Tail Gait

May 5, 2015

“The dogwoods are finally open. It’s really spring.” Susan glowed as she and Harry, along with Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, bounced on a golf cart to the eleventh hole at Farmington. Ahead of them by one hole played David Wheeler, Paul Huber, and Rudolph Putnam. David, not ready to be buffeted by the winds of Susan’s emotion, had quickly organized the afternoon’s teams, giving himself Paul and Rudy for mates.

Accustomed to Susan’s ups and downs, Harry paid them little attention. Marshall Reese and Nelson Yarbrough, the other two in their group, driving their own cart, carried on a heated discussion about what Virginia football really needed to improve. As they lurched to a halt at the eleventh hole, the subject was whether we need to lure the best high school prospects for defense or offense.

“Defense, Nelson. I’m telling you.” Marshall, club in hand, bounded off the vehicle.

Genial in most all circumstances, Nelson just shook his head, saying in his light, gravelly voice, “You guys don’t win games.”

“Oh? Oh, so how can you say that? How many times did I help take down the opposing quarterback? How many times did I disrupt his timing?”

“Marshall, you were outstanding, but that’s not putting points on the scoreboard.”

“Will you two shut up and play?” Susan good-naturedly commanded, as she was now near the tee.

Nelson grinned, shoved his tee down into the thick sod, and took a practice swing, saying, “Offense.”

Susan pretended to be put out. “You two are overgrown boys.”

“All men are overgrown boys,” Harry rejoined.

They fell silent as Nelson hit a booming first shot.

Marshall quietly groaned. “If I don’t match that shot, I’ll hear about it.”

Susan goaded the still well-built fellow, “Well, blow right by him, then.”

Nelson quietly observed this with a big smile on his face. He respectfully moved out of Marshall’s eyesight.

Marshall really did rise to the occasion. While not as powerful as Nelson, he hit straight down the middle, giving himself a good second shot. He landed close enough to Nelson’s shot that he needed not be embarrassed. That is until Susan teed up and hit the ball so perfectly it sounded like a deep click. Her ball dropped near Nelson’s. Marshall had not played with Susan, as he usually played with his team buddies. He stared, his mouth open.

Nelson hopped in the cart. “Let’s go.”

Marshall dropped next to him. “Damn, that woman is strong.”

“Perfect form,” said Nelson. “She’s fluid, economical, nothing is wasted. If we had her form, we’d be driving three hundred yards. Ever notice how the best at anything always make it look easy?”

“They do,” Marshall agreed.

Back in the “girls’ cart,” Susan allowed herself a small gloat. “I do so love to drive.”

In the back, Mrs. Murphy asked Pewter, “Did you notice that redheaded woodpecker?”

“In the old black gum tree?”

“Right. That could mean the tree will come down sooner or later. Full of bugs.” Mrs. Murphy kept a sharp eye on avian behavior. “ ’Course the groundskeepers will find it. Must be a lot of work to keep up a golf course.”

“It would be better if these were fields of catnip.” Pewter’s eyes half closed with pleasure.

“Certainly would,” Mrs. Murphy readily agreed. “And they could even play their silly game through catnip.”

The humans did play through the eleventh hole, pretty happy with their scores to date. Then they teed off on the twelfth hole, the lake hole, which was the fairway on which Ginger McConnell was killed. Not wishing to jinx themselves, no one spoke of it except the cats.

As luck would have it, Marshall hit into the woods. He blamed the bad shot on his sore hands, which Harry noticed were bandaged. Both Nelson and Susan stayed on the fairway, but Susan had a difficult shot up to the green, thanks to the angle at which she found her ball. Such challenges revved Susan’s motor.

Marshall, on the other hand, cussed a blue streak in the woods. Harry, taking pity on him, went in to look too. The cats, the best scavengers of all, trotted after her, their tails straight up.

“I knew it,” he fumed. “I knew the minute I hit it that it was mishit.”

Harry prudently said nothing but continued to search. She saw the sawed-off trunk where she’d found the spike marks right after Ginger’s murder. She walked up to it. The cats continued the ball search.

“Harry, I don’t think I hit it that far,” Marshall called out.

“Right, I was just looking at something.” She walked back to continue the search.

“Found it,” he said, relieved.

“I found it first,” Mrs. Murphy corrected Marshall, as she was sitting right next to the ball.

“Murphy, don’t waste your time. Humans are notoriously ungrateful.”

Hands on his hips, Marshall mournfully squinted, looking through the trees. “I haven’t got a prayer.”

“It’s a Houdini shot,” Harry concurred.

“I’ll take the penalty stroke. Otherwise, I’ll waste ten minutes of everyone’s time.”

—

The rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly enough. Marshall shot in the low nineties. As just lately he played little, he was happy enough—rusty, but he could work on that.

Nelson came in fifteen over par, right on his handicap so he, too, felt he would improve. It was the beginning of May. Lots of time.

Susan shot an 83. Immediately after the game, she was already replaying every hole in her head, figuring where she made a mistake, where she could shave a stroke.

They all sat outside at the Nineteenth Hole. A bit cool, they wore their jackets but enjoyed the beautiful patio views of the golf course. The two cats nestled under Harry’s chair, alert to anything dropped.

“Feels good to be back out again,” Marshall said as his hamburger was delivered. “So much has been going on, I haven’t played for two weeks.”

“Has been intense,” Harry agreed.

“Thank you for helping me search for my ball back there on the twelfth. What a rotten shot.” Marshall pulled a face.

“I wasn’t but so much help, I got distracted by a stump in there.”

“Harry, not that again.” Susan rolled her eyes.

“Are we missing a good story?” Paul Huber smiled. “You know, a remembrance from your wild youth on the twelfth hole?”

“No, after Ginger was killed, I couldn’t help myself and I dragged Susan out to crawl over the twelfth hole and the holes close to it. I found spike marks on this clean-cut stump, the toes of which pointed in the direction where Ginger stood.”

“And I told her how lots of people get up on that stump to look for a lost ball,” Susan replied.

“If I’d known that, I would have gotten up there,” said Marshall. “Might have found my ball sooner.”

“Harry, you really can’t help yourself, can you?” David teased her. “You’ve watched too many mystery and crime shows.”

“I know. I know.” Then, to defend herself, Harry said, “But I think this all has something to do with The Barracks, the prisoner-of-war barracks.”

They fell silent, staring at her.

Finally, in a polite voice, Rudy responded, “Going from 1779 to today is quite a leap.”

“I know.” She grinned mischievously. “But if it’s true, what a story.”

In the spirit of the teasing, David said, voice commanding, “As an accountant, I can tell you without a doubt, it has to be about money.”

This got them all chattering.

Susan said, “Whatever happens, Harry will blame it on the cats or Tucker. You know, the cat found a bracelet or whatever. She can’t admit she is nosy beyond belief.”

“Hey, my dog and the cats did find Frank,” said Harry.

Again the conversation stopped.

“I had heard that,” Rudy replied. “Maybe it’s best we don’t think about it with our food.”

“Hear, hear,” David seconded the thought.

—

Later, walking back to their carts, out of earshot of Harry, Marshall whispered to Paul, “Where does she come up with this stuff?”

Paul shook his head. “I don’t know. But it would make a hell of a story.”

The cats, on their way to the truck, took a different view.

“She should keep her mouth shut,” Mrs. Murphy grumbled.

“True. She just opens that mouth and out spills whatever.” Pewter leapt onto the truck seat as Harry opened the door. “But here’s the thing, what if a murderer, THE murderer, sitting at another table, overheard her?”

“She’s asking for trouble,” the tiger sagely meowed as Harry cut on the motor.

“If she gets in trouble, that’s one thing. But she’ll drag us through it, and that’s another,” prophesied Pewter.