Blind Your Ponies (6 page)

“I need something to fill those winter months. I don’t know what I’d do with myself around here without the basketball program.”

Truly leaned forward and spoke softly. “If you don’t mind my being a little personal …”

Sam nodded, glancing into Truly’s dark little eyes.

“I’ve wondered about you, Pickett, what you’re doing in this outpost, never having any female companionship, a young man like you in your prime. Hell, you could hang around here for fifty years and never find a lady for yourself. Except for our Miss Murphy, there isn’t an eligible woman for you in a hundred square miles.”

“I like the peace and quiet here, away from …” Sam paused.

Truly glanced into the hallway and then leaned across his desk. “You do
appreciate
the ladies, don’t you Pickett?”

Sam nodded and then caught himself, wishing he’d shown no response to Truly’s inquiry. A flush of anger swept the smile from his face. “I need something to do, sir. Olaf, the exchange student, doesn’t play basketball. He needs to learn. I’m familiar with the program, driving the bus and all the rest. I enjoy the boys. And like I said, it fills up my winter.”

The superintendent leaned back in his chair and swiveled to the window. He didn’t speak for a full minute. Sam held his breath. He prayed his
superior would allow him another year of anguish, coaching the hapless team. He worried Truly would say no, snatching from him some intangible absurdity nesting in his heart.

“Very well. It’ll save me from persuading Mr. Grant to stick his head in the noose.”

Truly swiveled back and regarded Sam, then twitched his pointy nose. “Are you sure about this, Pickett?”

“Yes.”

“There’s no more money than last year.”

“That doesn’t matter. Thanks, Mr. Osborn.”

“Don’t thank me. It is I who should thank you.”

Sam turned and hurried down the hall before his superior could change his mind.

“Good luck, Sam!” Truly shouted down the hall.

A
FTER A RESTLESS
weekend in which he could think of nothing else, Sam cornered Olaf after English class.

“Would you like to learn how to play basketball while you’re here?”

“Learning do you think I could be?” Olaf asked, giving Sam a glimmer of hope.

“I think I could teach you. It’s something to do around here in the winter.”

“Doing well I’m afraid I would not be. Anything poorly my father is not happy for me to be doing. I am … how would you say … clumsy.”

Sam pressed. “You could do it just for the fun of it.”

“Thank you for giving kindness,” Olaf said, “but foolish I think I would be.”

“We could try it, just you and me, after school in the gym.”

“After school in the gym, ya, seeing me no one will be?”

“No one, and we won’t tell anyone you’re giving it a try.”

“Giving it a try I would like to be while I am in America.”

“We haven’t won a game here for a while so I can’t promise you much, but you could learn about the game. If you don’t like it you can let it go and no one will know.”

“No one will know.” Olaf’s large blue eyes widened and his face brightened. He gazed down at Sam. “Then trying I will be. But feeling foolish I do not wish to be.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Around here we all feel foolish when it comes to basketball.”

After sneaking in and locking the door behind them, Sam and the new exchange student stood in the shadowy gymnasium. With some inner voice cautioning him against this dangerous investment of the heart, Sam tossed the ball to Olaf. The boy caught it stiffly.

“Are you right-handed?” Sam asked.

“Right-handed, ya.”

“Place the ball in your right hand and flip it at the basket with your fingers.”

Olaf carefully positioned the ball in his right hand and tossed it at the basket. It hit the backboard and bounced, the sound echoing in the empty arena. Olaf awkwardly retrieved it and moved closer to the basket.

“Again, with your fingers.”

Sam demonstrated, his hand fanning the air. “Flip the ball—fingers and wrist, fingers and wrist.”

After a dozen more attempts, the ball finally kissed off the backboard and swished through the net. The Norwegian boy’s face lit up.

“Good,” Sam said and clapped. “That’s the reward, that’s the joy. It says ‘perfect.’ ”

Sam’s state of expectancy soared as he gently directed the boy through numerous drills and exercises. Standing on the court with this towering Scandinavian had an overpowering effect and led to instant illusions of grandeur. “That’s great. Good, good. That’s very good. Yes, yes, super!”

When he jumped, Olaf rose so close to the basket it was startling. Sam felt himself growing more excited.

“See this area right under the basket that’s painted blue,” Sam said. “That’s what we call
the paint.
”

“The paint?”

“The paint! When we’re on offense, when we’re trying to make a basket, you can only be in that painted area for three seconds at a time.”

“Why is that?”

“So big guys like you can’t stand under the basket and score a hundred points. It gives little guys like me more of a chance. If you’re in the paint more than three seconds, you have to give the ball to the other team. That’s called a turnover.”

Olaf cocked his head, his expression one of confusion.

“Only once for three seconds I am allowed in the paint?” “No, no, you can move in and out of the paint all the time, you just can’t stop and stand in there for more than three seconds. See, like this.”

Sam slid into the painted area, stood there crouched for nearly three seconds, and then slid back out. He repeated the move several times and then had Olaf imitate him.

After nearly a half hour, Sam called a halt for fear of overdoing it.

“Good, good, that’s enough for now. Do you think you might like it?”

“Like it? Ya, I think so. But very excellent is what I want to be.”

“One last thing,” Sam said. “Here.” He tossed the ball to Olaf. “Stand right under the basket and see if you can jump up and throw the ball down through the net.”

Olaf took the ball in two hands and tried to stretch to the rim.

“No … try it first with one hand.”

The graceless boy took the ball in one hand and dropped it as he attempted to jump. Sam lobbed it back to him and nodded. On the fourth try Olaf went up on his toes, and with a slight jump, flung the ball down through the net. He turned to Sam with a puzzled smile.

“That is allowed?”

“Oh, yeah, that is very much allowed. It’s called dunking the ball.”

“Dunking?”

“Dunking … you just dunked the basketball. Was it fun?”

“Fun? Ya, fun. Are you given more points for the dunking?”

“No, but it scares the other team.”

Sam locked the gym door as they exited.

“One more thing. We don’t want anyone to know about this until you make up your mind whether or not to join the team. Otherwise you might feel foolish if you want to quit.”

“Not feel foolish, oh, ya, good.”

“You can tell the Painters I’m helping you after school, and that I’ll give you a ride home.”

“Ya, a ride home. But about the ball playing, I won’t be speaking.”

“Good.”

A
FEW WEEKS LATER
, Sam stepped outside after school for a minute of fresh air before he was to meet Olaf in the gym. The blustery fall afternoon lifted his spirits as he looked about. A bunch of kids were shooting a basketball on the outdoor court while waiting for the bus, Curtis Jenkins among them. Sam decided it was as good a time as any to talk to the shy sophomore.

He knew that the boy’s whole life was laid out in front of him with virtually no room for choice. Tall, plain looking, moderately intelligent, Curtis seemed resigned to his life, one in which he’d undoubtedly follow in his father’s footsteps: working the land, growing hay and tending cattle, with nothing to look forward to after high school but the repetitive routines of the ranch. The oldest of four children, he would be expected to step in beside his father. If he married, he and his bride would pull a double-wide onto the home site and set up housekeeping a hundred feet from his parents. Accepting, reticent, congenial, he would follow the life he found himself born to, maybe never winning at anything, slowly mired in the sadness, never finding the joy.

Sam ambled toward the court where Curtis had little trouble snatching rebounds from the shorter kids, three of whom were his younger sisters. He remembered the humiliating evening Curtis went through the year before when he had been thrown into a game at Twin Bridges and managed to turn the ball over the first three times he touched it. Sam noticed that the boy had grown taller over the summer and he hoped his coordination had kept pace.

“Curtis!” Sam called.

The boy glanced over at Sam and then took a shot. The ball hit the rim and came off into the frenzy of little rebounders. Curtis stepped toward Sam.

“Mr. Pickett, did you know a cockroach can live nine days without its head before it starves to death?”

The boy had the habit of starting conversations with bizarre facts, and Sam didn’t want to get sidetracked. “No, I didn’t know that, Curtis. Have you been practicing over the summer?”

“No … not really. My dad keeps me pretty busy.”

Sam felt a nervous flutter in his chest. In the past he simply announced when the first practice would be and then waited to see who showed up. This year he had hopes for a real team.

“Are you going to play this year?”

Curtis squinted at him for an instant and then watched the boys and girls scrambling after the basketball. Sam held his breath. Was the boy remembering the embarrassment last year?

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Good,” Sam said, exhaling. “You’ll be a starter this year.”

The taciturn sophomore seemed to brighten for a moment and then a darkness clouded his face. “I don’t think Tom is going to play,” he said.

“It’s going to be better this year, I promise you,” Sam said. “Have you seen Peter Strong shoot? He’ll be a big help.”

“He says he’s not going to be here.”

The ball skidded over to Curtis and he picked it up and bounce-passed it to one of his sisters as the bus pulled up in front of the school.

“We won’t even have five unless we get Scott to play,” he said as he turned for the bus.

“We’ll have enough, don’t worry. We’ll have enough!” Sam yelled, but Curtis had deposited a tumor in his coach’s belly. Sam had heard the rumor and he knew he couldn’t put off talking to Tom Stonebreaker much longer. But right then he had to give his full attention to smuggling Olaf into the gym past the vigilance of Carter Walker and Louella Straight, who followed the exchange student’s every move.

Carter Walker had set her cap for Olaf the first day she laid eyes on him, but almost at the same moment, so had Louella Straight. Carter felt she had the better qualifications, being a sandy-haired, buxom girl who stood 5'10" in her stocking feet. But Louella, standing barely 5'1" on tiptoe, declared unequivocally that disparity in height made no difference in matters of love.

Carter and Louella were the female half of the senior class. Friends since second grade, each secretly believed they were being rewarded by destiny for
suffering so long without a boyfriend when the enormous, fair-haired Olaf Gustafson arrived there. Their infatuation with the boy was immediate.

S
HORTLY AFTER
O
LAF’S
arrival, the two of them sifted through all conversation and information about him in search of any hint of a girlfriend back home. After exhaustive efforts, Carter found a way to confirm the fact that he had no sweetheart pining for him along the fjords: she asked him. When he said no, she knew it was fate.

The first time Carter thought she had him all to herself, having invited him to a movie in Bozeman, he naively asked Louella along. Then the first time Louella sat him alone for a hike along Willow Creek—the town’s namesake—Carter happened along in time to share their excursion as well as their lunch.

Since then, it had become a holy triad. Together, like happy triplets, they provided an active—if sometimes bizarre—social life for the boy, who had a busy schedule already, what with school work and clandestine basketball sessions. Fortunately, the Painters welcomed the girls, recognizing they were in a common effort to help Olaf beat back his homesickness and make him feel loved.

T
HE COTTONWOOD LEAVES
had turned orange and were already falling when Sam finally gathered the gumption to mention basketball to Tom Stonebreaker during lunch one Friday. Sam had put off approaching the veteran player as long as possible, sensing how troubled the boy was and fearing a negative response—a blow that would dismantle Sam’s pipe dream of coaching a competitive team.

Though most of the Willow Creek kids dressed in typical American teenage fashion, Tom found his identity with Western attire, and at times could pass for a drugstore cowboy, the only difference being he lived on a ranch. Tom Stonebreaker gave the impression he had been conceived in cowboy clothes. Sam had never seen him without his thick leather belt—with large oval silver buckle—upholding his jeans, his first name tooled on its back and a wire cutter and bale knife attached.

In his J. Chisholm–handcrafted diamondback boots—wearing them only when the weather was dry—Tom always seemed more confident, appeared
to walk taller. He earned the four hundred and fifty dollars he paid for the boots breaking horses and he bought them a size too big so he wouldn’t outgrow them. He wore them like courage and always padlocked them securely in a locker when he played ball. Every student in the school, down into the grades, knew you didn’t mess around with Tom Stonebreaker’s diamond-back boots.

Tom often came to town on horseback, having ridden from the west of town where he lived with his mother and father, a man known for his drunken fits of rage. The boy had come to school occasionally over the years with bruises on his face and dubious stories of how he’d gotten them. For someone so young, Sam sensed a presence about him, an intangible blend of rebellion, uncertainty, and bluff. Sam figured that though all the young girls hoped to marry Rob Johnson one day, all the younger boys wanted to grow up to be like Tom Stonebreaker. Sometimes Sam thought he, too, would like to grow up to be like Tom Stonebreaker.