Six Point Bombshell
Everything was pretty quiet on west coast gridirons that Saturday afternoon… and then — BOOM — Dynamite Dan Webb exploded out of a pile-up, streaking for paydirt like a golden sky-rocket… He should have known there’d be plenty of Bowl-breaking reverberations.
I
Dan Webb lay flat on his back with an armful of legs hugged to his helmet, a faceful of cleats grinding at his nose and mouth, half a ton of weight bouncing on his belly… and asked himself if the game was worth the candle.
The whistle peeled the pressure off his ribs. But there was no balm for bruised muscles in assistant line coach Yokum’s whip-lash words. Not that the coach was bawling him out. Yokum was merely ignoring him.
“Soletti!” The caustic tone was directed at the C team’s towering left tackle. “How many times I got to tell you!
Soletti nodded grimly, stalked to his position, glowered at Dan.
The guard murmured sympathetically: “Don’t let it get you down, deep dish.
Anybody’d think he never heard of a check bouncing, before.”
Soletti grinned tautly. “Back in your bowl, wise cracker. You’re due to be crumbled.”
“Over,” Yokum barked irritably. “But good.”
The
Coco Lewis, last year’s freshman Wonder-Boy signal caller, stooped, wheeled, passed off…
Southern’s famous wide reverse. ‘Stoney’ Hart’s patented specialty. The gilt-edged ground-gainer, that — when clicking — made it look as if subs were pouring off the bench to block for the ball-carrier.
It didn’t look that way now. Something gummed the works. The interference got balled up. The wing-back crashed. The leather bobbled loose.
“No..o..o..o!” Yokum squinted as if in pain. His whistle peeled them off the pileup.
Again, the last blue jersey to move belonged to Dan Webb. His helmet was jammed down over one eye. Grass stuck to blood on his mouth. And the ball, to his waist pads.
He spat out grass. “Been fun, fellas.” He hoisted himself erect by hooking his fingers in Coco Lewis’s belt. “Have to get together over at
Somebody sniggered. The coach’s weather-burned face went deeper red as he waved the D-team center to take possession of the ball.
“Save those corny gags, Webb. We’ll audition your comic stuff some other time.”
Dan murmured: “Don’t bother. I’m strictly sustaining talent.” He said it low enough so nobody except Soletti could hear him. Still… he meant it.
That’s all he was. Talent for free. Competing with a huge squad, most of them here at Southern on cushy ‘athletic’ scholarships… with enthusiastic alumni boosters rooting for them. A few weren’t getting any Athletic Office handouts. But those were the boys who’d checked in with big buildups from prep schools; they’d been tried out on last year’s yearling squad.
There wasn’t any ballyhoo background for Dan. No flashy freshman-record behind him. He was starting from scratch. And that would be all right with him —
He didn’t resent Yokum’s attitude. It was only natural for Southern’s high-powered coaching staff to concentrate on material they knew something about. They didn’t know anything about him. And
Yokum growled to Brad Sully, the D-team quarter. “Roll your own. Mix ’em up. Sock it in.”
In the huddle, Sully decided: “Inside buck. To left. Right tackle’s your meat, funny boy.”
He looked at Dan.
“When better mousetraps are built, Webb will—” Dan broke off, suddenly.
A girl strode smartly along the sidelines. Girls weren’t common at early-season practices. This one wouldn’t have been common anywhere, anytime, he thought.
Not too tall, not too plump. Nice and neat. Slim, trim legs. A figure that made her fireman-red sweater envied among all sweaters. Hair that flowed like clearsmooth, lustrous honey down over the nape of her neck. Eyes that — he couldn’t be sure about the color of her eyes at that distance.
Dan was a split-second slow in pulling out, pivoting. He tried to make it up, plunging over to trap the moose-shouldered right tackle. He bumped his own blocking back, was dumped on his tail. The tackle bulled through, wrecked the works.
“Whatsamatter, Webb?” Yokum’s voice dripped acid. “Maybe we better let you rest up a bit. Must be pretty wearing to think up those nifties, all the time.”
Dan shook his head, apologetically. “Couldn’t see where I was goin’, coach. The blonde got in my eyes.”
He flipped his fingers up to his helmet in salute to the girl.
II
At the midfield bench, Marla Gilman halted before a languid youth in wine-colored sport shirt and lime-tinted gabardines.
“Franno phoned to ask if he should bring his box out for the squad pix, boss.”
Lin Hollet took off his dark glasses. It was the polite thing when you were talking to a pretty, even if she was only your secretary. Besides, he never could see enough of Marla, even without them.
“Tell him tomorrow, Marla. Stoney’s cutting the squad after today’s practice.” He waved at the far end of the gridiron where the A and B teams were going through end-zone pass defense — across at the group going through blocking fundamentals on the opposite side of the field. “Franno couldn’t get these all in, with a telephoto. There’ll be twenty less, tomorrow.”
“I’ll call him back.” Marla kept her eyes on the D-squad. “Who’s the lad Yokie’s raking over the coals?”
“Some gahunk named Webb.” Hollet wasn’t interested. “Transfer from Michigan. Backwoods boy… backwards about picking up the fine points of the game.” He chuckled.
Marla watched the
“Your gahunk seems to have picked up the mousetrap trick, all right,” she said dreamily. “He looks as if he had lots of — the old stuffaroo.”
Hollet glanced at her quizzically:
“Think so? Take a good, long peek at him then. You won’t be seeing him around after today.”
“Are they dropping him from the squad?”
“Yup. No previous experience. Didn’t even go out for frosh football at Ann Arbor. Hit-or-miss specialist, too. Hits this time, misses next. And,” Hollet watched her slyly, “the coaches say he’s always clowning around. Doesn’t seem to take football seriously.”
“No?” She jumped on the bench, beside Hollet; craned her neck to get a view of the action. The
He mowed down his right tackle again with a stiff shoulder block, plowed through to the secondary. Backing up, for the
The sound of the block was like a couple of freight cars being shunted together. De Fano went down, stayed down. Dan bounced off, kept his feet, went on.
Klupper was up even with him then, running in the clear. Only Coco Lewis between him and the goal. Dan put on a sudden, terrific burst of speed.
“Wait for pop!” He pulled ahead of the racing ball-carrier.
He left his feet in a flying, sidewise roll. Coco stiff-armed him away, but the quarter had to sidestep to do it. Klupper tore past. Only the whistle stopped him.
Marla let out her breath in a long, pent-up “Whee-you! If that’s a sample of Mister Webb when he’s just kidding, I’d sure like to see him when he really gets
On his way to the shower, Dan paused at the mirror beside the locker room door. The features in the glass were clean, lean and well-freckled under the California bronze. But he paid no attention to his long, straight nose, the solemn gray eyes or the short-cropped thatch of rusty red.
What he scowled at was the swollen mouth. It felt as if somebody’d shoved a frankfurter between his gums and his upper lip. It didn’t look that bad, but it wouldn’t be any bonus, meeting a girl for the first time.
Of course there was always the possibility he
Also, it might not make any difference
“An’ if you aren’t,” he asked the reflection accusingly, “whose fault is that?”
The face in the mirror returned a mocking prop smile.
He nodded agreement, sauntered into the shower room. His own fault. Nobody else to blame.
So far as Yokum was concerned, Dan was, at best, a somewhat clumsy comer. Maybe the coach saw possibilities in him, for next year. Only next year would be nokay for Dan.
He had to make the grade
It was just the breaks that this fall Southern was three deep in big, fast-charging linemen… with plenty of experience in Stoney Hart’s celebrated system.
He balanced a piece of soap on the biceps of his outstretched arm, tightened the muscle suddenly so the soap flipped into the air.
Coco Lawis emerged from an ice-cold, spray.
“Hey, where’d you learn that?”
Dan rotated his head, the soap still balanced on his chin. “Runs in th’ family.” He touched his throat. “We all got a jugular vein.”
Coco snapped a towel-end at him. “I meant that standing-up block you threw at Piet.”
“Ah — just lumberjack stuff.” Dan hollered over the sound of the needle spray. “Some those top loaders get a few beers in ’em, they put on a Saginaw bull fight. Stick their fists in their pockets, stand up and butt each other — chest to chest — until somebody gets knocked on his can.”
“Yeah?” Coco appraised his keg-chested build. “Might not work on Piet the second time. But it sure put the whammy on him then. Maybe Yokum’ll have you teach th’ rest of th’ class how it’s done.”
“Maybe I won’t be among those present when the class is called to order, tomorrow.”
“That’d be terrible,” Coco shook his head despondently. “What would we ever do, without that git-gat-giddle of yours, to relieve the dull monotony of practice!”
“If they cut me off the squad,” Dan’s voice was muffled by the shower, “I’ll try not to take it quiet-like.”
Marla couldn’t keep her mind on the list. The head coach’s incisive voice, issuing from the office down the corridor, was too distracting.
“…not setting our sights for the Rose Bowl just yet… few other little items on our schedule to think about first… we’re using the regulation leather ball, you know, not a crystal one… ought to do pretty fair… wealth of rugged material…” Stoney Hart, giving out to the sport writers.
Marla’s fingers made the keys clatter.
She called to Lin Hollet:
“Those blase birds from the newspapers. They’ll see right through Stoney.”
Hollet frowned. “In what way, my passion flower?”
“It’s so obvious. They know him like a book. Chapter One: if we have a team that’s a world-beater, Stoney’s a pool of gloom. Chapter Two: when things don’t look too rosy, he’s bubbling over with confidence. Just listen to him fizz…”
The publicity man scratched his nose delicately. “Can you keep a secret?”
She stuck her nose in the air, indignantly. “What’s our weakness, now?”
“You know Stoney’s formulae.” Hollet came over to sit on the edge of her desk. “For the line, seven bulldozers who can double as whippet tanks. We’ve got the material for that, two or three times over.”
She typed more names on the Revised Football Squad list, waiting.
“In the backfield,” Hollet went on, “one who can punt and one who can pass.”
“Everson, for the kicking,” she nodded. “In a pinch) Quayley. Everson and My’ Blumenthal, for the passing.”
“One who can run and one who can block.”
“Blumenthal can broken-field like nobody’s business. And Dominque’s even faster…”
“Three from four leaves…?”
Marla stared up at him. “Blocking? Where would you go — except to the pros — to find a better blocking back than Ken Quayley?”
“A long way,” Hollet admitted. “Quayley was sensational last year. He’d be a cold-riveted cinch for the big, black type and the four-color cuts in the magazines, come time for picking the All American crop this year… except for one very small thing.”
Marla’s eyes widened. “An injury! He didn’t show up for practice today!”
“At the hospital. Having X-rays. Showing a slight, not-to-be-mentioned fracture of the fourth lumbar vertebrase. That’s what a cow pony can do to a two hundred and twenty pound fullback.”
“So
“It isn’t fatal, you know.” He patted her shoulder, soothingly. “Isn’t necessarily too damn serious, either. There’s Klupper Smith. There’s Bill Prender…”
“What about Webb?” Marla asked.
Hollet walked back to his desk, sat down, cocked his feet up. “I told you he’d been cut from the squad.”
She spun around to face him. “He’s a blocker! You can’t deny that, after the way he—”
“He’s a guard, Marla. Remember?”
“What’s the difference, if he can hit ’em so they stay down! Wouldn’t be the first time a man had been shifted from one position to another!”
He smiled gently. “Trying to tell the coaches how to run their squad?”
“If the staff is looking all over for a four-leaf clover to replace the one they’ve lost, they might do worse than give this Webb kid a try. To me,” she whirled back to the machine to avoid Hollet’s reproving eyes, “it looked as if he had something, out there today.”
“If he’d had enough, it would have shown up at Ann Arbor, precious.” He grinned wisely.
“I didn’t see him at Michigan,” she retorted. “I saw him bounce Piet De Fanno on his ear, though. Klupper Smith couldn’t do that if he was riding the front end of a locomotive. I’ve a good mind to speak to Stoney about him!”
“You may have a good mind, sweetie plum. But not a good idea.” He sighed. “Coaches don’t like little girls to stick their noses in the big boys’ game. But if it’ll amuse you, I’ll mention him to Stoney, myself.”
“Don’t act as if you were doing
“Bet me a date and I’ll take you,” he said lazily.
“All right.” Swiftly she typed:
“Hun, taa, three,
Strung out in a circle, the squad alternately chopped wood with locked fists, then bent in a knee-straining squat. Dan Webb hummed, in cadence with the drill caller:
“All right,” yapped Mason. “Backs at north goal. Ends here. Line, south goal. Put some life in it.”
Yokum was organizing two-on-one offensive charging when Dan joined the linemen. The coach tugged at the visor of his baseball cap, scowling:
“I can take a joke as well as the next man. But not day after day. What you doing out here Webb?”
Dan raised his eyebrows: “Whatever you say, coach.”
Yokum twirled his whistle: “Didn’t you read the Revised Squad List?”
“Sure. My name’s on it.”
The line coach consulted his carbon copy. There it was, in smudged type.
“Mistake somewhere.” Maybe Stoney’d reinstated this clown, in spite of the line coach’s report. “Better see the head man.”
Stoney Hart watched My’ Blumenthal limber up the backs on quick buttonhook flips.
“Keep it low, keep it low, My’. So the secondary can’t bat it down. Aim for the belly button.
“Mister Yokum told me to report to you, coach.”
The pale, gray eyes in the long, narrow saddle-leather face studied him. “Webb, aren’t you?”
Dan nodded.
The Head Coach recalled something Lin Hollet had said to him. Also, there were certain notations on Yokum’s candidatereports that lingered in Stoney’s mind. “Lineman?”
“Played backfield some.”
“Where?”
“Full.”
The gray eyes sized up his hundred and eighty-five pounds. “Where’d you
“High school.” Dan was bland. “Michigan.”
“How many games they use you at Ann Arbor last year?”
Dan shook his head. “I meant my high school was in Michigan. Petosky.”
Stoney let it go at that. “What can you do?”
“Buck, some. Block, some. Back up.” Dan’s flippant manner was gone.
This horsefaced man was one of the great gridiron strategists. He’d built a dozen devastating football machines here on the coast and down in Texas. The cutting edge of his sharp tongue had shaped a score of top rank stars who’d gone on to set new marks in the National Football League and the All American Association.
No sense kidding a man like this. “I’m not so hot on chucking or booting.”
“No?” Stoney turned his head away, looked at him out of the corner of the cold, pale eyes, as if he couldn’t believe the admission: “Can you
“If I can reach it.” No point underplaying himself
“Get on the line, there.”
The halfbacks were starting from the goal, as an imaginary line of scrimmage, sprinting ten, cutting over fast, whirling to grab the quick buttonhooks. Dan stepped in place behind Everson.
It looked easy. It wouldn’t be, though. If Blumenthal timed his hair-trigger pass wrong, if the rifled ball was wide—
Everson made his cut and his catch, lobbed the leather back to Blumenthal.
“Set… One… two…
Dan got away fast, swerved, whirled, hands out
He threw the oval back to the chunky Blumenthal with a grin of admiration for the passer who could place that leather like a moundsman tossing strikes.
Stoney said nothing to him. To Blumenthal he gave new orders.
“Long shots, My’. Thirty yards. Ten in from west side. Keep ’em high. Throw ’em soft.”
Klupper Smith came up behind Dan while Al Dominque raced down for the first long heave.
“How’d you promote yourself to the backfield, skutch?”
“Not a promotion,” Dan corrected him. “Just a probation. Yokum no likum. Mebbe Big Chief no wantum, either.”
“Nothin’ to it. You’ll do it,” Klupper encouraged him.
He did only fair on the long heaves, though, catching one, bobbling one. Stoney disregarded him, until the first and second string linemen came up to the north goal for scrimmage.
The
In the circle of huddled shoulders, Coco Lewis regarded Dan skeptically. “When’d you get to be a back, Webb?”
“You heard the man,” Dan said easily. “Don’t you believe him?”
The quarterback grunted, unconvinced. “Left shift. Off tackle. Strong side. Pfieffer lugs it. Drop that end, Dommy. Halfback’s yours, Webb. Let’s
They lined up, unbalanced single wing, Dominque flanking.
It gave Dan a queer sensation to be stooping there, hands on knees, instead of crouching low in the line. A good feeling. This was where he belonged. Where he could show something, if they gave him a chance. Maybe Coco wouldn’t…
The snap-back. The quick start. Everson coming up fast from his back-up spot. The hard-rolling block… and the whistle. Ship Morey, the senior who held down the right wing for the
The quarter called for a buttonhook pass, to the right, after a fake buck. “Make your crossover fast, Dommy. I’m going to slam it at you.”
It went sour. A guard ripped through, drove Coco back. The fake didn’t work. Coco had to lob the pass, instead of rifling it. It was batted down.
Stoney was sarcastic. “That the best you can do?”
Before Coco could call his play in the huddle, Dan said:
“That guard thinks he’s hell on hooves. Might be a sucker for a trap now.”
The quarterback started to ask who the hell was calling B-team signals anyway. Dan could see it in his eyes. But Coco switched. He saw a chance to shift responsibility to the head coach. After all, Stoney’d stuck Webb in here. If the new back was a droop,
“Guard buck. Weak side. Webb takes it. Pfieff’… wait for that guard an’ nail him! Hit it, everybody.”
Then Coco was slapping the ball at Dommy, pulling it back, socking it into Dan’s ribs. The hulking guard crashed in. Pfieffer slowed him, shunted him. Dan took off.
There wasn’t any hole. There was a slit. He knifed between charging linemen.
Ike Brady, the 220-pound defensive center, came up fast, in a savage, lunging tackle, arms wide.
Dan had no more than a yard to get momentum. He met the center head on. His rigid left arm hit the center’s helmet like a crowbar. His right knee, riding high, caught the pivot man in the wishbone. Brady fell on his face.
Dan stumbled, recovered, side-stepped Everson, bulled into Blumenthal full tilt.
Blumenthal held him. To a twelve-yard gain. Dan spun, twisted, churned fiercely ahead, step after step, the crack safety man clinging to his knees.
It took Everson to clamp hands on his shoulders from behind, pull him over backwards on the eleven yard line.
There was no whistle. Stoney Hart, Boyd Mason and trainer Doc Gurley were bent over Brady. The big center’s face was puckered in pain. He rolled over on his side, clutching at his right shoulder.
Gurley’s fingers explored. “Collar bone,” he diagnosed.
Dan helped the trainer assist Brady off the field.
Mason grumbled: “That’s the lousiest kind of a break.”
“It’s an ill wind,” the head coach answered, “that blows
The pale gray eyes watched Dan expressing sympathy for Brady on the sidelines; on the head coach’s long, glum face was a curiously puzzled expression, as if he was trying to recall where he’d seen Dan before…
III
The evening sea breeze, coming in from Santa Monica, whipped Marla’s skirts up around her knees just as the horn on the battered blue convertible gave a long, gentle
She tilted up her chin, kept her eyes straight ahead, marked briskly on.
The convertible came up beside her with suggestive slowness. She turned her head away, pointedly gazing at the sunlight gilding citrus fruit on the Westwood hills.
The car stopped. The driver did a one-hand leap to the sidewalk. Then he bowed, unlatching the door.
“Take you somewhere? I hope.”
“Wrong number,” Marla said icily. “You’d better
Dan beamed. “I might have been dialing blind. But I certainly have the right number.”
“You have a nerve,” she corrected him. “And you
He made a sweeping gesture toward the jeep. “She may not look it, but the old hunk will get you there, Miss Gilman.”
“It’s only down the block. The Kappa House. But thanks anyway.” He deserved a smile for having gone to the trouble of finding out her name; she gave him one of her best, fully equipped with dimples.
“Do they serve dinner at sorority houses in this neck of the woods?” He took her arm.
“Why…!” Before she could properly protest, she found herself being helped into the jalopy. “I have a dinner date.”
He shut the door, ran around, hopped in.
“Say where, m’ lady…”
She couldn’t tell him who her date was, or why she was dining out with Lin Hollet for the first time. “I have to stop at the house first — fix my hair.”
He frowned at her page boy bob. “I can’t think of anything it needs, but if you say so…” He slowed the convertible.
Marla put out seconds on the smile. “I’m not in such a rush I couldn’t drive around a little, Mister Webb.”
“Dan. Where?”
“Marla. Shore drive?”
“Suh-well! I was hoping you wouldn’t suggest going up on Mulholland and looking down on Hollywood.”
“Don’t you like Hollywood?”
“I don’t know. Back home, I thought they made pictures in Hollywood, but it seems the studios are in Culver City or Burbank or the Valley. I thought the stars lived in Hollywood. Come to find out, they live in Northridge or Westwood or Encino. I thought every time you dropped into a Hollywood restaurant or drugstore, you had to ask two starlets to move over to make room. Matter of fact, unless you can afford those snazzy spots in Beverly Hills or the swanky-panty country clubs, you could go a year without seeing anybody except radio peep…”
“Did you come out here to look for starlets?” The low-hanging sun polished the Pacific to a pattern of copper and silver.
“No. Partly, to get an education. Mostly, to play football.”
“Couldn’t you do that back home?”
“Not very well.” Dan wasn’t curt about it. But he didn’t elaborate. “Not sure I can do it here, either. Near’s I can make out, I’m only on the squad by accident. Yokum didn’t see me as a lineman. Hart let me work out as a back, this afternoon. But he didn’t say anything about tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll stay on the squad.” She had to make it up as she went along. “I’m in the athletic director’s office, you know—”
He nodded.
“—and I keep my ears open. I can’t tell you
“That makes two of us hoping.”
“Three,” said Marla. “
“Yeah?”
“You’re behind Ship Morey in the picture. Only about half your face shows. Nobody’ll ever be able to recognize you.”
“I’m heartbroken,” he grinned. “What’ll my public
“I think you ought to take me home. It’s getting late.”
“Okay.” He spun the wheel. “But be sure and join us here tomorrow night — same time, same station.”
She didn’t say she wouldn’t.
IV
The scoreboard said there was eleven minutes of play left in the fourth quarter and College of the Pacific was trailing Southern on the low end of a 27-7 tally. But Stoney Hart was not happy.
Southern had been chalking up gains on punt runbacks and long passes, had racked up four t. d.’s on buttonhooks and wide end sweeps. Through the Visitors’ scrappy line, they’d rammed over but one first down all afternoon.
Three of Southern’s scores had been in the first half; Dominque’s flashy runback of the kickoff after Pacific’s lone marker accounted for the rest of the 27 points. Even the passes had been smelling this half. The team from up north had found out they didn’t need to worry about line smashes; they were opening up in a 5-3-2-1 defense and beginning to intercept, instead of knock down, Southern’s aerial attack.
Mason Boyd sized it up. “Be different if we had Quayley in there as a threat.”
The head coach snorted. “
Dan trotted up.
“In for Smith, Webb. Tell Coco to crack the middle.”
“Wide open.” Dan turned.
“—and Webb. Tell him to use the 50’s.”
Dan sprinted to the thirty-five, where Pacific had it, second and seven. The 50’s were guard bucks, straight smashes. His dish…
Pacific faked a sweep, pulled a lateral out of the hat, ran it clear across the field for a one-yard gain.
They lined up quickly, short punt formation. Everson called “Pass”. It was. A longie, down to the five… where Coco snagged it and was dumped on his duff by the Pacific right end.
Southern went into conference.
Dan said: “Coach wants 50’s.”
Coco called for a wide reverse, Pfieffer toting. Dan blocked his man solidly, felt the old fierce satisfaction in the crashing contact. The play picked up only two yards.
They huddled. Coco wiped sweat off his chin. “Left shift. Fifty-two. Webb goes. Poosh ’em up, guys.”
Dan relaxed, so he wouldn’t give the play away by being too obviously set. The ball rammed into Coco’s palms. The lines charged. Dan bored in. Coco slammed the leather at him.
There was a hole, but it closed instantly as a Pacific guard drove through the two-on-one block. Dan could have gone through the guard’s arm, maybe gained a yard before he was pulled down. Instead he butted straight ahead, with every ounce he could put into the drive.
The guard grunted “Unhh!” caromed off. Dan tripped over him, stumbled ahead.
The Pacific fullback roared in. Dan couldn’t get away from him, smacked into him with that galvanic burst of speed that gave him a little more impetus than the tackler. Dan’s knees were pumping high and hard. The fullback’s jaw met one, flush. There was a fraction of a second when it seemed as if Dan had been stopped. Then he was past, and the fullback’s hands were slithering off him.
A sharp yell went up from the Southern stands. Dan ran with short, choppy, tied-in strides until the Pacific left half came in swift and low, lunging at him. Then there was that instantaneous acceleration; a twisting spin… and the yell became a roar.
But the halfback caught Dan’s ankle, held on. Dan hopped and hobbled another two… but then they piled on.
The head linesman was pointing toward the Pacific goal, when Dan got to his feet. Over in the Southern cheering section, excited undergraduates asked: “Who is that?” “Who’s that fullback?”
Somebody spotted his number on the program.
“Webb. Soph. He went
“One second they got him — then
“First down… an’ Pacific takin’ time out.”
While the team was moving around, waiting for the visitors to send in a replacement for the fullback, Everson pounded Dan between the shoulderblades. “Atsa old zok, boy!”
“I oughta go out for the lotto team!” Dan was disgusted. “Lettin’ that guy hook my ankle like that.”
Coco grinned. “Hey, bull o’ th’ woods! Care for some more of same?”
“With chocolate sauce,” Dan said, solemnly.
The clock began to move. They went into the single wing, shifted, set.
The jarring up had softened the visitors’ aggressive guard a little. There
The fullback replacement was waiting for him. For that same fragmentary moment, Dan seemed to be halted. Then the fullback was clinging to his knees and Dan was storming ahead. One stride, a turn. Two strides,
This time the stands came up as one man—
The little group of Pacific rooters screamed, too:
The halfback came in. Dan practically tore his helmet off with a bludgeoning stiff arm.
The safety man raced over, warily.
Dan drew him over to the sidelines — feinted — and was nailed on the fifteen. The stands groaned.
But Boyd Mason was jubilant:
“He may not be another Norm Standlee. But he sure as hell can dynamite that line!”
Stoney Hart snarled:
Coco Lewis stepped to the end of the springboard, turned around so only his toes were on the wet canvas.
“Try this on your okarina.” He glanced briefly down at the blue-green surface of the pool, bounced high, arched over backward, flinging his arms wide. Ten feet from the water his arms snapped together. He chunked in with a noisy splash.
He bobbed up, shook wet hair out of his eyes, floated on his back to watch Dan teeter on the edge of the board.
“That must be one of those low dives they warned me to keep out of, when I came to the coast.” Dan held his hands at his sides, kept his body rigid, let himself topple forward, stiffly, his feet still on the board. When he was at a thirty-degree angle from the water, he gave a little push. His entrance into the pool was smooth and quiet.
He swam to the edge of the pool before surfacing. Then he hoisted himself out onto the green tiling.
“Crazy country — swim in the ayem, play football the same day. Back in my corner of th’ woods, the only thing you can do with water in football season is fish in it.”
Coco backstroked lazily. “You can fish here, too.” He sang, in a slightly waterlogged baritone:
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.” Dan made a back-of-me-hand-to-ye gesture. “There’s a lot of pretty swell things about Michigan.”
“I’ll have to admit they put together quite a football team.” Coco swam to the ladder. “How come you didn’t go out for it, keed?”
“Busy earning a living last year.” Dan switched the subject. “The lad who owns this little bungalily doesn’t have to worry about things like that, I guess.” He admired the long, redwood ranch house with its enormous picture windows, the barbecue fireplace with its awninged brick bar.
“Frankie frets more about dough than you or I do.” Coco stretched on the emerald-bright grass by the pool-side. “More you have, more you stew about it.”
“Sure. But you can worry better when you’re packing your ribs with those three-inch sirloins every night.” All Dan knew about the owner of this fifty-acre paradise was that T. Francis Caytron, producer of Western movies, had married a cousin of Coco’s.
“He’s been on a milk-toast diet for a year,” Coco bicycled his legs, to keep from stiffening up. “He’s got enough ritzy liquor in there,” he waved at the ranch house, “to fill this damn pool. All he can drink is fermented goat’s milk. I wouldn’t swap places with him for all the cuties in Earl Carroll’s. Only fun he gets out of life is his share in the Gaters.”
“The Golden Gaters? The pro club, up in—”
“He owns half of it.” Coco flopped over on his stomach to get sun on his back. “That’s one reason I thought you’d like to come out and make howdy with him. Never can tell. He has a lot to say about who gets hired…”
Dan picked up a badminton racket, experimented with keeping the feathered bird in the air. “He been mixed up with pro football very long?”
“Four or five years. You ever think about taking a crack at that, after graduating?”
“Not much.” Dan tried to keep his tone casual. “Hey, you know what time it’s gettin’ to be?”
“Around eleven.”
“Later than that. Tell by the sun…”
“What’s your hurry?” Coco sat up, surveying him curiously. “Frankie’ll be home for lunch. He’ll be sore if we don’t stay.”
“You stick around, Coco.”
“Thought you said you didn’t have any class until two!”
“Haven’t.” Dan moved across the lawn toward the house. “Just remembered. Date with dentist.” He opened his mouth wide, pointed a finger at it. “Cavity.”
“Goes right up inside your skull, you ask me.
Dan nearly bumped into a man of forty or so with the wide-shouldered build of a wrestler and the shrewd, sharp face of a prosecuting attorney. His hair was iron gray. He wore beribboned oxford glasses which glittered in the sunlight.
“What goes, you case of retarded development,” Frank Caytron called genially, keeping his eyes on Dan. “Well, well and ding-dong bell! As I live and behave myself. Janny!”
Dan left his mouth open; opened his eyes wide enough to match it. His forehead furrowed. “Huh?” he grunted.
The producer stared.
Coco trotted over. “Slip five to Danny Webb, Frank. He’s the stick of dynamite Stoney threw at Pacific, Sattiday.”
Dan took Caytron’s proffered palm.
The producer chuckled. “Line cracker, aren’t you, Webb?”
“Just one of the wrecking crew.” Dan knew this big shot would think it was odd if he didn’t come back with a query of his own. “Who’d you think I was?”
“For a second, there, you reminded me of a back I saw play in Chicago last year.” Caytron put his arm around Dan’s shoulders. “But that boy wasn’t as heavy as you are. He was only a ring-ding scat-back, besides. He couldn’t crack peanuts. I didn’t see your game Saturday. But I read about it. You must be the answer to the maiden’s prayer.”
“Wish you’d tell Stoney that.” Dan tried not to appear conscious of the fact that Coco was watching both of them like a kid determined not to be fooled by a magician. “Stoney thinks I’m pretty crude raw material. I’ll need a lot of drilling—” he snapped his fingers. “That damn dentist! I’ll have to scramoose,
“Aw, Dan!” Coco protested. “For cat’s sake…”
“Stay to lunch,” urged Caytron. “Come on now—”
“Can’t. Wish I could. Late now. Just have time to change and buzz back. Sorry. Hope to see you again, sir.”
Dan did a fast duck.
V
The blue convertible clattered along Sunset. Nervous neons jittered through the dusk — green, vermilion, lemon. The famous eating places of The Strip.
“Where wouldst tie on the feed-bag, m’lovely?” Dan’s gesture took in the lot.
“So ordinary!” Marla snuggled close; there was a nip in the October air. “And I feel so sort of… special.”
“No.” Not until they’d swung southward did she see what she wanted. “There.”
He swung over to the Drive In sign.
“Chicken-in-a-basket,” she murmured. “Mmmmm!”
“Suh-well,” he agreed. “The fact that it costs just about what the tip would in one of those glitter joints, is strictly coincidental. Coke or java?”
While they waited for the girl to bring their order, Marla said:
“Now that we’re sort of engaged—”
“Whaddaya mean! Sort of!” He took measures to dispel any lingering uncertainty.
“I mean, we’re not going to announce it yet or anything…”
Dan said: “I’ll put it in writing if you prefer, Miss Gilman.”
“You dummy! All I’m getting at is, it’s
“What?”
“The way they’re giving you the dirty end of the stick, Dan.”
“Don’t be ridic, chick. I’m not getting any raw deal.”
“Just look at it! Here it is, the middle of October. You’ve been in three games already and everyone admits you’re the mainspring of the team!”
“There might be a couple of narrow-minded critics who wouldn’t agree to that,” he waved airily, “such as Stoney Hart and Mason Boyd. But what does
“I’ve heard Boyd say you were the stuffaroo. And, anyway, the sport writers know who gets put in when our attack bogs down. Dynamite Daniel, nobody else.”
“Granted, granted,” he nodded magnanimously, “I’m super stupendous. Outside of the trifling fact that I’ve only played a total of twenty minutes in three full games — that I haven’t scored any points to date — that Bill Prender has it over me like a tent on defense—”
“No
“Be fair, baby.” It made him uncomfortable to talk about it; he’d done too much thinking along those lines himself. “When the bunch gets down to paydirt, Stoney’s system calls for deception rather than straight pounding. Deception means that any back who gets the ball must be able to threaten a pass — as well as a smash.”
“Not well enough to suit Stoney. He’s been hammering it into me all week. Maybe I’ll get so I can chuck it through that inner-tube at twenty yards. Coco can do it. So can Dommy. I can’t… yet.”
“Neither of them can be depended on to chew off eight yards every time their signal is called, though!” Marla paused in her Operation Drumstick. “Did it ever occur to you fraternity politics might have something to do with it?”
“Let’s don’t start that! That’s the most moth-eaten, frazzle-tazzle excuse—”
“Oh, you schmo! Everson’s a fraternity brother of Hart’s. So’s Prender. Don’t you catch wise?”
He shook his head sadly. “You oughta know better’n to fall for that mahaha. Might be a little feeling among the alumni quarterbacks, concerning their Greek letter heroes — but only difference it makes to the coaches, they lean over backwards to avoid suspicion of giving their own brothers the edge.”
“Why’s Stoney so down on you then? Why does he always let you do the hard work… and give the scoring chance to somebody else?”
“Maybe he’s holding me back for the big games,” Dan answered lightly. “Or maybe he knows I don’t care so much about racking up touchdowns as first downs. To me, football’s fun, hon. Not a business. Takes all the joy outa life, you get too sweat up about it.” He brandished a wing. “Forgetsis. Let’s talk about us.”
“About
“Well… I like Count Basie’s records and blonde hair; apple pie with vanilla ice cream… and blonde hair—”
She poked him with her elbow. “I mean… your family. You’ve never told me a thing about them.”
“Not much to tell. My old man isn’t an airplane engineer like yours — he’s just a sawyer.”
“A… what?”
“Boss sawyer. In a lumber mill. He’s a good one, too. And he’s still got all his fingers after thirty years of it. You’ll like pop. He’s rough and tough, but you never have any trouble figuring out what he thinks.” Dan looked at her. “He’ll like you, too. Plenty.”
“And your mother, Dan?”
“Ah now, there’s quite a party, that mom.” His smile broadened. “She’s got it to spare. Her last letter asked me about ‘this Marla girl you’re so interested in.’ I’m gonna send her one of those snaps I took up in Griffith Park.”
“Let me, Dan. I want to write her, anyway.”
The girl came for their trays. He was glad of the interruption. He hadn’t figured out what to tell Marla if she asked for his home address.
Sooner or later, he’d have to reach a decision about that.
But maybe he could put it off just a little longer.
VI
Stoney stood at the blackboard, with a fist full of colored chalk. The locker room was quiet except for the scraping of cleats on cement. Dan was sprawled out on a bench.
“The other team can’t score while you’ve got possession of the ball,” the head coach made red circles rapidly on the board, in the single wing. “They can’t get the ball as long as you keep making those first downs. That’s why it’s more important to be able to make a first down than to try to shake a man loose for a touchdown on every play.”
He sketched in a 6-2-2-1 defense in white. “Say we’ve cracked off tackle and inside guard and picked up only four or five on two tries. We’ve got one more down to gamble with, before we have to kick out of trouble. Play I’m going to outline is for a spot like that… and no other. If it goes, and it ought to work so smoothly it goes every time, it’s good for that six or seven you need, to keep the ball and have four more shots at pushing it downfield.”
Stoney traced the path of the ball in yellow chalk. “You don’t want to use it very often or it’ll curdle on you. Save it for those spots where you
Dan shifted his position uncomfortably. He knew all there was to know about the
The pro clubs used it right along. No good for big gains. Tough to stop, when you needed small ones. Yeah. He knew how it went.
Stoney said: “You have to be about fifteen yards in. Pass goes right
“Then the end wheels, sprints for the sidelines. The ball has to be there… about a yard inside… to meet him. The defense can’t intercept or bat down, because the secondary has four or five yards further to run, since he’s at an angle, while the end’s running straight for the sideline. Understand?”
The squad rumbled assent.
“Webb?” Stoney was sharp. “See how it goes?”
“Sure.” Dan had the feeling the coach was well aware how thoroughly the fullback understood that particular play.
“You’ll do the passing.” Stoney laid down the chalk. “We might need this against Stanford, Saturday. Let’s go out, run through it.”
As they trooped up the ramp into the stadium, pictures flashed through Dan’s brain. Movie shots of the famous ‘Jet’ Janok, dancing back from the battling linemen, fending off tackles crashing in with upflung arms, calmly taking his time, faking off to the left, double faking to the right, firing the ball at the last possible instant far to the sidelines at the left.
The paycheck pass. The Sure-thing Shot. How many had the flashy Janok completed? Twelve out of fourteen, — when the chips were on the line? Yes… he remembered very well indeed.
They lined up against the C’s, on the forty.
Coco called: “Ninety. Webb. Block, youse. Block your butts off.”
The whistle. The pass-back. Dan had it. He faded. Tacklers tore in.
He faked. Retreated another three. Faked again. Threw to Ship Morey as a shoulder drove into his hip.
Ship caught it, for seven. But Stoney found nothing right about it.
“What good’s a fake, Webb, if you keep looking at the eventual receiver all the time? You have to bank on his being there, keep your eyes off him until you throw. Over.”
They did it again. This time Dan didn’t look in Ship’s direction after the first momentary fake. His pass was a little low. Ship fumbled it.
The Head Coach was patient. He took Dan aside for special treatment while Dommy kept on with 90.
“Never mind about your passing style, Webb. Forget all that crap about hitting your ear with the ball when you bring it back. Throw it like you would a baseball. It’s just like a baseball only shaped different. Use your wrist. Get some snap in it. It’s just doin’ what comes naturally.”
Dan tried. Again and again. If he improved, Stoney didn’t say so.
“Keep the point up. Ball coming at a receiver end down is twice as hard to hold.
“Don’t try to see how swift you can shoot it. Nobody’s going to intercept these. Just get ’em accurate.”
And finally:
“You’ll never make a great passer. Work your head off, you might get to be a fair one. That’s all you need to be to make this 90 click.”
“I’ll get it down,” Dan answered, “so he can catch it in a soup plate.”
“Never mind perfecting it that far,” Stoney retorted dryly. “Get it in clothes basket range, I’ll be satisfied. Didn’t you do any passing on your high school team in… where was it, Petosky?”
“Yuh,” Dan said. “I did a little.”
“You must have forgotten everything you knew.” The coach started to say something more, changed his mind, turned back to the scrimmage.
“Webb in,” he called. “We’re going to get this right if we have to keep at it until they play hockey in hell.”
“Yuh,” Dan said.
Lin Hollet hung his houndstooth sport jacket carefully on a hanger. He poked a cigarette in his genuine amber holder, eased into his swivel chair, adjusted it at a satisfactory angle and shuffled the morning applications for “six seats on the forty-yard line.”
“Did my eyes deceive me, my precious petal? Or
Marla jerked a letter out of her machine.
“It was I. Why?”
“Don’t tell me the big gahunk goes for longhair music!”
“Maybe he goes for me,” she said primly. “And you’re a fine one to be calling him a gahunk. We ought to have a couple more like him on the team.”
Hollet slit open an envelope marked
“Promising young athletes have been known to flunk out. Or fail to make sufficient grades.”
“Go ahead and bet your cash on Southern. Dan’s right in there with the old marks.” She was mildly scornful.
“You seem to be pretty hep on D. Webb.” Hollet cocked a supercilious eye.
“I’ve been out with him two or three times. I think he’s extra special.” She challenged him to disapprove.
“Mean lad on that samba stuff?”
“Mmm, hmm.”
“Pitches quite a line on the git-tar, huh?”
“Uh, uh. Strictly a zither man.” She stacked a row of ticket envelopes. “Why so curious all of a sud!”
“My interest in you, light of my life. Hate to see you wasting your sweetness on a lone wolf with such an… um… vague and uncertain background.”
She rose, planted fists on hips, elbows akimbo. Her eyes slitted. “Precisely what are you getting at, Lin Hollet!”
“Webb’s kind of a mystery man.” He was amused at her anger. “Nobody knows anything about him. Around the campus, I mean. Hasn’t joined any fraternity. Rooms by himself. Doesn’t buddy up with his classmates—”
“How awful!” Her eyes opened wide in mock alarm. “You think he ought to be psychoanalyzed or something!”
“Something.” He agreed, imperturbably. “You remember Stan Llewellyn of the
“So…?”
“I put it up to Dan. Did he give me any dope? Not enough to shove in your eye. Bunch of mahooly about spending his vacations working in the lumber mills in northern Michigan, log-spinning or birling or whatever it is you do in hobnailed boots!”
“I suppose there
He flicked ashes at a bronze tray. “It occurred to me the Dean’s office would have enough to fill in, on him. I gave them a buzz. And what do you think!”
Marla clapped both fists to her cheeks, dramatically. “He’s a fugitive from a chain gang!”
Hollet pulled down the corners of his lips. “Might
She thought quickly. “The Dean’s abroad. Geneva.”
“Exactly. Made it a little more difficult. But Old Slewfoot Hollet stuck to the trail. I dropped a line to Ann Arbor.”
Marla came over beside him. “You’re going to quite a lot of trouble about him, aren’t you?”
“Business of this office, star-eyes. To keep track of our budding amateurs. The authorities in Michigan wrote back there was no student registered there last year by the name of Webb.”
Marla sat down, slid an envelope in her machine, began typing. “If I tell you the truth, will you keep it under cover?” She asked, in a hushed voice.
“Huh?”
“He’s really a member of the French underground, still being pursued by Gestapo agents for putting arsenic in Goering’s cream puffs. If they learn where Dan’s hiding…” she drew a finger across her throat, shuddering.
The assistant to the Athletic Director reached for the letter he’d taken from the envelope marked
She read it. It was from the office of the Principal of the Petosky High School. It expressed regret that no record had been found of any Webb who had attended that institution except a Laurence Webb who had graduated in 1937 and was now engaged in the undertaking business in a nearby town.
“Oh! For the love of—” she came up out of her chair, giggling. “Why don’t you just ask Dan to explain, straight out, instead of beating ’round the bush like this! He isn’t the kind to
“We’ll ask him all right,” Hollet said. “Before he goes on the field for Southern, again.”
The sun beat down on eleven men, ringed about by the coaching staff and a dozen second-string replacements. But the coaches wore light baseball pants and T-shirts… and the B’s weren’t being raced through their paces at this blazing speed, Dan beefed silently.
Sweat ran down him in rivulets. Sweat got in his eyes.
“Fifty,” panted Coco. “Left shift. Webb, Go!”
The Friday signal drill. Dan would rather have scrimmaged all day than go through an hour of this relentless pace.
A line buck. A sweep. The wide reverse. Delayed off tackle. A pass. End around. No pause that refreshes. Just jump and bump. And over again.
It wouldn’t have hit Dan so hard except for the terrific heat.
“This Califunny weather gets me down.” he wheezed to Everson.
“That won’t be all that’ll get you down, tomorrow, if you don’t shake the lead outa your baggy pants, clowner.” The team captain had been surly.
Maybe it was just that Everson and some of the others were touchy on account of this tropical weather. Or… maybe there was a certain undercurrent of resentment against him. Dan wondered about that.
Coco was more than friendly. Ship Morey razzed him amiably enough. Dommy Dominque was openly admiring. Yet the others…?
Dan was a soph and Everson was a senior, of course. So were some of the linemen. That might make for a certain reluctance to accept a new man, particularly a transfer.
Then, too, he wasn’t any native son while most of the gang were. Dan wasn’t even a Westerner.
He’d only been at Southern a few weeks; the majority of the squad had been mixing with others at the university a couple of years, at least. Dan was the Johnny-Come-Lately. Yeah. That would account for any rough edges, naturally.
“Try that 90,” Stoney yapped.
They worked it neatly. Dan shot the ball toward the sideline pocket with a short, sharp wrist-snap. Ship couldn’t have missed it blindfolded.
VII
Coco took them across-field with an end run; they rehearsed 90 on the other side with Coddington catching. Dan laid the oval in there, right across Coddy’s chest.
In scrimmage, it hadn’t gone that smoothly. It wasn’t the fool-proof, surefire ground gainer the professionals pulled off. But it would do, in a pinch. And that’s the only place Stoney wanted them to use it.
“The defensive half knows you can’t get past him,” the head coach had told Ship. “He’s got you pinned to the sideline so you can’t get loose. Out of habit, he’ll let you make that small gain rather than risk another receiver’s racing in from nowhere and grabbing a pass behind him, for a score. But don’t use it too often… or he’ll get out of the habit of letting you get away with it.”
They’d need 90 against Stanford, he’d warned them. The White Indians were coming down from Palo Alto with a line that could break up a herd of stampeding buffalo, an overhead attack that was spectacular, and a sweet total of 89 points against 14 for their opponents in the first three games.
Off-tackle buck. Buttonhook to right half. Guard smash. Flat pass. Wide reverse. Speed it up! Get in there! Drive!
His tongue was hanging out, his knees were melted butter, by the time Stoney called for a halt… and twice around the cinder track!
At the first turn, Coco jogged up beside him.
“Frankie gave me couple ducats to Sunday’s game.”
“Yuh?” Dan had no breath to waste.
“Gilmore Stadium… Pitts Burgers…. wanna go?”
“Can’t, Coco… beach party… Santa Monica,” he panted an excuse. There was no place on the West Coast he’d avoid more carefully than Gilmore Stadium. Sunday!
“Hell! Ditch your date…”
“Like to,” Dan lied. “No can do.”
They finished the second lap, dragged themselves wearily to the ramp.
“How’s about bustin’ out to Frankie’s tonight?” Coco asked. “Bunch of the pro joes’ll be whoopin’ it up.”
“Ask me again, I’ll say sure. But I have to work tonight, Coco.”
“A job? Doin’ what!” The quarterback was surprised.
“Baby sittin’. Got to sit up with baby, long as trainin’ rules allow.”
It was cool enough for coats by the time the jeep reached Malibu. He got out to help her into the camelhair shorty. He took his time about it.
Presently she said: “Let’s sit this one out, Dan. There’s no moon, but—”
“There’s you. Who wants the moon!”
The beach houses of the glamour names in Movieland were dark, gabled shadows against faintly luminous sea. Lights twinkled offshore; a freighter bound up the coast for San Francisco or Seattle.
“Wonderful country,” he sighed contentedly. “First month here I was so homesick I thought I’d never stick it out. Now I’m beginning to love it.”
“Enough to live here?”
“Sure. If you want to.” He watched the white line of surf against black, glistening rocks. “Only I’d like you to visit home with me, just to see how you like
“Tell me about Petosky,” she murmured.
“Ha!” Marla straightened exultantly. “I knew it! That explains it!”
“What?” He was baffled.
“Oh! That nosey Lin Hollet! And the high school principal… and everything!”
“Relax,” he soothed her. “You’re among friends. What’s it all about?”
She told him. At length.
He sat silently until she finished. “So that droopy goop of a Hollet is trying to make out there’s something strange about you, Dan. Something that might make you ineligible. And of course your living out of Petosky clears everything up — except… why did the people at Ann Arbor write that they knew nothing about you?”
This was the psychological moment to break down and Tell All. He realized it very well. He wanted to, too. But the words kept hammering his mind, the words he couldn’t forget, no matter how hard he tried:
“Listen, chiquita. You trust me?”
She indicated she did.
“No lurking suspicions that I’ve deserted a wife and three starving children back on the Upper Peninsula somewhere?”
“Don’t be a dope, mope!”
“Kayo, then. We’ll just have to let it ride at that, time being. I can’t put my cards face up on the table, because…” He tried to get as close to the truth as possible… “well, you might say I’m playing somebody else’s hand.”
Marla moved away from him a little.
“I don’t care what it is, Dan, or whether you want to tell anyone else, but I think I have a right to know all about you, with things the way they are, between us.”
He made no attempt to draw her closer. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it, baby. I hate to act like one of those ‘So y’won’t talk’ muggs in the movies but I can’t tell you.”
“I don’t think you’re being fair!” She was annoyed at what she thought was stubbornness.
“If it’ll help any, I
“Then
“My name isn’t Webb, Marla.” He was beginning to be irritated at the way she was dragging it out of him.
She stared, frowning. “You mean to tell me I was engaged to marry a boy when I didn’t even know his right
He stared out over the ocean, moodily. “Was engaged?”
She shrugged, pulling the coat up around her neck. “Here I’ve been dreaming about how perfectly marvelous it would be to have people call me Marla Webb! Now I find out you’re just crazy to have me become Mrs.-Something-or-other, whenever you get around to telling me what your name is!”
“Aw, shugie!”
“I’m getting cold, Dan. We’d better be driving back.”
He tried to square himself, but she drew away with an irritated: “Really, Dan!”
It
“I don’t know whether it interests you, because I can’t figure out how your mind works about such things. But I suppose you ought to know Lin Hollet says you won’t play against Stanford tomorrow unless the eligibility angle is cleared up!”
“That’ll be just ducky!” he said bitterly and knew before the words were out of his mouth that she’d misunderstand him.
She didn’t wait for him to help her out of the car, at the Kappa house, but slid out hurriedly and ran up the steps without looking back.
He guessed she was crying; he didn’t run after her or call goodnight or anything.
Maybe a milkshake would take the bad taste out of his mouth. He drove to the University Drug Store, parked.
But a trio of bobby-soxers hailed him: “Hi, Webbie.” The name grated on his nerves. And in the window was a poster. A jerseyed figure lunging ahead to drive past a tackler:
P — IGSKIN
P — YROTECHNICS
P — ITTS BURGERS GILMORE STADIUM SUNDAY
He went glumly back to the car.
VIII
Saturday was as advertised in the Chamber of Commerce circulars — clear, bright and sunny. But it didn’t look good to Dan.
Coco Lewis started it off wrong over the ham and eggs by showing him Llewellyn’s
World gets to this garrulous gossip that Stoney Hart’s chances of scalping the Palo Alto braves may have suffered a shock over the rumored elimination, from Southern’s lineup, of Dynamite Dan, the Blasting Man, whose gutsy line crashing has helped the locals to their last two wins. What lies back of this fidoodling, deponent sayeth not, — having nothing but the veriest hearsay to go on. But one gent, in a position to talk through something besides his Stetson, suggests Dynamite Dan, who has been listed on my programs as D. Webb, 20, 185, might have been playing under a NOM DE GRIDIRON. Could his real tag be one which is well known to the pro fans of a certain Pennsylvania city? And if so, what will this do to Southern’s standing, if the games in which he has already appeared, should be erased from the records?
“For crying!” Coco moaned. “What
Dan laid the paper down, picked up his fork.
“The creep is doing his damndest to say I’m a pro, that I’ve been wearing a Southern uniform under false pretenses, — and that I’ve mucked up our chances of being Coast champs or Rose Bowl candidates. You don’t believe that horse, Coco!”
The quarterback played with a salt cellar.
“Hell, no, keed. But, — Stan Llewellyn’s generally a right guy. Where’d he get this guff?”
The muscles along Dan’s jaw tightened. “Lin Hollet in the Athletic Director’s office, probably. I’ve been going around some with his secretary. Marla Gilman. Guess he goes for her, too. So he goes gunning for me.”
“You oughta beat his face off!”
“Wouldn’t help.” Dan dug into his breakfast. “Don’t run a fever. I’ll be at the gym this aft.” He didn’t say he’d be on the field.
He couldn’t say that.
Coco got up. “Your name is Webb, isn’t it?”
“Not exactly.” Dan mumbled through a mouthful of toast. “I was christened Daniel Webster. But I was afraid peep would always be expecting me to bust into oratory, an’ since I’m practically tongue-tied… why… y’see, I just shortened it a little.”
“Yeah.” Coco grinned, clapped him on the shoulder. “Natch. Wear your frock coat to th’ festivities. An’ bring your best gestures. We’ll need ’em. Those Palo Altos are gonna be tough.” But the puzzled expression was still in his eyes, when he left.
The morning was sheer misery. Dan avoided everyone; shunned the telephone. He put off going to the field until the last possible moment. When he walked into the locker-room, there was a sudden lull in the noisy chatter.
He had thought there might be word for him to report to Hart’s office immediately. But there was nothing.
Ship Morey ribbed him cautiously:
“You hire a praise agent for y’self, Dynamite? I see th’ notices in th’ morning rag…”
“Just a build-up,” Dan agreed quietly. “They’re fixin’ for me to be the next Walkin’ Man on that goof radio show.”
My’ Blumenthal stuck his thumbs in imaginary galluses, teetered back and forth on his heels, addressed the squad in sonorous tone:
“I rise to call the attention of this gathering to one of our fellow members who has been libelously traduced in the scurrilous press. True it may be that he is a man of dubious morals an’ limited intelligence, but are we to permit this outrageous—”
“Shuddup,” called Everson. “Lay off.”
That suited Dan. He didn’t want to talk about it or hear talk about it. Coco had passed on the christening story, and that was oke, far as it went. It didn’t go anywhere near far enough. He realized that.
There was an uneasy tension in the locker-room, all the time he was getting into his pads. It didn’t lessen when the coaches came in, in a group.
But they didn’t. They gave him the silent treatment. Stoney glanced at him once, out of the pale gray eyes, then passed on to Dommy, Klupper, the rest.
The head coach began to talk about Stanford. The scouts had brought in last minute reports: the Indians had a trick lateral which they’d kept pretty well under cover. Probably they’d use it, today. Stoney briefed them on defense against it.
The clock above the trainer’s table moved sluggishly around toward game time. Finally, Mason Boyd read off the starting lineup. In the backfield,
Dan kept a poker face. He sensed the glances the others were shooting at him.
This was the way it was going to wind up, then! There hadn’t been time to investigate Lin Hollet’s charges. They weren’t going to take any chances. He’d sit this one out. Hell, it would have been better if they’d
It fed the fire to realize, when he’d clattered up the ramp out onto the field and over to the bench, that the gang was taking it for granted he was responsible for the coach’s shifted lineup. If they lost, he’d be the louse.
He kept getting madder all the time he watched the warmup, the signal practice, the toss for goal. By the time the Stanford captain elected to receive and the teams were strung out across the field, he was ready to pop the first person who made a crack at him.
The long shrill blast on the whistle seemed to cut through the turmoil in his mind:
Dan sweated out a first half that lasted for years. Stanford ran wild, passed Southern dizzy, broke up Stoney’s carefully drilled attack. Replacements went in. Nobody looked at Dan, or spoke to him.
Half time found the White Indians on the long end of a 20-0 score… and knocking on the door for another.
Jogging off to the ramp, Dan didn’t have heart to lift his head and search for Marla in the stands. But he saw her, anyway.
A girl’s voice called shrilly, “That’s Webb. Number 67! Look, Eddie!”
Dan glanced up, briefly. He couldn’t place the girl who’d cried out. But there was no mistaking the other, — the one with the blonde page-boy bob further along the aisle. Or the man sitting beside her.
Why it should have made things blacker to have Marla watch this particular game, in company with Lin Hollet, Dan couldn’t have said.
In the locker room, Dan was left strictly to himself. Doc Gurley worked over the first eleven. Yokum stalked around glowering. Mason Boyd sat talking to Coco.
It would have been a sad session under any circumstances. But Dan couldn’t duck it. The gang figured him for the monkeywrench in the machinery. Nobody else.
The realization made him sick. Actually and physically sick. He scarcely heard what Stoney was saying to the squad…
“…they aren’t that much better… those passes won’t get through you this next half… I’ll go out on a limb and say you’re going to pull this one out of the fire yet… all the confidence in the world in you…”
While Mason was calling out the second half starters, Dan wondered whether it wouldn’t save a lot of unnecessary hard feelings if he just slipped into the johnny and didn’t go out on the field again.
They went out of cool concrete into hot sunlight. The university band was wailing the final strains of the Alma Mater.
The Stanford stands thundered welcome to white jerseys.
Dan plunked on the bench, glad he wasn’t out there for the kickoff. Way he felt, he couldn’t make it to the sideline.
Everson caught the low, looping ball, tore to the 28 before being slapped down. They tried a wide reverse. Good for six inches. They slammed Pfieffer off tackle. Maybe three yards.
It
They had to boot now. Everson got away a high one.
The flashy Stanford quarter lost it in the sun. He found it — tried for it — foozled it.
Dan came up on his feet with fifty thousand others as the oval hopped crazily toward the Stanford goal. He saw three men dive for it. One wore a blue jersey. Coddy. He recovered on the 25.
Next to Dan on the bench, Klupper Smith pounded his arm.
Dan grunted. “Nice work.”
Dan scrowled, turned.
The pale gray eyes were on him. The head coach was calling:
IX
You’re cracking under the strain, he cautioned himself. He’s calling you Danny, that’s all!
But he came up off the bench fast.
All Stoney said was: “In for Pfieff.” He took Dan’s arm, walked to the edge of the field, holding him until Coco’s first play was completed. “Tell Coco to slug the 50s.”
“Right.” Dan’s stomach did a flip-flop. Maybe the coach
Stoney gave him a pat that was a shove.
Somebody, high in the stands, gave a piercing war whoop:
“Yee-owww-wow! DYNAMITE!!”
The brass drum boomed. Somebody shook a cowbell. The cheering section, gave a short yelp for
He reported, was cuffed wonderingly by Coco, joyously by Ship. They were full of questions… but this was no time for gab. Work to do.
They huddled. Wide end sweep to the left. It was second and seven.
Dommy carted it for two.
Dan said huskily: “Coach says bet fifties. On the nose.”
Coco growled: “So say we all. Fifty. Right. Talk it up, men.”
They hit positions chattering:
The ball socked in. The hole was there. Dan roared through, onto the backup man before the Indian could get set. For sheer satisfaction at the chance to let off the steam of boiling anger, Dan smashed into him savagely, head on.
The Indian lost interest. Dan slanted away from the moose-shouldered Stanford left half. At the instant of tackle, he swerved, knees riding high, stiff arm pounding like a 2x4 at the white helmet.
The half back held him… to a seven-yard gain. The last three yards Dan dragged two tacklers with him.
“Pour it on,” Coco snarled in the tight ring. “Same! Over! Harder!”
Stanford began to barber it up, too.
Also, they were expecting Dan this time. The hole wasn’t there, when he bulled up to the line.
He rammed it, anyway, — felt bone and beef give, — exploded through… into that same fullback. He spun, wrenched, tore loose, stumbled, went down under an avalanche of white wool.
Net four. Second and six… on the 9.
“How ’bout it?” Coco gauged him in the huddle. “Mix ’em up?”
“Same dish for me.” Dan wiped sweat off his mouth, was surprised to find it was blood. “With plenty whip cream.”
The enemy played it cagey. Too cagey. Nobody banged away with the same buck three times in a row, when they were 20 points behind.
“Pass,” their defensive signal-caller warned.
The blue-backed line opened the gate just a little, driving the defensive right down on his knees to block the gap. Dan socked through, lunging into the Palo Alto center, caroming off into the left half, savaging his way to the two before they cut off his legs at the knees.
First… and goal to go.
Coco started to call “Fifty” again but Dan panted “No.”
The quarterback called “Twenty.” His own number.
Stanford piled in as if to bury Dan six feet under. Coco sneaked through, standing up. To score.
Everson toed it between the uprights. The
High in the glass booth on the rim of the stadium, Stan Llewellyn reported, in his excited nasal drawl, to ten million seated on the 760 kilocycle line:
Southern kicked to Stanford. Dan had a blurred impression of seething stands, a cheering section hoarsely chanting
The white jerseys kept the ball for sixty yards and four endless minutes. Then the big left half coffin-cornered a brilliant punt across on the Southern three.
Dan carried it. Took it down to the 12.
Dommy lost four, slipping on the grass. Third and five.
Coco was uncertain: “We’re not fifteen in, now. What think, Ship?”
Ship held both fists out. “Can do.”
“Ninety,” Coco yapped. “Webb. And crys, —
Ball back. To Coco. To Dan. The fake. The retreat. End diving at him. Let him dive. Ships not cutting back. Take your time. Don’t look at Ship. Wait…
It never went better. Ship snagged it on the sixteen. First down! Four more chances!
The west stands were jubilant. The Stanford side almost as noisy, pleading: “Break it up…
Coco arranged the breaking up, — to suit himself. He faked a smash with Dan blasting into the guard slot, — switched to send Dommy slashing off tackle… into the clear, — almost. The safety man ran him out of bounds at midfield.
“Now we’re moving! Yet’s GO!!”
Coco houdinied the ball himself. Faded, searching way downfield for Dommy and Ship… then lacing a swiftie to Coddington who spun on the Stanford thirty-five for a neat, sweet buttonhook.
“Now, Dan.” Coco was raring. “Fifties. Left. Zok!”
They boxed out that Indian right guard for him. A reaper could have gone through the hole. Dan went through, with the throttle wide, gaining momentum every yard.
He stiff-armed the Stanford right half fiercely. A lance of pain stabbed up his wrist… but the half plowed turf with his nose.
The safety man committed a shade too soon. Dan turned on that galvanic spurt, ripped through a clutching arm, pounded clear to the six-point stripe and over.
The gang hugged him, frenzied. He hung his head bashfully, dug a toe in the turf.
“Shucks. Twan’t nothin’. Any one of you’d of done the same, if you’d got the chance.”
Coco patted his helmet. “You’re a card, son. But we haven’t all day to play you. Just five minutes left to beat these buzzards.”
Everson called for a towel. He wiped the ball. Wiped sweat out of his eyes. Wiped the toe of his kicking shoe.
Then he booted the oval solidly between the uprights.
20-14. Pandemonium. Stanford receiving. Ship hurling himself through a swarm of blockers to slam the Indian fullback into the ground on the fifteen.
The blue line caught fire. They fought like men full of benzedrine. They held two battering-ram bucks to a scant yard total.
The Palo Alto tribe punted on third. Coco, reversing his field, brought it up to the blue forty.
Dan banged and butted off left tackle for three.
Everson, battling for a high pass far down, missed by a fingernail. A penalty on the play, anyway. An over-eager blue guard. Holding. Third and twenty to go!
“Too far for a 90,” Coco said through his teeth. “Dan?”
“Fifty, on the snoot,” Dan spat blood. “Right.”
Lineup. Shift. Pass-back.
The ball slapping against his ribs. He cracked into the thin wedge of a hole hard enough to take a bank door off its hinges.
The guard got him, got a knee in the face, too, — and a pile-driving hand-heel on his helmet.
Dan shook him off.
The fullback missed him, — except for a hand-hold on the neck of his jersey. Dan pulled him along until Everson bodyblocked him out. Two more Indians dived in for the kill. Dan split them like an axeman working on dry pine.
When they smothered him, he was on the Stanford thirty-eight, — the blue-sweatered cheer leaders were doing nipups, — the bass drummer was beating the hide off his instrument.
First, ten and two minutes to go.
“Stand back, ev’body!” Coco tongue-lashed them. “Gonna be blood spatterin’ ever’ which way. Fifty… left!”
The spring was gone from Dan’s legs. His right wrist ached. His lungs felt as if he’d inhaled flame.
He surged up to the slot. The Stanford center slammed the door in his face. He went through somehow. A clutching hand tore his helmet off. Somebody ripped his jersey. He couldn’t see where he was going because an arm was clamped around his head. He rolled, fought, slogged ahead. They dropped the boom on him.
“First…” screeched Everson, in his ear. “Yatta
On the twenty-five. Less than a minute left.
Coco looked at him, pleading. Dan shook his head. “Ninety. Ship.” If they could do it on third, they could click with it on first, couldn’t they? Then maybe Dan could slam it over for the needed three or four yards.
It went. Slick and smooth. Ship flat on his face on the eighteen. Thirty seconds on the clock.
“Now,” Dan grunted. “Fifty, right.”
Coco shook his fists at them. “One good punch, bunch.”
A roaring in his ears, which might be the stands in hysteria… and might not. An ache… not any special place… just all over. He sucked air into his seared lungs. The ball came back.
He never did know the details until he read them in Llewellyn’s down-by-down account next morning. He had a nightmare notion he was back in the woods in a Saginaw bull fight… only now there were three men in front of him… they weren’t sticking to the rules… they were hanging onto him… trying to trip him.
Two of them were still hanging onto him when he was stopped by the post. He put out his hand, to make sure it
He could barely make it back to the lineup. But Stoney let him stay in, until, — in a hush that made the ear-drums ring, — Everson carefully booted that point that made it a game… and a 1-point win!
There was still ten seconds left.
Stoney used it to send Prender in, and let Dan come off the field by himself, jogging wearily, while even the Stanford stands joined in a tumult that could have been heard halfway to Palo Alto.
X
He was looking in the mirror again when Coco came along. “Stop admiring y’self. Enough other peep to do that.”
“Just examining my black ’n’ blue marks.”
“Never mind ’em. Gent outside says he has to see you, but
Coco took his arm. In the corridor, Frankie Caytron waited, with another man. A big bronzed individual with a face that was the duplicate of the one Dan had been inspecting in the mirror… only without Dan’s cut lip and swollen nose.
Dan scowled, darkly. He flushed. The bronzed man hesitated, held out his hand.
“I take it all back, Dan’l. You’ve shown me. You’re a ball player for anybody’s dough. Maybe you’re no razzle-dazzle broken fielder. But you sure can pound through there. And I never worked that Paycheck Pass any better in my life.”
Dan shook hands. “Didn’t know you were here, Sam,” he muttered lamely.
Caytron scoffed. “Ah! You knew all right. I got wise you knew your brother was here with the Burgers, soon’s Coco told me how fast you ducked my invitation. Up till then I thought you
“Yuh?” Dan wasn’t so sure. He went close to his famous brother. Memories crowded in.
His failure to star as a passer, as a running back, at Michigan. Sam’s bullheaded attempts to tell him
And then, the bitter quarrel at home. The ugly names. The words “Lazy”, “yellow”. Other words, — nastier. His mother, stopping it. And the angry decision to get away, — far from home, — to make good on his own — without any pulling or pressuring from Sam.
As a topper, Sam’s sneering taunt:
“I thought you didn’t want anybody to know. Sam.” His eyes probed the other’s.
Jet Janok grinned. “You’re such a hotheaded fathead. You never did take anything seriously, — except
“Did you tell St… Mister Hart? Who I was?”
“No,” drawled a lazy voice. “I did.”
Lin Hollet. In the doorway.
“I had to, at half time, or my life wouldn’t have been worth a plugged
“Dan.”
She was just outside. Not proper for little girls to hang around the big boy’s locker room!
“Dan,” she held out a hand. “Why couldn’t you have
He purposely misunderstood her. “Will you put
Jet thumped him on the back.
“Introduce me to the lovely, heel.”
Dan bowed: “Marla, slip five to Samuel Adams Janok, my big stiff of a brother. I told you mom was terriffic. After putting that kind of a tag on him, she named me Daniel Webster Janok. Can you imagine having a label like
“Oh, yes,” she said dreamily. “I can. I’d love it.”