The Dark Web

To the Reader

The Dark Web is a sequel to The Sand Trap, the first book in the Melanie McDougal series (the 2nd in the series is ‘under construction’)

While it is not necessary to have read The Sand Trap to enjoy The Dark Web, there are references in this novel to the events in The Sand Trap .

Many thanks to the readers and friends who have provided editing suggestions for this novel. The typo gremlins are insidious. I am especially gratefull for the assistance of Michael Likers for his review of the Indigenous references in this novel.

And much love to my spouse and lifetime friend Sheila for her understanding and patience as I indulge in yet another whim.

The Dark Web

WIKIPEDIA, 2017: The Dark Web is the WWW content that exists on darknets, overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations or authorization to access.

Published by Talon Lake Press at Smashwords

2019 Edition

Copyright 2017 D.G. Marshall

Cover design by x-height Graphics Inc.

Please note that I use Canadian spelling throughout. You will see doubled letters (e.g. focussed, gratefull), ou’s (e.g. colour) and ‘re’ (centre) as well as a few other differences from American spelling.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

License Notes

Thank you for downloading this limited time, free e-book. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please let the author know at LakeTalonPress@gmail.com.

D. G. Marshall

TABLE of CONTENTS

1. Chapter 1

2. About the author

3. Other books by the author

4. Connect with the author.

The Dark Web

One

February 18, 2016

Tell me what you're really thinking...

The camera zoomed in on two men and a woman. The men were dressed in identical sports jackets and ties, although one man had a white dress shirt and the other a blue one. Papers were spread over the table in front of them and all wore oversized headphones with microphones poking out over their mouths. The woman was dressed in a brown, unadorned, men's style golf shirt. There was no Golf Town near Bumstead, Saskatchewan, so she made do with clothes she picked up at a Mark's Work Warehouse store when she got a tour stop in Canada. When she had qualified for the PGA TOUR Champions three years ago, Burt had constantly bought her expensive and fashionable women's golf attire, but she was never comfortable wearing any of it. He could never talk her into to wearing a skirt —or shorts—instead of a pair of khaki Dockers. And she rejected all clothing endorsement offers.

Look Melanie, Burt had pleaded. You might be playing against men but you are a woman. A damn good looking one, he added with a mock leer. And you are now a role model for all the young woman who want to be as good as you. You need to dress like a woman.

No I don't, she always firmly replied. Young women should learn to be judged on their skill, not the shape of their legs. I'll stick to what I have always worn.

Now that he was gone, she could wear what she wanted without complaint.

Her golf clothing had actually changed considerably since her youth. As a young girl at the Folly — her father's golf course in Saskatchewan— she had simply worn clothing items that men left behind at the course. In the nineteen seventies farm country they were more likely to be Carhartts as Dockers, although she did have a pair of sixties era, Rayon, dress type golf pants she found abandoned behind the sixth tee box. She often wondered what golf frustration led to the doffing of a pair of pants in the middle of the course. At twelve years old she had found a discarded seventies golf magazine with a photo of Hale Irwin on the cover that was her proof that those pants and a discarded golf shirt were just fine. But the old golf shoes from her college days—the ones with one tongue flap missing —were long gone, as was almost everything golf related from her college life. She often lay in bed awake in the middle of the night wishing she could chuck the memories of college as easily as she chucked the shoes.

She fidgeted with the headset and stared at the table. The headset fit tightly over a mass of undisciplined curls. Even at sixty years of age her hair was a natural, glossy auburn. Burt had listened to his blues music on earphones the size of dimes so she knew they don't really need these big, padded things. Must be for show, she concluded.

Well Frank, the younger of the two announcers crooned to his partner while he smiled at the camera and the invisible audience somewhere in the ether of television space. It looks like the conditions are perfect today for some low scores,

Right Bob. The rain last night softened the greens and the Florida sun has warmed the fairways enough to give some roll. That really helps these senior players on this long course.

True enough Frank, Bob purred. But the leader board includes golfers who really don't need much help with either softened greens or hard fairways.

That's for sure. Frank poked at the Dell notebook on the desk in front of him and the leader board was inserted into the TV view. Rebecca would tell her later that the leader board insert covered her face. She and Rebecca had been best friends and was her caddie during their days at Clapshorn College in Montana. After Burt died, Rebecca had taken leave from her professorship at Harvard to join Melanie on the Tour as her caddie. Looks like no one has to give Couples or Langer a break on the driving range.

Right on. And Langer is using that big stick of his on the greens better than I have seen him in years. He only had thirty one putts in the third round today.

Well both of those guys are actually still competitive on the regular circuit—although, except for today, Langer had been struggling to adapt to the anchored putter ban.

For sure. And he isn't alone. I noticed that Bradley was using a regular length putter in the regular PGA tournament yesterday.

And he three putted twice.

Back to the leader board today. Pretty packed at the top?

Yes. This is a big money tournament for many of these guys.

Melanie listened to their inane banter through the headphones. Did people really want to listen to this fluff? People are watching high definition televisions that show the perspiration dripping off a player's forehead. Do they really need someone to tell them that ...the putt is slowly curving to the hole...? or, That one's gone left Bob...

Rebecca had often pointed out that television ads reflect the audience. The ads during golf tournaments were mostly Viagra or Cialis, she regularly reminded Melanie. It is unlikely that the audience are seventy year old women looking for a pill that would give their partner a bigger boner. So just remember that when one of the 'guys' is interviewing you.

She wanted to turn around and look at the golf course behind her. The announcement/TV booth had a glass wall and sat high above the eighteenth hole. The play on the hole was constantly in the background of their banter and Melanie wanted to see who was on the green now. She politely stared at the table instead, occasionally nodding to the camera as if she either cared or heard what the men were saying.

Right. Petrobuy is based in Houston and when Chubb dropped the sponsorship last year, they put up the largest prize table on the Tour. And they have matched the prize money with a donation to the winner's charity of choice. We will have the recently retired CEO of Petrobuy with us tomorrow for the awards ceremony, but I understand he is a fine golfer in his own right?

Yes. Elesio Alvarez went to College in Houston, although he is actually a Guatemalan citizen. Petrobuy has many business interests in Florida and the Naples area. I've played with him —a one-handicap golfer and a generous philanthropist. I heard that he funds schools back in his home country. We look forward to chatting with him tomorrow.

Okay. Back out to the play in a moment for the final few holes. But first, we have a special guest with us today. Welcome Melanie.

It took a moment for her to realize he was now talking to her. Rebecca told her later that her surprise couldn't be seen since they still had the leader board over her face. It dissolved when she responded.

My pleasure, Bob.

I am Frank. He's Bob.

Still my pleasure, Frank.

You had a good round today Melanie. Finished with a fine birdie on 18. Is the course playing unusually easy this weekend?

Thanks Frank. And yes, I'd say tying the course record was a good round. Easy? Maybe you should ask that question to the seventy guys that didn't make the cut?

Bob intervened.

This is the first time since you made the men's PGA TOUR Champions three years ago that you will be on the top of the leader board going into the final day. Any nerves yet?

Not really. She paused thoughtfully and added with exagerated sincerity. At my age I am just thankful for another day on the golf course and the privilege of playing with so many gracious old men like yourselves.

Rebecca spit a mouthful of coffee across the hotel room coffee table at that one.

Her fourth year on tour had not been easy for Melanie. Almost all of the players were previous regular competitors on the PGA Tour. The players themselves were unanimously gracious and welcoming. She was the first woman to be a regular on any male professional golf circuit and there was admiration for her skill and the route that got her on the TOUR. Four years ago she had been one of five golfers left standing after a grueling qualification process that started all over the USA with ten thousand ambitious fifty plus golfers. The fact that she was now closer to sixty than fifty only added to their admiration. However, neither the media nor the fans were as unanimously supportive.

Frank —the interviewer— had started the public controversy with a column in one of the golf blogs. Burt had taped it to the fridge back home at the Folly.

September 18th, 2012: Golf history was made yesterday when it was announced that Melanie McDougal from Duck's Ass...oops...Bumstead...Saskatchewan will join the Champion's Tour for the 2012-2013 season. Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against back woods Saskatchewan or even Canada. They have big fish and I'll be sure to go there if I ever need to wait a year in line for surgery on my bad knee. And I certainly have nothing against the finer sex. Some of my best friends are women. But this is a wedge that all golfers—of both sexes—need to be vigilant about.

Let's start with her history.

Her PR blurb says she played her college golf at Clapshorn College in Montana. Okay, we have nothing against the thousands of young golfers and athletes toiling at such colleges around the country. But Montana's golf season is only three weeks long. And the country has a carefully designed recruiting system that funnels the best golfers—and other elite athletes— into the best universities and colleges in the world. Would you ever see a Clapshorn College in the 'final four' during basketball's March Madness? Not likely. Her questionable success in making the TOUR Champions gives false hope to young athletes at similar three thousand, third-rate colleges around the country. It may even hurt the recruitment of the best to the top tier institutions and dilute the talent pool. And then the level of competitiveness will dive. It could mean the end of the National Collegiate Golf Association, as we know it today.

Then there is her tournament history. She got into the qualifiers on the basis of one tournament win in 1974 —a win over some male golfers who no one has ever heard of since. But that is the sum total of her tournament life. For the next thirty years there was no golf record of any sort. She wasn't even in the U.S. She says she was teaching school in Mexico for those thirty years, but an investigation by this writer could find no one who remembered her. And certainly no one who remembered her playing golf. And then a year ago she shows up at the qualifiers and expected all of us to welcome her with open arms? Is she now a Mexican? A Canadian? At least she speaks passable English...eh? The TOUR Champions needs to rethink its qualification criterion on the basis of both tournament history and nationality.

Now to the gender thing. Let me say it outright. Women and men don't mix on the sports field. From Billy Jean King to Michele Wie, women have been learning the lesson the hard way that the sexes are just built differently. Sure there is the odd Amazon that can beat the odd Woody Allen, but to instill in a generation of young American women the aspiration to compete equally with men is just plain wrong. I wouldn't want my daughters getting slammed against the boards by P.K. Subban. Or crushed on an end run by 'the refrigerator'. Or slam dunked by Charles Barkley. And what will happen to the women's golf tour if all the best young girls join the men's tour? How will it change the men’s tour when half the participants are women? Bathroom breaks instead of commercial breaks? Wine company tournament sponsors instead of beer companies? Fashion announcers at each hole? Gimme a break.

This McDougal lady may be a freak talent of some sort, but let's make sure that the golfing world treats her as the freak she is— and not a trend.

It was this kind of controversy that Melanie had feared the most when she was talked into trying for the tour. Golf had always been just golf to her. Not a social statement. Just golf. It was just golf when she beat all comers as a young girl growing up at her father's golf course. It was just golf when she beat every golfer—boys included— at Clapshorn College. She had been embarrassed thirty years ago when women's movements made a cause out of her run to victory in the National Collegiate Golf Association men's championship. Her motives for switching over to the men's side from the women's side were much more personal than lofty.

It was a memory that had taken thirty years and another life in Mexico to only partly suppress.

This jerk had started the controversy all over again. All she wanted was play golf. So she did her best to ignore the debate and the furor following his blog. She really didn't blame him. Burt had warned her when she started the path to the tour the controversy was inevitable. If it had not been Frank it would have been some other Fox news nurtured sports writer who ignited the controversy.

She missed Burt's counsel on these sorts of things. She and Burt were newly married when she started the tour, but neither had any family to worry about. Her father had died the year after she came back from Mexico. Gord Salmy, Burt's previous identity, had two children and a granddaughter, but as far as they were concerned he had died in a house fire in 2011. His death had been faked and he had been given the new Burt identity, and the resurrected Burt had no family. Melanie knew that giving up a role in his granddaughter's life had been the hardest part of the identity change. Now Burt had joined Gord as officially dead, this time for real. So except for Rebecca, she was on her own. The sponsors, of course, all wanted to be her friend. But she didn't want the money or the responsibility, so she had turned down every cosmetic and women's clothing company that had courted her. The only people she had come to care about were the earnest young women in all walks of life who genuinely appreciated her giving them the hope of equity.

She did not have to be polite to Frank.

Well Melanie, Frank continued. You have certainly set the golf fashion industry on its ear. That's a nice golf shirt you are wearing today for instance. Do you have a custom manufacturer?

Crowds of women, young and old—Melanie's followers the press called them— followed her on the golf course dressed in Dockers khakis and men's golf shirts. The baggier the both the better. She once wore a pair of Carhartts to a press conference and now fans are showing up at the course wearing these work overalls. She had turned down requests from both companies to be her sponsors. And golf shoes with flaps on them—actually just one flap—were making comeback.

Mark's Work Warehouse. Off the rack Frank. And those are really nifty sports jackets you two are wearing today. You guys shop at the same Winners?

Rebecca thumped the kitchen table.

Frank glared at her. Bob intervened again. Let's get back to golf for a moment Melanie. You had a successful year as a rookie on the Champion's Tour. Six top tens. You were even a runner up to Langer in a previous Chubb's. You followed up three years ago with seven top tens, and last year with six. And now you are in contention with a course record matching score today. Yet you have already announced that this will be your last tournament and that you will retire from competitive golf. There is a legion of fans out there —of both sexes by the way—who will be very disappointed. What's up?

She paused for a moment before answering. Burt's death in September had taken away much of her competitive drive. It was he who had found her, brought her back from her life in Mexico and back to golf. It was he —helped by Rebecca—who had set her up for the run for the PGA TOUR Champions. The pancreatic cancer took him quickly. And she had thought that going back to the tour right away would be a salve. She thought she could tuck her grief away in her golf bag. Wrap it around her Taylor Made Superfast. Crush it under the weight of the dozens of comp ProV-1s she never lost. She felt that Burt would have wanted her to do that. They were both wrong.

Competing wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be. I left golf for a long time and when I came back I didn't have the same passion as I had at college. And before that as a young girl in Saskatchewan.

Frank interrupted her. You mean you couldn't live up to the hype and the pressure?

Well I never had the yips like you Frank. But it is true that I have never felt comfortable being promoted as a woman golfer, rather than just a golfer. The media for instance—you guys included—focus more on my gender than my swing. Or even worse, you focused on what I wore. Or whether my hair was its natural colour. If I had not been happily married it would have been my sex life. Today I just matched the course record and it has only had passing mention.

That's not totally true Melanie, Bob offered. Your swing has been analyzed by the best teachers in the country. Your deceased husband included. We know what you do. It just seems that no one can replicate it. No one has ever really replicated Moe Norman's swing either. And you have had a legion of fans.

Melanie paused. It was actually the fan part that was partly driving her away from the Tour but she couldn't really articulate it. At least not on television. When she had started on the Tour, Burt had set up a twitter account —#melaniegolf— and the 140 characters poured in. At first she read them herself, but both the abuse and the adulation were too hard for her to internalize. When one tweeter threatened to rape her she had enough. The memory of her last night at Clapshorn was still far too vivid. Burt hired a couple of students from the Bumstead high school to read and answer the tweets. They sorted them into three broad piles— the adulation, the threats and hate, and the political.

Melanie only read the first. A sociology professor from Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario who specialized in hate crimes had asked to be able to analyze the material in that second category. Melanie didn't even want to know what they said. The third group was the most challenging for her. She had never set out to represent a cause. But it was inevitable that women's groups across the country would use her success to support their agendas. She had no problem with that; she just didn't want to be part of it. She just wanted to play golf. It wasn't the burden of representing the hopes and aspirations of women that was becoming too much for her, but the notion that the gender equity movement need something as shallow as golf to shore up its case.

Yes. I am humbled by the support of my fans across the country. I am especially grateful that I was given the opportunity to inspire so many young women—in any area, not just sport—to aspire to any level or position without any consideration of gender.

Melanie, our time is almost up today. It is always a pleasure to chat with you.

Frank was silent.

But one last question for all of your fans out there. What are you going to do now?

Before the cancer, Melanie and Burt had been working on a plan. It was Burt's idea originally —he had been a top competitive golfer in his youth—but she soon enthusiastically endorsed his idea to change the way golf was played. He said he was originally inspired by her father's attempt to design a nine-hole golf course in the middle of the Saskatchewan prairie. Her father wasn't a golfer at all, just—as he often told her—a farmer pissed off at golfers. Her mother had run away when Melanie was four years old with a golf pro that got lost on the Trans Canada highway, and the golf course was her father's way of taking his anger out on every golfer he could find. The course was so different that it had never obtained RCGA approval. However, despite his search for revenge, her father had built a course that was so much fun that people now drove from all across the country to play the Folly.

I'll retire to operate the golf course my father built. But if anyone is interested, I am also going to build new golf courses. Courses that bring the fun back into the game and reverse the downward participation spiral.

You mean like that silly one in Saskatchewan? That isn't real golf. Tiny landing areas. Free golf balls at every hole. Paths through corn and wheat fields. Roller coaster greens.

What was your score Frank? You played it last year didn't you?

What do you mean 'downward spiral'? Frank ignored the question.

Well, Frank, the number of active golfers is sharply declining despite —maybe because of?— the best efforts of media gurus like you, the best efforts of golf magazines that think the only courses worth writing about have to cost three hundred a round, the promotions of golf manufacturers who have to come up with something new and expensive every year, and the best efforts of instructors who always have a new tip to shave points off your handicap. Add the huge environmental effect of the traditional eighteen hole course, the general unwelcoming environment for women and the weekend duffer, and an economy where people are carefully portioning out their recreational time, it is no wonder that hundreds of golf course close down every year.

And you are going to fix that?

Yes. Burt had a design for courses that are affordable to build and play. Courses that are environmentally responsible. And most importantly will be fun and welcoming to all.

Isn't that called mini put? Frank sneered into the camera.

Be careful Frank. It may be the Friday night mini players that are actually the future of golf. Not past their prime, out of shape old men. I see you are having a little trouble doing up the buttons on that cute jacket. And I love the way your tie makes a little ski jump as it hangs down.

Rebecca fell off the kitchen chair laughing.

Frank actually looked down at his belly. Bob intervened as he touched the headphone with his hand, as if that made the sound clearer.

Melanie we look forward to hearing more about your course designing in the future. It has been a pleasure chatting with you, but it looks like we have some action on 18. Good luck in the final round tomorrow. Over to you on 18, Harold.

The television screen dissolved to an announcer standing on a grassy knoll with a green and a crowd behind him.

Melanie removed her headphone as Bob moved over and shook her hand.

You really have changed the game Melanie. And I know at least my daughters thank you for that.

Just temporarily McDougal, Frank offered. Golf has lasted over a hundred years without your influence. It will last another hundred.

You're probably right Frank. All that has really changed in the game is that we have gone from gutta percha and hickory, to graphite and urethane. There may be better equipment and more manicured courses, but the players aren't any better. And attitudes aren't much different than Victorian times. Longer and longer courses and more and more expensive equipment will not save the game. Changing attitudes might.

We'll see McDougal. We'll see, he retorted as he took of his own headphone and turned to face the window overlooking the 18th green.

Bob showed her out of the booth and shook her hand again. I'll miss your interviews Melanie. Our ratings seriously spike when people know we are talking to you. With you in the final pairing tomorrow with Freddie and Bernard, I suspect we will have one of the largest TV viewing audiences of the year.

Melanie remembered a tournament many years ago when an announcer said the same thing to her. She disappeared for thirty years after that tournament. She looked forward to disappearing from public view after this one.

TWO

February 18, 2016

Give me your best shot...

She had played in the girls' game that was on the ice just before the league championship boys' game, and the Spartan's coach had watched it only by chance. He had been at the rink early to arrange some after season ice time, and he watched her lead her team to their own league championship. She stopped shot after shot, and two breakaways. Then in the third period—with her team up 4-0—she let in two shots of the type she had been stopping all night.

Strange, he thought to himself at the time. When he found out later that his regular goalie was sick, he didn't hesitate to approach Laura outside of the girls' dressing room. As with all goalies, she looked very different out of her gear. He only recognized her by the Calgary Flames logo decorated goalie stick she carried.

The first thing he noticed was her height, approaching six feet, he figured. The second was her hair – shoulder length, black with ringlets that bounced as she walked. Her complexion was dark like her hair. Her facial features didn't instantly strike him as beautiful, but when she looked at him her azure blue eyes made his skin tingle.

Congratulations. Nice game out there. I am Ronald Foster, he offered as he put out his hand.

She dropped the handle of the goalie equipment bag and returned the handshake.

Laura Alvarez. Thanks.

Too bad about those last two goals. I thought that you were going to get a shutout.

No one is perfect.

Okay. So you say. You looked pretty good to me. Look. I am the coach of the Spartans and our goalie is out for tonight's game. I wonder if I could talk to your parents about you playing for my team tonight?

The Spartans? You guys are the city rep team? Most of your players think they are pro bound. And you want a girl?

To be honest, it is either you, a boy from one of the rec leagues, or we forfeit. From what I've seen we would be better off with you.

My parents aren't here. My dad lives in Guatemala and my Mom is at school, but my coach has signed permission slips.

So you will do it?

Laura stared at her shuffling feet. Will the team —and the league— agree? Has a girl ever played in the boys' league before?

Not that I know of. But then I don't know of any rule that says she can't.

She decided she liked this guy. Most of the men players and coaches were either solicitous or simply ignored her. At least he was honest about why he wanted her and she had no worries about playing in the boy's league—at any level. She knew that she could stop any shot from any angle from any player her age or perhaps older. The only goals that were scored on her were either the flukes from a crowd around the net, or ones that she let in on purpose. The two earlier tonight were on purpose. It made the losing team feel better. Her grandfather had always warned her to never show off.

It was a fine line for her. Without her hockey talent she would not have been accepted by most of the other girls her age. She was too tall. She didn't dress the right way —athletic sweat clothes were not on the Lulu Lemon best dressed list. She thought Justin Beiber was a foolish little boy. She and her Mom listened to Feist and Neil Young. She wasn't a good student. Apparently her athletic talent didn't extend to memory or mathematics comprehension. She and her mom had a computer in the apartment, but they could only afford one cellphone. While the other girls texted and talked during school breaks, she watched them. She had a Facebook account that was almost totally dedicated to hockey—scores and player profiles for both men and women teams across the country. Her only Facebook friends were from the Calgary Flames fan club or from her hockey team.

It didn't really bother her that most of the girls ignored her at school. She garnered all the respect she needed in the rink —or at any athletic event. She just had to be careful to not be too good. Some already referred to her as a ‘freak’ behind her back. Boys were another matter. She had always liked playing with the boys better than with the girls. They never teased her, just treated her as another ‘player’.

Sure. I'll do it. When?

Right now. Go back in the dressing room and get geared up. I'll meet you on the ice when you are ready. I've got to go and talk to my team and parents.

That will be interesting? Will they agree?

Victory greed is a strong motivator.

The parents and players on his team were more than willing to give it a try. A couple of the players said they had heard how good Laura was. As it turned out, the problem wasn't with his team, but with the opposition —the Nighthawks. The opposition from the other team was fierce and vocal. They insisted on a ruling by the league convener who was attending the championship game. While some of the opposition was motivated by an easy forfeit win of the city championship, other motivations were not so simple. One man with two sons on the team argued vehemently that women had no place in men's sports.

I will not allow my sons to be tainted with the presence of a girl on the ice, he ranted.

He tried religion. God meant the genders to be separate…and women to be subservient to their husbands.

He tried safety. My sons' shots are so hard they will kill the young girl.

He tried fairness. Our boys are gentlemen. They will not try as hard with a girl in net.

All arguments were to no avail. There had been at least one precedent with a female goalie playing for NAIT in Edmonton and the league convener was smart enough to know this was not an issue he wanted to tackle today. So Laura was cleared to play. When she skated out to the net to begin the warm up, there were catcalls from the crowd about the place of women in society, but as members of Laura's girls’ team moved into position behind the callers — the previous father protester and a couple of men beside him—the taunting slowed.

And all taunts stopped as the game progressed through the first period.

She stopped everything the Nighthawks could throw at her. Slapshots. Wrist flips. In front of the net deflections and even a breakaway by their top scorer. She always seemed to be in the right place to thwart every shot.

Meanwhile the Spartans scored two goals and at the end of the first period the score was 2-0.

The second period began with a different strategy by the Nighthawks. A forward was always in front of Laura, almost in her crease. Every time the play headed down to the Spartans end of the ice, the Nighthawks forward looked to where the referee was standing before saying something only Laura could hear— and then butt ending her in the stomach. The crowd noticed the attacks and by the end of the second period the crowd—and the Spartan coach—were hoarse from yelling at the referee who seemed to always be looking the other way when Laura was butt ended.

At the end of the second period it was still 2-0 Spartans.

On the first rush of the third period to the Spartans end, the same forwards that had been harassing and poking her in the second period, took turns crashing into the net and Laura. The referee decided in each instance that they could not stop their forward momentum and it wasn't goalie interference, although everyone in the crowd knew differently.

Laura kept stopping everything the Nighthawks threw at her, always seeming to be exactly in the right place to block or catch a shot. The Nighthawks scored on a fluke scramble in front of the net, but by the fifteen- minute mark of the third, the Spartans were minutes away from a victory and the city championship.

With four minutes left, Laura skated behind the net to stop an iced puck. Her back was to the net and she didn't see—or expect— a hit. Peter Gravelle, one of the harassing forwards and one of the sons of the earlier protester, came at her from behind at full speed. His cross check to her back lifted her off her feet and slammed her face first into the glass. Her helmet flew off and the crowd was suddenly quiet as she crumpled and lay on the ice not moving, her long—and now sweat soaked—curly, black hair spread on the ice.

One voice from the stands broke what seemed minutes of silence. I told you women can't take it in a men's game.

The rest of the crowd, even Nighthawk fans and parents started yelling at the protesting father. Some Spartan's parents held back the girls from Laura's team.

By this time Foster and his assistant coach were on the ice kneeling beside an immobile Laura. The referees were trying to separate Spartan players from the Nighthawk players who had gone to the defense of Gravelle. No one wanted to fight. Dropping your gloves to fight in this league could mean as much as a season suspension. As players danced in couples, holding each other's sweaters, Gravelle stood toe to toe with a tall defenseman from the Spartans.

That takes care of the girls, he spat in the boys face. Indians like you are next.

The tall boy didn't react or respond, just stared at Gravelle and constantly moved to keep him from going near Laura.

All players from both sides stopped the dancing and the crowd cheered as Laura stood up. She was shaking her head at Foster clearly saying no over and over again. The assistant picked up her helmet and Laura slowly wrapped her black curls together before tucking them under the helmet.

Let's play hockey, she yelled to the referee as she picked up her stick and skated back into her crease.

Gravelle was given a two minute minor for goalie interference.

With two minutes left, Gravelle and his brother were back on the ice for a final shift. The Nighthawks pulled their goalie for a sixth attacker. As soon as the play went into the Spartans end, the second Gravelle brother skated directly at Laura. This time she didn't wait for him to hit her. She raised her stick like a baseball bat and slashed him across the back of the legs as he skated by the crease. He tumbled into the boards holding the back of his legs.

Wayta go girl! one of her old teammates yelled.

The referee raised his hand. Laura was given a two-minute slashing penalty and the Spartans were down two players —the penalty and the extra player from the pulled goalie.

The faceoff was in the Spartan's end and almost before the puck was dropped Peter Gravelle rushed Laura. Again she was ready and before he could do anything she poked the butt end of her stick in his groin and then whacked him across the back of his helmet.

The referee's hand was up before Gravelle hit the ice.

The cheering came from every corner of the stands.

And the Spartans were down three players with two minutes to go in the game. One Nighthawk goal would put the game into overtime.

From Laura's perspective, up to this point it had not been a very tough challenge to stop the Nighthawk players. Their shots were a little harder than she was used to, and they skated faster to get into position, but it wasn't anything that she couldn't handle.

Her grandfather had a name for her special attribute—she could never remember it —spatial something or other— and he told her he had it as well. In fact, he told her everyone has the ability to perceive and analyze their environment, it is just that some can do it faster than others. Many successful athletes have this skill. Her grandfather had used Wayne Gretzky's famous comment about skating to where the puck is going as an example. She just called it fast reflexes, although the brain's processing of the environment was somewhat more complicated than such a simple phrase implied. He