Page 119 of Devil in Disguise

“He says that,” Joan said, “but of course he’s worried. He’s right, though. Owen will be just fine. He knows how to bounce back, and he sure does know how to keep trying. That’s the benefit of being a rancher. You know how to put your head down and keep going.”

Grandpa Oscar said, “Game’s not over yet, either. Down by a touchdown, that’s all. Fifteen minutes is about a lifetime in football.”

The clock started again, the Devils kicked the field goal, and they were down by four. Another eleven minutes, and the Bucs had a field goal of their own. Seventeen to ten with four minutes to go, and the Devils punted. Three minutes and thirty seconds to go, and the Bucs drove twenty-three yards. And punted.

Dyma barely cared who won anymore. She just wanted it to be over. Jennifer got more and more of that strung-wire thing, until she was practically twanging, Nick was fussing, probably because of the strung wire, Annabelle was silent and still, and as for Dyma—she finally sighed and said, “Mom. Harlan is not going to drop the Hail Mary. Stop it.”

“Don’tsaythat,” Jennifer moaned. “OK. I can’t stand it. I’m going to the ladies’ room. Take Nick.”

“Come on, Nicky,” Dyma said, snuggling the baby, who was three months old now and still in his special shoes with the bar between them, but getting pretty feisty. He sure knew how to kick with both legs, anyway. She bounced him on her lap and told him, “We like excitement, don’t we? We like watching Daddy and Uncle Owen come from behind. They’re big boys. They can handle whatever happens.”

She thought about Owen’s wife, Ashley. Sitting here in the stands, worrying that he wouldn’t be named an All-Pro, that he wouldn’t go to the Super Bowl. That he’d be cut from the team. That he’d lose, and that would mean she’d lost, too.

“This is why,” she told Nick, “we have our own goals. So we don’t have to live vicariously.”

“That’s right,” Joan said. “But we can still be nervous.”

A pretty good kickoff return by the Devils for eighteen yards, and two running plays in a row. Grandpa Oscar said, “Being conservative, holding onto the ball. Using up the clock.” Harlan going long on third down, being covered perfectly, and the QB pump-faking toward him, then dumping the ball off short. The receiver getting a few yards, then being tackled.

“Have to bring out the chains,” Oscar said, and he was right.

Jennifer came back as the officials measured. The ball was sitting on the Devils’ forty-five-yard line with a minute and thirty-three seconds to go, and the referee was holding up his hands six inches apart.

“What’s happening?” Jennifer asked.

“Fourth and inches,” Dyma said, since Annabelle was still silent. “They’ll have to go for it.”

Men running off, running on, and the Devils lining up again, the quarterback right behind Owen. A long snap count, and the Bucs showing discipline, not being drawn offside. The snap, then Owen pushing hard, driving his man back, and the quarterback following him straight over the middle.

First down. A minute and twenty-eight seconds.

Jennifer said, “I can’t watch.” Dyma didn’t say anything. She just waited.

Harlan, lining up. No point faking anything, because nothing but a pass would work here, not when they needed two scores to win.

“They’ll go medium,” Oscar said. “Have to. Pass and catch and out of bounds.”

Dyma thought,Come on. Come on.OK, she’d been lying. Shedidcare who won.

The snap, the offensive line holding up, pushing with all their might, and the Devils quarterback firing off a bullet.

A gloved hand rising to meet the ball, and it was popping up, tumbling end over end.

A big form jumping for that ball, higher than a man that size ought to be able to do it. Owen. One of his hands on the ball, and somebody else’s, too. Dyma could have told him that there was no way. Nobody was going to take that ball from Owen.

He didn’t fall on it. He sent it backward in a shovel pass to his quarterback. And then he blocked like his life depended on it. Like there was no moving him.

The quarterback barely taking a two-step drop and then throwing across his body. Sixty yards down the field with all his arm strength, to the man who’d been running all this time. Running his route, because running his route perfectly was his job. Jumping for the ball and coming down on one leg, the same way he had during that ping-pong game. Hurdling a diving defender like a ballet dancer, and running.

Sidestepping one defender, weaving between two others, and his tight end taking out another with a monster block. At the twenty. At the ten. The crowd on their feet, Dyma barely able to see over the man in front of her, watching the Jumbotron instead.

Harlan being tackled, and dragging the tackler with him as he fell. Falling hard, and stretching out as he went.

The ball on the goal line? Near it? Over it?

Replays. Measurements. Sweat streaming on the faces on the big screen, hands on hips, mouths open, gasping for breath.

The referee’s arms going up.