Page 7 of Shame the Devil
“The Great Barrier Reef,” Harlan said. “Now,thatsounds good. It’s warm, right? It’s Australia. Let’s do that instead.”
“I can’t,” Owen said. “Calving season.”
“Only you,” Harlan said, “would spend his offseason doing something even harder than football, and with worse hours. Right, I’ve decided. I’m going to Australia.”
“Aw,” Owen said, “you don’t want to do that. You came to visit me, right? Got to be a reason. Yellowstone. Mountain trails. Challenging terrain. Bison around the bend forcing you to detour, reminding you what life used to be like out here. Also forcing you to use up some adrenaline stores getting out of there. A bison can run as fast as a horse, except that they’re not running away. You thought thebullwas bad. No fences in Yellowstone.” He looked extremely happy at the thought.
Wyoming people were nuts. Too bad bears hibernated in winter, so Owen couldn’t try outskiing a grizzly.
“All right,” Harlan said, since Owen clearly couldn’t understand why anyone would be reluctant to freeze his ass off outrunning angry wildlife, “I don’t just notliketo ski. Ican’tski. There you go. Happy? The bison’s going to be charging me, and I’m going to be falling over like the most pitiful rodeo clown ever. There goes my fancy contract, once I’m trampled by a bison. Stupidest way to die I ever heard of. Maybe I’ll get lucky. Maybe he’ll just break my pelvis.”
Owen said, “You’re kidding. You can’tski?Man. I can’t …” He started to laugh, and then he kept on laughing. They’d had a few beers during the evening, sure, were shooting one last game of pool before bed, because there wasn’t much else to do ten miles outside Wheatland, Wyoming, in February, but it took more than a few beers to give you an excuse to laugh like a hyena if you weighed 307 pounds. It took about twelve beers, probably. Not that Owen would drink them. Owen’s dirty secret was that he was no kind of hardass off the field, and no kind of badass, either. When Harlan had asked once, Owen had said, “I grew up on a ranch, bro. What do you expect?”
Now, Harlan said, “Stop it. Lots of people don’t know how to ski. Bet your parents never skied. Bet your third-grade teacher never skied. I grew up in North Dakota. My dad sells farm equipment. Did I mention that it’s flat in North Dakota?”
“Dude,” Owen said, “you’re a freaking Super Bowl MVP. You get to go other places now. On airplanes, even.” Another bizarre facet of Owen’s personality? He didn’t swear much off the field.
“I went to the Saints, remember?” Harlan said. “And then the Bucs. Out of Nebraska.Whichalsoisn’t ski territory. Not a lot of skiing around New Orleans, or Tampa Bay, either, except water skiing, which suited me fine. Therearelakes in North Dakota, and somebody’s always got a boat. You want to go water skiing? I’m your guy. Or scuba diving. I can do that, too. Why didn’t I think about the Great Barrier Reef before?”
“You’re thirty-one years old,” Owen said. “Your non-skiing college days were ten years ago.”
“I am not. I’m thirty. And you say that like I’m old. I’m only five years older than you.”
“For four more days, and then you’re six years older. But I’m more mature. I know that, because I have a ranch. But seriously? You’veneverskied?” Owen missed his shot and stood up straight. “Wait. Wait. I’m getting it. You’ve never done it because you wouldn’t be instantly good at it, and your whole freakinglifeis about being good at stuff.”
Harlan said, “You done guidance-counseling me? Step aside. I’m about to run this table.”
Owen leaned on his cue. “Go on, then. Who’s stopping you? I saw you make that heroic effort and miss that easy one earlier. Is that still hurting?”
“No.” It wasn’t true, but never mind. “I have a strong ego.”
“You know,” Owen said, sounding meditative now, sipping on that third beer, “I alwaysthoughtso, but …”
Harlan made his shot, lined up the next one, and said, “Trash-talking me isn’t going to work. I’m sorry that your Christmas present to your brother didn’t work out. That’s me changing the subject.”
“See,” Owen said, “I totally thought he’d go for it. Amy loves Yellowstone. That was the only time I could get for them, Super Bowl weekend, but I thought—perfect. Fun with the boys, plus a couple romantic nights snuggled up in the lodge, away from it all. He always says he doesn’t like pro football, that there’s no purity in it, so I thought he’d love not being forced to watch me. Of course, now I’m not playing, so …”
Harlan knocked the six ball into the corner pocket, then stood up and stared at Owen in disbelief. “You really don’t get it?”
“Get what?”
“It’s not about watching the game. It’s that it chaps his hide, knowing you made it and he didn’t. He’s on the ranch full time now, and you’re in the NFL, when he was supposed to be the star. All-State tight end, right?”
“What? Dane’s happy, man. Happier than me, probably. He sure likes to tell me so. He looked pretty happy tonight.”
Harlan sighed. “Because he won. Because he was here in this room with you and me, and he won.”
“Oh.” Owen was still looking surprised. Either that or sleepy. Owen wasn’t the world’s most expressive guy. “Huh. He’s the big brother, though. Never lets me forget it. So what should I do about the Yellowstone thing, do you think?”
“Ask him if he’ll trade you for a trip to Hawaii instead, to use once it’s … whatever season is best to leave a ranch. Hawaii’s always pretty much the same, whenever you go. That’s why it’s Hawaii. And ask him whether he wants to take the kids or not. That way he doesn’t feel so guilty about not wanting to, because Amy can say no. I bet she wasn’t too excited about that ‘fun with the boys’ part. That woman wants romance.”
“Amy? She knows better. She’s got four boys. She’s married to a rancher. She’s married toDane.”
“I know two things,” Harlan said. “Football and women. Yeah, she wants romance. She wants to be swept off her feet.”
“See,” Owen said, “that’s the kind of thing that makes people hate you. Why do you get women the way you do?”
“Because I like them,” Harlan said.
