Knights of the Hill Country

by Tim Tharp

  Old Blaine, though—he looked about like he done swallowed a box of nails. It sure wasn't the kind of look you expect from a guy who thinks he has his girl in his hip pocket.

  “If I was gonna have a list,” Rachel said, “first thing I'd put on there is that I want to live in a place where you can go to a good department store any time you want instead of just Wal-Mart. And I want a house with exactly twelve rooms. Maybe one of those ones with the big white columns out front.”

  “Plantation-style,” Don said. You could smell his cologne, stronger than gasoline, all the way out where we was standing. “Columns like that date back to ancient Greek architecture.”

  Blaine looked at me and rolled his eyes.

  “Or I might want me a colonial type,” Rachel said. “White with green shutters.”

  “Like in Vermont.”

  “Only I'd have mine down in Dallas, and I'd have a circle driveway with a fountain in the middle of it and a swimming pool shaped like a star in the backyard.”

  “Dallas would be fantastic,” Don said. “That's where I'm gonna start up my real estate business. I've got me a book on how you can retire at thirty years old off nothing but real estate investments alone.”

  Right about there was when I noticed Blaine's ears had done went red and he was twisting at the tail of his sweatshirt so hard you would've thought he was practicing up on how to wring old Don's neck. Now, what they was saying might seem pretty tame, but you got to understand Blaine. No doubt he was figuring it ought to be him talking to Rachel about living in Dallas, not Don Manly. Blaine'd dreamed of moving there ever since we was kids. He aimed on playing pro ball for the Cowboys just like T. Roy Strong and living in one of them big mirror-window high-rises and driving a red Lamborghini all over town. Now we just had us a handful of games left to prove we was worth moving on to college ball, much less the pros. Time was running out. You could practically feel it, like blood running out of a nasty wound.

  “Hey, it's getting late,” Don said. “I better go lock up.”

  Right quick, Blaine leaned away from the wall and pretended like he was just now getting to the door. Rachel almost crashed into him as she walked out ahead of Don.

  “Whoa there,” Blaine said, grabbing her arm like he was surprised to run into her. “Watch where you're going.” Then he looked over her head. “Hey, Donnyboy, how's business?”

  Don squeezed by. “Fantastic. How you doing, Billy?”

  “It's Blaine.”

  Don didn't pay the least attention to that and just kept on walking, that high-octane cologne smell trailing right along after him.

  “What a dick,” Blaine muttered under his breath.

  “So, what are you doing here?” Rachel said. Her voice had got its old edge back.

  “I just stopped by to see my girlfriend.” Blaine stood there with his hands planted on his hips gunfighter-style. “But what I want to know is why my girlfriend was in there flirting with Don Manly.”

  “Flirting?” She put her hands on her hips too. You'd have thought it was the OK Corral all the sudden.

  “You know what I mean,” he said. “Talking all about how the two of you are gonna live in Dallas together.”

  Her mouth froze into a little O for a moment before she shot back at him. “We weren't talking about living down there together. And what were you doing anyways, standing out here spying on us?”

  That one hit Blaine right on target. He leaned back against the wall. “Yeah, right. That's my new hobby. No, for your information, little girl, I didn't have to do no spying. You was talking loud enough Una could probably hear you out in the showroom, and you know how deaf she is.”

  “Una ain't deaf—she's just old.”

  “Well, don't get snippy. What's the deal? You mad 'cause you didn't get a chance to tell Don how you was gonna fix up your fancy bedroom in your big twelve-room mansion? Or you planning on showing it to him in person someday?”

  “What's that supposed to mean?” She leaned in close enough it wouldn't have been hard for her to take a swing from there. You couldn't blame her if she did, with him saying something like that.

  “What do you think it's supposed to mean?” he said. “Sounded to me like you and Donnyboy was getting pretty personal in there.”

  She stepped back and looked Blaine up and down. “So, this is what Blaine Keller looks like jealous, huh?”

  “Jealous?” He crossed his arms and looked away. “That'll be the day, when I'm jealous of a pansy like Don Manly.”

  But she was right. I didn't know what the world was coming to anymore. Cocky old Blaine was worried—down-tothe-soles-of-his-boots worried—about his girl throwing him over for Don Manly. Don damn Manly with his flashy neckties and gelled-up hair and that phony zirconium ring on his pinky. Blaine was jealous, his brother was kicked out of the family, and his cantaloupe-size knee was dragging down his senior football season. None of that seemed any more like the Blaine I knew than if you told me he tried out for drum majorette or glee club or bought hisself one of them little electric cars.

  “You are,” Rachel said. “You're jealous.”

  “You're crazy.”

  “Yes, you are. Blainey's jealous.” Her voice was different now. Playful in a hard, roughhousing kind of way. “Check him out, Hampton,” she said. “He's just about turned green as a lizard, don't you think?”

  “I don't know,” I said.

  “Just a big old green jealous lizard,” she said, and dug her knuckles into his ribs.

  He squirmed away, but she dug into him again, tickling him and teasing him, till that hard line he tried to keep his mouth froze in melted into a little smile. I was glad to see it. I liked Rachel. She was good for Blaine—always told him right off what she thought—and I didn't no more want them to break up than I wanted to lose Blaine as a friend myself.

  “You're asking for it,” he said, but he was just right on the edge of laughing now, and the wrong stretch was over. “You better stop or I'm gonna let you have it.”

  She dug into him again, and he looped one arm around her neck and pressed her head to his chest. “You gonna stop?” he said.

  She stomped down right in the middle of his boot then, and he wrenched away. “Holy shit!”

  “That'll teach you,” she told him, laughing.

  But his face screwed up with pain, and he leaned back into the wall and cocked his leg up like she really hurt him.

  “What's the matter?” she said. “I didn't stomp on your big old foot that hard.”

  “I know. It's okay.” He straightened his leg out, wincing again. “Just twisted my knee a little when I pulled away.”

  “God, I'm sorry.” She touched her hand to his stomach, gentle this time. “Is your knee that bad off?”

  “No. It's all right. Just tender from practice today is all.”

  “You want me to make it up to you?” she said.

  “What do you got in mind?”

  She gave him a playful little slap on the arm. “Probably not what you got in mind.”

  “Now wait a minute,” he said. “You got me all wrong.”

  “Oh, sure. I'd recognize that look in your eye any day.”

  “No, really. I don't want a thing for myself.” He looked at me and winked. I completely forgot till now that we come over to talk about the deal with Misty Koonce.

  “I was just thinking,” he went on. “You know how Misty just got done dumping that guy with the hot truck over in Lowery? Well, she's single now, and old Hamp here's single, so I was just kind of thinking…”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I'll do it. I'll give Misty a call tonight.”

  So that was that. I never even had a chance to say word one about it.

  Blaine looked over Rachel's head and smiled his cocky smile. “See, Hamp,” he said. “Told ya I got this girl in my hip pocket.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  By the time Friday come around, we was plenty prepared for the l
ittle old Pawtuska Pirates. It was our last away game of the regular season and almost an hour's drive from home, but our loyal Kennisaw fans still come over in such a herd they overflowed the flimsy visitor bleachers and crowded onto the Pirate side. Blaine's folks set front and center like usual and Rachel set next to them and then there was Misty right by her. You might've thought Rachel and Misty would be cheerleaders, flipping end over end down the sideline, but neither one of them was really the flipping type.

  One thing I learned is the most popular good-looking girls don't always care a thing about being the head cheerleader. As long as their folks got plenty of money. Sure, they run in the same circle with the cheerleaders, but it's almost like the cheerleaders are their employees somehow. Like they hired them on to work up a good amount of attention for their group so they don't have to break a sweat their own selves.

  It was good to see Rachel's face painted up black and gold, though. That wasn't exactly typical for her, but she must've figured Blaine needed a little extra support these days. Misty, well, I checked her out now and then from the sidelines, but every time, she was craning her head one way or the other, gawking up in the stands instead of looking down on the field. Rachel said she gave it the okay for the double date on Saturday, but she sure didn't seem too interested in what I was doing tonight.

  From the first quarter, the game wasn't no contest. Pawtuska couldn't make no more headway against our defense than you could trying to hammer a rubber nail into a concrete wall. I got in a fair amount of tackles, but our line played great too. Still, early on, the Kennisaw fans got to chanting my name just like in the last game, even when I didn't do nothing but help out on a tackle that somebody else got started. I wouldn't have blamed the boys on the line if they got put out about it, but they never said a thing. Old Blaine sure did, though.

  “What are you doing?” he yelled at me as I run off the field with the chants raining down on me.

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  He latched up his chin strap, getting ready to go in on offense. “You got the whole crowd hollering your name when you wasn't even the one got the tackle!”

  “I didn't tell 'em to,” I said, pulling my helmet off.

  “Well, it ain't right.”

  I wanted to ask him what he expected me to do about it, but he was already running onto the field. Didn't matter anyways. We was getting so far ahead, Coach was bound to pull me out of the lineup pretty soon and let the second string play. Besides, I knew Blaine was just frustrated. Wasn't nothing that a good game wouldn't cure. That's what I was rooting for more than about anything else—just for Blaine to put up some big numbers, remind our fans what kind of football player he really was.

  By the end of the first half, he done got a real fine start in that direction too. We scored thirty-two points, and Blaine hung three of them touchdowns up on the scoreboard his-self. On the third one, the crowd about went crazy, and someone got the chant going, “Undefeated, undefeated, un-defeated!” Blaine run off the field, shoving his hands up in the air, telling them to turn up the noise as loud as they could go. It was good to see. So far, his touchdown runs hadn't been nothing more than three- or four-yard blasts up the middle, but that didn't matter. Blaine was just a natural star, and he deserved every cheer he got.

  Through most of the third quarter, it was the same story. He pounded out short gainers and kept us in first downs, but you had to know he wanted more. Something spectacular. A run folks would still be talking about come Monday. Or better than that, the kind of big play they'd still be telling tales about thirty years down the line, the way they did on T. Roy Strong. But that wasn't going to be easy with his knee the way it was. Every time he tried a quick cut or a stutter step or anything like that, I could just feel the pain of it shooting through my own gut.

  By the end of the quarter, most of our bench was out on the field, but Coach kept Blaine in the game. He knew every bit as much as I did what old Blaine had at stake. Then it finally happened. Second down and five, Chili Killiebrew drove his man clean back on his butt, and Blaine charged through the opening quicker than I'd seen him do all year. He made a good cut and lost the middle linebacker, then bounced off the outside linebacker and turned upfield. Ten yards, fifteen, twenty. Nothing but open field ahead. The crowd was going wild. Racing down the sideline, Blaine looked free, the way a good horse looks when it's running just to run.

  Then I seen him, number twenty-two, the right corner-back, galloping after Blaine at a hard angle, knees pumping, hands slicing the air. That boy was fast, and you could tell he didn't have no sore knee to deal with neither.

  “Turn it on, Blaine!” I yelled. “Turn the jets on, son! Let's go!”

  But there wasn't no jets to turn on this season. He couldn't even find the switch, and before you knew it, that corner-back caught him and dragged him down like so much rodeo livestock. It was a good forty-yarder, and the crowd howled and howled like it wasn't never going to stop, but I knew the same thing Blaine did. He ought to still be running. He ought to be high-stepping right across the goal line, that cornerback trailing way behind with nothing to catch but his breath.

  Five plays later, Blaine bucked his way in for another touchdown. A one-yarder. The score was 48 to 0. I know them poor old Pawtuska boys must've been feeling like road-kill right about then. By the time the fourth quarter rolled around, we had our whole bench cleared off. Even little Grub Sweeney got to go in. When the final gun fired, we ended up winning 57 to 0, one of the most lopsided victories in Kennisaw football history, including the T. Roy days.

  After the game, we had all sorts of fans flooding down to slap our backs and tell us we was number one and heading for the history books. Course, Blaine's parents come down and Rachel too. I didn't see Misty nowhere, but Rachel run up with her face painted gold and black like it was and just about knocked Blaine over jumping up on him. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him a big one right on the mouth. “You were great,” she said when he let her back down. “You were fantastic!”

  “You're damn right,” he said. “I'm back. One hundred and forty-four percent!”

  “Yeah, you are,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You're the old Blaine again!”

  But I guess we both knew that wasn't true.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Saturday night, I put on my best new Wranglers and my black-and-white “Mo” Betta western shirt. Blaine come by about 7:30, and we loaded up in Citronella, along with Rachel, and drove over to pick up Misty Koonce for the big double date. Misty lived up on Ninth Street Hill, just like Rachel, and her house was about as big as Rachel's too. Her dad worked for the natural-gas company, but I ain't sure exactly what he done. Must've been pretty high up, though.

  Misty's mom showed up at the front door and made me come inside and say hello to Mr. Koonce. He was older than most of the other dads, probably in his late fifties or so, and had him kind of a phony smile. It could've been 'cause he had false teeth, but I wasn't sure about that. He asked me a couple football questions, but he done it in a way that made me feel like I worked for him and was having to report on what kind of progress I'd been making on some assignment he gave me. Lucky thing Misty come waltzing down the stairs around then 'cause I was feeling like I was about two questions short of getting fired off the job.

  She cut right in on what her dad was saying, rattling on in that trademark mile-a-minute way of hers. Without so much as a howdy-do, she grabbed my arm and we was out the door before her dad could finish telling me what time I better have her back by. There wasn't any two ways about it. That girl looked good, all blond-haired and pink-sweatered and perfumed up to high heaven. Rockies jeans and red cowgirl boots. The color of her skin close up was enough to throw my hormones into an uproar all by itself.

  It wasn't love. I knew that. But there wasn't no getting around the power of whatever it was that hit me right then neither. I just wondered what a girl like her was doing going out with me.

 
; Like everybody else around, I knew Misty was prejudiced when it come to boys. By the time she traded junior high in for high school, she'd done run through a good-size range of Kennisaw boyfriends, so I guess she decided to go off shopping somewheres else for a fresher selection. As far as I knew, she hadn't dated a Kennisaw boy since she turned old enough to drive. Last target she set her sights on was a kid named Jared Tull from over in Lowery, the same town old Jim Houck the hotshot playboy come from. She hit Jared right between the eyes too.

  He wasn't famous for playing football but for owning the fastest pickup truck in two counties. He also had him a reputation, leastways with some of the high school girls, for wearing the tightest black Wrangler jeans that any human being from the planet Earth could fit into without cutting off the blood supply to his legs. You wouldn't hear a girl talking about this character without saying something like, “Oh my God, he has the cutest butt I ever seen!” It was a saying you could get tired of real quick.

  I guess about the only thing tighter than them jeans was his relationship with Misty these last three months. That's what everybody thought, anyways. But then somewheres out on a blacktop road west of Lowery, the fastest pickup truck in two counties blew its engine trying to outrun Fred Buck in his little old jacked-up Mustang. He blew up his engine and Misty blew him up. That's what Blaine said. Not that she didn't have her own army tank–size SUV to run over to Lowery in, but I guess somehow them black Wranglers didn't look half as cute on a pedestrian. Besides, there was plenty of other towns out in the hill country, and Misty hadn't come close to trying them all. Yet.

  And that's what I didn't get. If she was fixing to give Kennisaw boys another shot, what was she doing starting with the likes of me? After the Pawtuska game, I told Blaine it was kind of funny she didn't come down on the field with Rachel. Seemed like a sign she wasn't all that interested. Blaine just said, “Hey now, son. Where's your confidence? She's the lucky one to get to go out with you.”