The Last Harvest(76)
People are flitting around like it’s Christmas morning; there’s an undeniable electricity in the air, but the longer I look at the scene, the clearer it gets.
All of the students seem to dance around the Preservation Society kids, what’s left of them, circling, hovering, but never making direct contact, like they’ve been choreographed on an endless loop, and I can’t help thinking of the flies.
The flies.
“Hey!” Dale opens my door, nearly giving me a heart attack.
“Jesus, Dale.” I sigh as I get out of the truck.
“Why haven’t you called me back and what the hell happened to your hair?”
“Not today, Dale,” I mutter as I grab my bag.
He sits on my hood. He knows how much I hate that.
“What? You’re too good for me now that you’re back on the team? With Ali?” He’s flicking a lighter over and over again and all I can think about is my nightmare last night—that girl being burned alive.
I knock the lighter out of his hand and grab his shirt, pulling him off my truck. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
He blinks hard. “What’s gotten into you, cuz?”
“Just back off.” I let go of him and walk toward Tyler’s car. I feel bad, but I don’t want him anywhere near me right now. There’s too much death and uncertainty.
Ali slips her arms around me, running her hand over the back of my head, over the quarter-inch stubble. “There you are,” she says, and just like that I could melt into her, forget last night ever happened. But I can’t do that anymore, because tomorrow, Miss Granger will be back with the priests and all of this will end. One way or the other.
“Save it for after the game,” Tyler says without looking at us as he heads into school. “Give him some incentive to win.”
“We’re all going out to Harmon Lake tonight,” Tammy says with all the excitement of a sloth. “Bonfire.”
Ali smiles up at me, fresh as a newly tilled field. I trail my fingers down the red and black ribbons dangling from her braids and I have to believe all of this is going to work out.
If the Devil is real, then so is God.
And I have to believe he’s watching out for us.
51
THE STADIUM is packed. I don’t have to see it. I can feel it. The thunderous roar of boots stomping the bleachers in time with the marching band. The hum of the Jumbotron leaking through the thick concrete walls.
Some of the guys are praying. Some are taking it out on their lockers. I like to sit real quiet, study the playbook—clear my mind of any distractions. Before, it was simple worries like passing my trig exam or wondering if Ali liked me, not worrying if the Devil is coming to town for world domination. But worrying’s not going to help anybody. Miss Granger is doing her part. I have to do mine. She told me to win this game and that’s exactly what I intend to do. And the truth is, I want to win. I want to feel something other than pain and confusion and loss and madness. This is something I know how to do. I can run a play. I can throw a ball. I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow, if there’ll even be a tomorrow, but this moment is mine and mine alone.
Eddie Landers comes by, giving me a thumbs-up. I know there was a lot of talk after my dad died, people saying I’d lost my arm. Lost my nerve. Sure, I’ve got something to prove, but it’s more than that. Football was always the one place I could let it all go. All I had to do was put that ball over the goal line. How I got it there was up to me. My call. My domain. My team. Some people might say quarterbacks have a God complex, but I don’t want to be God. I just want to feel connected to something bigger than myself. For one night, I don’t want to think about my dad or my family or Lee or Ali or the wheat or the Devil. All I want to do is play ball.
“You ready, Tate?” Coach’s hand comes down hard on my shoulder. “It’s showtime.”
He gathers us around to bend a knee.
“We’ve had a hell of a week—hell of a week!” he yells. “Lost one of our own. Tonight, you don’t play for your mama or your daddy or your girlfriends. You play for Big Ben. Ben Gillman. He loved this team more than anything in the world. He loved football. His funeral’s on Sunday at Newcomers. I expect all of you to be there and I expect to be burying him with the winning ball from tonight’s game. The winning ball! And we’ve got this. We got our captain back—the Tate-en-Nator. You listen to every goddamn word that comes out of his mouth out there. He knows how to bring home the W. And you know what happens if we win this?”
“Women!” one of the guys calls out. A low chuckle rumbles through the locker room.
“Well, yeah, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of that. Despite our checkered season”—everyone stares at Tyler—“you’ll have a chance at redemption. You’ll be heroes. Tonight’s not just any game. We’re playing our rivals, the Sooners. Whether they win or lose, they’re going to State, but we have the opportunity to show ’em what we’re made of. This is the real championship right here. There won’t be a trophy, there won’t be any rings…” I feel eyes on me from every direction. I know they all blame me for taking it away from them last year, when I lost it out on that field and nearly killed that kid. “But you’ll be able to hold your head high in this town for the rest of your lives. The Sooners want to take that away from you. But this is our turf. We need to show them how real men take land … by force, like our ancestors did before us.”