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  Slowly they made their way off the field. When they got to the sideline, Jake and Barrett took over for Nate and Dana, who had to get back into the game. The three of them began the long, slow, careful walk to the locker room as the fans at Cullen Field, even the fans who’d come over from Shelby, stood and applauded.

  Casey Lindell was behind the bench, quickly taking some warm-up throws, before Jake and Barrett and Tim Mathers were halfway to the tunnel.

  Jake had asked Tim if he wanted to take off his helmet, but Tim said he’d keep his hat on till he was inside; it was the last time he was going to wear it at Granger High.

  Tim said, “Shortest season on record.”

  “You’ll be back.”

  “No,” Tim said, “I won’t.” And Jake knew the hurt he was hearing, from the kid who’d played behind Wyatt Cullen and waited his turn, waited for this day, was about more than whatever he was feeling in his left knee.

  Then Tim said to Jake, “You better hustle back once you get me inside.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause you just moved up in the line, that’s why.”

  Jake knew what he meant. They both knew Jake was the backup quarterback now. But all Jake said was, “C’mon, man, I’m not thinking about me.”

  They were out of the sun and into the tunnel, the noise of the crowd in the distance now, like somebody had turned the sound on the day way down. Dr. Mallozzi was up ahead, waiting for them outside the locker room door, Doc having already told Tim they were going straight to the hospital so he could have machines take a look at the knee.

  What had just happened back on field was just sports. It had happened fast, all right, because sports did that, too, everything changing with one bad cut. Sometimes that’s all it took.

  Just sports. Coach McCoy had told them to go out and start making memories for themselves this afternoon. Just not a memory like this. But Tim’s season had ended and the Cowboys’ season had changed, all in less than ten minutes after it had begun.

  Jake Cullen, like it or not, ready or not, wanting to talk about it or not, had just moved up in line.

  It was already 7–0, Shelby, by the time Jake and Barrett were back on the Cowboys’ sideline, Shelby lining up to kick the ball off, the Granger offense ready to go back on the field.

  “I was only gone five minutes,” Jake said to Nate. “What the heck happened?”

  “Pick six is what happened,” Nate said. “First pass was to Calvin, and the new guy never looked at anybody ’cept Calvin, and that there was all she wrote.”

  Casey was standing next to Coach McCoy, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, like he couldn’t wait to get back out there.

  “It’s early,” Jake said. “We still got this.”

  “You sure about that?” Nate said. “Our backup quarterback seems to have lost some of his swag now that it’s a real game on this field. Now that he’s doing more than woofin’ about who should be the starter.”

  Casey started to move the ball on the next series, hit Justice Blackmon with a nice throw over the middle for fifteen yards. But then on first down from just past midfield, Casey looking to his right at Calvin, Shelby blitzed an outside linebacker from his blind side. Jake wanted to yell out, warn him somehow, knowing Casey never saw the guy coming, but there was nothing to do except watch him get buried and cough up the ball, which the linebacker who’d just hit him recovered.

  Three plays later, the Mustangs’ halfback took a pitch, got to the outside so fast it was like he’d been shot over there, and ran all the way down the sideline for a score. The kick made it 14–0, Shelby. With six minutes left in the first quarter.

  First game of the season.

  As the Cowboys lined up to receive the kickoff, Jake saw Casey seated now, end of the bench, head down.

  Jake went over to him.

  “Plenty of game left,” he said, crouching down next to Casey. “I don’t think you’ve even taken six snaps yet.”

  Casey turned his head, looked at Jake. “I’m good,” he said, as if he suddenly needed to convince Jake of that. “You’ve seen me. You know I’m good. Only now the whole town, first time it gets to see me play, thinks I’m a choke artist.”

  “Nah,” Jake said. He stood up and pulled Casey up. “It’s like my grandpa says: They’re all just sittin’ there waitin’ for the good parts.”

  “I don’t need much time,” Casey said. “But I need more than this.”

  “Hang in there,” Jake said, trying to be a good teammate. “They’ll give you more time, and you’ll get to show off that gun you got.”

  But the problem with Casey, Jake was discovering, was that gun. Jake didn’t know what it was like to be able to bring that kind of heat, believe you could throw the ball into any kind of coverage and get away with it. Casey managed to complete a couple on the next series, including one throw to Calvin into double-coverage, that reminded Jake of Casey’s hero, Brett Favre.

  But then, the very next play, Casey tried to force another one, and this time Calvin had to turn himself into a defensive back when the safety stepped in front of him. Calvin knocked the ball from the safety’s hands or it would have been another pick six and 21–0 against Granger before the first quarter of the first game was over.

  That’s what the score was at halftime, though, the Cowboys down three scores because, in the last minute of the half, Shelby’s version of Calvin—a kid almost as big and almost as fast as Calvin, named Michael Gilmore—beat Ollie Gray on a deep sideline route and ran away for what turned out to be an eighty-yard catch-and-run touchdown play.

  As the Cowboys ran off the field after Casey’s last pass of the half fell incomplete, Nate said to Jake, “We waited all summer for this, and now we come out and it’s like we stepped in something.”

  “We’ll play better in the second half,” Jake said, knowing he was talking just to talk, not really believing what he was saying. He looked for Sarah in that moment, finally spotting her at the end of the line right before the tunnel, last cheerleader on the right.

  Jake wondered if she even knew what his number was. Even if it was the number 10 that the sons of Troy Cullen were born to wear at Granger High.

  “Can’t get worse than this,” Nate said.

  “No way,” Jake said.

  They were both wrong. It was 28–0, Shelby, before the Cowboys—who hadn’t lost a regular-season game since Wyatt Cullen’s junior year—got on the board, set up when Melvin Braxton returned a punt all the way to the Shelby twenty. Casey followed with a bullet to Roy Gilley on first down to the ten. Then he threw one even harder to Calvin on a slant, Calvin getting popped good at the two, but managing to hold on to the ball. Spence Tolar ran it in from there, and the Granger Cowboys were on the board at last.

  The Cowboys started moving the ball after that with some consistency. Casey aired it out on nearly every down, making a throw or two every series that you had to see to believe. But then he would turn around and make decisions you absolutely couldn’t believe, the way Favre used to even in the best of times, flinging the ball around in a boneheaded way as if he thought his arm could beat any defender and any defense. He finally threw another interception when it looked like the Cowboys were driving for their second score of the game. His eyes locked on Justice this time, not even seeing an outside linebacker who drifted back into coverage. The kid picked the ball off and returned it all the way to the Shelby forty-eight.

  But the Cowboys’ defense held the Mustangs, keeping the score where it was, and forcing a punt. Melvin fair-caught the ball at his own twelve.

  Two things happened then, one right after the other.

  First, Jake saw Coach McCoy put a hand on Casey’s arm as Casey started to run back on the field with the rest of the offense, saw Coach talking to him, saw Casey say something back, saw Coach shaking his head no, patting him on the back and wal
king away.

  That was when Jake felt a hand on his own shoulder, turned around, and saw Coach Ray Jessup grinning at him.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s see what you got.”

  10

  “BEFORE YOU DO,” COACH JESSUP SAID, “YOU MIGHT WANT TO fasten your helmet strap.”

  Jake did.

  “Hand it to Spence on first down, then go with a tight end slant to Roy on second. Then throw that little thing we call a step-back screen to Calvin after that.” Coach shrugged. “We’ll worry about what comes next if it’s still our ball at that point. We good?”

  “Gonna try,” Jake said.

  “I know you got the head for this,” Coach J said. “Now go show me you got the game. ’Cause once you get out there, you’re not a freshman. Just a QB.”

  Jake nodded and ran out on the field as the quarterback of the Granger Cowboys, if only for these few mop-up minutes at the end of a blowout game. But somehow the day had brought him here, like some crazy ride on a horse one of their wranglers was trying to break.

  And Jake couldn’t help it as he ran out there: He gave a quick look over his shoulder, like he was giving one last look to the sideline for instructions. But really looking past his coaches and teammates to where he knew his mom was, knowing the seat next to her, the one that always belonged to his dad, was empty this afternoon.

  He found her easily enough. Everybody around her was sitting down, no reason to stand and cheer for the Cowboys right now. His mom, though, she was standing, staring right at him, nodding her head. Like she was telling him, from up there in the stands, that he could do this.

  Now Jake was glad she had come, glad she was here to see this, not knowing how long this would last, not knowing if he’d be out here again anytime soon.

  Glad that she was here, but wishing in that moment that his dad was with her.

  Act like you belong.

  If there was one thing his dad had drummed into his two boys’ heads from the time they’d understood the things he was saying to them about life and football—and ranching and horses and bulls and just about everything else under the sun—it was Act like you belong. Like it was the Eleventh Commandment.

  Even if you weren’t sure you belonged somewhere, act like you did.

  He got into the huddle, everybody looking at him, Jake trying not to look scared. He told his teammates the three plays he’d brought with him from Coach J, clapped his hands, and told them all the snap count. Wanting to get on with it. Grabbed Nate on the way to the line and said, “Don’t let me drop the snap.”

  “Better chance of me droppin’ my pants in front of everybody,” Nate said.

  Jake managed to handle Nate’s snap cleanly, but then nearly made a mess of the handoff to Spence, rushing it, wanting to get on with that, too, putting too much air between them. Spence saved him, though, collected the ball, gained four, running right behind Nate Collins’s big ol’ butt.

  They lined up quickly. Jake straightened up, saw Roy Gilley open on a slant route, but threw the ball behind him, incomplete. Third-and-six. Calvin and Justice were switching sides. As Calvin ran past Jake he said, “Get me the rock, I’ll do the rest.”

  They went to a quick count this time, Jake took a one-step drop, ready to gun it over to Calvin in the left flat. Keep it simple. But the same cornerback who’d been giving Casey fits all day, who’d been reading him like he’d been in the huddle with Casey and the rest of the Cowboys, was just sitting there, ready to step in on Calvin the way he’d been doing all game long.

  Jake managed to pull the ball down at the last second, making it look like the showiest pump fake anybody’d ever seen at Cullen Field. Then he just took off, the way those hotshot young quarterbacks in the pros did all the time now. Colin Kaepernick. Russell Wilson. RG III. Took off the way Johnny Football Manziel did on his way to winning the Heisman trophy as a freshman over at Texas A&M, ran down the sideline to the thirty-yard line. Even tightroped the last few yards the way Johnny Football did sometimes. Finally got bounced out of bounds.

  First down.

  Yee boy, Jake thought. He was in the game. Not with any chance to win it. Just trying to show he belonged. David Stevens, their other halfback, came running in to replace Spence, told Jake the next three plays, the first a curl route to Roy Gilley.

  But Jake overthrew Roy, the ball nearly sailing all the way into the arms of a safety. He then missed Calvin on second down, the ball too low, Calvin giving Jake a look on his way back to the huddle.

  Third-and-ten.

  This one was a crossing pattern with Calvin and Justice, Justice being the primary receiver. Jake led him perfectly, Justice gathered the ball in, and ran all the way to midfield before getting knocked out of bounds again, stopping the clock.

  Jake was aware of the crowd then, louder than it had been since the first few minutes of the game, before everything had started to go wrong, starting with Tim Mathers’s knee.

  The crowd was cheering the completion to Justice.

  But cheering Jake, too.

  From there the Cowboys moved to the Shelby nineteen, finally out of time-outs. First down, twenty seconds left. Maybe three plays left if they were lucky. A chance to get one score and at least walk away from this game feeling like they had done something today besides just show up.

  The coaches sent in a play for Calvin, a quick inside move and then a fade route to the right corner. Jake dropped back, surprised in this moment how calm he was, how comfortable he felt, ball in his hands.

  Not trying to win a state title, maybe just some respect. Or maybe just trying to prove something to himself.

  The line gave Jake plenty of time, the way they had been, but Calvin Morton was smothered. There was a cornerback in front of him and a safety behind him. Jake could try to force it, let Calvin go up and try to make one of his hero catches. But if he missed, short or long, and Calvin couldn’t save him, then the day was going to end with one more interception from another Granger quarterback trying to squeeze one in to Calvin.

  Jake saw Roy Gilley in the middle of the end zone. But he was covered, too, by the middle linebacker. So Jake just threw the ball over his head and through the goalposts, not wanting to risk a scramble, knowing if he didn’t make the sideline, the game was over. At least this way, the team lived to see another play.

  Ten seconds left.

  In the huddle, Calvin said, “You did right, throwing it away.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You want to thank me?” Calvin said. “Throw me the rock on this one.”

  But the coaches had seen what Jake and everybody else had seen, that Shelby was going to double-cover Calvin all the way to the locker room. When Spence brought in the second-down play, it wasn’t for Jake to throw Calvin the rock; it was what they called tight cross, Roy running for the left corner, Justice coming in behind him, running into the area in front of the goalposts that Roy had just cleared out.

  That was the way it was supposed to work, anyway.

  As they broke the huddle, Nate said, “I feel like we’re tryin’ to win the game.”

  “Way we’re supposed to feel, big man,” Jake said. “We play all sixty around here.”

  But Shelby was playing all sixty, too. So the Mustangs came with an all-out blitz now, both outside linebackers, the strong safety, blowing through the Cowboys’ offensive line, on Jake almost as soon as he had the ball.

  He felt the pocket—what there was of a pocket, anyway—collapsing on him, felt somebody with a fistful of his jersey pulling him down. But the defenseman was finding out now that, as skinny as he was, Jake Cullen was a hard man to bring down, the “tough out” Coach Jessup was always telling him he was.

  He stumbled slightly before escaping the pocket, like he’d somehow found a side door to get himself free. Knowing this was the last play of the game now, score or not. Saw Justice b
reaking his pattern, running toward the corner where Roy was, waving his arms.

  Too much traffic over there now.

  Jake kept running to his left, starting to run out of field.

  But the quarterback in him—or maybe the Cullen in him—realized in that moment that if there was all that traffic in front of Roy and Justice, and all those guys blitzing him, Calvin Morton was somewhere to his right. With only one guy on him.

  Like one of Coach J’s orange cones waiting to be hit.

  Jake, still being chased, almost to the sideline, had time to give one look over there, saw a white uniform that could only be number 1. He didn’t even have time to plant his foot, didn’t need to, before throwing on the dead run. He flung the ball across his body in Calvin’s direction, right before getting buried by the Shelby defense.

  Jake’s helmet would end up sideways on his head; that was the picture that would be in the paper the next day, a big chunk of grass sticking out of his face mask.

  His right shoulder pad was outside his jersey when he finally got up. By then the noise inside Cullen Field told him it was a touchdown. A lot had changed in this place since last fall, starting with the final score. But at least this was an ending people could understand and take away with them so they didn’t think the day was a total loss.

  Cullen to Morton for a touchdown.

  11

  CALVIN HAD THE GOOD SENSE NOT TO CELEBRATE AND TURN the end zone into a dance floor, not at the end of a beatdown like this.

  What he did instead was ran over to where Jake was still kneeling, extend a hand and help him up. “Maybe you got more rope to you than I thought.” Then walked away before Jake could say anything.

  The players on both teams were milling around on the field now, even the big guys like Nate who’d been banging one another around all day hugging it out, some laughing, like they’d turned back into high school boys now that the game was over, no matter how much they looked like men. It was all a part of it, what happened on these fields, something you all had shared.