for most of the game. He knew it wasn’t a comment on his playing ability; after all, every grown man in West Texas knew how to throw a football. He just didn’t have the seniority, and in public service (even on the football field), seniority trumped everything. The chief accepted that.
They finally put him in for the last quarter. He took his position as a tailback (he lacked the size for anything else) and readied for the snap. The play called for him and the fullback (#13) to fake left while the QB (#13) readied a forward pass to the wide receiver (#13), who would charge right, hopefully receive the pass, rush forty-six yards for the touchdown, and bring the game out of its 21-21 deadlock. The cops, impatient at being on the defense, blitzed the line. So instead of charging right, the firefighters’ wide receiver got trampled.
The chief saw panic in the QB’s eyes. Hell, the crowd saw panic in the QB’s eyes. If he didn’t get rid of the ball in the next five seconds, he’d meet a fate worse than his receiver. So the chief, as he interpreted it, had two options: use his small body to run interference and get pummeled or attempt a charge through the mass of blue uglies and pray for a pass reception.
The chief charged. His minimal size helped him shuttle through a needle’s eye of a hole. He rushed past the line of scrimmage and glanced back. Had the QB noticed? Would the ball come his way?
Yes.
In his last moments before getting walloped, the QB tossed off the ball. It didn’t spiral so much as wobble…but it was wobbling in the right direction. The chief outstretched his arms. He was wide open. The defense was all up field. Thousands watched from the stands. The chief’s young wife, Marcy, watched from the stands. If he completed this play, he’d become legend. If he dropped the ball, or tripped, or if half a dozen other common errors occurred in the next ten seconds, he’d be jeered forevermore.
The chief ruminated every day about the game. He ruminated about it now, as they passed Amarillo High on the left. The aquarium was within view, but the chief glanced over at the high school stadium. That’s where he really wanted to be. That’s where he’d caught that wobbling pigskin and sprinted forty-six yards to score the winning touchdown. Him. The little rookie.
The chief loved firefighting and had numerous accolades and recommendations but when he died, he knew what would appear in the first paragraph of his obituary.
“That’s why everyone called him Catch,” Jed Danvers told Tom Piper. Danvers had been a rookie, too, during that game (for the other side). Now he was lieutenant governor of the state. Jed and Tom were sipping coffee on the fifth floor of Baptist St. Anthony’s on Wallace Boulevard, not far from the crime scene. For security reasons, they’d made sure to get Catch a room here all by himself. Two Texas Rangers were posted outside his door.
Catch’s head was double-wrapped in gauze. His eyes were shut. Tubes were glued every which way to his arms and face. He still hadn’t awakened, and thus was unaware he was the sole survivor and only witness to what had happened.
Station 13 had arrived in front of the glass-and-brick structure at 10:09 p.m. Plumes of gray-white smoke tunneled from the roof into the sky, but so far the fire appeared contained. The aquarium didn’t have many windows—like most museums (and casinos), the architectural objective was one of timelessness, and this meant blocking the outside world. However, there were a few narrow panels along the stairwell. The panels appeared intact.
Daniel McIvey and his son Brian were the first out of the engine, followed by Roscoe Coffey and, lastly, Lou Hopper. Daniel and Brian looked like a project in time-lapse photography; same moppy red hair, same ruddy fat cheeks, only the father was a little taller, a little heavier, had a few more lines on his brow. Like twins they spoke in shorthand.
“Do you want to…?” asked Daniel.
“Yeah,” Brian replied. “I’ll get the thing. I’ll meet you where you’ll be.”
Brian hustled together two Halligan pickaxes out of the truck while Daniel met up with the chief, who was interrogating the aquarium’s security guard.
“…was just doing my job!” wept the guard. Big man named Cole. Six foot six. 300 pounds. Bawled. “I smelled the smoke and checked the monitors and that’s when I called you! I