The Good Oak

Eleven: Hamaika

eleven I hamaika The minute we stepped onto the golf course's grass, the sheep started grazing, and not even Atarrabi and Mikelats could get them moving again. And moving was what I wanted to do. If I was lucky, I could get Aitatxi and his sheep across the golf course without being seen. I thought this was possible because most of the course's holes, along with a building that I fIgured was the pro shop, were well off to the right. Only a couple of holes reached out into the desert in front of us. How hard could cutting across two fairways be? "Ardiak igorri," I yelled at Atarrabi and Mikelats. "Sheep forward." And both of the panting dogs took time out from barking and running around the sheep to give me looks that said, "Why don't you come back here and give it a go yourself , big mouth?" I was thinking I might just have to do that when Aitatxi took control. He raised his walking stick and called out instructions to Atarrabi and Mikelats, and, like he was the Pied Piper, the sheep began to follow him across the fIrst 74 fairway. .Ai; he went, Aitatxi started into his version of Wayne Newton's "Daddy, Don't You Walk So Fast." "Daddy no you ardiak ez dute behar hainfite joan, " Aitatxi sang. "Daddy no you sheeps should go so fast." I didn't even bother commenting on his singing. All I wanted was to get across the golf course without getting caught. I imagined how Aitatxi, in broken English, would explain to a head pro dressed in flowered pants and an Izod shirt what a flock of sheep was doing on his golf course- "Sure, no, grass is for eating by sheeps and no for hitting ball on." And then I thought, who cares? So what if Aitatxi got caught? What was I worried about? After all, Aitatxi was the adult. He was the one who would be in trouble. Me, I was just a kid. I grinned as Aitatxi and the sheep tromped through a sand trap. Somebody was going to need to rake that big time. Dad had taken me out to play on the public course by our house a couple of times, but I didn't like it. Golfwas full of too many don'ts: don't talk when someone is putting, don't hit out of turn, don't swing until the other golfers are out ofthe way, don't drive the cart up on the green, and, an unsaid don't-don't run a flock of sheep through a sand trap. I followed after Aitatxi and the sheep. The sheep were baaing and Aitatxi was singing and the whole thing was kind of cool. I mean, not many people could say they drove the eighteenth fairway with thirty-two sheep instead of a three-wood. The kids at school would laugh when I told them abou-I stopped midstep with my right foot hanging in the air as I heard Rich say, "Hey, Mathieu, what kind of balls do sheep use, Titleist or Maxfli?" And the kids pointing at me and calling me sheepboy . Things were bad enough with me being the bass-boy 75 from Eden. I didn't need to give the kids at school more ammo to humiliate me with. I started walking again, faster now. I had to keep Aitatxi and the sheep going. If we got caught on the golf course, the newspaper would run a story about it, and Ms. Helm would cut out the article and put it on the bulletin board, and there would be a picture-one of me and Aitatxi wearing matching berets and surrounded by sheep. No, no, no. I broke into ajog. "Joaiten gira! Guazen fite!" I yelled at Aitatxi and the sheep. "Let's go! Hurry up!" Aitatxi looked at me, seemingly pleased at my sudden burst of enthusiasm, and said, "Orai you acting like artzaina, gaixua. There were no golfers in sight as we moved onto the second fairway. I could see the brown desert beyond the white out-of-bounds stakes at the grass's edge. I took a deep breath. We were going to make it. Then Aitatxi and the flock suddenly stopped, and I turned to see the sheep line up along the edge of the hole's lake...