Knights of the Hill Country Read Online Free PDF Page B

part of that magnificent tradition!”
    The crowd boomed so loud then that every bird in every tree around that pavilion launched up into the air at the same time, hundreds of them, soaring up and up, like they was a mirror of the way all of us was feeling down below.
    Blaine looked at me and said, as serious as if he was reciting off the Pledge of Allegiance, “That's the way I'm gonna be one of these days. Just like that.”
    “Me too,” I said, every bit as serious.

CHAPTER SIX
    Course, Blaine wasn't up there with T. Roy, even before his knee injury, but if you didn't know him like me, you'd have swore he thought he was, the way he strutted cocky as hell down senior hall on Monday after that Wynette game. Like a flying ace come back from war after saving his country. And that was all right. Just being a Kennisaw Knight made you a hero in our town. Up and down Main Street, old men was always slapping us on the backs and shaking our hands, telling us to keep up the good work. Make Kennisaw proud. At school, you couldn't hardly get to class on time for folks, students and teachers both, coming up to tell you, “Good game.”
    But truth be told, that kind of stuff always felt awkward to me, uncomfortable, like wearing a heavy coat that really belonged to somebody else. Thing was, away from tacklesand passes and dodging blockers, I didn't have the least idea how to stop time and look two seconds ahead and know what to do. I didn't understand why it was, but outside the stadium, gravity was different. Walking around them high school halls, I felt as heavy and slow as a big old Clydesdale stomping around in a herd of quarter horses. Even with folks telling me how great I played against Wynette, I couldn't do nothing but sort of shrug, rub my hand across the top of my head, and say thanks, while Blaine could stand there and talk for fifteen minutes, people he'd known all his life grinning at him like he was a movie star. Man, I wished I could be that way.
    Blaine took up his usual spot, leaning against the senior-hall lockers with his thumbs in his belt loops, and I stood next to him, trying not to look so big and redheaded. “Check out them jeans,” he said, nodding towards Darla Monroe as she walked away down the hall in her skintight Rockies. “Did you see how tight them things was? I could just about read the label on her underwear through there.”
    “Yeah,” I said, but I wasn't really paying much attention. Instead, I looked off towards the door of my homeroom, thinking of someone besides Darla.
    “Damn, son,” Blaine said. “You didn't hardly look at her.”
    “I've seen her before.”
    “I'll tell you what, we better get you a girlfriend before people start thinking there's something wrong with you.”
    “What if there ain't nobody I really like all that much, though?”
    “It don't matter if you like 'em. They just have to look good. Remember when we drove over to OU to look around campus? All the big dogs there had the best-looking women.That's just one of your natural rights when you're a football player. Why, when T. Roy Strong played down in Dallas, they say he went out with a new girl every night. Now, that's the way it oughta be.”
    “I don't know about that,” I said. Down the hall, Sara Reynolds come walking around the corner, heading for history class. I started that way myself. “I'll talk to you later. It's time for class.”
    “What's your hurry? Hang around and watch the scenery go by with me for a while.”
    “See ya at lunch.” I didn't even turn back. There wasn't no use trying to explain Sara Reynolds to Blaine.
    She was already in her usual desk when I walked into class and slid into my seat in the next row over, a yard or two behind her. She had a way of setting there with her back real straight and her ankles crossed and her hands folded on the desktop that made a perfect picture. About all the skin you could see on her was them little fingers barely sticking out from the