“Oh, hey there, Fletcher!” said Conrad, hoping an overzealous display of confidence would mask his obvious consternation at having his little get-together rumbled. “You’re out late, aren’t you?!”
“I could say the same about you,” replied Fletcher, his eyes slowly scanning the scene in front of him as he stepped foot onto the green, taking note of everyone who was there.
Despite knowing Conrad was older than Fletcher by a good two years, Mustang couldn’t help but feel as though, in this moment, it was Fletcher who was, in fact, the more senior of the two. Was it his vastly superior résumé that had, seemingly, altered the expected paradigm between them? His far greater hoard of prestigious titles? The fact he was the guy to catch atop the amateur rankings while Conrad was nothing more than one of the many in the chasing pack?
While he would have been confident to cite any one of those reasons for why Conrad appeared to be quaking in his dress shoes, Mustang reckoned the most probable reason was that Fletcher’s far bigger size and all-round athletic frame – one hewn from his years as one of the most highly-rated young cleanup hitters in high school baseball before he committed to golf – was proving to be something of an intimidating proposition for the smaller, far slighter Conrad.
“Yeah, I guess that’s true!” said Conrad, laughing nervously before hoping a quickfire change of topic might save his bacon. “Oh, where are my manners?! Fletcher, have you met Finn before?”
“No, but I know who he is,” replied Fletcher, not sounding even slightly interested in Conrad’s attempted introduction to Finn – who, like him, was far smaller than the world number one. “Just like I know Maddox and, what I’m assumin’, is the rest of the Brady Bunch up on the bank there …” Fletcher looked in the direction of where the rest of ‘The Six’ were still all gathered together, bringing up his hand and using it as a makeshift visor to shield his eyes from the headlights. “How you boys doin’ tonight?!”
Unsurprisingly, no answer was forthcoming from ‘The Six’ – that, however, didn’t seem to bother Fletcher.
“Speakin’ of which … Hamish, you up there, man?!” said Fletcher, squinting his eyes even further to try and make out if Hamish Campbell was, indeed, watching him from the shadows.
“Aye …” replied Hamish, his monosyllabic answer sounding out hesitantly from up on the bank – he had a feeling that he already knew why he was being singled out.
“Aw, it’s good to see ya again, buddy!” said Fletcher, enthusiastically greeting one half of the Campbell Cousins as he continued to try and distinguish where exactly he was amongst the rest of ‘The Six’. “Hey, no hard feelings ‘bout the whole U.S. Junior Amateur thing, right? I mean, I know me beatin’ you 6&5 probably hurt, but I just wanted to make sure that we’re still cool, yeah?”
Having heard the, clearly, sarcastic tone in his voice, Hamish decided against answering the brazenly smiling Fletcher, choosing, instead, to just mumble a string of inaudible swear words under his breath. His resounding defeat to Fletcher at the U.S Junior Amateur a few months previously was still quite a sore point for Hamish. The fiery Scot had entered that week as one of the favourites for the title, but once he had the misfortune of being drawn against the titan that was Fletcher Rhodes in the matchplay, that had pretty much been the nail in the coffin for his hopes of taking the silverware back home to the windblown north coast of Scotland – and that was before the pair of them had even teed-off.
“So …” said Fletcher, the smile suddenly disappearing from his face as he brought his hand down from over his eyes and shifted them back onto Conrad. “You gonna answer my question or what?”
Though his fleeting few moments out of the spotlight had been something of a blessing, Conrad, obviously, hadn’t made the most of them, for, now that he found himself, once again, under the intense scrutiny of Fletcher’s glare, he was still clearly struggling to come up with a suitably believable answer.
“Uh … and what was that again?” he asked, hoping to buy himself some much-needed time.
“What are y’all doin’ out here?” Fletcher answered, knowing exactly what Conrad was attempting to do, but repeating his initial question nonetheless. “Cause, I’ll be honest, boys, after seeing Samson, Axel, and … uh …” Unable to think of his name, Fletcher turned and looked at Angus. “Sorry, who are you again?”
“Uh … A-Angus …” he replied nervously. “Angus Black.”
Fletcher turned back around and refocused his attention on Conrad. “And Angus hightailin’ it down the drive in a golf cart with old Mustang here sittin’ on the back of it with a bag over his head, his hands tied together, and dressed like this? Well, it kinda led me to one of two possible theories: one, there was either some surprise ‘inter-team sleepout’ I’d failed to be told about; or, two … there was somethin’ fishy goin’ on. And after followin’ y’all out here? Well, there’s no prizes for guessin’ which one I’m leanin’ towards.”
Conrad was now officially stumped. There was no getting around it from here. Fletcher wanted answers, and he had none to give – well, none that wouldn’t reveal the truth, at any rate. In a last-ditch effort, Conrad looked to Finn, Greyson, and Maddox, desperately hoping that they were being struck with some bolt of inspiration that would see them fashion a plausible excuse right at the buzzer.
Going by the hopelessly blank expressions on their faces, however, Conrad realized pretty quickly that he was very much on his own.
“Uh … well … see …” he stammered, taking a metaphorical cattle prod to his brain to try and jolt it into getting him out of the hole he’d dug for himself. “The thing is … uh …”
Mustang, though, couldn’t listen to another word.
“It was meant to be some kind of test!” he snapped, sounding desperate just to save his eardrums from Conrad’s insufferable prattling.
“A test?” said Fletcher, the concept making the words sound alien as he spoke them. “What do you mean ‘a test’? Of what?”
“To see if me and Rodney have what it takes to be alternates,” Mustang answered, not caring in the slightest that Conrad and the others were now shooting daggers at him for pulling back the curtain so blatantly on their plan. “They dragged us from our rooms; brought us all the way out here; and were going to make us each take a putt. If we made it? We’d pass the test.”
“And if y’all missed?” Fletcher asked, still sounding as though he wasn’t quite sure what to make of everything he was hearing.
“Then we’d have to go in the lake,” said Rodney, feeling brave enough to speak despite Finn glowering at him as though he were attempting to mentally weld his mouth shut.
“I see …” said Fletcher, looking as though he needed to take a moment to process everything he’d just heard.
Mustang stole a glance at Conrad and the others. He could tell they were on tenterhooks waiting to hear what Fletcher was going to say next. And after everything they’d put him and Rodney through that night? Mustang would have been lying if he’d said he wasn’t enjoying watching them squirm for a change.
“Well, I gotta say, Conrad …” said Fletcher, finally continuing after sufficiently gathering his thoughts on the matter. “I’m a little disappointed …”
At that, Fletcher moved a few steps closer to Conrad, imposing his superior height over him. Seeing things were looking as though they were about to pick up – and pick up in quite a dramatic fashion, no less – Finn, Greyson, and Maddox began to inch ever-so-slightly away from Conrad. Whatever was about to go down, it appeared their Stanford-bred loyalties only stretched so far when a guy who was 6”1 and looked as though he could bench each of them easily entered the equation.
“I mean, for you to go and organize somethin’ like this?!” said Fletcher, now taking to shaking his head disapprovingly as his anger levels appeared to steadily increase with each word he uttered.
Mustang could feel it coming. From how he was sounding? Fletcher was about to go off on one – and Mustang couldn’t wait to see the fireworks.
“To go to all this trouble …” Fletcher continued, now placing his hand gently on Conrad’s shoulder, though from the petrified look on Conrad’s face it may as well have been a tarantula he’d put on him. “Just to see if these two have what it takes to be here?!”
Fletcher paused, leaving his question hanging in the air unanswered. His grip on Conrad’s shoulder grew a little tighter, the sneer on his face a little deeper. This was it. The flame had nearly reached the end of the fuse … or so Mustang had thought.
Because as quickly as the very same sneer had darkened his face, Fletcher suddenly replaced it with a beaming smile that instantly changed the entire atmosphere on the green.
“And you didn’t think to invite Fletcher Rhodes to the party?!” he laughed, now loosening his grip on Conrad’s shoulder and, instead, clapping him heartily on the arm.
“What?!” said Conrad, utterly confused as to what had just happened.
“Yeah, what?!” said Mustang, he, too, now chiming in as he tried to understand the seismic shift in Fletcher’s tone. “You agree with all this?!”
“Of course, I do,” Fletcher replied, now turning and looking down at Mustang. “I mean, I can only speak for myself, but if somethin’, God forbid, happens to someone and you wind up actually playin’ this week, I think I’d sleep a lot better knowin’ that you ain’t gonna be a weak link – what’s so wrong with that?”
“A weak link?!” snapped Mustang, annoyed at the mere suggestion that he wouldn’t be able to carry his weight if called upon. “Are you forgetting the fact that it was me you were playing in the final of the U.S. Amateur?!”
“No, but I think you might be forgettin’ the result of that final,” Fletcher replied with a cocky smirk. “Cause how did that play out again? Oh, yeah, with me holdin’ the trophy after you choked on 18.”
Mustang could feel the anger starting to bubble up inside him. This was a side of Fletcher he’d never seen before. At Bandon Dunes; at the hotel reception when they were checking-in; even earlier that night when they’d had a pleasant few words after bumping into each other during the pre-dinner drinks; the Fletcher that Mustang had spoken to on all those occasions was nothing like the version he was seeing before him now. The air of arrogance. The sense of superiority and entitlement. It was like looking at a totally different person. The perfectly coiffed blonde hair? The picture-perfect teeth? The perennial tan? The physical hallmarks that said ‘Fletcher Rhodes’ were all still there and accounted for, that was undeniable. But as Mustang looked in Fletcher’s eyes? Something about them was different. Where before they had always appeared warm and inviting despite their icy-blue colour, to look at them now, Mustang wasn’t seeing any of those qualities. Now there was only a cold hardness to them like they were nothing more than but a pair of blue sapphires – pleasant to look at but, ultimately, bereft of life.
“I didn’t choke …” Mustang growled, resenting the insinuation.
“You sure about that?” Fletcher asked, now sounding as though he was beginning to enjoy himself. “How do you explain your second shot into 18 then? Cause if my memory is servin’ me correctly you blocked the hell out of it – or was that merely a ‘tactical’ move on your part to wind up in the junk?”
Feeling comfortable that he was now on their side, Conrad, Finn, and the others all laughed. Given how they’d expected things to go when Fletcher had first shown up, this was an extremely pleasant surprise, and they weren’t about to jeopardize it by not laughing at his jokes.
Mustang, however, was about to come right back at Fletcher with a punchline of his own.
“So, I hit one bad shot …” he replied, the back of his neck beginning to feel flush. “So, what? You still only beat me by a hole, Fletcher. So, if I’m a potential weak link, what does that say about the supposed ‘best amateur in the world’ when it takes him a full 36-holes to put me away, huh?”
The grin that had been on Fletcher’s face quickly evaporated and was replaced with a thunderous scowl as he fixed Mustang in place with a scornful, unblinking glare. Though he’d never had personal experience of it, Mustang, all of a sudden, felt as though he had a pretty good idea what it must be like to be caught in the sights of a hungry wolf. His arms and legs felt like lead; and if he’d wanted to speak, he didn’t know if he could. He was frozen, unable to do anything else bar force himself into staring straight back at Fletcher – be that a good idea or not.
“If I’d wanted to beat you by more, I would have,” Fletcher snarled, his eyes still unnervingly wide. “But when it became blatantly apparent that I needed nothin’ more than my ‘C’ game to send you packin’ back to that backwater you call a home, you’ll forgive me for takin’ it easy – or should that be thankin’ me for not embarrassin’ you and that sorry excuse for a bum you call a caddie.”
Mustang couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this angry – truth be told, he didn’t know if he’d ever felt this kind of anger before. To hear his heart thumping in his ears? Feeling his breath become fast and shallow? The intense pressure behind his eyes as he glared at Fletcher? It was an all-consuming rage. As far as Mustang and his tightly clenched fists were concerned, the rest of the world had ceased to exist. There was only him and Fletcher now, with any and all potential consequences for what happened next fading deep into insignificance. Because it was one thing to talk trash about him and how he’d played in their match at Bandon, Mustang could handle that. But for Fletcher to bring Ray into it? That stepped beyond a line that, up until now, Mustang didn’t even know was there. And as a result – regardless of how much taller and bigger than him he was – it was taking every ounce of self-control Mustang had not to pop Fletcher one square into the mouth.
“So … shall we crack on with the test then?” said Finn, finally rediscovering his tongue after it had been forced into hiding following Fletcher’s out-of-hand dismissal of him earlier.
“Yes, I think we shall …” replied Fletcher, refusing to break his eye contact with Mustang, who was still just one more word out of line away from swinging for him. “Your boy can go first – Mustang here will be on deck.”
Happy enough to go along with the fact that he was now, seemingly, running things, Conrad and the others quickly kicked into gear to fulfill Fletcher’s demands.
“Alright, Grey? Mads?” said Conrad, forcing the putter he’d been holding into Rodney’s chest as he dutifully performed the role of stage manager to Fletcher’s as director. “You heard him – set it up.”
With Fletcher breaking their impromptu staring match by sauntering off to the side of the green in order to take up his vantage point for the show – with Conrad and Finn following closely behind him like a pair of obedient lapdogs – Mustang turned and watched as Greyson hurriedly pulled the pin out of the hole, itself cut just a few paces in from the water’s edge, while Maddox dropped two golf balls 6-feet either side of it. From what he could see, though its proximity to the water would, undoubtedly, make any approach shot into the green quite intimidating, the actual putts Maddox was leaving him and Rodney with appeared quite straightforward, with there being no overtly severe break for them to have to contend with on either side of the hole. Clearly, they were making this purely a test of who could hold their nerve. The problem was, however, that going on the rather pallid expression plastered across his face, Rodney’s nerve appeared to have already gone awol.
“Do we really have to do this?” Rodney asked, looking desperately to Mustang as Maddox and Greyson put the finishing touches on lining up the two golf balls.
“Unless we definitely want to end up in the lake? I would think so, yeah …” Mustang answered, watching as the putter in Rodney’s hand visibly shook with the height of nerves he was feeling. “But if we, at least, hit the putts we have a say in whether or not that happens.”
“So, you don’t think they’re going to make us jump in the water even if we do make our putts?” replied Rodney, a faint glimmer of hope in his voice. “Like … you think they’ll just let us go back to the hotel?”
Mustang hesitated. He knew what answer Rodney wanted to hear – that, of course, he thought Fletcher and the others would let them go back to the hotel if they managed to drain their respective 6-footers. The truth was, though, that’s not what Mustang believed was going to happen. He didn’t think that should their two golf balls disappear into the cup, everyone would suddenly forget about him and Rodney going in the lake, come rushing over to offer their sincere congratulations, and then officially deem them ‘worthy’ of being alternates. No. Not by a long shot.
Because Mustang had seen the look of disdain in Fletcher’s eyes after his comment about it taking him 36-holes to beat him in the U.S. Amateur. And in that moment, Mustang had known that this whole charade had ceased being about figuring out whether or not he and Rodney had what it took to be alternates, and, instead, had become nothing more than an exercise in humiliation – at least, it had for Fletcher anyhow. Meaning, one way or another, regardless of the outcome of their putts, Mustang had a sinking feeling that he and Rodney would, indeed, be going for that ‘little midnight dip’ Finn had mentioned so gleefully.
But seeing the terrified look on his face, Mustang realized this was the last thing Rodney needed to hear – so, he improvised.
“Yeah, sure … maybe …” said Mustang, attempting to sound convincing as he saw Maddox and Greyson finally begin to move away from the balls out of the corner of his eye. “But right now? Don’t worry about what’s gonna happen after your putt – you can’t do anything about that. What you can do, though, is put everything you have into just tryna’ make it, alright? So, let’s go, huh? Show these morons what we’re made of.”
Though still looking at the point of near-fainting, Rodney meekly nodded his head; even if he didn’t fully believe Mustang, he appreciated the sentiment.
“Alrigh’, Rodders! You’re up!” called out Finn, his previous swagger back in all its obnoxious glory now that he knew he wasn’t going to be getting knocked out by Fletcher.
“Which ball do you want me to hit?” Rodney asked, steeling his voice valiantly as he looked across the green at Finn.
“You know what?! Dealer’s choice!” replied Finn, his devilish tone betraying the fact there was, no doubt, another barb inbound. “Whichever one you wanna miss is fine by me!”
With Finn’s comment greeted with an ape-like chorus of hooting and laughing by the rest of those gathered on the green – well, everyone apart from Fletcher, that is – a once-again-ill-looking Rodney turned back around and began to make a move towards approaching one of the balls.
“Rodney?”
Hearing Mustang say his name, Rodney stopped and looked at him.
“I got your back, alright?” said Mustang, sounding as though he were almost swearing a vow. “No matter what.”
A weak, but nonetheless genuine, smile curled Rodney’s mouth. He may not have known that those were the same words Ray had spoken to Mustang a few months previously outside the ‘LaFleur Cabin’ and the significance behind them, but he appreciated him saying them as if he did.
After leaving him with a curt nod of the head to show his thanks, Rodney covered the short distance to where the balls were set up with a noticeable hint of confidence in his slipper-wrapped step. Once he’d then chosen the nearest of the two balls, Rodney settled straight into his putting routine. He got down on his haunches a few paces behind the ball, squinting through what little light was being cast across the green courtesy of the headlights on the golf carts to try and get a read on the line he needed to navigate said ball into the pitch-black cup 6-feet away. When confident that he’d picked the correct line – or, at least, feeling as confident as he could be given the rather extreme circumstances – a focused-looking Rodney stepped in and addressed the ball, his slippers fidgeting nervously up and down as he settled himself into his stance. He took one practice stroke. Then another. And then one more for good measure, gripping and re-gripping the putter several times over as he looked for a place where his hands would sit comfortably on its tacky, dimpled surface.
“Hurry up, would ya?!” shouted Finn, caring little for the fact his voice was rudely shattering the pristine silence that had fallen over the green.
Trying his hardest to ignore Finn, Rodney finally found a passable location right down near the end of the grip, locked his hands into place, and took one more look back down the line of his putt.
He liked what he saw.
Fixing his eyes back over the ball, Rodney let out a breath and pulled back the head of the putter.
Half a second later, he’d struck the ball, sending it carving out a left-to-right line across the dew-soaked green in the direction of the hole.
Unfortunately for Rodney, however, the coordinates his ball had for actually reaching the hole were off by just a few numbers.
“WAAAAHHHEEYYYY!!!” cheered Finn and the rest of ‘The Six’ as they watched Rodney’s ball peel away and slip hopelessly by the low side of the cup, their sarcastic cries even bringing smiles to the faces of Fletcher and the rest of the Americans in attendance.
“Wouldn’t doubt ya, Rodders, kid!” shouted Finn, feeling the urge to rub some salt in the wound as a dejected-looking Rodney sloped across the green and picked up his ball. “I knew ya wouldn’t let me down!”
Having made his way back to where he was standing, each step accompanied by an endless tirade of jeers and hollers, Rodney handed Conrad’s putter off to Mustang.
“Mine broke more than what I thought it would …” said Rodney, graciously offering Mustang some advice despite his obvious disappointment at missing his putt. “So, for what it’s worth, I’d reckon yours is a ball – maybe a ball and a half – outside the right edge.”
“Thanks, man …” said Mustang, smiling appreciatively as he wiped the sole of the putter with his hand. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You’re welcome,” replied Rodney, lowering his voice so as not to risk being overheard by Finn and the others, all of whom were still delightedly revelling in his missed effort. “I know I couldn’t do it, but as long as one of us shuts those idiots up? Well, I’ll be happy enough with that.”
“Alright, Peyton! You’re up!” called Conrad, taking a moment to steal a glance at his watch. “I kinda want this wrapped up in the next five minutes, if at all possible!”
Choosing to ignore Conrad’s time-call, Mustang, instead, turned back to Rodney.
“Go get ‘em, mate,” he said, winking encouragingly before Mustang could get a word out.
Blown away at just how selfless he was being, Mustang stuck out his fist for a fist-pump. “I meant what I said, you know?” he uttered, as Rodney balled up his fist and knocked it against Mustang’s – both of their hands feeling equally cold to the touch. “No matter what goes down after this … I got your back.”
“I know,” replied Rodney, taking his turn to smile appreciatively. “Now, go on – go knock in that putt so I can see the look on Fletcher’s face.”
A smiling Mustang nodded his head and began to walk across the green, his feet leaving clearly distinguishable footprints in the dew as he moved. As opposed to thinking about his putt, however, Mustang could only think back to earlier that day when he’d first met Rodney; to how he’d been reluctant to take up his offer of hanging out during the upcoming week because he didn’t trust what his intentions truly were. After everything they’d been through at the hands of some of their own respective teammates, though, Mustang realized that even if Rodney – a nigh-on stranger – was the only friend he had on that golf course, he was a heck of a one to have in his corner.
Finally reaching his ball, Mustang took his usual few paces back from it, got down on his haunches, and looked down the line towards the hole. Sure enough, just as he’d said, the read Mustang got was for a ball and a half just outside the right edge – so, not only was he a good friend, but the affable Rodney was also a solid green reader.
“Alright, shut up!” barked Fletcher, finally growing weary of the incessant cackling of Finn and the rest of ‘The Six’. “I wanna watch this!”
Again, not wishing to risk falling on his bad side, Finn and the rest of his teammates quickly stopped their chattering and laughing, thus gifting Fletcher the hushed silence he’d demanded. He wanted Mustang to feel as much pressure as he could possibly heap on him; to know that everyone was watching him, just waiting to see if he’d miss.
Little did Fletcher know, however, that Mustang was feeling perfectly fine. There was no increased heart rate. No sweaty palms. Nothing. Because Mustang had told Rodney he was going to have his back – so, that’s what he was going to do.
After confirming the read in his head, Mustang stood back up and loosened out his shoulders. He stalked his way in towards his ball and took his stance – a position, he discovered, that was made to feel all the more comfortable by being in his bare feet. Right at the point where, normally, he would go about pulling back the head of his putter and making his stroke, however, Mustang, showing an adept fleet of foot, suddenly switched his position so that he was addressing the ball from directly behind it, as if he was looking back down the line towards the hole.
It was time to put his plan into action.
Before anyone could even so much as get out the sentence, ‘What are you doing?’, Mustang swung back the putter like an iron, brought it right up to the top of his swing, and then whipped it straight back down at the ball, clipping it perfectly right off the top of the green and sending it streaking off over the lake like he’d just hit the mother of all stingers. Once the ball then finally disappeared into the water – though not until it had skipped across its glassy surface half a dozen times like a swan coming in for a landing – Mustang turned back around from admiring his shot and looked over at Fletcher.
“Whoops …” he said, smiling brazenly. “Pulled it a little.”
While a laughing Rodney snorted at what Mustang had just said, going on the sour expression wrinkling his face, Fletcher most certainly didn’t find it amusing.
“Oh, so, I guess you think you’re pretty clever, huh?” he said, prowling back onto the green with an equally cranky-looking Conrad and Finn following his lead. “That you’ve ‘taught us a lesson’ maybe? Well, sorry to burst your bubble, Oscar, but the only lesson you’ve succeeded in teachin’ me is one that I already knew. And that is, at your core? You are just like Rodney here … a loser.”
After having his fun with striking the ball away, Mustang could tell things were about to get a lot more serious. Because, all of a sudden, not only did he have Fletcher, Conrad, and Finn slowly bearing down on him, but as if communicating telepathically, Greyson and Maddox had now joined the party, along with Samson, Axel, and Angus beginning to make a move towards Rodney.
“Luckily for you, though …” continued Fletcher, the sense of menace growing in his voice with each step he took across the green. “Me and the boys here are gonna help rinse that ‘loser stink’ right off of you two – and the best thing is? You won’t even have to thank us for i-…”
“WOAH, WOAH, WOAH! LOOK OUT!”
Hearing the mishmash of panicked cries from ‘The Six’, Mustang and Fletcher both snapped their heads in the same direction just in time to see what had sent Conrad and the others scattering out of the way. One of the two golf carts that had been parked at the back of the green – the pair that had been backlighting Conrad and Finn when Mustang had first laid eyes on them – was now barrelling out of control on a beeline headed straight for where Fletcher was standing.
With widened eyes, Fletcher’s instincts kicked in and he leapt out of the way, crashing down onto the wet green just as the driverless golf cart sped past him. After sending Samson, Axel, and Angus scrambling for safety as well, the runaway cart zipped down off the green and didn’t stop until it smacked straight into the one Fletcher had arrived in with a plastic-cracking CRUNCH!
“What the hell was that all abou’?!” yelped Finn, both looking and sounding thoroughly rattled.
“I dunno!” replied Conrad, not sounding any better. “Must have been a fault in the drivetrain or something. Samson, go check it out!”
Though not looking best pleased to have drawn the short straw, Samson warily approached the, seemingly ‘ghost-driven’, golf cart. With its back wheels still furiously spinning as it attempted to shift the immovable object that was its parked brother, Samson looked inside the cabin of the golf cart and, immediately, spotted the problem.
“Did one of you leave a rock on the brake or something?!” he asked, calling back over his shoulder to where Conrad and Finn were eagerly watching his investigation unfold.
“What d’ya mean ‘a rock’?!” spat Finn incredulously. “Of course, we bloody didn’t!”
Samson bent down and leaned into the front of the cart. A second or two later, the wheels on the cart finally stopped spinning and he re-emerged from the cabin with a honker of a thirty-pound rock clasped in his two hands.
“How do you explain this then?!” Samson asked, his voice straining ever-so-slightly on account of the effort required to keep the rock from dropping straight down onto his foot.
“Well, I didn’t put that in there!” said Finn, washing his hands of any responsibility and, instead, looking to shift the blame onto Conrad. “Did you?!”
“Obviously not!” barked Conrad, not appreciating what Finn was implying.
“Well, someone must’ve put the damn thing there!” barked Fletcher, who, having picked himself back up off the green, had spent the last few chaos-filled moments frustratedly wiping dew and small blades of grass from off of his very expensive-looking clothes. “Cause it ain’t like it sprouted legs and decided to just go for a drive, now did it?! So, who the hell was it?!”
While Conrad and Finn both looked helplessly at one another to see if either of them could come up with an answer satisfying enough to disarm Fletcher’s obvious annoyance, Hamish Campbell suddenly piped up. “Well, I can’t be sure, Fletch …” he said, a cheeky smile stretching across his face as he quickly pointed off towards the back of the green. “But I reckon your pal there might have had somethin’ to do with it!”
Though not appreciating Hamish’s tone, a disgruntled Fletcher – along with everyone else – turned and looked back across the green only to see the second golf cart now charging across the tightly mown turf.
The only difference this time, however, was that as opposed to being a misplaced rock who was responsible for doing the driving, there was now a visible person behind the wheel …
Another member of the American team …
And, as it turned out, an old friend of Mustang’s …
Byron Ballas!
“GET ON!” shouted Byron, leaning his head out the side of the cart as he hurtled across the green towards where Mustang was standing.
Not needing a second invitation at getting out of dodge of Fletcher and the others, Mustang tossed Conrad’s putter to the ground, lined himself up with Byron’s cart, and grabbed onto the back of it as it zipped past him, the momentum of which required him to summon every bit of strength that he had to actually stay on the cart and not get sent careening to the ground like some kind of pyjama-clad ragdoll.
“YOU TOO, CARROT TOP!” yelled Byron, now taking to focusing his attention on Rodney now that Mustang was somewhat safely aboard the cart.
Though looking every inch a ‘deer caught in the headlights’, the prospect of winding up in the lake should he miss this golden – and wholly unexpected – opportunity was enough to see Rodney furrow his brow in concentration, run towards the cart, and grab onto the back of it just like Mustang had.
After helping secure his position on the back of the cart, a smiling Mustang and Rodney could only look at one another in stunned disbelief as Byron steered them down off the green and sped away back up the fairway, leaving a furious-looking Fletcher and everyone else with no other alternative but to watch on, helpless, as they left.
When they both realized that neither of them had the ability to speak, however, Mustang and Rodney just burst out laughing instead.
Because they’d gotten away.
And what made it all the stranger in Mustang’s mind was that it was thanks to Byron Ballas, of all people.
Needless to say, as he leaned his head back and felt the cool night air washing gratefully over his face, Mustang had a sneaking suspicion that Donny was going to enjoy hearing about this a little more than seeing a few pictures of Seminole.
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