Black Creek Crossing

Chapter 31

ELL, AT LEAST I DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT beating my biggest client,” Blake Baker sourly observed as he and Seth gazed at the list that had them matched up against Ed and Zack Fletcher. His eyes shifted from the list to Seth. “Just try not to look like too much of a damn fool out there, okay?”

The words stung almost as much as the lash of his father’s belt, but Seth stared straight ahead, trying to pretend he hadn’t heard them. Besides, it could have been worse, at least for him — he could have gotten matched up against Chad Jackson or Jared Woods, who made fun of him even more than Zack Fletcher did. They and their fathers had managed to get paired together, which Seth figured had a lot to do with the fact that Chad’s father was the chairman of the tournament committee, and Jared’s father was Chad’s father’s best friend. Not that it was supposed to matter who was paired with whom, since the father-son “tournament” wasn’t supposed to be a real tournament at all.

It was just supposed to be fun.

It wasn’t supposed to matter who won, and it wasn’t supposed to matter how good anyone was. Besides, it wasn’t even like a real tournament where everyone had to play their own ball. It was just a best-ball foursome of match play, where Seth and his father would take turns playing the same spot while Zack and Ed Fletcher took turns hitting from theirs, and in the end whoever won the most holes won the match. The total number of strokes wouldn’t even matter, and twenty minutes later no one would care who won. They’d all go have a barbecue, and everyone would have a good time, and that would be the end of it.

Except that wouldn’t be the end of it for him, because no matter how hard he tried, he wouldn’t be able to play well enough for his father, and even though his father didn’t want to win — at least not against his biggest client — he didn’t want to be embarrassed by his son either.

What his father wanted, Seth knew, was to lose, but only by a hole or maybe two at the most.

But not by the whole eighteen. If they lost every single hole, which Seth was pretty sure they would, he wasn’t the only one who would be teased about it. It would be his father too. And then, when they got home—

Seth felt the lash of his father’s belt rise out of his memory, and half an hour later when he shanked his first swing on the first tee and sent the ball flying off to the right, where it had rolled into the shrubbery around the tee box, he’d felt the lash yet again.

And heard Zack Fletcher snickering.

Then, to make it worse, Zack had stepped up to the tee, set up a ball, and driven it almost 250 yards straight down the fairway.

Seth felt like crying as he thought about what was to come, and as the afternoon wore on, it only got worse. The more Zack snickered at him, the worse he played. And the worse he played, the angrier his father grew. Hole after hole, the torture went on. It seemed that every ball he hit went either nowhere or in the wrong direction, and every time his father hit a good shot, Seth managed to spoil it with his own following shot. Zack and his father won hole after hole, usually by two or three strokes.

And Seth could feel his father’s rage building.

When they came to the eighth tee, Seth gazed dolefully at the green.

“Gee, too bad it isn’t Seth’s turn to drive,” Zack Fletcher said. “Didn’t he hit one almost that far, back on Five?” Then, as if just remembering, he slapped his forehead. “Oh, yeah! I forgot — it went in the water, didn’t it!”

Seth’s face burned with embarrassment.

And his father’s burned with fury.

Ed Fletcher teed up, took a couple of practice swings with his seven iron, and stepped up to the ball. He drew the club back, paused for a moment at the top of the backswing, then swept the iron downward.

Seth watched as the ball arced through the air and dropped onto the green about twenty feet from the pin. Turning, he bowed to his son with mock grandeur. “Just get it close, and we have another par.”

Then Blake Baker stepped onto the tee box, set up his ball, and after taking almost a dozen practice swings, finally took his shot.

The ball rose off the tee and rose toward the sky, heading directly toward the pin.

“Looks good,” Ed Fletcher said.

The ball struck the ground about ten feet in front of the green and bounced straight forward.

“Member’s bounce,” Ed said. “Looking even better!”

The ball rolled straight toward the hole, and suddenly both the Fletchers and the Bakers were standing still and silent, watching.

When the ball finally stopped rolling, it was only a foot from the cup.

“Another foot,” Blake Baker groaned as the four of them started from the tee box toward the green. “One lousy foot and I would have had an ace.”

“And if Seth weren’t putting, you’d have a sure birdie,” Zack said.

Seth felt a knot form in his stomach as his father laughed at the joke but said nothing. When they got to the green, he marked the ball his father had driven, then watched as Zack carefully circled around the green, studying the twenty-some-foot putt from every angle. There was a rise between the ball and the cup, and once the putt crested the rise, it would start to speed up. If Zack didn’t hit the ball hard enough, it wouldn’t make it over the rise, but if he hit it too hard and missed the hole, it might very well end up going ten feet past it. Finally Zack crouched down, cupped his hands over the bill of his cap, and peered at the line from the ball to the hole one more time. At last he stood up, squared the putter behind the ball, and swung.

The ball started up the slope of the rise, moving more and more slowly, until at last it came to the top, where it almost stopped.

But it didn’t stop.

Instead it made one more slow revolution, then began rolling down the gentle slope, curving slowly to the right.

It picked up speed, and the curve straightened out, sending the ball directly toward the hole. It was still gaining speed, and even Seth could see that if it missed the hole, it wouldn’t go just ten feet beyond the cup, it would go at least fifteen, or maybe even more.

But it didn’t miss the cup.

Instead, it rolled directly into the center of the hole, struck the opposite side, then dropped out of sight.

Now it was Zack who turned to his father with an exaggerated bow. “Looks like our hole,” he said. “Unless Seth can figure out how to make his putt.”

The knot in his stomach tightening, Seth carefully replaced the ball on the spot he’d marked, then stepped back to look at the putt.

One foot, straight at the hole.

No slopes, at least not that he could see.

The knot in his stomach throbbed.

He felt his father’s eyes fixed on him and knew exactly what would happen if he missed the putt.

His arms trembling, he swung the putter back a few inches and gently tapped the ball.

It started slightly left, and for one horrified moment Seth was certain it had happened. He’d missed a twelve-inch putt — a putt that anyone but Zack Fletcher would have given him. Then, just as the ball was about to roll past the cup, it veered slightly right, hovered on the edge for a moment, and fell in.

“Not your hole,” Blake Baker said. “We split.”

Zack rolled his eyes scornfully. “Ooh, I’m so scared! Now we’re going to lose.”

“I’ve gotta go to the bathroom,” Seth mumbled fifteen minutes later, after he and his father had lost the ninth hole by two strokes. Without waiting for his father, he rushed to the men’s locker room, ran directly to the toilets, slipped into one of the stalls, and threw up. For almost ten minutes he crouched by the toilet, puking his brains out until there wasn’t anything left to vomit up. But no matter how much he threw up, the terrible knot in his stomach never loosened. The retching finally eased up and he was sitting on the toilet catching his breath when he heard the door open.

Then he heard his father’s voice: “You can’t hide in here all day, Seth. You’re holding up the whole game.”

The terrible knot in his stomach tightening even more, Seth nevertheless flushed the toilet and left the stall. Knowing that telling his father his stomach hurt too much to play would only make things worse than they already were, Seth trudged back to the course.

Ed Fletcher had already driven his ball down the right, where it drifted into the trees. As Seth watched, his father sent his ball into the bunker that lay two hundred yards out on the left side of the fairway, then glowered at Seth as if somehow the shot had been his fault.

Seth could already feel the sting of the extra lash he’d get from his father’s belt later tonight.

Now Zack was teeing up, and a moment later he began his backswing, his club coming smoothly up, his athletic body twisting until the club was extended horizontally behind his neck. The driver’s enormous head hovered for a moment, and then, just as Zack began his swing, there was a sudden blur of motion as something darted out of the boxwood hedge behind the tee box, shot past Zack’s ball, and disappeared into a tangle of ivy. Startled by the sudden movement, Zack pulled the shot. The ball soared in a huge hook, disappeared into the stand of ancient maples that bordered the fairway, and a second later they all heard it clatter off at least two trees.

Zack hurled his club at the ivy into which the animal had vanished. “No fair!” he howled. “I should get the shot over!”

“This is a tournament,” Blake Baker replied. “There aren’t any mulligans.”

“Come on,” Ed Fletcher said. “It’s not like it was his fault — anybody would have jumped when that happened. I jumped, and I wasn’t even at the tee!”

Blake Baker shrugged impassively. “Doesn’t make any difference. The rules are the rules.”

Ed Fletcher’s eyes narrowed angrily. “For Christ’s sake, Blake — he’s a kid!”

“Do you see me giving Seth mulligans?” Baker asked. “Or even asking for them?”

“If you did, we’d be here all day,” Ed Fletcher shot back. “He hasn’t hit a decent shot yet.”

Seth barely heard what Ed Fletcher had said. His eyes were still fixed on the spot where the animal had vanished into the ivy.

It had looked to him exactly like the black cat he and Angel Sullivan had buried yesterday.

But that was impossible. Houdini was dead! He’d been dead when he took him out of Angel’s locker.

“So what’s it going to be?” he heard his father saying. “Is he going to play it as it lays, or be three off the tee?”

“Who cares?” Zack said, his voice trembling with anger. “It’s best ball anyway, and we’ll just use Dad’s — he’s farther out than you, and you’re stuck in the bunker.”

Blake Baker’s eyes narrowed angrily, but he said nothing, rather than risk offending Ed Fletcher. Instead, he gave his own son a tight-lipped nod that told Seth it was time for him to get on with it.

Pulling his driver out of his bag, Seth set up the ball, but by now all he wanted was to get the whole tournament behind him. So this time he didn’t even bother to aim, or take a practice swing, or any of the other things his father had pounded into him the other day when they were out practicing. Instead he just straightened up from the tee, stepped back, pulled the club up, and swung it, barely even bothering to watch where the ball was.

Except for the sharp thwack when the face of the club struck the ball, Seth would have sworn he’d missed completely, for he didn’t feel the contact at all. But the ball shot off the tee, arced high into the afternoon sky, seemed almost to hover in the air for a few seconds, then began its descent.

It landed in the exact center of the fairway.

More than two hundred yards out.

There was a long moment of silence, then Ed Fletcher uttered a low whistle, followed by a quizzical expression. “Where the heck did that come from?”

Blake Baker only rolled his eyes. “You know what they say — even the stupidest pig finds a truffle now and then.”

But Seth barely heard him, for his entire attention was focused on the black cat, who had now emerged from the hedge and was sitting on the edge of the tee box, its tail wrapped around its legs exactly the way Houdini’s always had.

Its eyes fixed on Seth for a moment, then it vanished back into the hedge.

Five minutes later, after first Ed Fletcher and then Zack had blown the shot out of the woods — winding up with their third shot coming out of the light rough and no farther ahead than before — Seth stood over his own ball, not quite certain what to do. It was the first of his balls that he and his father had used all day, and until now he’d simply used whatever iron his father had used, knowing it wasn’t going to make any difference anyway. But he’d just caught a glimpse of the black cat again. It was sitting in the shade of the closest tree, and he would have missed him except for the white blaze on his chest.

The blaze that looked to Seth to be identical to Houdini’s.

And the cat was staring at him again.

Almost like it was trying to tell him something…

“Looks like a five iron,” Seth heard Ed Fletcher say. “Or maybe a six.”

With no better idea of his own, Seth pulled the five iron out of his bag, stepped up to the ball, and once again swung without thinking.

And again the ball soared into the air.

This time it dropped onto the green.

“Well, well, well,” Ed Fletcher said quietly. “Looks like we got a sandbagger.”

Seth stared at Zack’s father. “I–I don’t know how I did that,” he stammered.

Ed Fletcher’s brow lifted. “Looked to me like you did it perfectly.” His gaze shifted to Blake Baker. “Want to just take that one and get on with it?”

Blake shrugged. “I guess I can live with it — should be good for a par anyway.”

With their next shots the Fletchers still weren’t on the green, but with their fourth they managed to leave the ball only three feet from the pin.

As Seth set up his putt, he once more saw the cat watching him, this time from the top of the bunker at the back of the green, and when the putt was finished, the ball lay only six inches from the cup.

Ed Fletcher conceded the hole.

“Not sandbagging, huh?” Ed Fletcher said as they approached the eleventh tee.

“I never hit a ball like that before,” Seth said. “I mean, never!”

Ed Fletcher shrugged. “You know what you did different?”

Seth shook his head.

“You relaxed. That’s the key to golf — just relax. Trouble is, most of us just can’t do it.”

“And flukes can happen to anyone,” Blake Baker said. “Even Seth.”

Something that looked like anger flashed through Ed Fletcher’s eyes so quickly that Seth wasn’t certain he’d seen it, and then it was gone.

But as Seth was setting up for his tee shot, Ed Fletcher said, “I’ve got twenty bucks that says it wasn’t a fluke.”

Blake Baker eyed his client uneasily. “You want to bet on Seth?” he asked with disbelief. When Ed Fletcher nodded, Blake shrugged. “Fine — easiest twenty I’ll ever take from you.”

As his father agreed to bet against him, Seth felt his eyes start to sting with tears, but rather than either wipe them away or risk anyone seeing them, he simply pulled his driver back and took a swing at the ball.

Once again it soared into the air and flew down the fairway, landing to the right, where it would be easy to send the next shot around the dogleg toward the green. As the ball rolled to a stop, Seth saw the black cat disappear into a thicket behind the tee box.

Seth’s next shot hit the green five feet from the cup.

With the black cat watching from the shadow of one of the granite outcroppings that dotted the course, Seth sank the putt.

“What the hell’s going on?” his father asked him as they walked toward the next tee.

“I don’t know,” Seth said. “All I’m doing is just hitting the ball!”

“ ‘Just hitting the ball’?” his father echoed. “Nobody ‘just hits the ball’ like that!”

Seth stared at his father in bewilderment. “But I’m doing good, aren’t I?”

Blake eyed him darkly. “You know what a sandbagger is?”

Seth swallowed. “I–I guess it’s someone who suddenly does better than anyone thinks he can do.”

Blake Baker’s voice hardened. “It’s someone who pretends he can’t do something to sucker someone else in.”

“But I’m not any good at golf,” Seth said. “You saw me just the other day, when we were practicing!”

“Or I saw you faking,” Blake replied.

By the fifteenth hole, when not one of Seth’s shots had gone wild and he and his father had won every hole since the ninth, the word had begun to spread that something strange was going on. As they walked down the eighteenth fairway, with each team having won eight and a half holes, and having split one, the green was ringed with all the teams that had already finished, and most of the people who’d been spending the afternoon at the pool as well.

Zack Fletcher looked furious, and even Ed Fletcher’s tone had changed. While he’d actually seemed amused at how well Seth had been doing on the first few holes of the back nine, his good humor drained slowly away as the difference in the two teams’ scores had narrowed.

Now that he seemed to be on the very verge of defeat, he’d stopped talking altogether.

And finally they came to the green, where Zack and Seth would be the first to putt for their teams.

Zack was twenty feet from the hole, Seth about fifteen.

Heather Dunne and Sarah Harmon were standing with Chad Jackson and Jared Woods, and all of them were rooting for Zack.

Zack studied the putt from every angle, carefully took two practice swings until he was sure of the line, then stepped up to the ball and putted.

The ball rolled straight toward the hole.

“You’re the man, Zack!” Chad Jackson yelled as it drew closer to the cup.

Zack raised his fist into the air, ready to pump it the instant the ball dropped into the cup.

And then it veered off, drifted half an inch past the hole, and came to a stop.

The beginnings of the cheer that started to rise from the crowd around the green died abruptly away, leaving Zack staring unbelievingly at his ball.

And Seth, his eyes drawn by a slight movement from the other side of the green, glanced over to see the black cat seat itself on the edge of one of the sand traps that ringed the putting surface.

The black cat with the white blaze on its chest.

Seth’s eyes met those of the cat as Zack, swearing, marked the spot where his ball had stopped.

As the murmur of sympathy for Zack’s failed putt died away, Ed Fletcher placed his ball at the spot from which Zack had putted, spent even more time analyzing the putt than his son had, and finally struck the ball.

And missed.

Seth walked over to his ball, glanced once more at the cat, which was still sitting by the sand trap, and swung his putter.

The ball dropped into the hole.

As the crowd realized what had happened, Seth looked one more time at the sand trap.

The cat was gone.

The Fletchers, Zack and his father, had lost.

And Seth could see the fury not only in his father’s eyes, but in everyone else’s as well.

But he hadn’t cheated.

He wasn’t a sandbagger.

He’d simply won.

And everyone — including his father — hated him.