The Legend of Bagger Vance (8 page)

Keeler blinked, uncertain how to take this. Was the fellow mocking him? Keeler’s eyes searched Vance’s for a flicker of jest or ridicule. Jones too paused in his routine. You could see them both, confronted by the mystery of Vance’s clear truthful gaze, pull themselves, even shake themselves back to their centers.
Let this be—
their postures straightened and refocused
—we have a match to play
. At that moment, a commotion rippled from the rear of the gallery. We heard an automobile horn honk. Into view at the end of the tee eased Hagen’s brand-new Auburn six-door.

The car stopped and the chauffeur sprung out. He clapped his own door shut, then stepped swiftly around to the rear. You could glimpse a head of blond curls behind the smoked glass and hear girlish laughter pealing. The chauffeur tugged the rear
door open. There was a pregnant beat, a wafting curl of tobacco smoke, then a $500 black-and-white golf shoe arced forth into the sunlight, followed by an athletic calf wrapped in pale yellow argyle and a knife-creased plus four. Sir Walter stepped forth in his plumage. A breath expelled from the gallery, and then applause sprung, reinforced by cheers and shouts of excitement.

Hagen’s caddie, Spec Hammond, stepped first onto the tee. Then his footman, in equestrian boots to the knee; then a boy, like me, bearing refreshments, including cigarettes in a silver case (I heard someone behind me say Hagen always had quail eggs carried with him on-course, as a snack and to keep up his strength). Then the Haig himself strode forth.

Jones had turned back and was witnessing this with a wry smile, having no doubt endured this assault of style and gamesmanship many times in the past. The gallery too recognized this psychological salvo; it was a joke they were in on and they loved it.

“You boys get enough breakfast in you?” Hagen called gaily to Jones and Junah. “I’ve got hot coffee in the Auburn if you want.” He thumped his stomach contentedly and gave a belch of satisfaction. The gallery laughed and turned to each other in merry whispers.

“A nice jolt of caffeine, that’s just what our nerves need,” Keeler grinned back to appreciative laughter from the gallery. Photographers and reporters were clustering around Hagen now; Jones returned to his warm-up, moving from short irons to mid-irons; then Junah started, I scampered out onto the range with the shag bag as he lobbed the first easy pitches. It was a
grand perspective. I was out there, fifty or sixty yards, on the immaculately manicured grass. I could see the gallery, in colorful thousands now and swelling each moment, with the hotel rising behind and the Atlantic pounding in mightily beyond the dunes.

My position was on the right. Jones’ shag boy stood in the middle, a hundred yards behind, and Hagen’s was now trotting out, deep, going way back toward the fence. I could hear Jones’ mid-irons hissing overhead, hear the backspin loud and sizzling; the balls dropped so close to the shag boy he could collect them with just a step this way or that. On the left of the tee, Hagen was finishing with the reporters. He didn’t tee his own ball, but had Spec do it. His shag boy was most of the way back at the fence, 250 yards out. Hagen took his driver, gave it a swift waggle and stepped right to the ball. This was odd; players normally warm up through the short irons, mids and longs, taking out the distance clubs only at the very end when they’re thoroughly warmed up. But here the Haig was brandishing his driver right out of the slot. The gallery hushed. Every eye, including Jones’ and Junah’s fans’, turned as Hagen planted his feet, waggled once, cocked an eye down the range and lashed at the ball with all his strength.

He cold-topped it! The ball squirted dead into the turf and rebounded with a flat, sickening sound, to bound and shoot away, a sharp 180-yard grounder. The gallery gasped with shock, then laughed with release of tension as it saw the twinkle in the Haig’s eye. “Sorry, Bob,” Hagen grinned across at the center slot, where Jones endured this patiently.

Spec teed another ball; the Haig slashed; a duck hook shot
dead left off his clubhead, overspinning wildly and nose-diving into the dirt 40 yards out, bounding away into the weeds. The gallery was now thoroughly enjoying itself, snorting and rollicking, each spectator no doubt rehearsing the story as he or she would tell it tonight and for decades into the future.

I had to keep my eye on Junah, who was trying to maintain focus on his own practice. He had hit half a dozen nice smooth lofters, all right at my feet (one had bounced clean into the shag bag). But now I saw something that froze my blood. That same grim, distanced look on Junah’s face. That posture of despair. The more the gallery enjoyed Hagen’s high jinks, the darker the cloud grew over Junah’s head. What was he thinking? What was tormenting him?

Hagen’s caddie teed a third ball; this the Haig blasted in exactly the opposite direction, a wild towering slice that arced across the 150-yard-wide practice area and vanished into the cattails on the far right. I saw Keeler take out a bill from his wallet and lay it wordlessly on the ground beside the slot where Jones was rifling his mid-irons; Jones produced a bill of his own and set it beside Keeler’s. Spec bent to tee Sir Walter’s fourth ball. Dramatically Hagen stopped him several inches short of the turf. The Haig teed it himself, then doffed his cream-colored jacket and stepped to the ball, loose and easy in just his shirt and tie.

He swung. The ball rocketed off the clubface, nailed cold solid, and boomed downrange in an ever-climbing trajectory, finally steaming to earth well past the shag boy, sending the fellow scampering back to the 275 mark to overtake the still-galloping ball. The gallery roared. I saw Keeler bend to the
ground, pick up both bills and hand them to Jones, who with a wry grin slipped them into his pocket.

Then I looked back at Junah. Jones had his spoon out now and was banging his first balls for distance. The crowd oohed and ahhed as the great champion’s shots thundered down the range. Hagen, at his end of the tee, was cracking jokes. The gallery was laughing. Junah’s shoulders seemed to slump even more. His shots were getting ragged. Jones had gone to his driver now; he began launching bombs into the fence, then halfway up, then clean over. A pack of boys outside scuffled madly over each ball, the victor thrusting his trophy aloft, then surging afresh with the mob as the next ball, Hagen’s now, came sailing clear and bounding beside them.

Junah had stopped hitting. He was at mid-iron range. I had moved back, just shy of the 175; Hagen’s shag boy was past the 275, Jones’ all the way to the fence. I could hear the Chief Marshal shout, “Twenty minutes to tee time!” Junah put his mid-iron away and took no other. What was he doing? Going to the putting green? Without hitting any long irons or woods? I felt the skin on my back go cold with gooseflesh.

Junah was saying something to Bagger Vance, something cross and impatient. Oh no. I could see him peer out toward the ocean, to the sand mounds that ran the length of the first fairway. The dune line for a quarter mile was packed with spectators, thousands and thousands, already massing three and four deep like some vast army drawing up in line of battle. Junah turned with that despairing look I had come so to dread.
Hit a ball
, the voice in my head was shouting to him. Then to Vance:
Set a ball
out, stick a club in his hand!
I could see Vance do just that. But Junah wouldn’t take it. His eyes swung south to the entry drive, the six-mile approach to the hotel where fresh multitudes now advanced from parking areas. I saw Jones glance over, just for a moment, toward Junah. He too sensed something awry. I wanted to rush in, though God only knows what I hoped to accomplish, but I didn’t dare. I held my position 175 yards out, feeling like a fool as the other shag boys chased down their men’s balls and I could do nothing but stand there useless and waiting.

Then Junah moved. Slowly at first, then with increasing resolve, off the tee, into the gallery which parted without resistance, no doubt assuming the competitor was on his way to the practice green to warm up his putter. I seized the shag bag and tore in on a dead run. Junah was through the crowd now, approaching the Chalmers. This was the signal of alarm. No need of a car to cross forty yards to the putting green. Judge Anderson came striding, there was no mistaking his face flushed with anger; my father hurried forward too. Junah brushed past them both, and several other elders, calling behind him to Bagger Vance, ordering the caddie to come along, hurry.

Vance obeyed, striding in Junah’s wake with the bag and clubs. The elders pursued, demanding to know Junah’s intentions. I raced up just as this urgent knot reached the Chalmers.

“Throw my clubs in back,” Junah commanded Bagger Vance. “Take me away from here!”

“To where, sir?”

“Out there, away from this crush, where I can think!”

He pointed to the open duneland between the two massed ar
mies, then plunged into the darkness of the backseat and slammed the door. Bagger Vance set the bag swiftly into the trunk and sprang obediently behind the wheel. The engine snarled to life. Judge Anderson was rapping indignantly on Junah’s smoked window, demanding to know where his champion was going. Junah called the more fiercely to Vance, “Get me out of here!”

The Chalmers lurched. The crowd parted before it. Judge Anderson, his fury constrained only by the necessity at all costs of avoiding a scene, hissed for marshals, officers, anyone to stop the vehicle. It was too late, the auto was gathering pace. I leapt onto the running board opposite the chauffeur’s window, clutching the tea jug and rucksack as the car bucked away toward the dunes.

“Stay with him, Hardy,” I could hear the Judge shout. “Tell us what the hell is going on!”

T
HE CHALMERS PULLED UP ON A SAND RIDGE
beyond the greenskeeper’s road that paralleled the eighth and ninth fairways. You could see the galleries surging along the high ground adjacent to the first and second, seeking position for the match’s start. Number one was already encircled tee to green in ranks three and four deep; thousands and thousands of white shirts and neckties, crew hats and panamas and boaters, ladies’ parasols and periscopes, the first shock troops rolling into position across the turf’s undulations, while their later fellows swept along the flanks in skirmish lines, rushing ahead to form their perimeters along fairway number two. All these the Chalmers bypassed, seeking the high ground beyond. The car stopped and the parking brake cranked on; before Bagger Vance stepped out I had already sprung from the running board and scampered to the rear, hauled Junah’s golf bag from the trunk, not even sure why except perhaps hoping to inspire the champion with the sight
of his weapons, and whisked it around to the auto’s flank. The ridge itself was a brilliant vantage, elevated, sealed off from the multitudes by several hundred yards of duneland, with an unbroken vista out over the sand plain to the ocean. To the west the view was clear back to the hotel’s spires, the bright canvas of its tourney tents and the fresh thousands swarming in from the entry drives and the auto lots. From the Chalmers’ rear door Junah now emerged. He didn’t step fully forth, but came half forward, shoulders and torso into the doorframe, placed one spiked sole before him into the sand, then sat slowly onto the running board and lowered his head into his hands.

“Put the clubs away, Hardy,” he said in a voice nearly inaudible. “I see no profit in them or this whole fool enterprise.”

I turned desperately to Bagger Vance. The caddie as always was the soul of composure. He motioned me to set the bag down, there in the dune grass beside the champion.

“Your mind is clearly in torment, Junah,” Bagger Vance spoke slowly and evenly. “Tell me please: what is the nature of your complaint?”

Junah glanced up sharply at this word, which seemed to trivialize his emotion. “It couldn’t be more obvious, could it?” He gestured toward the multitudes in their bright battle lines, visible across the linksland. “This whole endeavor is a freak show. A joke. What good will any of it do me, or anyone attached to it?”

“I perceive much good,” Bagger Vance replied in that same even tone. “But tell me more specifically, what is it
you
perceive?”

Junah’s eyes remained cast down. You could see his shoulders tremble and broaden as anger, long and deeply held, began to swell powerfully within him.

“‘Victory’ and ‘defeat’”—he spat the words with revulsion, as if their very sound were obscene—“I’m sick to death of them, and of men contending as if there was any difference between them! What good ever came of human beings facing one another in conflict? To see men of such stature as Jones and Hagen steeling themselves for this child’s game, it was all I could do to keep from howling with hysteria, or despair, which would have been more appropriate. While the world is coming apart, our countrymen starving by the millions…here we disport ourselves, chasing a dimpled ball across a millionaire’s playground. And for what? An heiress’ greed and desperation? A few dollars to be scraped from our visitors’ pockets, the pathetic need of Savannah’s war-haunted psyche to ‘redeem itself’—and through my efforts! I won’t do it. I won’t be a part of this circus.

“They’re here for blood,” he said, gesturing with contempt toward the distant hosts, “make no mistake about it. To see men contend against each other, hoping to watch one or all be torn and fall. This is war, for all its summer cottons and ladies’ frocks, and nothing good ever came from that.” Junah’s hands were trembling. He ran them in pain through his hair, eyes gazing hollowly before him into the dunes. “What is ever gained by ‘defeating’ others? What can be gained here today? If I win I take no pleasure, and if I lose…”

Here Junah’s voice choked and broke off; not, one felt, with
the thought of his own possible defeat or disgrace, but with the overweening futility of contention itself, which even at my tender age I could see he had wrestled with long and hard.

Junah’s eyes rose now and met Bagger Vance’s. “I have been a warrior,” he said in a voice tremulous with emotion. “I have fought, and nearly died, in battles as grave and calamitous as any in the history of man. I have seen friends perish, and enemies who might have been friends but for the madness of war. I will never take up arms again”—he gestured toward the bag and its clubs—“even surrogates as preposterous as these.”

Saying this, Junah slumped yet deeper onto the running board, his mind tormented by grief.

Now Bagger Vance spoke. “This conduct is disgraceful,” he said. “Unworthy of any man, but more so of you, Rannulph Junah, whom I hold dear and bless beyond all others. Get ahold of yourself! It provokes me to fury, to see you cast down your eyes and give voice to such ignoble thoughts!”

Vance’s tone had changed utterly. He did not, and never did in my hearing, regress to rage; rather he spoke with a fiery primordial force and emphasis. Junah’s eyes rose again, shaken by the tone of his servant’s voice.

“What do you know of life?” Bagger Vance stood before the champion. “Are you a god that you have plumbed the depths of existence’s meaning? What statement can you make about what is real or important? Have you pierced the veil? When you have, then you may display the temerity to which you now presume! Despair. Death. You know nothing of them! Are you a god? Then shut up and do your duty!”

Junah started to speak, but Bagger Vance’s force overrode him. “What if I tell you that before a thimbleful of sand has slipped through the glass, one of your opponents today will need another man’s hand simply to rise from his chair…and the other will have passed into eternity? What if I tell you of your own death? And how swiftly it follows on the heels of this disgraceful moment?

“And war, since you yourself raise the subject. Shall I tell you of another conflagration coming—soon, Junah, soon—which will dwarf your Great War, breaking nations and peoples in their millions and culminating in horrors beyond the race’s imagining?”

Junah’s countenance was now chastened, even fearstruck. He looked up at his servant, with pure heartbreak in his eyes. “You upbraid me as if I were a child, and no doubt I deserve it. But please don’t abandon me. Do you think I want to feel these awful emotions, that I take pleasure in the desperate conclusions my heart leads me to? I’m lost, Bagger. Help me, my friend and mentor. Tell me what I must do.”

Across the dunes now sped a Krewe Island station car, a marshal’s vehicle, with a blue-blazered official driving and Dougal McDermott white-faced in the passenger seat. Its high undercarriage skimmed clear, approaching fast over the tufted greenskeeper’s road.

It was coming for us. Beyond, we could see the galleries massed in readiness, swollen to six and seven deep along the first fairway. Jones and Hagen had finished on the practice green. You could see their party, moving along the crested path to the first tee.

“We have spoken in jest many times, you and I,” Bagger Vance addressed Junah, “about why I initially attached myself to you, and why I’ve never strayed far from your side all these years. It was for this day, Junah. As we go, I will teach you.”

He nodded to me; I bent to the golf bag and passed it to him. Bagger Vance set it upright before the champion, its hickory-shafted irons flashing like quivered arrows in the sun. The Krewe Island car pulled up alongside us. Across the duneland you could hear the galleries cheer as Hagen and Jones approached the first tee.

“Your heart is kind, Junah. You have seen the agony of war and you wish never again to harm anything or anyone. So you choose not to act. As if by that choice, you will cause no harm.

“This intention is admirable as far as it goes, but it fails to apprehend the deeper imperative of life. Life
is
action, Junah. Even choosing not to act, we act. We cannot do otherwise. Therefore act with vigor!”

Vance glanced once to McDermott, to let the professional know we were coming. Then he turned back to his champion.

“Stand now, Junah, and take your place. Do honor to yourself and to your station!”