Chapter 5

As they had the previous day, Emma and Kyle drove to the high school for her practice and his work out. When Kyle got to the track, there was just one other person running, and after just a few laps, Kyle realized that he recognized the other man.

"Good morning, Deputy. Remember me?"

"I sure do. I figured you would find your way here, given who you are staying with."

"Well, I do have permission to run on the track. Honest, I do."

The Deputy laughed. I know, that's not a problem, and I'm not here to arrest you, just to run. The other day, you said that you could run faster than you were that morning. I'd like to see that."

They began to run together, and slowly, Kyle began to increase his speed. The Deputy was no slouch at running, and he did his best to keep up, but after three laps and at their pace, he began to fall back. Rather than continue the test, Kyle just began to sprint--well, not really sprint because he knew he could run faster-- but it looked like a sprint to anyone else. What it looked like to the Deputy was a boy running faster than anyone he had ever seen, in real life or on television.

He wasn't the only one watching Kyle's display of stamina. A tall gentleman had been sitting in the stands observing. He got up and walked towards the two as they finished their cool down lap.

"Hello Coach," the Deputy said, greeting the man. "How are you doing this morning?"

"I'm doing just fine, Billy, but it don't think I've met your friend here." He extended a massive hand to Kyle. "I'm Coach Saunders. I'm the football coach here. And you are?"

"Kyle Winston, sir."

"Oh, you're Emma's cousin. She is a friend of my daughter, Marcie. Emma told me that you were coming to visit but I think she left out the part about your track skills."

"Sir, I do appreciate that you are letting me work out on the track. And I think the Deputy is happier that I don't have to run in the street, too."

"I'm sure he is. Are you the same young man that people called me about yesterday who was kicking field goals from all over the place?"

"Um, yes sir. That was me as well. Your daughter said that she didn't think you would mind."

The coach laughed. "I don't mind, son. From what some folks tell me, you had a regular assembly line going with some of the cheerleaders holding the ball for you and others going to retrieve them. I'm not sure how you managed to get that many girls to do anything, but from what they say, you had them all set up and under control."

Kyle explained his practice routine to the coach and then admitted that it was the shortest workout he had ever done kicking because he had never had so many holders and retrievers before.

"Someday I'd like you to show me just what you do."

"I can do that today, sir, after I finish my running, if you'd like. And I'll get the girls to hold for me again, if that's okay also."

"That would be great, Kyle. Just have one of them come get me in my office when you are ready." With that, Coach Saunders turned and walked toward the school building.

Kyle and Billy, the Sheriff's Deputy, returned to their running, although at a much slower pace to accommodate Billy.

"You said earlier that you thought I would be here running. How did you know?"

Billy laughed, "Well, I knew who you were staying with and knew that you wanted to run. Then yesterday I was in the coffee shop and all the talk was about some new kid who could kick field goals from the next county. I figured that there couldn't be two new kids with such athletic talent in town, so I just planned on being here this morning. They ran another half dozen laps before Billy suggested that they quit for the day.

"Don't you ever get tired?" he asked.

"Nope, never have yet."

"At this pace, five miles is about my limit."

"Okay, we can quit for today, but if you want to learn to really run, come back tomorrow and we'll run some more. I'm sure that if you run with me every morning, I could have you up to ten or twelve or maybe evening fifteen miles by the time I have to leave."

Conveniently, or perhaps because they had all been paying close attention, the girls were finished with their practice about the exact same time as Kyle was done running. Heidi came running up to them and with a less than subtle effort, thrust her chest out forward and said, "God you are hot! Would you like a rub down? We could go to my house and I could give you a massage."

"No, Heidi, I need to do my kicking practice, but you could run into the building if you want and ask Coach Saunders to come out. He's in his office."

Kyle had the three girls in the proper spots on the ten yard line and the others behind the goal post awaiting his kicks. Heidi returned with Coach Saunders, but quickly saw that all of the "jobs" were taken by other girls and she opted to sit in the stands and watch the practice. Slowly, but at a steady pace of twos and threes, a small group gathered in the stand to watch as well. As Kyle worked through the ten and fifteen yard line hash marks, the crowd applauded politely. When he worked through the twenty, they became more boisterous, and became very noisy as he nailed the nine kicks from the twenty five.