He did, kissing his stone up to the red, leaving them touching at just the right angle that we now had three shot rocks and no way for the other team to get rid of ours without blanking the end, which they didn’t want to do and leave us with the hammer this late in the game. Robbie’s shot was kind of a miracle, because he tended to shoot heavy, but today, the slow ice was his friend.
We took three points for the end, Evan’s two, and Robbie’s one. I should not have thought bad thoughts about Robbie’s skills, because the fact was both of my stones fell short of scoring, which was not the kind of showing I wanted in front of the Olympic team.
“Don’t worry,” Robbie said, patting my back. “We got you, fam.”
And I knew they did. We weren’t top seeded in the district because of a single one of us, but because of how we’d gelled as a team. We had been the favourites to win the bonspiel coming up, until Channing had announced his participation. No one, including us, really expected us to beat the Olympic hopefuls, but we planned to show up a strong second. Andre could suck it.
The rest of the ends went about as expected, with draws or single points. Their Skip was a cousin of Andre’s so naturally, the club manager didn’t love that we were up a few points by the seventh end. It could, mathematically, still go either way, and our opponents weren’t bad.
Shaw, solid as ever, threw his stones perfectly, despite Andre “accidentally” tipping over a tray of water bottles as Shaw was taking his second shot.
“That guy just doesn’t get the spirit of the sport,” Shaw mused as he slid his way towards the end of the sheet after his delivery.
Technically, Andre’s bullshit was chalked up to “outside interference” and nothing to do with the game, even though we all knew he’d been trying to distract Shaw. The ump stopped the game and asked us if we wanted Shaw to retake his shot. Andre sneered at us as he collected the spilled bottles off the back of the house.
We elected to leave the shot where it lay. It was exactly where Shaw had wanted to put it, despite Andre’s attempt to distract him.
Still waving to the ump in thanks, Shaw stopped looking where he was going, and as his slider hit the end of the sheet, where the bottles had toppled, his foot flew out from under him. He flailed, arms pinwheeling, broom spinning as he went down.
The handle of the broom spanned the ice and the edging of the sheet, trapping Shaw’s knuckles under it as the entire weight of his body came down on that hand.
The crunch could be heard across all six sheets.
Heads turned, silence fell.
Shaw swore.
Andre, with his tray of water bottles, was suddenly nowhere to be seen.
Always quick to regroup, Robbie was the first one to Shaw’s side, hand on his shoulder. “My dude.”
“I’m good,” Shaw said, too breathless for it to be true. His broom handle was snapped, and his fingers already swelling. Gingerly, he tried to make a fist.
“No, bruh, do not try that,” Robbie advised.
Andre’s cousin appeared, kneeling in a puddle of water at Shaw’s side. “Hey,” he said, voice soft. “Can I look?”
Shaw glared up at him.
“I’m Darby. And also, an orthopedic surgeon.”
“Oh.” Shaw held out his hand and the doctor gently took Shaw by the wrist and instructed him to bend his fingers.
Doing as he was told, Shaw got more movement out of the digits this time, but there was sweat across his brow and his face went pale.
“You wouldn’t be able to move them that much if they were broken. but you’ll want to ice them.” He looked up to find the ump and called time, which the ump agreed to.
“We’ll take five,” the ump said. “You all figure out if you want to finish the game, and what all. You going to live, Kerry?”
Darby was helping Shaw up, but once Shaw was on his feet, he gave the ump a weak grin. “Sure am not curling any more today, though.”
The ump looked furious, but he nodded. It was obvious to everyone by the wet spots on Shaw’s clothes, and the knees of Darby’s pants, that Shaw’s fall had been caused by unfrozen water on the ice. That water could only have gotten there from Andre dropping the water bottles onto the ice.
Since Andre wasn’t part of the game, there was nothing anyone could do about it, though. While we waited for Mike to clean up the spill, I glanced up to the window to see Channing’s dark frown aimed at the house in general.
Andre might have just screwed his own bonspiel with that antic. I wouldn’t blame them if they wanted nothing to do with this house after seeing his pettiness.
In the end, though Darby was willing to concede, we weren’t happy winning by default when his team might have a chance to win, or at least take more points. It wasn’t any of their faults, sowe were about to head back to the sheet when the door from the bar stairs opened, and Carol Renard appeared.
