Like a lot of Spearfish Lake kids, Vanessa Robideaux hadn’t had a good few days, but in some ways hers had been worse than most.

She didn’t remember much of anything later than the early part of the party until late the next day. She didn’t remember throwing off the towel she’d been wearing around her bottom when she walked into the sheriff’s office. She also had no memory of screwing four or six or eight guys or whatever it had been in succession at the party, although she’d heard from any number of people that she’d done it. The number wasn’t solid and kept changing with everyone she talked to. There had been enough direct witnesses who had seen it with their own eyes that she had little doubt that it had happened, but however she cut it, it was embarrassing in more ways than one.

She liked to have her fun, sure, and if it included some guys and some beer from time to time, that was OK, but what had apparently happened at the party on Saturday was well beyond the range of anything she’d ever imagined, or would have been willing to do. She knew that there had been talk of a public indecency charge over the scene at the sheriff’s office, but apparently it had been dropped, because there had been no mention of it when she’d pled guilty to minor in possession on Monday. She’d gotten much the same sentence as everyone else who had done that – fine, probation, and community service. What with cheerleading practice coming up, she figured that she’d better get started on the latter, so she was on a crew of a dozen kids who had to clean up the party site on Monday afternoon. While picking the place up she’d found her shorts and panties where they’d been tossed into the bushes. A lot of the kids laughed at her over it, and that hurt; it made it even more clear to her that it really had happened.

What hurt even worse was cheerleading practice. Nothing in particular had happened early Tuesday afternoon; it had seemed like a routine practice, and it wasn’t until during a break in practice that they’d even heard about Mrs. Wine tossing so many kids off of the varsity football team, and the JVs being brought up to replace them. That seemed incredible in the first place, and there was a lot of talk that it was going to happen to the cheerleaders who had been at the party, too. Mrs. Wine wouldn’t do that to them, she thought, but then she hadn’t imagined it happening to the football team, either.

But no; toward the end of the Tuesday practice, Mrs. Wine showed up, and when the dust settled only two of the varsity cheerleaders were still on the team, at least for part of the season, and the Junior Varsity cheerleaders had become the varsity cheerleaders. Vanessa had been one of those invited to leave, as had Shelly Battle and several others.

What really made it hurt was that after Mary Lou Kempa had broken her jaw a few days ago, it had seemed to Vanessa that she’d had a shot at being team captain, at least if she could nudge Shelly out of the way. The rumors over the weekend had pretty well taken care of that, but getting booted off the team for a big chunk of the season made the question final. It looked like the unthinkable was going to happen: a sophomore seemed likely to be captain, although it wasn’t sure who yet – there were several candidates.

So when the time for cheerleading practice rolled around on Thursday, Vanessa was sitting at home, hot, bitter as hell, not interested in much of anything, wishing she had a beer but imagining the foul taste of the Shadler’s in her mouth every time she thought about the idea. School would be starting all too soon, and the sooner the school year was over the better she was going to like it. Maybe she could go to college someplace where no one knew her and she could start over anonymously.

She was leafing through a magazine she had no interest in whatsoever when the doorbell rang. Reluctantly she got up to answer it; maybe it would be someone interesting, someone she could enjoy talking to . . . someone who wouldn’t tease her about what had happened on Saturday night.

When she opened the door she was surprised to see Sheriff Stoneslinger standing there. “Hi, Vanessa,” he said in a friendly voice. “How are you getting along today?”

“Not worth a shit,” she shook her head. “According to the rumor mills, it seems like I’ve become the town whore.”

“That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about,” he replied. “I don’t know if it will help you in the rumor mills any, but maybe this will make you feel a little better about what happened. You were drugged.”

“Drugged?” she replied in surprise.

“Drugged,” he confirmed. “Look, you were so out of it when we brought you in Saturday night that most of the deputies and I suspected you were on something, so we took blood and saliva samples, and most of us were suspecting roofies or something. We just got the report back an hour or so ago, and while it wasn’t roofies, you had enough over-the-counter Excedrin PM in your veins to stun a horse. I’m actually surprised you were as conscious as you were.”

“I’ll be damned,” she replied. “I mean, I knew I’d had a few beers, and I thought it was a little weird that I was as sleepy as I was, but I never thought about that.”

“What I need to know,” Stoneslinger said, “and I need an honest answer about it is, did you take any kind of drug Saturday evening? I mean, that you knew about?”

“No, I didn’t, Sheriff. Honestly. You’re saying an over-the-counter sleep aid knocked me on my butt like that?”

“I found it a little surprising, too,” the sheriff replied. “What the lab techs told me was that enough of it, along with enough booze, could knock you well and truly on your butt – if it didn’t kill you. If someone slipped it to you in a drink or something, my guess is that they didn’t know what they were doing and figured that too much was better than not enough. They still didn’t use enough to kill you, so you got lucky.”

“Wow, that’s . . . scary,” Vanessa shook her head soberly.

“You’re right, and it’s also damn serious,” the sheriff said. “I sure would like to know who did it to you. I don’t know if we could hang an attempted murder charge on them, but there are other very serious charges that could be brought. So the question becomes this: at any time over the evening did someone hand you a beer that had already been opened? Or did you leave an open one unattended?

“Unfortunately, yes,” Vanessa sighed. “In fact, both of them. There were several times I left a beer sitting open when I went out in the bushes to take a pee. And there were several times people handed me a beer, sometimes open, sometimes not.”

“Do you remember who those people were?” the sheriff asked.

“Well, some of them,” Vanessa sighed, thinking hard – but not about the sheriff’s question. One of the people she clearly remembered handing her an open can of beer was Shelly Battle. It had seemed strange at the time because of the cat fight that had taken place after the deal with Eddie Awkerman and Scotty Parsons at the party the week before. It had been just a little clean fun, and Shelly had no reason to fly off the handle like that. And then she’d seemed so friendly on Saturday . . . and since the party a lot of rumors had been going around, hurtful rumors. Vanessa hadn’t heard all of them by any means and had no desire to do so, but on thinking about it she realized that at least some of them had to come through Shelly.

But if she told the sheriff that Shelly had been one of those handing her an open beer – well, it would most likely be her word against Shelly’s, with no real evidence. Shelly’s father was a big deal around town, so it seemed likely that if Vanessa said something the egg would wind up back on her face. At best, it might not be wise to charge Shelly with it directly. “I’m sure I don’t remember who all was there,” she began slowly, “but before I was out of it so bad, I was hanging out with Scotty Parsons, Eddie Awkerman, Alison DuQuoin, Kyle Ralston, and Lanny Mundhenk.” She named another few names, mostly cheerleaders, but deliberately left out Shelly – if this showed signs of turning into something, she could “remember” her later.

“I don’t suppose that by some dumb luck you actually saw anyone slip anything into your drink?”

“No,” she replied. “I’m sure I didn’t.”

“Were you around any other kids during the party?”

“Well, yeah, most of them at one time or another,” Vanessa admitted, “especially the cheerleaders. At the time I thought I had a chance to be named team captain, so I was trying to be nice to everyone, but especially the cheerleaders.”

She and the sheriff talked for another few minutes, mostly with the sheriff coming back to the same questions, trying to jog her memory, but even without the drugs the evening had been a little beery and she didn’t remember a lot of it past the first hour or so. “All I can do is ask some more questions of a few more people,” the sheriff told her finally. “Although if you remember anything else, please call and let me know. You never know when someone is going to slip up and say something useful. We may not get anywhere with this, but at least we can try.”

“Best of luck, sheriff,” she smiled. “I’ll think about it some more. Maybe my mind is still a little fuzzy.”

In another couple minutes Vanessa closed the door on the sheriff, but she was furious inside. As far as she was concerned it was just damn-all positive that Shelly had to be the one to have slipped the drugs into her drink. The little shit was going to pay for that if she had anything to say about it!

Just seeing her in court wouldn’t be good enough, since Vanessa knew she wanted to see Shelly really squirming. She was half of a mind to grab her father’s shotgun and go heading over to the Battle house – but that wouldn’t do any good and she knew it. Among other things, she stood a good chance of getting caught, and then where would she be?

No, take your time, she thought. Vengeance delayed is still vengeance, and all the sweeter if it came out of nowhere when Shelly would least be expecting it. Maybe something around graduation? Something really embarrassing?

Or, as far as that went, competitive cheerleading in the winter – as far as Vanessa knew both she and Shelly would be back on the team by then. One little “accidental” slip when they were doing a three-high tower, if done the right way, could really leave her hurting – Shelly would know that Vanessa had gotten her back and there wouldn’t be anything she could do to prove it was intentional . . .

And there were other possibilities; those were just the first rush of ideas. Best of all would be something that would be really hurtful, and show Shelly for the slut she really was . . .

Due to the heat, on the morning of the second day of practice Rick Kulwicki moved the evening practice back to 6:00 PM from the 4:00 it had been on Tuesday. While it meant that they’d be on the field until the sun was nearly setting, it was likely to be a little cooler, so there was a chance that the kids might learn something.

The evening before and that morning had been mostly conditioning, and most of it badly needed. There were a couple kids who seemed more or less ready to go, most notably the Erikson kid, the prospective quarterback, but most of them seemed to have been sitting on their butts for much of the summer. Brandy had been right, he thought; very few of these kids reported to practice ready to practice football. That was going to make things a lot tougher.

Again, the Erikson kid was one of the brighter spots. Rick hadn’t taken much time to work with the kid directly, but even the first night Mitch and Danny had taken the time to have a look at what the kid had. As advertised, the kid had a good arm, and was quick, but it was pretty clear that he was small enough that there wasn’t going to be a lot of running him into the line unless better blocking than he’d seen so far could be found. Still, having a kid who could air the ball out reliably could be an ace in the hole, although they wouldn’t want to depend on it too much for any number of reasons. It wasn’t something they could build an offense around directly. In talking it over in the back yard the night before, they’d agreed that building an offense that could go either way from the same formation, and occasionally reminding the defense that the Erikson kid could throw a pass offered the potential of keeping the opposition a little off balance. It seemed like a possible place to start.

And at least one potential blocker had unexpectedly come out of the woodwork. A big kid who had played the previous year but who hadn’t come out yesterday had shown up, as out of condition as most of the rest but a senior lineman who had been a starter the year before. The Frankovich kid wasn’t saying much, but from what little Rick had been able to get out of him he had a couple things to prove and seemed intent on proving them. He seemed trainable, and if there was anything Rick knew how to do it was teach someone to play in the line. Now, if he could just come up with a few more like him . . .

Tonight wasn’t going to be just screwing around with conditioning. After talking it over with Mitch and Danny before practice, they’d agreed to set up two squads, offensive and defensive, then set up some simple plays that probably wouldn’t make it into the play book. That way they could run the kids at each other a little to see who had what and who could perhaps be taught what. There was some potential there, but was it going to be enough?

Rick’s mind was picking at it from various angles and not getting very far when he looked up and saw three people coming toward him. One was Brandy, looking pretty businesslike; she’d told him she had no intention of trying to be a coach, but would be available for help when needed, at least for the first few days. With her were two kids, both of whom were considerably bigger than she was. For an instant he thought perhaps that she’d come up with two lineman prospects, but realized with a touch of sadness that one of the big kids with her was a girl. Too bad, she was bigger than any of the line prospects he had so far, except for the Frankovich kid.

They weren’t walking fast, and all of a sudden Rick realized that this had to be the big kid Brandy had been talking about the night before. He was indeed big; as advertised, not a lot smaller than Rick was himself. He could also see that he was pretty well muscled; a blocker who tried to push him around was going to have to do some pushing – if the kid could play at all.

“Evening, Coach,” Brandy said as they got closer. “How are things going tonight?”

“Just getting started,” Rick reported, “but at least there’s something to start with.”

“Good, I was hoping there would be,” Brandy said. “I’d like to introduce you to a young friend of mine, Lyle Angarrack. He’s the kid I was talking to you about last night. This is his girlfriend, Ashley Keilhorn, who sort of came along for the ride. Kids, this is Coach Kulwicki.”

“Evening, Lyle,” Rick smiled. “I’m glad you decided to come and give this a try.”

“We’ll see how it goes,” Lyle said unenthusiastically. “I’d like to help if I can under the circumstances, but I don’t see how I can help much.”

“You’re bound to be some help if we can figure out how to use you, considering the restrictions that Mrs. Wine says you have.”

“Maybe so,” the big kid said, still not very enthusiastic. Even with nothing having been said, it was clear to Rick that Brandy had done some serious arm-twisting to get him this far.

“I have to ask,” Rick said. “You ever play football?”

“Other than screwing around in the schoolyard on recess when I was in elementary school, no,” the kid replied. “And even then, not much. I’ve watched it on TV quite a bit and I think I understand the basics fairly well, I think, but I really don’t have the breath to play very much. So I never tried.”

“Well, you’re here, and that’s the important thing,” Rick replied. “Like I said, if we can figure out how to use you there’s a good chance you can be a help to us. That might not be anything more than a decoy to draw off the other side on occasion, but we’ll just have to see how things go. If you’re willing to give us what you can we’ll do our best to find out a way to use it.”

“I guess we’ll have to see,” Lyle replied sounding a little less bleak than before. “You just have to remember that I may not have a lot to give.”

“I think I can understand that,” Rick shook his head. “I think Coach Mykelhoff is still over in the locker room. Why don’t you head over there and see about a helmet and pads for practice?”

“OK, I can do that,” Lyle replied. “See you in a few minutes.” He and Ashley turned away and headed for the gym.

In a moment the two were drawing out of earshot. “He doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about it, does he?” Rick commented to Brandy.

“He isn’t,” Brandy shook her head. “And frankly, with good reason. Like I said last night, he owes me some favors and I had to pull on them pretty hard to get him here at all. He has taken a lot of shit from kids about his asthma. Worse, he’s taken a lot of shit from teachers, especially phys. ed. teachers about it, too. If you can make him a supporter and make him see you as worthy of his loyalty, he can give you a lot. If someone pisses him off, and it could be a kid as much as an adult, you’re going to see a pile of gear in the middle of the field as he and Ashley take off. And you won’t see him again.”

“That bad?”

“That bad. He’s sensitive, and been hurt a lot, so he has reason to be. The reason Ashley is here at all is that she has a car and he doesn’t. They’re both expecting the worst and that way he can leave if he has to.”

“Shit, you don’t hand me the easy ones, do you?” Rick shook his head. “The hell of it is that I can see how he could be a game breaker in the right situations.”

“I couldn’t agree more. You’re just going to have to pick and choose the situations and use him wisely. The kid has been a dynamite trainer in basketball for me and he’s usually pretty cheerful, but I’m always careful to not put him down and not push him overly hard. If he says he has to sit down and breathe, believe him. Ashley has a couple of his inhalers, different ones, he’ll know which ones to use. She can run, although she doesn’t like to and I don’t blame her, as big as her boobs are. She’s also smarter than she looks, but she’s one of the town’s leading gossips. I have no doubt she’ll badmouth us all over the place if he’s pushed too hard.”

“Like I said, you don’t hand me the easy ones. Well, since he’s coming from so far behind maybe I can have one or another of the coaches and maybe a couple kids work with him on basic blocking skills and it won’t look too out of line.”

“I’m really sorry to do this to you,” Brandy said, “but you said we needed some big kids and he’s far and away the biggest one available. And yes, I can see how he could be a game breaker in the right situation.”

“Then I guess we’re going to have to make it work, aren’t we?”

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