QB 1 (16 page)

Truth was, Bear wasn't coming for another hour. But Jake knew there was nothing left to say, not now. Jake knew his dad well enough to know he wasn't going to back up, either. Or admit Jake was right.

Because that would have meant Troy Cullen was wrong.

Jake started walking in the direction of the barn.

His dad, though, wasn't quite done yet. He never wanted to let anybody have the last word, except Libby Cullen sometimes.

“Well, you're right about one thing,” Troy Cullen said, calling out after him, trying to keep his tone light. “Sometimes I
don't
know you.”

“Sure you do,” Jake said. “I'm a Cullen.”

FINAL REGULAR SEASON GAME. GRANGER COWBOYS VS. THE
Redding Bulldogs. A win combined with a Shelby win would leave the two teams tied for first. But since Shelby won the head-to-head matchup, the tiebreaker would fall Shelby's way. If the Cowboys had any shot at going to the playoffs, they would need a win combined with a Shelby loss.

The second part, Coach McCoy reminded them, was out of their control. First things first, and that meant taking care of their own business. What Shelby did wouldn't matter if the Cowboys couldn't come away with a win.

For Jake, that meant not getting ahead of himself. Even knowing that Wyatt hadn't been able to lead Granger to the sectional finals as a freshman, that he was chasing something even the great Wyatt Cullen hadn't done.

He looked over in the stands, saw his mom there. His dad was supposed to be there, too; the Longhorns weren't playing until Saturday night, home game against Texas Tech, so there was supposed to be no conflict for Troy Cullen tonight.

Maybe he'd decided there was another Wyatt emergency and had driven down to Austin.

Is what it is,
Jake told himself. If it was one more game his dad missed, nothing he could do about it. Nothing he'd ever been able to do about it. Neither Jake nor his dad had mentioned the conversation they'd had behind the barn since it happened, not one time. Things seemed pretty much the same with the two of them, as though nothing had changed.

Maybe because nothing ever really would.

The rest of the stands were full, the crowd already loud. As calm as Jake always felt in the heat of the game, he had to admit that even his heart was trying to come right out of him tonight.

Jake wasn't thinking about his brother or his dad now, just about Redding, about this chance at first place, the chance to keep playing, telling himself that the only thing that could spoil a game like this and a night like this and a chance like this was a loss.

Coach McCoy, as always, had kept his pregame talk brief, Jake by now knowing brief was all his old coach had; if this was his last season, he wasn't going to suddenly turn as chatty as a TV man. He told them stuff he'd told them before, about how the other team was gonna want it as much as they did, how he'd had other teams that had come this close to winning a title before but they couldn't stay on the horse.

“This game we're about to play out here,” he said, “has got nothin' to do with the season we thought we were gonna have back in September. Got even less to do with the season we might still have if we win tonight. It's about the one thing sports is always about: ever'body in this room reaching down and finding the best in himself, so we can find out about the best in
our
selves.”

Then he just walked out of the room, like he always did when he had nothing more to say. The Granger Cowboys had followed him, waiting until they got into the tunnel before they started yelling their heads off, the tunnel loud and excited, but not nearly as loud and electric and excited as Cullen Field was when they ran out of that tunnel and into a sound and feeling that was just purebred Texas high school football.

The Redding Bulldogs were a little bit like the Cowboys: Their starting quarterback had gotten hurt in their second game, but his replacement, a senior named Brett Conroy, had become a surprise star for them, same as Jake had been for Granger. Brett had a good arm and had proven to be a solid leader.

The Bulldogs also had a fullback as big as a tackle or guard named Jarryd “Moose” Mosedale, who could get them short yards when they needed them, and sometimes a lot more than that.

But the most important thing about Redding was this: They had just one loss, same as the Cowboys. And they were the team that had beaten Shelby last week. So now they had the same chance to steal the whole league on this last Friday night of the regular season. A win against Granger and the league title was theirs since they would own the tiebreaker over Shelby.

The Cowboys won the toss, Jake finished with his warm-up throws, happy they were getting the ball to start the game. As he waited in front of the bench, standing next to Nate, nervously shifting his weight from one leg to the other, Coach Jessup came over, got in front of him, put his hands on both sides of Jake's helmet.

“As much as you've given me so far,” Coach J said, “I know you got more in you.”

“Thank you for believing in me,” Jake said.

“We ain't done yet.”

“No, sir.”

“All the work we've done, we done it for a reason.”

“Yes, sir.”

Coach J said, “But you'll make a play tonight that has nothin' to do with the way you've prepared, all the time we spent lookin' at film. It'll just be about the
gift
you have to make a play when you have to. That magic I believe you got inside you. Trust it.” Sounding like Nate, another one who'd always talked about magic.

Then he walked away, and Jake jogged out on the field after Melvin Braxton returned the kickoff to the thirty-five-yard line. On the third play of the game, he scrambled to his right after the pocket started to collapse, started to run out of field, then saw Calvin break free, running down the middle with that great speed of his. Jake had enough time to stop and plant and throw the ball as far as he could. Calvin had to slow up slightly, break stride just a little, waiting for the ball to come out of the night sky and the lights. But once the ball was in his hands, he ran away from everybody for a sixty-yard score. The kick was good. They hadn't played two minutes yet, and it was already 7–0.

Calvin came over to Jake on the sideline and said, “It was worse waiting for that ball than it is for class to end. That all you got?”

Grinning at Jake.

“Pretty much,” Jake said. Then bumping his helmet on Calvin's.

But Coach McCoy was right about this game the way he was right about a lot of things. The Bulldogs
did
want it, too—did they ever. And they were good. Brett Conroy came right back at them, completing the first seven passes he threw, like he was never going to miss, took his team down the field and finally handed it to Moose Mosedale, who piled in from the one.

It was 7–7, and Jake was as excited as he'd been coming out of the tunnel, as if the game was starting all over again. This was why you played. This kind of night, this kind of opponent, stakes like these. Didn't matter whether you grew up in Granger or Redding, Laredo or Huntsville or Abilene. This was the kind of game you grew up seeing somebody else play at the same time you were dreaming about playing it yourself. This was Texas, Jake knew, as much Texas as anything else in the whole big state. This was the town in the stands, families, friends, and strangers alike, every one of them feeling like they were a part of something, that they were going to somehow help you win tonight.

The defenses settled in after the Redding touchdown and it was still 7–7 at the end of the first quarter.

It was 14-all at the half.

By the time the fourth quarter began, the teams were tied again, 21–21, the league championship still out there on that field, waiting for somebody to just take it.

After giving up that opening touchdown pass, the Bulldogs had been putting double and sometimes triple coverage on Calvin all game long, holding him to just three more catches—none for longer than ten yards. Now, on a third-and-four, four minutes left in the game, Jake faked a handoff to Spence to freeze the linebackers and safeties, and looked up to find Calvin with some daylight on a slant route. It had big play written all over it. But the Bulldog cornerback saw the play developping and closed the gap quickly, just getting a hand in at the last second, knocking the ball loose, incomplete. Another punt for the Cowboys.

Now Brett Conroy's chance to eat up some field and maybe the rest of the clock, get another score, and take the night back with him on the bus to Redding. If so, the Bulldogs would be going to the sectional finals and the Cowboys would be going home.

Jake knew he could be that close to the end of the season, 3:54 showing on the scoreboard clock.

Brett got his team moving, short passes mostly, out to their forty, then past midfield. Then all the way to the Cowboys' twenty, third-and-three, a minute-fifty left. Cullen Field was as quiet as it had been all night, Jake standing there at the fifty, nothing to do but watch the other quarterback.

He'd had a lot of practice at that, watching his brother when he was a high school quarterback, now watching Brett Conroy as he tried to take Jake's season, maybe before Jake ever got to take another snap.

Calvin standing there with Jake now.

“This
ain't
the way the movie's s'posed to end,” Calvin said. “For me
or
for you, Cullen.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Somebody's got to stand up and make a play,” Calvin said, “so we can get back out there and finish our unfinished business.”

He said it Texas-style.

Bidness.

Of all the players, it was Bear Logan who stood up. The Cowboy defense was expecting a run, the Bulldogs this close to scoring, guessing the offense would play it safe while eating up more of the clock. And sure enough, Brett Conroy put the ball in Moose Mosedale's belly. But then he pulled it out, straightened up, saw his tight end open in the left flat. What appeared to be a perfect play-action pass.

Paid no attention to the fact that Bear Logan was spying him.

Paid no attention to Bear at all, who, despite getting in on a couple of tackles hadn't done much to make the Bulldogs pay him much mind.

Bear waited until Brett Conroy released the ball, stepped in front of the Redding tight end, and made the first interception of his life, going all the way back to when he and Jake played Pop Warner together. He didn't even try to advance it, for fear he'd fumble, just wrapped his arms around the ball and fell to the ground. But when he got up, more excited than Jake had ever seen him on a football field, he held the ball over his head like it was a trophy and got a huge cheer out of the Granger fans.

Cowboys' ball at their fifteen-yard line, Jake with two time-outs in his pocket. Minute-forty left. As he ran out on the field with the offense, Bear coming off, Jake took time to wrap his arms as far around him as they'd go.

“I knew you had it in you, big man.”

“Well, I sure didn't know,” Bear said.

“Can't believe you didn't think about puttin' on a couple of juke moves like you were Calvin.”

“The only move I got is the one I just showed you. I fell down.”

Coach Jessup had sent Jake out with four plays: a quick out to Roy, a sideline route to Justice, a screen to Spence, then a deep cross to Calvin if Justice could do his job and legally pick the Redding safety without ever making contact with the kid.

But Jake didn't want to wait to put the ball in Calvin's hands, Despite how tight the Redding D had been playing him.

He grabbed Calvin when the huddle was breaking, said, “Can you get loose?”

Calvin just smiled.

“Sorry,” he said, “I didn't realize that was a serious question.”

“Gonna fake it to Roy,” Jake said, “and then see if we can go big.”

He dropped back into the shotgun, took Nate's snap, faked a throw to Roy on the left sideline, then rolled to the opposite side. The fake had drawn the extra defenders off Calvin, who streaked across the field and got away with a pro-style shove-off on the safety closest to him. He then broke his route and cut to the inside of the field, running hot. Jake's throw wobbled a little more than he would have liked. So did Eli Manning's sometimes. The ball still found Calvin in stride at the forty. Jake thought for a second he might break all the way for a score, but the corner on Justice's deep route down the right sideline saw what was happening, ended up with a good angle on Calvin, and brought him down from behind at midfield.

Just like that, they'd cut the field in half, brought the crowd to a roar, and brought a little panic to the Bulldog defense.

Jake hurried the offense to the line and hit Justice on a sideline route from there, another first down, stopping the clock. He then threw the screen to Spence, who tried to get out of bounds, but couldn't. Jake had no choice but to burn his second time-out. Thirty seconds left.

He knew the Bulldogs would be guarding the sidelines tight, so he took a chance and squeezed one in to Calvin over the middle, who took what the defense gave him and went down.

Jake immediately called his last time-out.

Twenty-one seconds left, at the Redding twenty. Too far to count on making a field goal.

As Jake started toward the sideline, Coach McCoy and Coach J came out to meet him.

“Spread 'em out,” Coach McCoy said. “Then just pick out the one you like the best.”

He nodded.

When Jake got back to the huddle, Nate pushed back his helmet just far enough so that Jake could see the big smile on him.

Nate said, “This is more fun than eating pie.”

Jake couldn't argue with that.

He spread out his wides and went for it all with Calvin on first down, but overthrew him, the ball sailing overhead. It was the worst throw he'd made all night. The incompletion stopped the clock again.

On second down, Justice and Roy were covered deep. Calvin was double-teamed, as usual, but recognized that while the defense wasn't about to let him get into the end zone, there was a soft spot in between. Jake hit him with a bullet at the twelve and Calvin sprinted out of bounds. Clock stopped.

Third-and-two.

Ten seconds left. Just enough time to run another quick play and get out of bounds to stop the clock for a field goal attempt. Or going for it all with a play into the end zone.

Jake looked over at Coach J, who put an index finger up near his nose.

Number 1.

Just somehow get the ball to Calvin. There was no logic to Jake's belief in him, at least right now. The Redding defensive backs, even though a couple of them looked like they were a head shorter, had done the best job covering Calvin that any team had all season. And now the field itself was shorter, giving Calvin less room to improvise—at a time when everyone on the field knew that Jake would be looking for him.