Blazer Drive (4 page)

The rancher in Montana was half convinced it had been done by UFOs. One of his workers had reported seeing a strange glow in the sky and hearing a distant roar.

Stephanie had told her father everything.

He had agreed it was strange. He also said that she read too many mystery books in her spare time. He'd pointed out that their bull was dead. The insurance money had covered it. She shouldn't make a fool of herself looking into the business of other people.

But Stephanie was angry Champion had been killed. She wasn't going to quit. On her list of owners of other bulls in the bloodline, she'd seen the Ellroy ranch. She had decided to warn me about the other killings on the crazy chance someone might try to do the same to Big Boy.

Only now, it wasn't such a crazy chance.

Only now, she wanted to find out more, so she could get the police involved.

Only now, she wanted me to help.

The next night, we were scheduled for a home game against the Medicine Hat Tigers. It was a usual day for me. I got up at around 7:00. I had breakfast with my billets, the Dickersons, who were paid by the Kamloops Blazers to give me room and board. I went to school. All through the day, I kept thinking about Stephanie Becker and what she'd told me about someone trying to kill Locomotive's bloodline.

I should have been thinking about hockey.

The Blazers were favored to win, but it wouldn't be easy. The Medicine Hat Tigers are always a tough team. Most of their guys are big and love to skate hard and hit hard. We had to skate and play just as hard. I was also hoping to get a couple of more goals or assists to keep me near the top of the scoring race.

I got to the arena early and was the first person in the dressing room. I wanted to get mentally ready to play. I thought it would help if I put myself in a place where I had no choice but to think of hockey.

It might have worked, except Luke Zannetti was the second person in the dressing room. And he had shaved his head—totally bald.

No kidding. Totally bald.

All he needed was a big number on the back of his head. It would have looked like a giant pool ball resting on his shoulders. He was so bald his skull was shiny.

My hockey thoughts stopped being hockey thoughts.

“What are you staring at?” he snarled as he hung his coat up.

“Well,” I said, making sure I smiled so he'd see I was joking. I wasn't scared of him. I just wanted to make sure our team played as a team. “If I were standing right beside you, I guess I'd be staring at a reflection of myself off your head. That's some haircut.”

“Michael Jordan shaves his head,” Luke told me. “It's something that only the coolest athletes do.”

I didn't have a chance to answer because Coach Price walked into the dressing room.

“Hey, guys,” he said. If he noticed that Luke was bald, he didn't say anything about it. “Glad you're both here. I need to talk to the two of you.”

“About what?” Luke said. “You and I already talked about the fight during practice.”

Coach Price frowned at his rudeness. “We're going to mix up the lines tonight.”

I nodded, wondering why he was telling us. Maybe because Luke was the captain and I was one of the team's two assistant captains.

“Cowboy,” Coach said, “Luke is moving down from the first line to play center on your line. We're going to move Dougie up to play center on the first line.”

On our team, the first two lines were equally strong. It didn't mean Luke was moving “down.” But it did mean he and I would be playing together.

And I didn't want him on my line. This was the guy who had flipped out in practice over a small joke. The guy who had punched me in the mouth. Worse, even when he was at his best, he wasn't much of a team player. All he wanted was to score his own goals. That meant he sometimes hung on to the puck instead of making a smart pass. And Luke wasn't at his best. Everyone knew that.

I didn't say any of this to Coach Price. Dad had taught me to accept new situations a nd ma ke the best of them w ithout complaining.

“What?” Luke said. “I haven't played second line for years.”

“Starting tonight you will,” Coach Price told him. “Cowboy is one of the strongest
left wingers in the league. He's a great anchor for the second line, and I think this shift will be good for the team. And for both of you.”

Coach Price stopped and cleared his throat. “There's a slight problem, though. With this change, no one on the first line will have an A or a C.”

I knew instantly where Coach Price was going. If there is a disputed call, only the captain or one of the two assistant captains can talk to the ref. The coach can't. Often the player will get instructions from the coach on what to ask the ref. Coach Price needed a captain or an assistant on the ice at all times. With Luke and me now on the same line—

“Cowboy,” he asked, “mind letting Dougie wear the A for a while?”

“Sure, Coach.” I'd worked hard to get the A for assistant captain on my jersey. But I tried to agree cheerfully. Coach Price was going to do it anyway. There was no sense complaining about something I couldn't change.

Coach nodded, and then he left us alone. I didn't have much to say to Luke. But it
didn't matter. Other players started to arrive. They teased Luke about his new shaved look. That left me alone to worry about Big Boy, Stephanie Becker, whether we would win the game, and what it would be like to play on a line with Luke.

Coach Price was wrong about the line change being good for Luke and me. From the beginning of the game, I skated until I thought my legs would drop off. It didn't seem to make any difference. Whenever I got the puck, Luke was out of position to take a pass.

That meant I had no one to pass to. At left wing, I was usually too far away to make a pass to Gordie Penn, my right winger. His
position was on the other side of the ice. Passing cross ice is hardly ever smart. Too many other players can step in and take the puck.

Luke, at center, was skating as if someone had strapped a bag of potatoes to his back. I would go into the boards with one of the Medicine Hat Tigers and fight for the puck. I'd come out, lift my head to look for Luke and see him two steps behind their center. Not two steps ahead where I could pass.

Time and again, while I delayed and waited to make a play, one or two of the Tigers would jump all over me. It was driving me crazy.

With five minutes left in the third period, the score was tied at three. The right defense for the Tigers—the guy on my side of the ice—had the puck in the center ice area.

Luke made a move toward him, and the defenseman peeled away, still with the puck. He didn't see me coming in from the other side. I was able to ram him with my shoulder. He fell down. I didn't.

The puck was at my feet.

I heard Luke yell. He was skating toward the net. The other Tigers' defenseman was caught up the ice. There was no one between Luke and the goalie.

The Tigers' defenseman was getting to his knees and reaching for the puck with his stick. I stepped over his stick, pulled the puck toward me. I flipped it ahead of Luke, so he could reach it without slowing down.

The puck slapped the tape of his stick. It was a perfect pass. Luke was all alone on the goalie. The nearest Tigers' player was the left defenseman, who was at least five steps behind.

The crowd roared as fans jumped to their feet. Three to three and we had a breakaway!

Two strides later, Luke reached their blue line.

I was following, but I wasn't part of the play. This was Luke's chance to score and put us ahead. I'd be happy getting a point for the assist.

But a stride later, the Tigers' defenseman was suddenly only three steps back of Luke.

I couldn't believe it. Luke was supposed to be one of the fastest players in the league. The Montreal Canadiens wanted him, he was so fast. And a big defenseman was catching up to him?

Two steps later the defenseman was breathing down Luke's back.

Two more steps and the defenseman was able to reach his stick around and knock the puck off Luke's stick.

The crowd's roars changed to groans. Luke hadn't even gotten close enough to fire a shot at the goalie.

Gordie, over on the right wing, slammed his stick against the ice in disappointment.

Luke?

Luke was so angry he spun around and punched the Tigers' defenseman. The referee put his hand up for a penalty against us. A few seconds later, he blew the whistle to stop the play.

Not only had Luke missed the breakaway, but he also took a penalty.

It hurt us. While we were one man short, the Tigers scored to make it 4–3 for them.

That's how the game ended.

In the dressing room, I didn't say a word. I didn't have to. The total silence of all the players was loud enough for Luke to know what we thought.

Stephanie was waiting for me as some of us walked out of the arena together after an early afternoon practice the next day. She was in the parking lot, standing beside an old black Bronco 4x4.

“Ho, ho,” Gordie said, elbowing me as usual. “Check out Miss America. I think she's looking for a certain Cowboy.”

“Ho, ho,” I said, “how will you look with a squashed nose?”

Gordie, two inches taller than me and a lot heavier, kindly decided to let me get away with that remark. Instead he said, “I'd still look a lot better than Luke the Cuke.”

The guys had started calling him Cuke, rhyming it with Luke. It was short for Cucumber. His head looked like the end of a giant cucumber. Luke, of course, ignored everyone. That was Luke's style. When he'd been one of the best players in the league, he got away with being a jerk. Now that he was slipping, the guys didn't think he was cool.

I waved at Stephanie and stepped away from my teammates.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” she said.

For some reason, both of us got a little shy.

After a long silence, I looked up at the clear sky. “Nice day,” I said.

She laughed. “Is it a nice day to go for a drive?”

“Sure.”

“Don't you want to know where?” she asked.

“Sure.” I wasn't going to tell her that it would have been all right if we just drove circles around the parking lot.

“To your ranch,” she said. “If we're lucky, there will still be a couple of hours of daylight when we get there.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Don't you want to know why?” she asked.

“Sure.”

Some of the guys were shouting at us as they got into their cars, the way guys do when they want to give you a rough time. I ignored them. So did she.

“I'd like to look over the spot where Big Boy and the other cattle were killed,” she said.

“What are we looking for? My dad called in the police, and they already went over everything.”

Dad had filed an insurance claim. Part of the claim needed a police report. With it, he was going to get back nearly all of the money Big Boy had been worth.

“Did the police find anything?”

“Pieces of cattle,” I answered. “Some footprints. Nothing else to give them any idea of who or why.”

“Let's look around anyway,” she said. “Maybe over a bigger area. The police didn't know about the other bloodline killings. They might not have searched very hard.”

“Shouldn't we tell them about the other killings?” I asked.

“I already have,” she told me. The sun on her face made a pretty picture. “This afternoon, before I stopped by here. They didn't sound too excited. I think partly because it sounds weird and partly because they aren't going to take a teenage girl very seriously.”

“I will,” I said.

“You will what?”

“Take you seriously.” I realized what I was saying. “I mean—I'll take what you say seriously. I didn't mean get serious with you.”

She frowned and looked as if she was trying to decide what I was getting at.

“It's not that I think you're ugly,” I said quickly. I wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

“You're not. Oh boy, you're not. But you probably have lots of guys chasing you. I didn't mean I want to get serious with you. Because I don't want you to think I'd do something stupid like try to ask you out when you probably have a boyfriend. I mean—”

“Cowboy,” she said, stopping me.

“Yes?” My ears were burning.

“You're cute.”

My ears got hotter.

“Get in,” she said, motioning toward her Bronco. “I'll drive. You give me directions on how to get to the ranch.”

After we had both buckled our seatbelts, she started the engine. She put the Bronco in drive but kept her foot on the brake. She turned toward me.

“And Josh?”

“Yes?”

She smiled. “I don't have a boyfriend.”

When Stephanie and I got to the ranch, we didn't stop by the house to visit because Mom and Dad were in town getting their weekly supplies.

So we drove right to the barn. I got out of the Bronco first and walked into the barn ahead of Stephanie. It was nice to smell horses and hay again.

One of our hired men was inside, shoveling horse manure into a wheelbarrow.

“Hello, Ernest,” I said. “Just here to go for a ride with a friend.”

He looked up at me and grunted. Ernest was a middle-aged guy with a skinny face wrinkled from a lot of wind and sun. Ernest used to be in the rodeo. He walked with a limp. A horse had once kicked his knee and broken the kneecap. I didn't know Ernest's last name because he had only started working at the ranch a few weeks earlier.

Stephanie walked into the barn behind me. “Josh, I hope you get me a fast horse.”

Ernest dropped his shovel at the sight of her. I didn't blame him. Stephanie can do that to a person. Ernest grunted again as he picked up the shovel. He set it against the wall, put his head down, and pushed the wheelbarrow out of the barn.