LIKE BOTH TEAMS they continued with their warm-up regimens and as the trainers continued to joke around, a tall figure approached. Dressed in black and red, it was the 6’5″ Levar James, his old classmate and tight end teammate from college. Billy exclaimed, “Well, did you know it’s the big drinking water?”

“Hey, it’s great to see you! I’m looking for the wolf right now. You’ve got me here to see this Browder kid and the CresentMoon line, uh, lineman, well that looks like a full 8-man line.”

Spirit replied, “Yeah, I think he’s put on another ten pounds this season and he’s a fast, strong, smart blocker. It’s good to see you Levar, almost like a Central team reunion here.”

Billy offered, “I can put you in the crow’s nest if you want.”

“No, no thanks, but I’d rather walk the touchline to see this action up close. Best of luck to both of us.”

Captains and officers met at fifty. Larry paid heads and the coin came up heads. Larry started to say that he would defer, but he mistakenly said, “We started.” Buddy noticed the mistake and took it into account for the second half kickoff. The Browder boy had made the same mistake a year ago. Buddy realized that his team would receive the ball now, and it would be up to him to decide early in the second half. And his decision would be, of course, to receive the ball then as well. When Larry and Buddy shook hands and Larry parted ways, Buddy found out about the situation. They had seen this before and understood it.

Waiting deeply for the kickoff was sprinter Panther Red Boyd accompanied by Milo Moctileme. But Mac dodged the kick and fell short for Buddy. The Browder guy ran left and saw too many white jerseys, so he cut right almost to the sideline and then cut upfield. Mac and Sylix were there to greet him. Buddy slowed to turn left, ran hard and hit a brick wall. It was CresentMoon, not running fast, but bringing a lot of mass, a lot of momentum. The Panther quarterback rose several feet into the air and landed hard. He instinctively caught her fall with his right hand and knocked her to the ground. When Buddy got up, he felt pain in his right wrist, elbow, and shoulder. Buddy waved his arm and felt that it wasn’t serious, but he also realized that he wouldn’t throw many passes, maybe none at all. For the remainder of the game, Buddy passed the ball mostly to Moctileme, Sinwit, or Boyd.

Larry also knew he wasn’t really in the best of shape, so he turned the ball over to the Skosum brothers for much of the game. However, he made some quick passes and Tulameen was able to gain short yardage. Swift Skosum started strong, running with abandon, but not always making the best decisions. On his first carry he ran between Squetimkin and CresentMoon. They created a big hole. The older Skosum tore through him first and crushed Eureka’s toughest linebacker, Scott Sinwit. Swift ran past his brother at full speed and straight across the field. The only person between Swift and the goal line was the willowy Milo. The younger Skosum closed the distance quickly. Not trying to fake it at all, Swift ran headlong into the Moctileme boy, squashed him, ripped off his helmet, and stumbled painfully into the end zone. Touchdown Bobcats! After that run, most of the first half was a run and punt exchange that left a shockingly low score of 6-0.