The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield

Author:Steven Pressfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1995-04-20T16:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

THE STORM HAD BROKEN, wind was lashing the medical tent; through the untethered flaps I could see the stampede of galleryites scurrying for shelter as the hard Atlantic rain sheeted in. Is the eighteen over? I kept asking my father. Yes Hardy yes, but you’re flushed and fevered, he answered, nestling me firmly onto a camp cot and covering me with a blanket.

“Junah has gone in to the grill for lunch. Jones and Hagen are dining there too, with the press and celebrities and the mucky-mucks.”

“Where’s Bagger Vance?” I blurted anxiously. Then I saw him, beside the cot, maintaining his usual silent vigil.

“He’s here,” my father answered, pressing my burning brow and slipping a thermometer beneath my tongue. “He hasn’t left your side for a moment.”

An hour earlier that news would have been a source of profound reassurance. Now it scared the bejesus out of me. I didn’t want Vance to touch me. Not that hand again on my shoulder! I couldn’t stand any more unscheduled flights to the ozone. But here was Vance moving beside me; I could see his huge strong hands. “May I, Dr. Greaves?” he asked my father, meaning could he examine me in his own fashion. Before I could stammer a protest, my dad had nodded and Vance was lifting me gently to a sitting posture.

“The body is also a Field,” Vance spoke softly, for my ears alone, “known by the hands of the lover…the athlete…and the physician.” His fingertips tapped me three times—once on each word, each tap higher on the spine—then rapped me one final pop on the crown of the head. A rush of energy shot from my tailbone straight out the top of my skull. I would have passed out again, had Vance’s hand not steadied me.

Then, in a flash, I was fine.

My father plucked the thermometer. “Ninety-eight point six,” he announced with surprise and relief. “There’s no tonic like youth for a quick recovery!”

I was given a hot shower and dry clothes. Junah brought a meal for me from the grill, hot brunswick stew with bean salad and hush puppies which I ate with my dad and the shoeshine boys, straddling a bench in the players’ locker room.

Junah himself had gone on to the club storage room. I followed forty-five minutes later, as soon as my father would let me.

The room was empty. Brand new and gleaming, with its freshly carpentered golf-bag racks, row after row from floor to ceiling, each brass-numbered slot smelling of freshly cut lumber and all of them vacant, waiting for the first hotel guests.

Junah sat motionless on the floor, eyes closed, crosslegged like a Sioux, with Bagger Vance in an identical pose directly opposite.

The sight made me even more agitated. What mesmeric snare had Vance caught Junah in now? What bizarre scenario was playing out now in the champion’s mind? As if reading my thoughts, Vance opened his eyes and turned to me.

“We are practicing, Hardy,” he said softly so as not to disturb Junah. “We have worked through the woods and mid-irons.

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