James Ross - A Young Adult Trilogy (Prairie Winds Golf Course)

by James Ross

  “The horse is a mammal with hooves. It has evolved over the last forty-five to fifty-five million years from a small multi-toed creature to a larger, single toe animal of today. Humans have domesticated the horse.”

  “Whoa,” Doc said as he cut in. “You don’t need to tell me all of that.” He was well aware of Pabby’s propensity to recite a ton of facts about any animal on the face of the earth. He leaned down and whispered, “Mind if I sit down and take a look at what you’re looking at?”

  Pabby shook his head indicating that he didn’t mind.

  “What’s Doc doing?” Pork Chop asked.

  “Captain Jer said that he was a heckuva horse handicapper once,” Fred informed. “Maybe he’ll show him how to read that thing.”

  The pair watched as Paul motioned for Doc to scoot over in the booth. The immaculate ex-military recruitment officer had an opportunity to visit a lot of race tracks in his travels around the country. He was known to have a pretty keen sense of how to pick the winner of a horse race too. The two aged men almost looked intimidating as they sat across the table from Pabby.

  “Do you know what all of this means?” Doc asked as he pointed to the stats in the racing form.

  Pabby shook his head negatively.

  Doc reached into his pocket and retrieved his reading glasses. Pabby watched as they fell halfway down the bridge of his nose. Doc licked his lips and reached to turn the form slightly. “This paper tells you all about how fast these horses run.”

  “Have you ever been to a horse race before?” Paul asked.

  Pabby shook his head. His wide eyes did not conceal his excitement.

  “Maybe we can take you to one someday,” Doc said.

  “I’d like that,” Pabby said.

  “But if we’re going to do that maybe it would be better to show you how to read one of these so that you’ll be able to appreciate the horses more.”

  “It’s a lot more fun to watch the horses that win the race than the ones that lose,” Paul explained.

  “If we can pick the winning horse then we might have an opportunity to go down to the winner’s circle and stand close to it or get our picture taken with it,” Doc said.

  Pabby gnawed at his lower lip as he watched the words come out of Doc’s mouth. “Yeah!”

  Doc twisted his head so that he could read the form better. “Now look, each one of these horses has a name.”

  “And each one of them has a jockey,” Paul followed, “you know, a little guy that rides them during the race.” He pointed to a spot on the racing form. “His name is listed right here.”

  Pabby soaked it all in.

  “Now this is very important,” Doc continued. “One of the most important things you need to know about these horses is how fast they can run.” He pointed to a column. “See where it says speed rating?”

  Pabby nodded his head up and down. “Yeah.”

  “Underneath that is a number. The higher the number, the better it is,” Doc explained. “This is one of the best ways for you to pick the winning horse in a horse race. This number tells you how fast a horse runs on any given day and it considers the type of track surface.”

  “But you have to be careful to take into consideration the length of the race,” Paul emphasized. “A furlong is one-eighth of a mile so six furlongs is three-quarters of a mile. Those are measured with poles that they have around the track.”

  Pabby shook his head up and down.

  “So when you look at the speed number you have to make sure that you’re taking the distance of the race into consideration,” Doc said.

  “Some horses are trained to run fast and are considered speed horses,” Paul offered. “Others are trained to run longer distances.”

  Doc pointed to another spot on the form. “See here?” Pabby nodded. “This column tells you what type of a horse race it is.”

  “They’re not the same?” Pabby asked.

  “No. Some are claiming races or maiden claiming races or starter allowance races or upgraded stakes races. You have to pay attention.”

  “What’s best?”

  “I don’t know if there is a best one or not when you’re trying to pick a winner,” Doc answered. “But what we want to look for is to see if a horse is coming down in a class.”

  “We’ve got plenty of time to explain the classes to you,” Paul said.

  Doc pointed to another column. “See these numbers?” Once again Pabby shook his head up and down as he digested the information. “This shows you what the pole position of the horse was.”

  “How far off the inside of the track,” Paul explained.

  “And these numbers tell you what place the horse was running at the different furlong poles in the race,” Doc added.

  “See here,” Paul said. “This horse started in the ninth position. He moved up to sixth place, ran there for a while, then moved up to third by a neck and finished fourth by a nose. The ‘nk’ stands for neck and the ‘n’ stands for nose.”

  “Look at this column,” Doc pointed. “It says that this horse chased, then was wide in turn three and faded.”

  “We like the ones that finish strong,” Paul reminded.

  “Now this is an important thing to remember,” Doc continued. “We want to look at the latest date that the horse raced. It’s listed here.” He pointed to another column.

  “Ideally we like horses that race on a regular basis. But it’s especially good to take them the second race back after a layoff.”

  “How long?”

  “Of a layoff?” Doc asked. Pabby nodded. “If they haven’t raced in two months we probably want to stay away from them.”

  “There are all kinds of other details on this form,” Paul said.

  Doc pointed again. “This tells you the track, the date, the distance of the race and the time.”

  “The time listed is the winning time,” Paul added.

  A good rule of thumb is to add two-tenths of a second for each length behind. That will tell you what time the horse that you’re studying ran,” Doc explained.

  “This column tells you who the jockey is.”

  “It’s probably best to have one that is familiar with the horse and has ridden him before.”

  “Up here it says who it was sired by and what color the silks are,” Paul added.

  “Next to that are the odds of the horse in this particular race.” Doc looked some more. “And here is the number of races the horse has run and how it has finished in each plus the total amount of money it has won.” Doc smiled. “Have we confused you yet?”

  Pabby looked up in amazement. His mouth was open. All he could do was shake his head back and forth.

  “Pay attention to the notes and all of this other stuff on here,” Paul said. “If you think you can pick some winners we’ll take you to the track.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Doc said. “One thing that you have to look for is whether or not a horse is on Lasix.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When horses run they tend to bleed in their lungs. The drug is actually furosemide. Basically what it does is toughens up the lungs of the horse so it won’t hemorrhage as much.”

  “Him or ridge?”

  “Hemorrhage. It means bleed. When the horse is on Lasix the lungs won’t bleed as much. That means it should run better.”

  “Faster,” Paul added.

  “Nowadays in the United States most are on it.”

  Shae, Carla and Uncle Woo entered through the door of the clubhouse with a man from the United States Postal Service. Shae, with the familiar yellow bow pushing the hair up on the top of her head, was carrying a flower pot. Uncle Woo wore a floppy fishing hat that was turned up at the brim. He had rolled his pants legs up and was covered with dirt.

  “Look what we got for you!” Shae said as she handed the potted flower to Julie.

  “That’s so sweet,” Julie said as she took it in her right hand and grabbed a letter from the mailman in her left. He waited pat
iently as she signed for the envelope. A moment later she walked into the office and handed the correspondence to J Dub.

  The head pro looked up from the paperwork that he was doing at his desk. “What’s this?”

  “Beats me. The mailman just dropped it off.”

  J Dub examined the outside of the envelope with a puzzled look. He took a key and slit the crease of the package. Then he took a minute to read the contents. “Dammit! There’s a reason we have rules around here! I told you!”

  “What?” Julie asked defensively.

  “Those guys that looked like crap—you know, the ones that I didn’t want to let play.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The same ones that you wanted to let go out on the course because we needed some money for greens fees because the checkbook was low.”

  “Yeah.”

  “They ended up flipping a cart.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, they just sued us for eight million dollars!” In disgust J Dub threw the notice onto his desk.

  CHAPTER 19

  “What are we going to do now?” J Dub asked Curt as the pair convened in the office later that day.

  “Let’s calm down and think this thing through.” Curt knew that they had to keep the emotion out of the current dilemma they faced. “That’s why we have insurance.”

  “But not for eight million dollars of liability,” J Dub shot back.

  “A lot of this thing is posturing,” Curt said. “There wasn’t eight million dollars of damages or fault on our part, or neglect.” He glanced at the suit and continued. “The guy gets a high-priced attorney and they file a ridiculous lawsuit hoping to get a large settlement out of court.”

  “We’re just moving along here, minding our own business, paying our monthly bills, trying to eke out a living, you know, put food on the table and we get served with something like this,” J Dub voiced. “Some things don’t make any sense.”

  “We live in a litigious society.”

  “Huh?”

  “A world where everyone wants to sue each other and put the blame on somebody else.”

  “But why? We didn’t turn that cart over on the guy.”

  “Look, there are plenty of lawyers out there that are trying to make a living. So they find what they think is a good case, drag it into court and try to reach a quick settlement out of court.”

  “That’s nothing but a bunch of bull…”

  “You know that and I know that,” Curt interrupted. “But the lawyer knows we have insurance. He knows that we’ll turn this over to our insurance guy in an attempt to keep this thing out of court and the insurance company will cut them a check. I’m sure that is what this is all about.”

  J Dub picked up the lawsuit and stammered home the highlights. “Look at this crap. Negligence, irresponsibility. That’s crap. Physical, mental and emotional pain and suffering. I’m sure the guy was laughing all the way to the lawyer’s office. Mental and physical disability, loss of wages and compensation for other expenses caused by the injury.” He threw the packet of papers onto the desk.

  “You left out punitive damages.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” J Dub said. “If you’re going to court why not throw the book at us?”

  “Sure. They’re going to try for damages that a judge or court can award to the injured party if it is determined that the compensatory damages are unsatisfactory.”

  “Isn’t that just great?”

  “Doesn’t seem fair, does it? This lawyer is probably taking this case on contingency. He’s going to front the court costs. I’m sure he has his own paralegal people in place and a private investigator or two that works for him. He’ll take a percentage of the monetary award if they can prove their case.”

  “For crying out loud!” J Dub wailed. “We show up, cut the grass, let somebody come onto our property and get the mail only to find out that we might lose this place because some idiot flipped a golf cart over on himself?”

  “Lawyers are a beautiful commodity, aren’t they?”

  “What are we going to do now?”

  “Let’s give Crash a call. He’ll let us know what our options are.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Muss Tangue had been a buddy of Curt’s when the guys were growing up. He was the kid that had been named after the Ford convertible by a fanatic father and had a used version to drive the minute he turned sixteen. All the other kids flocked to his driveway with hopes of bumming a ride to the nearest fast food joint or ice cream parlor.

  Muss parlayed that love of his first car into a lucrative auto insurance gig and spread out from there. Because much of his work dealt with automobile collisions his longtime buddies nicknamed him Crash.

  He was playing computer games when his assistant buzzed his office and said that Curt Schroeder needed to speak to him and was in the lobby. At five foot ten and one hundred fifty-five pounds, Crash was thin—almost too skinny for his own good. His hair was long gone except for an inch-and-a-half band that was closely cropped above his ears and around the back of his lower skull. His sex appeal left when he transferred the title of his car years before. The women had no use for a bald guy with boring wheels.

  “Hi, Curt,” Crash said as he greeted his client.

  “When are you going to get some new frames?” Curt asked as he extended his hand. “How long have you had that pair?”

  “You don’t like these?” Crash took off his pair of eyeglasses and positioned them in front of his face. “You say that every time you see me.”

  “Can’t you get something that is a little more fashionable?” Curt prodded. “The rims were in style back in the fifties.”

  Crash shrugged. “If I changed now people would either not recognize me or think that I flipped out. I guess I’ll wear them to my grave.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to think about putting a little pizzazz into your look and staying up with the times. I mean, we had to move away from the hardwood drivers and go with the high-tech clubs and graphite shafts. If we played those old balls we wouldn’t get any distance. The new stuff goes fifty to seventy-five yards farther.”

  “The dog might bark all night if I came home looking different.”

  “Heck, look at the cars you insure nowadays. We don’t have too many stick shifts. Everything is run by computers. Push a button and presto—a new feature pops into play.”

  “All that stuff can cause problems too,” Crash said as he led Curt into his office. “All this new technology can be costly.”

  “You don’t think it is just a fad, do you?”

  “Are you kidding? This stuff is only going to get more sophisticated as we move into time. It’s scary. You can’t keep up with it now.”

  “Maybe we’ll get you a gift certificate or something so that you can go high-tech with the frames on your glasses. That will be good for you. Spruce your look up a little.”

  “What brings you here?”

  Curt reached into a manila envelope that he had brought with him and took the lawsuit out. “A guy flipped a golf cart over a little while back and we got served with this.” He plopped the lawsuit down on Crash’s desk. “We need to see what kind of liability coverage we have and what kind of involvement we’re going to get from you.”

  Crash studied the document. After a couple of minutes he said, “That’s why I like these glasses.” He took them off and shoved them in front of Curt. “See this line on here?”

  “Sure.”

  “These are bifocals. They help me read.”

  “The lenses can stay the same, dummy! It’s the frames that need to be updated.” Curt was glad that he could get some good-natured ribbing in on his insurance guy.

  Crash put the glasses back on and rolled his chair over to a file cabinet. He slid open a drawer and searched for the Prairie Winds Golf Course file. After locating it he yanked it from the drawer and wheeled back over to the center of his desk.

  Even though Crash wrote a lot of insurance he wasn’t all that
familiar with the particulars of the golf course insurance policy. He thumbed through the various pages. “Let’s see here. You’ve got all-risk property coverage against earthquake, wind or flood that covers the clubhouse and pro shop, maintenance buildings, equipment, ball washers, signs, walkways, cart paths and bridges… yada, yada, yada.”

  Crash flipped the page. “The golf course itself is covered for damages as well.”

  “What items?”

  “The greens, tees, rough, fairways, sprinkler system, trees, plants, bunkers and things like that.”

  “Okay. That’s good.”

  “You’re covered for loss of business income if the occasion arises as well as if there is an ordinance change that affects your business. The equipment, cars, trucks, tractors, mowers, golf carts—they are all covered for theft or breakdown.”

  “That’s all nice to know. We haven’t gotten to what we need to find out yet.”

  Crash flipped another page. “Here we go. Liability insurance. General liability, auto liability, environmental liability.”

  “In case we have some chemicals get in the creek and people complain?”

  “Sure.” Crash answered without looking up. He kept reading. “Employee benefits liability, liquor liability, and professional liability.”

  “Good, good, good,” Curt agreed. “What does it say about personal injury liability or whatever this lawsuit is about?”

  Crash kept reading. “It looks like we have a ceiling of one million dollars for any one occurrence that is related to a golf cart injury.”

  “Can the guy file a claim with his auto insurance company?”

  “That’s one way that we can argue this thing,” Crash agreed. Then he took a deep breath. “But I don’t think that is where your-or our-problem lies.”

  “Oh, why is that?”

  Crash pushed the envelope back to Curt. “See the return address on this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s from Atkins, Blum and Charles.”

  “Okay. Three partners.”

  “You don’t understand. We don’t want anything to do with these guys. Tanner Atkins, the one that takes care of their civil litigation…”

  “ . . . go on.”