Blind Your Ponies (69 page)

The cheerleaders had painted some signs after their frustrating attempts to coordinate the crowd the previous night, and he could see that they’d kept it simple. Carter and Louella sorted the placards, which each had only one or two words, in bold blue and gold:

DEFENSE! GO BRONCS GO! FIGHT TEAM FIGHT!

With five minutes till game time, the tiny Willow Creek contingent left the arena, winding their way through the hundreds standing at ground level at the corners of the court. When they were all inside, Sam closed the locker-room door, shutting out the tempest and finding an eddy of calm. The boys sat along one bench with Sancho. Axel and Grandma had opted to stay out in the arena with the cheerleaders, as though they felt they would be infringing on this special moment that belonged to the nine of them.

“There’s so many people,” Rob said.

Pete settled on a bench. “And they’re rockin’ for us.”

“They like us,” Tom said and smiled at Dean.

Then, with Diana standing beside him, Sam felt their eyes come to him in the numbing, tingling silence, expectant, hopeful, and hungry.

“I wanted a moment with you before the game.” Sam regarded each of them, carefully, finding there the focused steel of five boys.

“We’ve come a long way. I only want to remind you that you already have everything you need to win. You’ve worked hard. You’ve earned the right to be here, and I want you to have the fun you deserve tonight. But we’ve learned that nothing comes easy. I want you to go out and play as hard as you can play, give as much as you can give, for as long as you can stand, so that one day, when you look back, you can smile proudly. That’s the best kind of fun and it will last you a lifetime.”

Sam’s throat filled and he fought to finish.

“If I could have one wish tonight, other than winning, it would be that I could be out on the floor playing beside you.”

Sam nodded at Diana.

“I want to thank you boys for the ride,” she said. “It’s been the most fun I’ve ever had, and like Coach Pickett, I’d give my right arm to be out on the court with you. But remember, we are
,
all of us, Scott and Curtis and all the people from Willow Creek, we’re out there beside you and that’s why we’re going to win!”

“Yeeaaahhhh!” the boys shouted, leaping to their feet. Neither coach could say more and Sam extended his hands. They quickly huddled around him and lifted their cheer.

Weaving their way through the standing crowd, they found the court,
enshrouded in a galaxy of human faces. A volcanic roar erupted when the fans spotted the Willow Creek boys trotting across the court. The Seely-Swan team was shooting baskets at the far end as the horn sounded, calling both teams to the bench for introductions.

Dean was the first Bronc announced, and after slapping palms with everyone on the bench, he dashed across the floor and up into the bleachers to his undaunted sister. He gently laid high fives on her dancing hands. Then he carefully fit his cap on her golden-crowned head to work what magic she and the cap could still muster at the gate to the castle. The crowd noise dropped considerably as the spectators observed this unexpected ritual and then increased dramatically as Dean raced back down the stairs and stood at the west free-throw circle, his unruly brown hair looking as though he’d been struck by lightning.

The introductions went swiftly and each Bronc was knighted by the tumultuous vocal support bestowed on them by the exuberant fans. Each boy in turn gave those on the bench high fives and then ran the bleacher stairs to do the same with Denise Cutter before joining his teammates in the exclusive circle of camaraderie on the court. Sam spotted Andrew sitting beside Denise, but Andrew’s reprieve would have to wait until after the game. That didn’t seem long; Andrew had endured for more than twenty years. For now, Sam had to wipe all else out of his mind and concentrate on the game with every cell of his body. He would
not
be outcoached. They announced the coaches and the teams broke for their benches through a great storm of noise.

Sam knelt in the middle; the five circled him, and Axel, Grandma, Sancho, Curtis, and Diana formed a protective shelter around them.

“Go hard!” Rob yelled.

“We didn’t come this far to lose,” Tom said.

“Go, Oaf!” Pete shouted.

They linked hands in the huddle and gave one shout in unison. “Team!”

When they broke the circle, the four of them laid their caps on the bench. Then five of them walked onto the court together. The field house vibrated with the electricity of human emotion. Lowell Lapp, Seely-Swan’s 6'4" center, faced off with Olaf at the center jump circle. The referee blew his whistle and lofted the ball into the air.

Diana held her breath, almost unable to watch. Olaf controlled the tip and Willow Creek swiftly unsheathed its weapons. Their classy opponents, whose obvious objective was to strangle anything in the paint, dropped back into a smothering zone. The Broncs moved the ball around the outside until Pete got a high pass to Olaf in the low post. The Blackhawk defense collapsed on him like a wet tent. Diana couldn’t fault the opposing coach for concentrating his troops to stop Gustafson and Stonebreaker inside, but that had become the unforgivable sin against this Willow Creek team. Up to his armpits in Seely-Swan players, Olaf snapped a pass back out to his momentarily unattended teammate. Peter promptly knocked down the open shot, and the multitudes came to their feet in an oceanic roar, and Willow Creek was on the board.

With a cocksureness in their faces, Seely-Swan came storming with their shooters: Thomas, Boyd, Cooper, and McHenry. Rob played the wing where Curtis usually scrambled, and Dean chased the ball out front with his fire-alarm intensity and his barbed-wire endurance. Diana was so proud of them she could hardly bear it. She was torn between trying to enjoy this magnificent moment and her desperate hope that the boys would win, feeling like a stowaway witnessing a great sea battle, helpless to influence its outcome.

The outlandish gang on the bench were a sight to behold: a perspiring, balding man, shaped like a fire hydrant, in a tight blue suit; a skinny, lop-eared sophomore with his arm in a sling and wearing a shopworn cap; a chubby freshman with a matching cap; and a gnarly, snow-haired woman with a brown fedora on her head, a three-legged cat in her jacket, and a parrot in a gym bag under her seat.

The cheerleaders wore blue pleated skirts and gold jerseys and, with the help of their placards, had thousands volleying to their lead.

“Go, Broncs, go! Go, Broncs, go! Go, Broncs, go!”

Both teams played in-your-face basketball, showing a stonelike determination
that would not back down, displaying grace and quickness and athletic moves that even surprised Diana. Rob and Pete were making Seely-Swan pay by arcing glorious long-range bull’s-eyes overhead, while the Blackhawks were preoccupied in a shadow dance with Olaf. Diana would have been giddy on the bench had it not been for the fact that Tom was hurting badly. He couldn’t move well laterally or jump well, and though he tried to conceal it, his knee appeared to be punishing him unremittingly.

At the quarter, Willow Creek led, 19 to 16. The players caught their breath on the bench, and Diana iced Tom’s knee. Sam hadn’t used a timeout, deciding instead to save them.

“Rob, Pete,” Sam shouted, “keep burning them until they loosen up on Olaf.” He looked into Olaf’s eyes. “How’s the ankle?”

“I am not feeling the ankle.”

“All right, be patient,” Sam said. “Your time is coming.” He regarded the others. “You’re playing perfectly. How did you get so good?”

“We didn’t forget our balls,” Dean said.

Sam smiled and shouted above the din, “You’re right, you guys never forgot your balls! Have fun!”

In the second quarter it became a classic game between two teams who could run if the opportunity was there and play excellent half-court basketball when it wasn’t. They had done their homework and they put on a clinic of disciplined teamwork: bodies colliding and banging in the paint and shooters coming free around picks and screens to demonstrate their fine-tuned touch and flawless eyes.

The deadeyes Thomas and Boyd were keeping Seely-Swan close from outside while Olaf was making life miserable for Lapp around the basket. McHenry, their lean, quick forward, was beginning to have his way against Tom as though he knew the infuriated bull rider couldn’t stay with him any longer. With gnashing teeth, Tom was conceding the sixteen-to eighteen-footer and the gifted McHenry began hitting. But as the Seely-Swan coach released his guards to come out on Rob and Peter, who were killing them softly, Olaf set up housekeeping inside. With room to move, he sucked Lapp into immediate foul trouble and the 6'4" center had to retreat to the bench with three. Sam burned a timeout with less than three minutes in the quarter. Tom wouldn’t make it to halftime without a break.

“You want to sit out for the last few minutes?” Sam asked Tom.

“I can’t. They’d slaughter us,” Tom said.

“Yes, you can,” Sam said. “We can play four-man zone.”

“We can hold ’em,” Pete shouted.

That Tom would even consider it gave Diana some understanding of the exorbitant price the knee was exacting. Tom glanced at his teammates and paused. The horn sounded. They all regarded Tom.

“You guys just want to have all the fun,” he said. “I can wet-nurse my knee the rest of my life!”

The boys held their ground with deliberate execution and defense. Olaf rejected Lapp’s turnaround and Dean found the castaway ball in his hands. Before he could pass off to a teammate, Cooper clobbered him, trying to steal it back. With great deliberation at the foul line, Dean aimed through his sweat-smeared prisms and rattled in a garbage shot. The sea roared. His second attempt hit the backboard and came high off the rim. Somehow Tom outmuscled McHenry for the rebound and banked it down the well. When time ran out in the first half, the court shook with the adulation of the standing thousands. Together, the Broncs hauled their four-point advantage to the locker room.

Halftime became an emotional storm of expectation and dread. Diana applied the ice and the boys jabbered excitedly about what was working against Seely-Swan, their confidence swelling along with Tom’s knee. Grandma, with Tripod’s head poking out of her Twins jacket, moved among the boys with praise and encouragement. Following her instincts, Diana nodded at Grandma.

“Would you like to say something?”

She paused, glancing around at the boys. Then she bent slightly with her hands on her knees and squinted into their faces.

“This is no time for generosity. You got to give ’em Biblical law.” She shook a fist. “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” She straightened and pointed her hatchetlike chin. “That trophy belongs in Willow Creek and if it doesn’t get there tonight, it never will forever and ever, amen.”

“Let’s get it!” Rob yelled.

“Okay!” Sam shouted, “we’re one half away. Let’s finish it!”

They rallied and shouted and some of them loped back to the arena. Some of them limped.

Time accelerated in the reverberating field house, the atmosphere dripped humid with hope. Diana felt as though she would be swept away with the heart-pounding exhilaration. Seely-Swan came with four rested substitutes and they attempted to get a running game started. Willow Creek played them an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and effectively throttled the ploy by dominating the boards and not allowing them to get out running. The fresher Blackhawks had obviously been told to be more aggressive on offense, driving slapdash into the zone and looking for the whistle. It worked to a degree. Olaf and Rob slapped away several attempts, but Pete and Tom each picked up their third foul. Gauging the weariness in their faces, Sam burned a timeout in the middle of the quarter, leaving two in the bank.

“Get your bodies in front of them,” Sam shouted, “and don’t slap at the ball, they’re trying to put you on the bench.”

Late in the third quarter, Dean didn’t see a pick and collided with Thomas. It was his fourth foul. But the boys demonstrated a seasoning and savvy that made Diana smile with pride, slowing the pace, circulating the ball outside the Blackhawks’ fence line, patiently looking for the good shot while subtly milking the clock. In the closeness of their daily work, she had missed how very good they had become. Despite Dean’s precarious state, she couldn’t prevent confidence from seeping into her pores and bloodstream. When the boys came to the bench at the end of the third quarter, they were up by seven and were controlling the game.

“You’re playing great, you’re playing great!” Sam shouted as they flopped in the chairs.

They dried their faces and sloshed water. Sam knelt in front of Dean and gently took the kid’s face in his hands.

“You have to lay off. Watch out for the picks, play it loose. We need you in there, okay?”

Dean nodded. “I’m not scared anymore,” he said.

“Good, that’s good,” Sam said. “All right, we’re one step from home, I can see the light in the window!”

Diana could hardly breathe as the fourth quarter began. Seely-Swan, with the well-rested regulars, jumped on them with their zone press. But the Broncs expected it and with disciplined finesse repeatedly used Olaf to break it. Peter hit a scintillating jumper from the paint and Rob put back an Olaf miss.

“Run ’em off the floor!” Diana screamed.

In the breathtaking ebb and flow, Willow Creek held a seven-point advantage.

“Go, Broncs, go! Go, Broncs, go!” the crowd pealed.

Olaf was hobbling and Tom limping, and seconds seemed to hang to the clock. Boyd outquicked Rob. Pete slid over in his driving lane. The Black-hawk guard went for the layup. In the collision, Pete was whistled for the foul, his fourth, and Diana’s stomach moved up a notch toward her throat. Boyd canned both free throws.

With the Broncs on the attack, Tom slipped to the floor reaching for Rob’s bounce pass. McHenry grabbed the ball and heaved it upcourt to Thomas, sprinting along the sideline. Dean raced to plug the leak.

“Let him go!” Diana shouted. “Let him go!”