“Has the game started?” I asked, when I got to the gate.
“Just getting ready to.” And then, “You forgot your program.”
But I was already making a good stride toward the field, brushing shoulders with a couple of the people I passed, dodging kids who were running around in jerseys and tossing anything they could catch, from foam footballs to wadded-up paper cups.
Cheers erupted around me. The teams were taking to the field for the kickoff. I climbed the bleacher steps and looked for an empty spot.
“Pru . . . hey,” a cheery voice called. “Come up here. We can make room.”
It was Ellen, the tech who worked at White River Animal Hospital, seated two rows higher. Her son was a freshman. He played junior varsity.
I climbed up to the higher bleacher.
“You want to share my blanket?” Ellen asked.
Ellen was wrapped in a large, checkered fleece blanket. Beside her was a thermos. She wore a Broncos knit cap, and her face was mostly covered in a thick black and gold scarf, Rio Mesa’s school colors.
“No, I’m all right,” I said, though already my knees were bouncing.
“Go Cowboys!” Ellen screamed as the defensive team ran onto the field.
Cowbells rang from the student section. “Go get ’em, Joseph!” I yelled over the other cheers.
The student section was to my right. I didn’t recognize all of the kids. There were new families in town that had moved in when the pipeline workers came looking for jobs and the gas companies had started drilling fresh sites. I hugged myself tighter, smelling wool and mustard and coffee, and a slight whiff of booze from the crowd around me.
Then Ellen told me she’d heard about a hunter going missing near Rangely. Someone had come into the animal hospital and was talking about it, she said. “I heard it was a woman.”
“Colm called off the search late this afternoon.” I went on to tell Ellen what I knew.
Ellen wanted to know about the husband. She asked about the kids. “That poor family,” Ellen said.
More cowbells, and cheers, and drumrolls sounded. I watched my son running onto the field to take his position in the lineup. The quarterback now had the ball. He fell back to make a pass. Joseph was laid flat by an offensive lineman. The short pass was completed. First down.
Ellen grimaced. So did I.
“That had to hurt,” Ellen said.
And as I watched my son play, I thought about Amy Raye. I thought about the note that had been found. I have lots to learn from you, Amy Raye had written. Her words gave me the sense that her journey with her husband wasn’t over.
By the third play, Joseph made the tackle. “Number eleven, running back for Hayden, is taken down by the Cowboys’ number twenty-four, Joseph Hathaway.”
Ellen was clapping. Cowboy fans whooped and cheered.
“That’s my boy!” I hollered. I was waving my fist in the air and screaming with the rest of the fans.
After the punt, Rio Mesa’s offensive team took to the field. Joseph jogged over to the sidelines and glanced up at the stands. He was built just like my brother, Greg, same height, same broad shoulders. Oftentimes when watching Joseph, I’d remember all the games I’d attended when Greg had played wide receiver. Greg was three years older than I, and no doubt, growing up with him had played a role in my being a tomboy most all my life. That, and our father’s insistence that we love the outdoors as much as he did. Though my parents owned a small business and managed their parcel of farmland, each summer they’d leave the co-op in the hands of one of their employees for a couple of weeks; they’d pay a neighbor a little something to take care of the chickens and any other animals we had at a given time; and we’d take off for one of Dad’s many adventures—the Sierra Nevadas, Sawtooth Mountain in Idaho, the Grand Tetons. Dad had me carrying a backpack and hiking trails before I’d even started school. He’d plan these trips for months and outfit us with army surplus packs, down sleeping bags, and bedrolls of thin foam. Greg and I shared our own tent away from our parents. He’d tell me stories late into the night, making up adventures of long-forgotten Indian warriors. I’d lie on my back, smell the wild sage, listen to the gurgle of the snow-fed streams. And each day as we hiked, we’d keep our eyes peeled for arrowheads or potsherds. We never did find an arrowhead, or a projectile point, as our dad would call them, but we did find flakes of chert that we’d store in our pockets.