Rebel Glory by Sigmund Brouwer Read Free Book Online Page B

Coach Blair said. “Unless we prove who did it—”
    “It looks like I’m guilty,” I finished.
    “Hockey’s a team game,” he said. “Can we be a team if the rest of the guys think you stole from them?”
    I couldn’t respond. Not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I couldn’t get the words out.
    We stared at each other.
    “You’ll have to sit out a few games,” he said. “I hate to do it. The team needs your skills on defense.”
    Miss some games? I felt like a miserable wall of bricks standing there in my hockey equipment, sweat running down my face, my stick in my hand.
    “How many games?” I asked.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “Until we find out who did this.”
    I got the feeling he didn’t expect to find anyone else. I got the feeling he did think I had stolen the wallets but found it easier to pretend someone else had.
    “There was fiberglass in Mr. Kimball’s truck,” I said. “And—”
    “Stop!” Coach Blair said. He was angry.“I’m not stupid. I saw the insulation there too. But don’t even try to accuse him. Think about it, McElhaney. Anyone else could have done it. Maybe taken it from his truck. Or gotten their own fiberglass, knowing Kimball’s in construction and how it would make him look bad. A lot of other people had access to the washing machine. Even the stickboys, for crying out loud. And don’t think I’m not looking into all of this.”
    “Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m sorry. Maybe—” I started to tell him about the phone call to the Henrys, but then I stopped. Maybe Coach Blair wouldn’t think someone was out to get me. Maybe, instead, Coach Blair would think that a person who would steal wallets from his teammates would also beat up a girl on a date.
    “Yes?” he asked.
    “Nothing,” I said.
    He stood. “Maybe you should wait in here while the guys finish showering.”
    “Sure.” For the first time in a long time I was close to tears. It was sinking in. I was now shut out from my own team.
    “I’ll issue a news release that says you went home for urgent personal reasons,” Coach Blair said. “It won’t be a lie because it might be best if you weren’t in town while this gets sorted out.”
    “Sure,” I said.
    “I hope we can keep this a team secret,” Coach Blair said. “If it gets out, there won’t be many teams in the league who will want you to play for them.”

chapter twelve
    From Red Deer to my hometown of Winnipeg is about a fourteen-hour drive if you don’t hit any blizzards and you don’t take any breaks and you only stop to fill up with gas. It might be a few hours less for someone who has a faster vehicle than my 1972 pickup truck, but it’s definitely fourteen hours for me. I know. I drove to Red Deer from Winnipeg just after Christmas, when I was traded from the Brandon Wheat Kings.
    Only this time as I drove I wasn’t quite so happy. This time I wasn’t driving somewhere to play hockey. I was driving because I might never play hockey again.
    And it was not a great place to be driving when my head was filled with such depressing thoughts. I was in the darkness at nine o’clock at night, on a deserted two-lane prairie highway somewhere between Hanna, Alberta, and Kindersley, Saskatchewan. The wind blew hard against my windshield, rocking the truck as it groaned along the highway. The noise of the wind as it came through the cracks of my windows was like the wailing of a sad song, and it didn’t help my mood at all.
    Never play hockey again?
    If the newspapers got hold of why I was driving to Winnipeg, no other team in the league would take me. Without junior hockey, I would never make the NHL.
    It wasn’t as if I had lots to make my life happy. I was on my way to the home that wasn’t really my home, in Winnipeg. My dad had died when I was twelve. A brain tumor. He had found out one month, and the nextmonth he was gone. My mom had already left by then, so I ended up with my aunt and uncle. They didn’t