Читать книгу Acres of Unrest - Max Brand - Страница 9

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Sometimes it requires only a small thing to make us revise our mental estimates of men and events. It seemed to the rancher, now, that there might be cause in this mere bit of target work to alter his first judgment. But he decided that he would make himself more cheerful. He would talk to his boy of all that he could. Since there were blank and dreadful days, he thought that nothing could be better than to talk of the great moments that Peter had enjoyed on the gridiron.

"Of all the days that you ever had on the football field," Ross Hale said, "what was the biggest and the best for you, Peter?"

"Every day at football was a pretty good day for me," said Peter. "I was big. I was fast. I loved the game. And I had the instinct for it."

Ross Hale glanced askance. He felt a prickling sensation and he was glad that there had been no other person at hand to hear this remark. It would have passed for a reasonably immodest utterance in the village of Sumnertown or on the ranges around that village. But Peter did not seem to he boasting. He was stating a fact.

"However," said Peter, "there was one day which was bigger and better than all of the rest put together. That was the day that Huntley School played its alumni in a practice game... just before the big game of that fall. My last year in the school, you understand."

"Go on," said Mr. Hale, sharpening his taste for the tale of the deeds of glory.

"You see," said Peter, "I had developed fast. I was eighteen. And I was my full height, nearly my full weight, very tough and hard, muscles very nearly as tough as they ever became. I'd been in athletics all my life, as you might say. And so I was never more fit than I was for that game. I was the star of that Huntley School team. That's not saying a great deal, because it wasn't a very good team. But I was their star. I was their one scoring threat. And I was able to take care of everything that went toward my end or tried to cut around me or inside of me. The teams we had played used to take good care not to bother me. It was the far half of the line that they used to tackle, and so I got into the habit of scooting back behind the line as soon as the other fellows snapped their ball.

"Then came this practice game. The alumni had a queer team in the field. Some old veterans, with their heads beginning to grow shiny, and pretty slow on their feet. And some big fellows just out of college, strong and fast and hard as nails. But the whole lot of them worked like tigers, and they knew their game. The end who played opposite to me was named Christian. Did you ever hear of him?"

"No," said Ross Hale. "But go on."

Peter was lost in a dream for a second, and he descended from it to say: "Christian was an All-American end the year before that, and he was as big as I, with five years added age to harden him. All that extra experience and college coaching were behind him. Our coach said to me, before the game, that he knew the alumni would be too much for our team. But that he wanted to see what I could do individually against Christian. That would be the test in the eyes of the alumni... how many plays they could shoot around my end."

"Go on!" gasped Ross Hale. "I hope that you slaughtered him. I hope that you made a fool of him. I hope that you laid him out in the first quarter, boy!"

Peter looked with a mild eye of forgiveness upon his father's passion. "Well, when the game started," he said, "I was keyed up to do my best and I did it. But you remember how I was helpless in the water floating toward the waterfall? It was nearly the same against Christian. He knew everything. And, heavens, but he was hard. They began to send the plays at my end. And when I tried to break through, Christian seemed to be six men, not one. I couldn't manage him, and they began to slash around my end for terribly big gains. I was ashamed. I fought like a wild man, but nothing was any good. In the first three quarters they made three touchdowns; and they made them all around my end. The coach was simply white when he looked at me between halves, and at the end of the third quarter he sent a substitute in, and the substitute... a halfback, I think he was... said to me... ‘The coach wants to know if you're quitting, big boy?'

"Of course, that made me wild. We had a tied score for the beginning of the fourth quarter. Very lucky tie. We had picked up one of their fumbles, we had blocked a kick and recovered it, and we had intercepted a forward pass. Everyone of those breaks had meant a touchdown for us. And that was why we were in a tie. So we went into the fourth period, feeling that we would do or die, but that we had to keep that alumni team from squeezing over another score. A tie was all the glory that we wanted.

"I noticed that the whole alumni crew was pretty thoroughly done up. Even Christian was pretty thoroughly tired out. He was everything that a good football player ought to be, but he was not in the best of condition, and I was. He had exhausted himself pounding at me and he had made a pretty thorough fool out of me. However, I told the quarterback to try my end, the first time that we got the ball. That was five minutes before the game was to finish. He took the chance. I went in to box the great Christian, and, for the first time in the game, I succeeded. By this time I was stronger than he was. Besides, he had shown me his whole bag of tricks, he'd been so bent on making a monkey of me.

"We got three yards on that play. And, of course, everybody took particular notice that we had made that yardage through the great Christian. There was a good deal of yelling from the crowd, and, when we hammered at Christian again, we got a little more. We made a first down over Christian or around him, and by that time he was groaning with helplessness. But he was too far spent to stop us. I had an idea that if the backs would charge straight at Christian, instead of trying to cut around him, we could run him into the mud and gain twice as fast. I told the quarterback what I thought and he told me to come back. We put a substitute in at end in my place, and I went back to carry the ball, which was a shift that they often used with me.

"I called the signals, and my plan was to feint at the other side of the line, but continually to take the ball myself and whang away at Christian. It worked wonderfully well, too. Not big yardage, because I was simply line plunging. I went through the great Christian again and again, until he was reeling and staggering. We hammered him back toward the far end of the field. It was very pleasant for me. I was getting a fine revenge for the way Christian had handled me in the first part of the game. He began to look like a high-school substitute.

"Well, we got down on the three-yard line, and I began to call the signals for the last play. I knew that I could take that ball and smash right through big Christian for the touchdown. And while I began to call the signals, I looked across at the stands and saw all the people on their feet. I looked to our side lines, and there was my coach, who had asked me if I was a quitter. He was doing a war dance, now the happiest man in the world. Of course, a good deal of the credit for the manner in which Christian was being used up would go to him and his coaching. Then I looked back at Christian and nodded to him, to let him know this was for him, also. He was white and shaking and resting one knee in the mud. But though he knew that this was the finish, he didn't flinch. He was ready to fight to the last gasp. I remembered, then, that in his four years at college no one had ever made a touchdown through him. But after that, I thought of something else. I saw the ball snapped back to me by the center. I caught it and started for Christian... and then let it dribble away out of my hands... " Peter made a dreamy pause.

His father groaned. "What made you do that?"

"Christian came around to me after the game and asked me the same thing. They had recovered the ball, of course. And that game ended in a tie. Well, I told Christian that, when I stood there with the ball tucked under my arm and the touchdown in front of me, I suddenly remembered that this was only a game, after all, and not an infernal gladiatorial combat."

"I don't understand what you're driving at!" cried Ross Hale. "There was a chance for you to make yourself famous, and you threw it away."

"Christian didn't understand, either," Peter admitted. "I believe he thought that I was nervous when I had the chance to do the big thing. When I said that I had remembered it was only a game, he looked a bit stunned and a bit disgusted. And then he walked away. However, that was my biggest day, though the team thought that it was my very worst one. People said that I was off form. Well, let it go at that."

"Your biggest day? Your biggest day?" cried Ross Hale. "And what about the time when you scored three touchdowns in... ?"

But Peter had forgot to listen, for he was looking back too far into the old days, and it seemed to his father that, for just an instant, a hint of despair showed in the eyes of his son. He was not sure of it. The darkness was gone in an instant. Then they were interrupted by the arrival of Andy Hale.

He came in briskly, with a sort of determined good humor and high cheer, as though he feared lest the condition in which he found Peter might throw a damper on him in spite of himself. He came to welcome Peter home, to invite them both to dinner whenever they would come. He came above all to excuse the absence of Charlie from this family call.

"But Charlie is sort of celebrating this day himself," said Andy. "Because Ruth McNair has promised to marry him."