Chapter 5: Match Day

Saturday was the first home match, and I learned what eighty minutes of rugby does to a man.

Lakeshore Park held fifteen thousand people, and every one of them was shouting.

I sat in the owner's box beside Mavis, who shouted louder than anyone.

A man from the Harlan Foods table sat two rows down with a clipboard, and every time Cade made a tackle he wrote something.

"He's counting how many times you look at my grandson," Mavis muttered. "Do it more."

"Hit him!" she yelled. "Not like that! Like you mean it!"

Down on the grass, number eight in red and black pushed through a wall of Milwaukee forwards.

Cade carried two men for five yards, and the stands screamed.

I hadn't known I was on my feet.

"There she goes," Mavis said, without turning her head. "Told you."

"Told me what?"

"That you'd forget to be scared."

The match turned in the second half.

Milwaukee's captain was a mean, quick man, and he'd been working Cade's ribs since the opening kick.

At the sixtieth minute he drove a shoulder into Cade's face on the ground, away from the ball.

I saw it before the whistle.

Blood poured over Cade's eyebrow and down his jaw, and he didn't even slow.

He got up, wiped his face on his sleeve and walked straight at the man who'd done it.

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