"He's the best," Len said. "There wasn't a lot of incentive for me to do well academically in high school. Where I come from on the South Side of Chicago, not a lot of kids go on to college. Those who try hard in school get a bunch of shit from the gangbangers for being 'too good for the hood,' so most just give up. I have to admit, the only reason I wanted to go to college was to play baseball until I could get noticed by a pro scout, only my grades weren't good enough to let me attend a big school. But Coach O'Toole gave me a chance, and when I got here, he found me a tutor so that I could catch up. Now, I'm straight As."
"Still planning on a baseball career?" Marlene asked.
Len took a moment to answer. "Some dreams die hard, and after I graduate, if I don't get drafted, I might try to walk on with some team, just so I can say I gave it my best shot. But I'm not counting on it anymore. Someday, baseball or not, I want to be a teacher…just as long as I can make enough money to save my little sister, Tanya, from the South Side."
"What about you, Tashaun?" Marlene asked. "Where are you from?"
"Believe it or not, right here in Idaho," Willis answered. "There ain't many of us brothers around here, but my father was in the air force, based out of Mountain Home Air Force Base down the interstate some from Boise. He was from Mississippi originally, but fell in love with this place and decided to stay."
"He still here?" Marlene asked, hoping she didn't sound nervous as the car swung around a corner just a few yards from the drop-off that plunged down to the river.
"Yep, he and my mom, two brothers, and a sister," Willis replied. "He retired from the air force and teaches computer science at Boise Community College."
"And what about your baseball dreams?" Marlene asked.
Willis laughed. "Hell, I can't hardly get off the pine with the team we got here," he said. "No, I'm a realist. I love the game, but after college, it's going to be softball leagues for me. I want to be a teacher, too, and maybe I can coach a little."
The group rode along in silence for a couple of minutes until Marlene asked, "What about these accusations against Coach O'Toole?"
"They're bullshit," Len exclaimed, "'scuse my language, ma'am."
"Forget about it," she replied. "I hear worse from my adolescent sons on an hourly basis, though I do appreciate your manners."
"Anyway, it's all a bunch of lies," Len added, "made up by Rufus Porter. He's the one that's stirred this all up because he got kicked off the team. It's a damn shame what they've done to Coach O'Toole; the university and the ACAA ought to be ashamed of themselves. I hope he wins his lawsuit for more money than they got."
Marlene caught the hitch of emotion in Len's voice. O'Toole's players love him. Just like his brother, she thought. I remember from the funeral how devastated his former players were. She was about to comment on that when Len, who was looking in the rearview mirror, spoke.
"Looks like we got some crackers for company."
A few seconds later, a big Ford pickup truck roared up alongside the sedan. Inside were three young men, all as bald as billiard balls. Two sat in the front seat but the third was leaning out of the cab window, pantomiming pumping a shell into the chamber of a shotgun. He aimed the imaginary weapon at Len and pulled the imaginary trigger, laughing as he looked back at his companions.
The two cars went around a blind corner and the faces of the three young men changed from laughter to panic. A semitruck bearing a load of timber was coming head-on from the other direction, and they were seconds from being obliterated. The driver of the pickup gunned the engine and swerved in front of the sedan just in time to avoid being crushed. For a moment, the pickup remained in front, as if the driver was recovering his wits, and then it rocketed off ahead.
"Speak of the devil," Willis said with disgust. "That clown leaning out the window was good ol' Rufus Porter himself, and those were some of his Aryan nation friends. That timber truck almost did the world a favor."
A few miles farther, Len turned off onto another two-lane highway and headed northeast. They'd gone about twenty more miles, much of it paralleling a railroad track, when they passed a gravel road with a gated entrance and guard station. No people were visible, but they could see the Ford truck pulled off the road on the other side of the gate.
"That's the property of the Unified Church of the Aryan People," Len said contemptuously. "As you can see, our friends are the religious types."
Another ten miles brought them to the town of Sawtooth, which, Marlene noted, had managed to retain at least some of its history. The entrance to Main Street was dominated by a tall wood-sided building that proclaimed in big white letters on a red background to be the Sawtooth Mercantile and Livestock Feed Store. Across the street was a saloon called the Cowboy Bar; as if on cue, two young men in ten-gallon hats and cowboy boots sauntered out.
"I love it here," Len added. "I hope to live here someday. The air is clean, the water doesn't smell like the sewer, and for the most part, people treat you the same way you treat them. That's one of the things that Coach O'Toole emphasized to all of us players: Be good members of the community if you want to be considered part of the community."
"Sounds a lot like his brother," Marlene replied. "How much farther to Coach O'Toole's house?"
Willis pointed to a small mountain that rose beyond the town. "About a half hour," he said. "Coach lives up there, past the university campus."
As predicted, a half hour later, the group arrived at the entry of a long driveway that led to a large log home where smoke was curling up from the chimney. A pair of curious horses watched them from a snowy pasture as they rolled up to the house. Tall, red-haired Mikey O'Toole and his attorney, Richie Meyers, were waiting on the wide porch.
"I hope my two young friends here didn't show you too wild a time," O'Toole shouted as he walked down the wide steps to embrace Marlene. "Clancy is a city boy, but he seems to have lost all inhibitions about driving fast on our treacherous mountain roads. He's the Mario Andretti of the University of Northwestern Idaho."
"Please, coach, maybe 'the Wendell Scott,' at least he was a brother," Len said, laughing. "But don't worry, Coach, I took it easy on her. We did have one small run-in with some of our friends from the Unified Church of Racists and Morons, including favorite son Rufus Porter."
O'Toole shook his head and apologized. "Sorry, Marlene, they really are in the minority, but our Aryan neighbors do like to make themselves stick out like sore thumbs."
"Say, Coach, you mind if we go downstairs and watch the TV while you old folks catch up?" Len asked.
"Watch it with the 'old folks' comments, Clancy, unless you want to be running suicide sprint drills every day for a month when I get reinstated," O'Toole said, laughing. "But go ahead, you know you don't have to ask, and you've probably behaved yourselves about as long as you can stand. There's beers in the fridge, but leave your keys with me, you're spending the night. I'm about to throw some steaks on the barbecue. How many cows do you think the two of you can eat?"
"No more than two or three each," Len said, and tossed his keys to O'Toole. "I'm not too hungry… What's for breakfast?"
O'Toole sighed theatrically. "I've gone into massive debt trying to feed these guys," he said. "And there are a couple dozen more just like them on the team. But come on in, I'm forgetting my manners, making you stand out in the cold."
Without being asked, the two baseball players took Marlene's suitcases into the house, followed by the others. Then with a wave to the 'old folks,' they disappeared down a big spiral staircase, and the sound of a game on television soon wafted up.