A beat-up station wagon with phony wood sides and avocado body pulls up loudly to the back of the gym. Three teenage Indian and one white boy hop in.
“Is it okay to talk?” the short, stout woman behind the wheel asks as they pull out of town.
“Yeah. He’s cool,” Johnny answers.
Ben keeps his mouth shut and tries to live up to Johnny’s promise.
“Well, a couple of buildings got burned down in Gresham …” she says.
“Yeah. We got my building,” one of the youngbloods who’s accompanied her from the Ranch says. There’s a general excitement among the Indians as they drive home through the cold December night, on their way to the Thunderbird Ranch outside of Leopolis, near the Menominee Nation Reservation in northeastern Wisconsin.
It’s the mid-70s and the country is in the midst of Civil Rights movements. What Ben doesn’t realize, as every other body in the station wagon seems to, is that one of the nation’s woes is going to focus on this small slice of America’s Dairyland very soon. A New Year is coming. And things are fixin to pop.
Ben stares out the window through a kaleidoscope of frozen crystal as the wagon rumbles north, toward his home in Peaceful Valley, on the way to the Ranch. He watches his breath melt a portal through the frost on the window, strange shapes taking place as the thin layer of mist dissolves, sharp stars gnarling through darkness and snapping out of site, tumbling…reappearing and disappearing but moving fluidly at a distance, closing.
“So where d’ya live in the Valley?” the woman asks, looking at Ben in the rearview mirror.
“Just across the bridge from the cheese factory,” Ben says. “I can hop out at the streetlight.”
A few minutes later the wagon shudders to a stop.
“Okay this is it, Cool,” she says with a smile. Ben pulls his face from the window. The portal quickly mists over.
“Thank you very much for the ride, Mrs. Hawpetoss,” Ben says. He and Johnny do the brotherhood handshake as he says “See you guys tomorrow” to the rest.
“Not if I see you first, Rogue,” says the youngblood in the front seat, using Ben’s last name, with no attempt at humor and eyes glaring wild. The others howl and laugh, long black hair snapping back and forth, big bright smiles hiding nothing. Ben steps out into the cold, light snow crunching under his feet as he closes the car door without slamming it and quickly shuffles home. Frigid air bites his lungs in the cold, feral darkness.
In the early morning minutes of New Year’s Day, 1975, a caretaker at the Alexian Brothers’ Novitiate (a Roman Catholic monastery abandoned since 1968) is awakened at his cottage by loud banging and voices at his door. He and his family are the only residents on this sprawling 240-acre estate with a 64-room Georgian-style mansion fronted by a two-story stone portico, a second-story balcony overlooking the Red River and Freeborn Falls complete with servants’ quarters, originally built by a rich New York widower in the late 1930s for her ailing daughter, who would not live to see the home completed. It was donated to the Catholic order in 1950 and dormitories, a cloister, chapel, a two-boiler heating facility and other structures were added, and a working farm was developed so the entire facility could become self-sufficient, closed off from the outside world, training the next generation of monks. The Brothers even built their own septic system with a settling pond next to the river. Young and old skated on its frozen green surface in the winter.
The Menominee had different ideas, and perhaps we should pause the story for a bit of background, and put things in the perspective of the times.
Known as Wisconsin’s Indigenous People, the Menominee had traditionally inhabited most of the area in that part of northeastern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for more than 10,000 years, going back to the Old Copper Culture people who thrived in this mineral-rich land. Menominee is an Ojibwe word that means “wild rice people.” Legend tells that wherever the Menominee went, the wild rice would appear; and when they left an area, the wild rice went with them. But like many Native American tribes they don’t always identify themselves by the words of others. They are simply “the People.”
Their Creation Story takes place 60 miles from the present-day reservation, where the Menominee River flows into the bay of Green Bay. The story tells of the original clans of animals who became human and populated the tribe, beginning with the Great Ancestral Bear, and including the Golden Eagle, Wolf, Crane and Moose. Each clan has its purpose. The Wolf Clan, known as Harvesters, are the hunters.
Along with members of the Ho-Chunk and a band of Potawatomi who had recently moved to the area, the Menominee watched a strange canoe come toward shore as a man with pale skin wearing a silk Chinese robe stood and fired two pistols into the air, announcing his arrival, thinking he had just discovered the fabled Northwest Passage to the Orient and all of its untold riches. His name was Jean-Nicolet, and he was a French-Canadian fur trapper known as a Coureur des bois (“runner of the woods”). He was the first European to touch foot in what is now Wisconsin. The year was 1634.
Let’s flash forward to 1961. The Menominee have lost their tribal status during the US Government’s Termination Policy through a series of laws designed to force Native Americans to assimilate into the post-World War II Anglo culture and forgo their language, religion and sovereignty. They fight hard battles in the legal system and win a landmark decision at the US Supreme Court, granting them traditional fishing and hunting rights in Menominee Tribe vs. Supreme Court (1968). In 1972, the Menominee Restoration Act is signed into law by President Nixon, and the Menominee become the first Native American tribe to have the restoration of its sovereignty recognized by the federal government.
These are tumultuous times, with anti-war and civil rights demonstrations making the nightly news. Russell Means and Dennis Banks are becoming the faces of the American Indian Movement (AIM) following a takeover of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation by two hundred Oglala Lakota warriors. The federal government is having to rethink its policy of assimilation and open its eyes to the new day dawning in America. It may not be Aquarius, but the status quo way of doing things is beginning to dissolve.
Public opinion is swaying as celebrities and the 18-month occupation of Alcatraz give voice to a meek Apache actress named Sacheen Littlefeather who stands before the Academy Awards cameras and its global audience and declines the best actor award on behalf of Marlon Brando (who was to receive it for the movie The Godfather) “to protest the traditional portrayal of American Indians in the film industry”.This is the changing culture in America as New Year’s Day dawns in 1975, and it begins with gunshots at what was soon to be known as “The Abbey.”
Four males, aged 20-30, and an 18-year-old female – members of what is called the Menominee Warriors Society – are at the door of the caretaker’s cottage, with every intention of entering. The caretaker opens the door, sees the threat and reaches for a derringer pistol in his back waistband, as one of the warriors fires a rifle shot through the ceiling to dissuade him. The caretaker, his family and a couple celebrating the New Year with them are held hostage while contact is made with the Alexian Brothers’ office in Chicago; and a series of events is set into motion that will forever define this moment in time.
Ben may be too young to realize the bigger picture just then, but he has a pretty good focus on the daily snapshot of small-town northern Wisconsin teenage life in the turbulent mid-70s. Big pictures seem composed of many little pictures, and the frame-by-frame progression of events at Marion High School during that time was of a rising tide of tension between the Indians and some white students, with the Indians numbering only a handful of boys about Ben’s age, who all live at the Thunderbird Ranch, an idle farm with no animals in the barn but a boxing ring and basketball hoops instead. Ben is often invited to the Ranch to get in the ropes with any of the Indians. He knows better than to take that bait. Most are very proud of what they can do with their fists, always ready to “squab it up”. Ben has to take a few hair-yanks and punches, as is the norm, when the provocation occurs. He’s alright with that, but what if it goes beyond that, and a crowd gathers, grows?
There are fights at the school and in the larger communities as the two sides collide, with animosities boiling over between Natives and the European (German) immigrant descendants. Ben’s hometown of Peaceful Valley has the peace disrupted at the Ballroom one night during a rock show when a fight spills into the parking lot between some whites and a group of young Menominee men, ending when the Indians jump into their car and tear off, letting go a shotgun blast that peppers the knee of a young man from a nearby town. The Indians get back onto the reservation before the local sheriff’s deputies can catch them, safe on their turf.
Tensions increase dramatically as the takeover of the Novitiate turns to a stalemate between a growing number of Menominee (women and children included) inside and more and more local law enforcement building around the 240-acre complex. The Wisconsin 10th Circuit judge whose jurisdiction includes the area is contacted and attempts to negotiate a settlement by going to the site and meeting with law enforcement and locals. He’s taken aback by the mounting pressure of local residents urging law enforcement to take decisive action and remove the “trespassers”. The Shawano County Sheriff has the power and heating turned off for the Novitiate, hoping the frigid weather will force the Menominee to leave the stone mansion and go to their homes.
The judge calls the leader of the Warriors inside the Novitiate to offer them amnesty from prosecution if they leave immediately, and is informed in what he describes as a calm and resolute tone that the Warriors are claiming the land to be reservation land by treaty, and are reclaiming it. The judge then calls the governor and informs him that if the National Guard isn’t dispatched to the area “there will be bloodshed, and people will die”. Cooler heads prevail when the colonel commanding the National Guard takes over and restores heat and electricity to the Novitiate, although by then the pipes have frozen rendering the boilers useless, as well as the toilets and plumbing.
The remote, heavily wooded area surrounding the Novitiate allows many from the reservation to bring food and supplies to the Warriors by foot at night, and many stay to be with their husbands, extended family and fellow tribal members. It also allows local vigilantes to infiltrate the area with snowmobiles and deer rifles to snipe at movement in the Novitiate. The Warriors cover the windows and remain at their posts. Many are Vietnam vets who are ready to stand and fight to the end if they aren’t granted the land. “Deed or Death” is their motto. They return fire whenever fired upon, and take a few potshots of their own.
An exceptionally frigid January closes. The stalemate tightens. The women and children have been allowed to leave, but several dozen Warriors remain. It appears as though the final confrontation is preparing itself, and the Alexian Brothers are hard-pressed to make a decision. They know how volatile the situation is and want to avoid another Kent State massacre or Attica Prison riot, which recently illustrated how quickly things can get out of control once you call in the troops. They agree to grant the land and buildings to the Menominee to be used as a medical facility for one dollar, and – after a 34-day armed standoff – bloodshed is averted. The Brothers’ response to “Deed or Death” is “Life and Peace.” That is the settlement in the woods and fields surrounding the Novitiate complex – for the moment.
At Marion Junior/Senior High, the bad blood is spilled onto the next generation as more Menominee boys start showing up at school. Thunderbird Ranch is filling up. Ben tries to avoid the hostilities that begin to erupt on a regular basis. Louis Hawpetoss, who runs the Ranch, and a few other adult Menominee come to the school in the beat-up station wagon with the phony wood sides and avocado body to talk to the principal about the treatment of some students toward the Indians. His large presence in the school hallway is intimidating. The group enters the office and demands to speak with the principal. The police chief is summoned or somehow alerted (the station is next to the school) and, once again, cooler adult heads prevail.
Unfortunately, tensions grow among some of the tougher white boys who like to fight, along with some wrestlers and football players who want to just have it out in a rumble. Ben isn’t much of a reader at that age, but is given a dog-eared paperback copy of The Outsiders, the story of youth groups in the 60s from different sides of the tracks, recently written by a teenage girl from Tulsa, Oklahoma, named Susan Eloise Hinton. (The publishing company was afraid no one would buy a book from a young woman, so they used her initials, and S. E. Hinton went on to write That Was Then, This Is Now and Rumble Fish in what becomes the trilogy that begets the Young Adult genre of fiction). Ben feels the hostilities of the story between the two sides, the “haves” and the “have-nots.” When reading the book, he immediately identifies with the Greasers and not the Socs (upper social class kids). Those rich boys in their Mustangs and muscle cars are from a different world than the farm towns and forests of northern Wisconsin, where Ben witnesses a brewing saga finding him on the side of the “haves”, and it isn’t fiction.
“One up or two down?” Ben hears, as Stuart Boyles grabs the back of his frazzled, long hair.
“What…?”
“One up?” Stuart asks, as he sharply jerks Ben’s hair up.
“Ow!…What…?”
“Or two down?” yanking his head back in two quick snaps. By now they’ve collected the attention of students passing through the halls to their next class. Stuart smiles into Ben’s face as some of the other Indian boys gather behind him, goading him on. Ben goes mute.
“One up or two down?” Stuart asks again. Jerk snap snap. The Indian boys howl and laugh, but Stuart just smiles into Ben’s face, who realizes he’d better answer the question or suffer its asking again.
“Two down!” Ben yelps, and Stuart executes the verdict to the amusement of the gathered, as the one-minute bell rings sending students shuffling into their classrooms. Ben falls in, a little chagrined but no worse for wear.
Bells sound each school day, directing students to their appointed classrooms. The promenade through the halls is less lively than normal. A tension separates cliques and clans. Brushing shoulders turns to pushing matches with teachers acting as hall monitors, moving the youth along. Days pass to weeks through winter and months bring the prospect of spring, getting out for fresh air and running down summer.
One early spring day Ben is in the locker room when someone yells, “Sonofabitch!” A football player comes back to his locker to shower after lifting weights and discovers that someone has gone through his clothes and taken what paper money he had in his pockets – somewhere around four dollars, which was no small amount.
“Someone stole my money!” The other boys gather and one mumbles something about Indians hanging around the locker room lately and another sparks off that he’s going to do something about it. He is a lineman (offense and defense) on the football team and a friend of Ben’s, so when he stalks off in the direction of the hangout area using the back door past the industrial arts area rather than through the halls attracting attention Ben tags along, drawn more by curiosity than anger or hatred. He hadn’t been lifting weights with the other football players that day, so his clothes weren’t in a locker. His few dollars and cents are safe in his pocket. Ben tags along because he has an adolescent male curiosity for physical conflict, possibly part of some primordial need for survival skills, or something like that. He assumes some of the other football players will fall in line and they’ll move with a critical mass – but that doesn’t happen.
Ben follows his friend to the cold-pressed, chip-sealed asphalt lot behind the school where Scott Link, the youngblood in the beat-up station wagon with phony wood sides and avocado body, is talking with another Indian boy. Ben’s friend grabs Scott by the scruff of his jacket and throws him down hard onto the blacktop, as if he was sacking a quarterback. He holds a boot over Scott’s face and says, “If you and your fucking friends don’t quit stealing this is what you’re going to get! Do you see this?” Ben arrives just as Scott looks up, but he isn’t looking at the boot in his face. He’s looking at Ben. He shows no fear and a slight smile comes to his face, but his eyes look like those of a wolf – piercing and wild, hungry. Full of hate. This wolf has picked out the weaker of the species that threatens him now, and he appears willing to wait.
A few weeks later Ben is walking in the semi-wooded area between the school and football field, where the junior high students hang out at lunchtime. There’s a creek that separates this area from the school ground proper, and it’s well beyond earshot of the building housing 7th graders through high school on the hill. Ben notices a figure approaching him from a shaded area, bearing down on him quickly. It’s Scott, with another behind him known only as Half-breed, an album and song title recently released by Cher. Scott’s eyes are just as wild and hungry, full of hate, but his smile is much larger – as though he’s found something he’s been pursuing for a long time. He cops his fighter stance and starts juking and jabbing in the air as he walks toward Ben, who slows his pace and wonders what his options are. Fight or flight doesn’t enter his mind first, but how best to take a beating. He knows he can’t outpunch Scott, even if he is a year older and has more reach. He probably can’t outrun him either, but Ben also knows it’s better to take a beating than run.
He tries to think of throwing a punch, but can’t imagine doing so in his mind. It’s the same in his dreams when he finds himself in scenarios where he knows he has to fight, but finds his limbs unable to move. He stands before his adversary with concrete arms that won’t budge when he tries to use them. He feels completely helpless and exposed, like a fawn deer whose spots stand out against a headlight at night, frozen in fear, waiting for the impact. Time slows to liquid motion as another form enters his blurry vision, moving toward the impending crash and matching Scott’s course. It’s Dan Ninham, who’s in Ben’s grade and on the football team. He’s also Menominee and lives at the Ranch with Scott. Ben sees the three paths leading to a point, and when he reaches it with Scott and the Half-breed angling from the left and Dan bearing down from the right he has no idea what to expect, other than it will be quick and violent. His body grows numb.
But before Scott can close on Ben, Dan intercepts and gets in Scott’s face, stopping him in his tracks. “Leave him alone,” he says, and slaps and punches Scott lightly to let him know he’s serious. Scott looks through Dan and into Ben, with eyes that don’t appear human. His open smile of moments earlier shrinks to one more menacing and hungry, as though a meal has just been taken away. The three-minute bell sounds the migration back to classrooms, and the students flock toward the bland brick edifice across the artless wooden bridge spanning the creek. Ben knows he’s only dodged the confrontation. He knows he needs to try to avoid being caught alone. There are three weeks left until the end of the school year and the beginning of summer break. Hopefully, by the beginning of next school year things will have had time to settle down, and tensions will relax between the cliques and clans.
John Wetzel is one of the toughest white students in the eighth grade; and he likes to fight. He would go on to join the army when he was given the choice of jail or the military after getting into trouble a few times too many in his teens. He’d go on to become a staff sergeant in the Army – just as his father had done when he fought in Korea. John boxed while in the service, and when he got out and began working at a local meat-packing plant he also participated in after-work, bare-knuckle bouts held in a circle of headlights at obscure places out of town.
Now, it’s the last day of school and the students have been released from their building-bound duties after lunch to go outside and enjoy the beautiful spring weather and a softball game. It’s also when things are going to settle up between Darren and John, who have been openly challenging each other in the halls. Before the game can even begin, they square off on top of the Rock, as the flat-topped citadel of stone is called, hidden behind trees growing along the creek. John knows Darren is carrying a switchblade. Everyone knows. Darren hasn’t been too quiet about it, popping the blade in study halls when the teachers go to the lounge and chain-smoke.
“Get rid of the knife,” John says. “I don’t have one.” The crowd that has gathered and circles the fighters yells in agreement. “Yeah get rid of the knife! This is a fistfight!” Darren takes the knife from his front pants pocket and hands it to Stuart, who’s standing with the other Indian boys in their subset of students who’ve gathered for the softball game. He turns and approaches John quickly, pushing him backward and sending him down the sloped rock face. John slides down on hands and toes and lands on his feet, scrambling back up like a spider and the fight is on. Darren bloodies John first with a solid right hand to the mouth, snapping his head back. John comes right back doing the same to Darren. They measure each other with jabs and take stock of their wounds, and then go all in for a dogfight, swinging wildly but staying on their feet. Neither backs down and they punch to a draw, nod slightly and push each other away as someone yells “Fight!” from the bottom of the Rock. Ben looks down to see Dave Arrowood, a white student, flat on his back with a bloody nose, not moving. Dan Ninham is walking away.
“Alright, the fighting’s over now,” Pete Adams yells, his billowing voice settling over the mass. “Let’s play some damn softball!” The crowd turns and walks toward the field. Pete has organized the game and obtained permission to use the equipment, although bats and balls are probably not a good mix to go with knives and fists in the tension of the time.
Ben walks over to Dave, who’s gotten on his feet but looks pretty confused.
“What happened?” Ben asks.
“I called Dan a Chummie,” Dave says, pulling strands of hair out of a bloody chunk of scalp. He must have hit a rock when he crashed like timber. It’s evident it was a one-punch knockout, and Dave’s nose is the evidence. He touches it and winces. “I guess I got my ass kicked.” Calling an Indian “Chummie” is a call-out to fight. No one knows what the word means; it’s just flashing a red cape at a bull. Game on. Dave was caught up in the opportunity for the passage to manhood that fighting can offer, and he tested the waters. He got splashed.
Ben watches the main body of students heading toward the hardscrabble ballfield at the edge of trees and turns to follow, but is stopped. Scott Link has separated from the crowd and circled back toward Ben, with Half-breed close behind. His eyes catch Ben’s and there’s a connection, primordial. His smile turns to snarl as his long black hair lifts off his shoulders in a breeze. Ben feels numbness coming. Time becomes liquid again. He’s been here before…
BAM! BAM! “You fuckin chummies I’m sick of this shit!” Pete has lost what self-restraint a teenager has. His stout, farm-boy frame comes taught and goes to his fists as he slams Scott square in the chest, twice. The blows send Scott backwards in the air, but he lands on his feet undaunted, glaring at Ben. Pete’s booming voice has scared the birds from the trees and alerts the teachers who are watching from above. Soon the principal and football coach are down the hill, over the bridge and into the midst of the pending melee.
“All right! That’s enough! Game’s over,” the grown men yell. “Back up to the building now. Go on!” The white students turn en masse and amble up the hill, the Indians pack up and follow. It’s the end of school and nothing else needs to be done but wait for the rides home. The buses show up; as does the beat-up station wagon with phony wood sides and avocado body. As Ben gets in line to board his bus the Thunderbird Ranch band walk by. “We’ll finish this next year, Rogue,” Scott says, just enough smile to show teeth. The others laugh and howl, hair snapping in the wind.
Eyes fall on Ben now from those around him. Quiet eyes. Wondering what. But that passes quickly and the joy of summer break overtakes wonder of things that haven’t happened yet. The buses and cars pull away and follow the routes to their destinations. Custodians push brooms and mops inside, teachers and staff breath more freely – or chain smoke – and the old brick building settles into its summer hibernation.
Ben spends the summer working at the family cheese factory as he has the previous three, along with his father and grandfather, cousins, uncles and great-uncles. The younger brothers and cousins will do so too when they turn twelve. It’s a right of passage, to go to work, prepare yourself for being a man and living in the world, on your own. It isn’t hard work, but it’s hot in the factory where everything is heated and cleaned with steam. Ben and the others sweat all day, chugging 16 oz. bottles of ice-cold Sun-Drop citrus soda, made in Shawano and known as “Shawano County Cocaine” because it’s loaded with caffeine and sugar.
The football coaches always remark about the players who work at cheese factories being in the best shape when they show up for two-a-day practices at the end of summer. Ben notices that the previous year when running laps around the half-mile fence at the track field, where all players from 8th grade to senior slug it through conditioning practices together. He makes the mistake of passing a few upperclassmen and gets punched and slapped by a few of them when they finish – not hard, but hard enough to not do it again.
One of Ben’s jobs at the factory is to wash and line-dry the round cheese bandages that cap the top of the wheels of Daisy cheddar, crafted with the sweet, fatty milk that cows give once they’re allowed out to pasture in the spring. It’s made only during the summer months, and “hanging caps” is the one task Ben has that gets him outside, to straighten and pin them on the clothesline next door where his great uncle, the company founder, lives. He can hear the roar of water falling off the spillways of the dam and see cars, trucks and farm equipment crossing the bridge on the road between the factory and feed mill, where a gristmill once turned when things were wilder, harnessing the power of the river before electricity was available.
He spends this time alone, hounded by thoughts, trying to lead them in the right direction: he’s going to high school and will have new privileges, such as leaving the school grounds for lunch hour and getting a cheeseburger and Sun-Drop at the bowling alley, maybe smoking a cigarette afterward. But those thoughts lose focus quickly and all too often, being replaced by blurred shapes in darkness, witnessed through a frozen portal, melting to mist with his breath. He can see the spot where Mrs. Hawpetoss dropped him off after basketball practice last year, when snow crunched under his feet and Scott Link first locked eyes with Ben. He can’t get that image out of his mind no matter how hard he tries.
“I know you hate me because I’m white, and I don’t fucking blame you. I would too,” Ben imagines himself saying. “But I don’t hate you because you’re Indian. I know you can kick my ass, but…” and that’s about as many words as Ben imagines he says, before taking the beating. He contemplates getting a switchblade, but he’s not sure how to go about it. He has plenty of jackknives, but the blades are short and can close on you pretty easily. He doesn’t have a lock blade, and the only straight blades he has are hunting knives in belt sheaths. That thought leads to images of jail. Not a good decision.
Ben considers his boxing skills. He’s fancied himself a bit of a pugilist ever since asking for and getting two pairs of Everlast 16 oz. boxing gloves for Christmas, to replace the aging pairs of 8 oz. gloves his father received as a boy. What little padding those had had long worn away, and getting hit with one was like getting hit with a rock. Ben’s dad shows him the basic stance and punches – jab with the left, cross with the right. They spar in the living room, Ben’s dad keeping him at bay with little taps to the forehead that bounce Ben’s head back a little bit, the elder saying “Boop!” with every tap and chuckling at the scene.
Ben’s father is a little more serious the first time Ben gets a black eye. In the father-son talk that inevitably follows, he tells Ben to avoid fighting whenever he can, and “run like hell” if he needs to. But. In the event that a fight is unavoidable there is only one rule: “Firstest with the mostest.” Which means, put everything you have into one punch, and land it right on the other guy’s nose. His eyes will water, his ears will ring and he’ll see blood when he touches it. Pain comes soon, and the will to fight should diminish. That’s a good time to skedaddle.
Ben enjoys boxing with gloves. They’re less clumsy than the inflatable ones, called Soccer Boppers, that he’d gotten for a birthday years before. Ben’s basement becomes an animated, adolescent boxing ring. The gloves are plenty of protection for slugfests, and there are no rules – you box until someone says “Give!” Haymakers and windmills are the punches of choice for most, and it’s great entertainment. Ben avoids these sluggers, but does glove-up with Wetzel one day. They square off and start with jabs, taking each other’s measure, then exchange a few crosses, each snapping the other’s head back without drawing blood. It’s good practice for throwing punches at a moving target, and it’s equally good practice for taking a punch.
But Ben knows he could never beat Scott Link in a fight. He wonders if he could even throw a punch. He’s one year older and has longer arms, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog, as the saying goes, and Ben is all too familiar with how much fight is in these dogs. Pound for pound, they seem to be built differently. Ben recalls when he and Stuart Boyles collide in mid-air going for a pass in football practice. Ben bounces off Stuart as though hitting a wall, even though Ben outweighs him and is taller.
What Ben knows with certainty is that he can’t match Scott’s hatred. He has no reason to harbor such hatred for anyone. He understands why Scott does, and it has little to do with Ben being there when the football player holds his boot in Scott’s face. Scott hates Ben for just being there. Maybe, Scott hates Ben for just…being.
When the beat-up station wagon with phony wood sides and avocado body starts passing over the bridge each day, taking the young men from the Ranch to football practice, he knows time is winding down for the fight. Ben is done with football, having realized he wasn’t big enough to compete with the farm boys after breaking his leg the previous season. He didn’t want to compromise his choices by putting himself in crutches again – fight or flight is out of that scenario completely.
But Ben can’t see himself throwing a punch at Scott. Not even squaring off at him. He’s afraid of what might happen if he gives that hatred a license to unleash. What if Firstest with the Mostest backfires?
How do you shoot at a wolf in the darkness?
And what is the Reckoning if you miss?
