic in you, like you were trying to gather frogs in a wheelbarrow. I heard stories over the years, hints and slips of the tongue, people trying to be kind by whispering or dropping the subject. I learned that you loved Maggie, planned to marry her. Through the years I’ve realized you still do love her, always have ever since I knew you. I’ve never said a word, figured it would pass with time and we’d become closer. That never happened.”

“I never wanted— ”

“Let me finish,” Claire said, wringing her hands. “I heard at the grocery store this morning that Maggie is real bad. She’s at the hospital in Bozeman. She’s dying. I want you to go in the house, clean up, and go see that woman before she’s gone.” Claire’s voice broke. “I’m afraid if she dies before you see her, we’ll have her ghost between us for the rest of our lives. I’ve never told you what to do in all our married days, but I’m telling you now. You hightail it to that hospital as fast as you can!”

Stunned, Mervin set the rag on the tractor seat and walked past Claire out of the machine shed.

In his Sunday suit and Stetson, Mervin turned onto the freeway toward Bozeman. He pushed his Ford up around ninety, and after driving forty miles in twenty-five minutes he left the car in a No Parking space, tightened his jaw, and hurried through the automatic hospital doors. A receptionist told him how to find Maggie’s room, and when he got off the elevator, his heart was racing. He turned a corner in the corridor and found his brother with several other men and women in the hall outside Maggie’s room. He didn’t hesitate.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Carl said, stepping in the way of Mervin’s march toward the door of Room 234.

Mervin stepped up to Carl, chest to chest, and spoke in a low, steady voice.

“You stole her from me thirty-five years ago and now, by God, I’ll have this time with her alone or I’ll tear your throat out!”

Carl glared back, his cold gray eyes never blinking. Mervin figured he’d rather face a jail term for assault and battery than have to face Maggie in her dying moments.

Time seemed to stand still. Mervin clenched his fists. Carl’s face flushed. Then he nodded and stepped back.

Mervin opened the door and stepped in. A nurse passed Mervin on the way out, and whispered, “She’s very tired.”

Mervin moved to the side of the bed and forced himself to look into Maggie’s withering face, forced himself to see the tubes and tape and needles, forced himself to look into her haggard eyes. He tried to find the sweet girl he’d loved so long ago.

“Hello,” Mervin managed to say, but his voice broke.

“Hello… what are—”

“I had to come, I wanted to come, when I heard…”

“Never thought I’d see you again,” she said.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“How did the boys do last night?” she said.

“Willow Creek, the team?”

“Yeah.”

“They lost to Gardiner,” Mervin said and wondered how they could be talking about the Willow Creek basketball team at a time like this.

“I always pulled for Willow Creek. Always.” She coughed and it scared him. “I know it always seemed hopeless, but I was a Willow Creek girl and I thought that some day they would win again.”

“They’ve won three games this year,” he said, though he wanted to get away from news, weather, and sports. He knew his time with her was short.

“Will you say hello to Peter for me?” she said.

“You know Peter? Peter Strong?”

“Yes, he’s a good boy.”

She coughed and closed her eyes for a moment. Mervin knew he’d never have this chance again.

“Maggie, I want—”

“I heard you won the tractor,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“That always should’ve been yours.”

“You
always should’ve been mine,” he said.

“You gave up on me.” She looked into his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me it didn’t matter that I was pregnant, that I had his baby inside me? Why didn’t you say that you forgave me for being a foolish young girl who was trying to make you jealous so you’d quit putting off our marriage?”

Mervin moved close to the bed and leaned toward her face.

“I’m so—”

“I just went for a ride with him, that’s all he said it would be, a ride in his new pickup,” she said. “He raped me. He said it would be my word against his, and how would I explain being out on the old deserted Quinn Road with him in his pickup?”

“Oh, God, Maggie,” Mervin said. He felt his heart being torn out.

“I was so scared and humiliated and I didn’t dare tell anyone. Who could I tell? What could I say? The night you came looking for me, that wasn’t the first time. Your brother blackmailed me into going out there with him three more times after he first raped me. Each time he said once more and that would be the end of it.”

“If I’d only known, if you’d have told me—”

“I was petrified. I wanted to kill Carl. I was a scared young girl who felt trapped. How could I tell you, what would you think? Well, we found that out, didn’t we. You just drove away, never looked back.”

Mervin sat on the edge of her bed and took her hand in his.

“I’m so sorry, Maggie…” He lost his voice.

“Was it my unfaithfulness that hurt you or was it that you didn’t want to spend your life with a woman your brother had first? A woman your brother
knew
he had first? Was it that he got the best of you again, you and your goddamn Painter pride? Is that all you really cared about? I held my breath, praying you’d say it didn’t matter, that you forgave me, that you still loved me and would marry me. You just drove away!”

“I’m sorry, oh God, I’ve never stopped loving you,” Mervin said, feeling the mountains coming down around him.

“Your love was selfish and weak and small. All you cared about was your pride and how hurt you were, without a thought about what I was going through. Goddamn you. You threw away our love, my love and my life. Your feeling sorry doesn’t count anymore, it’s way too late.”