Hendley was not sure that he cared much for the game, but he was now determined to stick it out. At least his companions played in earnest. Curly took a keen delight in every phase of the game, but his cheerfulness did not disguise the intensity with which he played. Happy's long face grew longer and darker as the game progressed, his hawk nose seemed to sharpen, his mouth tightened into a thinner, grimmer line. His derision over Hendley's atrocious play seemed to be the only pleasure he found in the game. Hendley wondered why, with so many other sports and entertainments in the camp to choose from, the tall man should persist in one which merely made him angry.
At the beginning of the fourth hole, as each successive step in the game was called, Curly bristled when Happy's club, trying to stab the ball, struck the stocky man's shin. They exchanged heated words. Happy raised his club threateningly, but Curly brandished his own and faced the other down. They played on in sullen silence.
Hendley, the last to hit his ball successfully as usual, knocked it once more into the rough. This time the other two players contemptuously left him to hit out by himself without interference. They played on ahead. By the time Hendley managed to knock ball onto the close-cropped grass of the fairway, his companions were both on the green, a circle of very fine grass visible in the distance. Hendley paused a moment to watch them. He would quit after this hole, he reflected. With daylight almost gone—the sun now rested at the tops of the trees ringing the camp—he had no time to waste on pointless pleasure. He lacked the fiercely competitive approach of the other two men, perhaps because he was so inexpert.
On the distant green something had happened. Curly was shaking a fist at the taller man. They stood so close their chests bumped. Hendley could not hear them, but he watched the silent tableau of their anger with a feeling of apprehension. Suddenly Happy's thin, sharp-angled figure bent, lashing out like a whip. He snatched the other man's club from him, dropping his own. He brought the slender plastic rod down viciously across his bony thigh. To Hendley's surprise the plastic rod bent. At a second blow it snapped in two. With malice evident in the gesture Happy threw the two broken pieces onto the green.
Hendley had started toward them. For a moment nothing happened, the two men seeming to glare at each other in impotent rage. Hendley's pace quickened to a trot. It was a lucky thing that Curly had such a cheerful disposition....
Hendley started running. The stocky man had suddenly scooped up Happy's club from the ground. The tall man lunged for it. Curly eluded him. "Stop it!" Hendley shouted, but he knew he could not be heard. Curly dodged away from the surly player, whirled, raising the club, lashing down....
Hendley pulled up short. He seemed unable to breathe. The two figures on the green were motionless in the bright sunlight. Slowly the dour-faced man's tall body began to collapse, sliding toward the ground as if it were strung together in loosely attached sections. The silent impact of the lean figure hitting the ground prodded Hendley into action. His mind was still stunned, but his legs moved without his volition, automatically propelling him toward the green. Far off to the right another group of players had paused to stare. Hendley waved at them urgently, but they did not move.
What happened next no longer had the power to shock or terrify him. As he raced closer to the green, the stocky, good-humored Curly raised the plastic club in his hands and with careful, deliberate aim brought the weighted head down to crush the fallen man's skull.
Near the sand trap at the edge of the green Hendley paused to be sick. When he was able to stagger onto the smoothly clipped carpet of grass Curly was thoughtfully wiping the clubhead on the grass. Not far away a small, beige-painted vehicle was speeding toward them. The stocky man hardly glanced at Hendley or his victim. He made no attempt to escape.
He's mad, Hendley thought, facing him across the green. But at any rate he wouldn't get away now. The beige vehicle was approaching swiftly. Hendley stared at the dead man, whose face no longer scowled. Happy, he thought. Sickened again, he turned away.