Рита Браун - Tail Gait

Susan agreed. “Yeah. But I know this hole, and I also know if there’s even the slightest wind, it cuts through the fairway. You’d better hit into, as opposed to away from, it. So what did I do? No wind, so I didn’t pay attention.”

“Susan, it is possible to hit a less-than-perfect shot. No matter what.”

“How would you know? You swung a golf club once, in tenth grade. I tried to get you to play with me.” Susan directed some of her ire toward Harry, who had become accustomed to this on the course.

“What are friends for?” Harry patiently let her friend vent her frustration. “I remember. I also remember that you had no patience with me.”

Susan lurched to a stop, hopped out. “I was very patient.”

Harry joined her in the rough, as did the cats. Good pickings in the roughs if you liked field mice and voles. Harry found the ball, not too far into the rough but hard next to a tree stump that had been neatly sawed years ago. Susan came over, looking down in disgust at the traitorous ball.

“Oh, bother!”

Harry looked through the rough and back onto the fairway where Ginger McConnell had been shot. “Clear view,” she said.

“No, it isn’t. A limb hangs low.”

“Susan, look here. Clear view.”

“I don’t care about that. I need to get my ball out of here without racking up the strokes. This is a real pisser, excuse my French!”

Pewter hopped up on the tree stump. “Owee! Susan rarely cusses.”

“Golf brings out her emotions.” Mrs. Murphy smiled. “You and I should be grateful that Mom didn’t take it up.”

“Think she’d swear?” Pewter said, as she was joined by Mrs. Murphy on the tree stump. Good view from up here. She kept an eye out for unsuspecting mice.

“Remember when the vacuum cleaner broke?” Mrs. Murphy said.

“You’re right.”

The gray cat leaned on the tiger cat. “The air was blue. Mom would cuss her way through all eighteen holes. Ha!”

Worrying about which club she should use, Harry ignored Susan, walked back to the cart, and pulled out a seven iron.

Susan took it from her hand, looked at it. “Oh, I don’t know. Hand me the five.”

“Just do it, Susan. Wait a minute. Let me move the cats off this stump, just in case.”

“I am not going to hit Mrs. Murphy or Pewter!”

“No, but they could jump down just as you are swinging. Let’s not take the chance.” Harry picked up Mrs. Murphy with both hands, put her down. When she reached for Pewter, the gray cat jumped down. No mice around here, with all these noisy humans tramping about!

Susan waited for a moment for the cats to get far enough out of the way. Then, as she stood over her ball as best she could, Harry suddenly exclaimed, “Spikes!”

“What now?” Susan exhaled, her patience depleted and utterly put out.

“Look at this.” Harry pointed to the top of the stump. “Spike marks.”

Susan peered down. “So what?”

“A clear view, a good angle to height, an easy shot, and it’s thick in here. Whoever did it could just walk out, casually carrying a ball they supposedly hit into the rough.”

Susan finally realized Harry was talking about Ginger’s murder. “Oh, now, let’s not get carried away. People are in here all the time looking for lost balls.”

“Was not Ginger killed in the middle of that fairway?” Harry pointed.

“Yes, but we don’t know the exact location.”

“Stand still.” Harry walked behind Susan, lifted her up so her feet hung at the same level as the stump. “Now look.”

“Well?”

“Do you have a long, clear view?”

Susan wasn’t ready to agree. “Possibly.”

Harry, strong as an ox, put her down.

“I could have just stood on the stump,” said Susan.

“And put your spike marks there to cover up the ones already there? I’m going to show this to Coop.”

“Harry, don’t get carried away. It never leads to”—she paused, thinking of the right word—“safety. Now, how am I going to take this shot?”

Harry, Mrs. Murphy, and Pewter moved back onto the fairway, where they could see Susan, who hit it just right, taking a piece of bark with the ball. The ball didn’t make it all the way to the green, but landed perhaps thirty yards from it. Not bad. With a careful third shot, Susan would get up there close to the pin. The hole might not be the disaster she’d imagined.

Once back in the cart, Harry took over the wheel. She was tired of being jerked about, but now smiled. “Good shot. How’d you do it?”

Susan smiled back. “Thought of what Mary Pat would do.”

“Funny, isn’t it, how we miss some people? Even though they’re gone, they’re not. They are still teaching us.”

“It’s true. I bet those people who took Ginger’s classes still remember many of the things he said, or they look up passages in one of his books.” She turned to Harry. “Can you still hear your mother’s voice?”

“Yes.”

They rode in silence to the ball. From there, Susan lifted it right up onto the green. She missed her putt by inches so she was one stroke over par. Given the mess it could have been, she grumbled only a little. Driving back, they bumped over a little crack in the paved path. Harry stopped the cart. A foursome played ahead.

“Getting cool,” Susan remarked.

“We’ll make two more holes. Won’t get that cold.”

“You know, yesterday haunts me. I can’t get Frank Cresey out of my mind. To see someone hit the skids like that man has. Ever notice it’s often the football players or the other team sport players who take a nosedive? Not so much golf or tennis.”

“I don’t know. Maybe they just hide it better. It’s got to be a huge adjustment to go from that kind of adoration and money to being over the hill.”

“The good thing about yesterday was that it took our minds off of tax day.”

Harry laughed. “Every cloud has a silver lining.” She looked ahead at the foursome. “They’re moving on.”

“Good.” Susan bounded out. “Maybe it’s better to forget a lot of things. Focus on the present.”

“Maybe,” answered Harry, but she didn’t sound like she believed it, not that Susan noticed. She was impatiently waiting for Harry to give her a club.

April 17, 2015

“Purest blue,” Harry said to the two cats and Tucker as they walked around the house, inspecting her flower beds and the sky above. “Those huge cumulus clouds, so white, set off the blue.”

Tucker tagged right behind her human, the faint scent of a rabbit somewhere nearby enticing her. Mrs. Murphy picked up the odor too. “That bunny better not nip off the daffodils.”

Daffodils, four inches above the ground, bulbs swelling, promised color soon to come along with the jonquils. The snowdrops had passed, crocuses still bloomed here and there, but the riot of color was only a week away, if that, that first burst of spring. Three weeks would pass until the redbuds, the yellow willows, and finally the dogwoods would explode on lawns and on the mountainsides. High spring brought with it spring fever to animals. Calves frolicked, horses chased one another, while deer observed from the distance, amused. Birds opened the sunrise with a chorus that ended only at twilight, which then filled with whip-poor-wills’ calls. Other night creatures also sang or croaked. Spring in the Blue Ridge Mountains so intoxicated people that only the most insensitive or overly burdened could keep their minds on practical matters.

Harry ran her hands over the top of the boxwoods along her walkway. The quiet whoosh, the snapping back of the branches, satisfied her that those dark green shrubs would grow a lot this year. Not that English boxwoods ever enjoyed the annual growth of American boxwoods, but the density and shape of the English boxwood couldn’t be duplicated by any other bush.