Skins Game, Part 2

The rough

Author’s Note: When we left in Part 1, Duck Miyoshi had just informed Charlie Bluehorse and Whitey Dugan that the fourth member of their foursome had just died on the 11th hole.

Part 2

Bluehorse got out of his cart and walked around to look at Worley. He moved his hand up to Worley’s neck to feel for the carotid. He removed Worley’s shades and looked into his vacant eyes.

“Yep, Duck’s right,” he said. “This man has sunk his last putt.”

Whitey remained sitting and stared at Worley in disbelief. Slowly, his expression returned to anger. “Why that sonofabitch. He can’t leave in the middle of a round when he’s winning. It ain’t ethical.”

“Judas priest, Whitey, the man’s dead. I don’t think it’s the same,” Miyoshi said.

Whitey swung out of his cart and moved toward Worley’s corpse. “Well, maybe not, Duck, but he’s got fifty of my bucks and I want ’em back.”

“You can’t do that!” Duck said.

Bluehorse put a hand on Whitey’s chest and firmly pushed him back. “Duck’s right,” he said.

“What the hell’s wrong with you guys? All day long Cletis has been yakkin away, screwin up our concentration and takin our money. He don’t deserve it. Besides, he don’t need it now, anyway.”

“The talkin is… uh, was just a part of his game,” Charlie said. “Just like drivin the ball two hundred and eighty yards is part of yours. We may not have liked his tactics, but he won our money fair and square. You’re the one who brought up ethics. If you want your money back, you’re gonna have to win it back.”

“Well, just how the hell do you propose I do that, Blue?” Whitey looked at Bluehorse with fire in his eyes.

“We could finish the round,” Blue said calmly. “If Cletis doesn’t hit, he forfeits.”

“Let’s do it,” Whitey said and turned to his cart.

“Jesus, you guys. Wait a minute,” Duck said. “Shouldn’t we just forget the round and head on in? I mean, damn, Cletis is dead! Don’t we need to call somebody or something?”

“Duck,” Blue said. “Cletis ain’t gonna get any deader if we play out these last eight holes. We’ll eventually get things taken care of. But finishing this round is one of the things we’ve got to take care of first. Besides, I think Cletis would’ve wanted it that way.”

Duck Miyoshi looked back and forth at Bluehorse and Dugan with open-mouthed incredulity.

“But… isn’t it against some club rule to play golf with a corpse in your group? We could get in big trouble.”

“Probably,” Bluehorse said.

Miyoshi looked at Bluehorse for some time, and Bluehorse examined the head of the three wood he held. Finally, Duck looked at the cart steering wheel in front of him and slowly shook his head.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. But the only way to make this fair, the only way I’m going to go along with this, is to let me hit for Cletis. If either of you wins a hole, I’ll pay you out of Cletis’s winnings. If I win, the money goes to his wife. As a proxy, I myself get to withdraw from the group, retaining those funds I lost up to this point.”

“Spoken like a true lawyer,” Blue said.

“Let’s just do it,” Whitey said.

Duck found Worley’s lie sitting up in the fairway. The hole went downhill and to the right. The pin looked to be about two hundred yards away. Duck took his three wood and approached the ball. When he connected, he knew immediately he’d looked up. The ball shot toward a phalanx of trees at the bend of the fairway fifty yards away, never gaining more than a foot in altitude as it went. “Looked up, Duck,” Cletis’s voice echoed in Duck’s mind.

The ball came to earth five feet in front of the point oak tree, hitting the concrete cart path where a root had thrust a chunk of it upward. There it veered left and gained altitude. When it came down, it hit the cart path again and took a lower bounce. Once more it descended and hit the path which snaked along the right edge of the fairway. It bounced again and bounced and bounced, following the path down the hill. Finally, it left the path and rolled to a stop on the fringe of the 11th green.

“Nice shot,” Bluehorse said.

“I’ll be go to hell,” Duck said reverently.

“Shit,” said Whitey.

Cletis remained silent.

Duck three putted, but Blue duffed a sand wedge from the bunker, and Whitey four putted when his temper got the best of him and he missed a three-footer. Cletis had won another skin.

At the par three Twelve, Duck hit the green with his seven iron as did the other two. Duck was away and sank his putt from twenty-five feet. White and Bluehorse missed. Cletis won the skin.

Thirteen, Fourteen, and Fifteen went to Cletis. Duck Miyoshi had never won over three holes total in all the years the foursome had played together. Since Worley croaked at the eleventh tee,

Duck had played inspired golf. A sense of destiny had built inside him. He was hot. He was on a roll. He had become invincible. He got cocky.

At Sixteen Duck began to talk.

“You know, you boys would do a whole lot better if you didn’t let this whole situation get to you.”

Bluehorse and Whitey looked at each other.

“I mean,” Duck continued, “you take this hole here.” He pointed out to the undulating fairway that stretched beyond the wide wedge of water thirty feet below the front of the tee box. In the haze four hundred and forty yards ahead of them, the flag fluttered toward them. “Any normal man would let this body of water and the wind blowing in his face intimidate him. Hell, I used to. But Cletis was right. If you forget about that water, if you look past that water and this wind, if you let yourself see your ball bouncing safely and gently on the other side before — ”

“Just hit your damn drive, Duck. And shut up,” Whitey said.

Duck obliged and his tee shot sailed high over the water and bounced safely and gently on the other side. He winked at Whitey as he came back to the cart. “Just look past the water,” he whispered.

A cart whined up over the ridge at the back of the tee box and screeched to a stop next to Duck’s and Cletis’s cart. The word MARSHAL blazed in red across the front of the cart. “Haddy, boys,” Posey O’Reilly said from behind the wheel. He raised his billed cap, removed his mirrored shades, and toweled his fat face.

Duck started to sink to his knees, but Bluehorse caught his upper arm and kept him up. Whitey spilled the three balls from the box he was opening, and they bounced across the cart path and into the rough. “Sumbitch,” he said.

Posey grinned his brown grin at Whitey’s fumbling and spat tobacco goo out the right side of his cart.

“Posey,” Blue nodded, still holding the pale Miyoshi.

Thanks for taking time to read Part Two. If you missed Part 1, I’ve included it below. The exciting conclusion, Part Three, will follow in a couple days, so stay tuned.

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