But as he hit the tacklers he twisted and with a totally unexpected toss, he hung the ball dead in front of Mercer.
Mercer took it on the Greely forty. Stanisk managed to knife ahead of him in a desperate block that cut down an immediate threat.
Mercer ran like a bull. He ran with his feet wide, his knees high, all thrusting power. The fleet Loots caught him at the ten. Mercer rocked under the impact, staggered to one side, tore one leg free and with Loots hanging on the other leg he took three more hitching steps. Another man hit him from the side and Mercer fell, but he fell with his face on the goal line, the ball extended ahead of him at arm’s length.
Anthony Strega sat in his small darkened living room, slouched in the chair, his legs straight out, his heels against the carpet. Loren sat on the floor, her cheek against his thigh, his fingers wound in her raven hair.
He said softly, “After the gun, after the mob headed for the goal posts, I saw White drop as though he’d been shot. They bad to carry him into the dressing room. I couldn’t figure it. My two weak sisters had pulled my game out of the fire.
“By the time I fought clear of the mob and got in there, he’d come to. Andy called me over and told me to look at the kid’s hand. It looked more like a foot. As near as we can tell there were three bones broken in that hand.
“The boys were shocked at the way we’d stolen the game. They were just beginning to fill the place with yells. Al Forsi came up to me, grinning and shaking his head. He said, ‘Coach, that big crazy Mercer was charging all over the place blubbering every minute and the tears were running down his face. It beats the hell out of me.’
“Mercer was over in the corner, too weary to unlace his shoes. He grinned up at me and the tears had made dirty marks on his face. He said, ‘Coach, we had to keep those history books accurate.’
“Loren, right then something hit me — something about those crazy, wonderful kids got me by the throat. In another minute I’d have been blubbering like Mercer had been.
“White was getting over his green look and a doc was on the way. He came over. I asked him what the hell happened in there and he grinned at me a little weakly, and said that he saw Frank flinch off a tackle, so when he got a chance he showed Frank his hand and said that if Mercer missed another shot like that, he was going to walk up to him and pop him right in the face with the busted hand, and did Mercer expect him to play all by himself and what good was a lot of meat and muscle if you were afraid to use it.
“I guess Mercer thought White was going to ruin the hand for keeps. Forsi didn’t know a thing about it or he’d have sent White out. White started to kid Mercer about one for the records and how this was his chance to make Ripley’s column.
“That explained some things. It explained why White toted the ball in his left arm and why that heave to Mercer, which wasn’t in the books, had to be done with the left hand.
“But here was the pay-off, baby. I asked White which play busted his hand. He turned bright red and allowed as how he’d fallen on it on the way out to report.”
She said, “I changed my mind and came to see the game. A hunch or something. I spent a lot of the afternoon just walking, and thinking about us.”
“What about us?”
“I don’t think I have to say it now.”
He was silent for a time and then he muttered, “Those crazy, wonderful kids.”
“You had them all taped, darling. All figured down to the T. No pun intended.”
“Maybe some things can’t be figured.”
“Darling?”
“What is it, Loren?”
“Darling, how much is two and two?”
The question shocked him, and suddenly he realized how far he had gone in one day. He knew that never again would things be exactly the same in his mind, and that he was being forced to sacrifice a portion of that drive which had given him his courage and his strength, but in sacrificing it he was gaining something else, which, in its own way was precious and necessary. He felt the collapse of certain values and yet he knew that the void they left would become filled with a warmth he had never known.
“Two and two is usually four, Loren,” he said softly. “Or five, or six or seven.”
She sighed, a small and sleepy sound. “You know, Mr. Strega, this may turn out to be a pretty satisfactory marriage if I give it enough time.”
“Even if we don’t edge into the big dough?”
“Even if we stay right here and get all stupefied with tradition and stuff and never leave.”
Anthony Strega smiled in the darkness. “I don’t know why that should sound good. But in some funny way it does.”