“There is always one more shot worth believing in.”
—Brent L. Kendrick (b. 1947)

My feet were planted firmly and deliberately on the ground, slightly wider than shoulder width. My body, relaxed and balanced. One hand rested at waist level atop the mallet handle while the other settled lower, wherever comfort and habit had taught it to belong. The mallet hung naturally between my legs, its head poised just behind the ball. I lowered my eyes and followed an invisible line from the center of the ball toward my target. Everything aligned—the ball, the mallet, the distant wicket.

I knew exactly what would come next. With a smooth pendulum swing, I would send the mallet forward, hopefully striking the exact middle of the ball with the center of the mallet head. Just a clean, controlled stroke followed by an easy, unforced follow-through.

Before the mallet could complete its journey, my eyes wandered across the court. It sloped. It dipped. It rose unexpectedly. Grass gave way to patches of dirt. Dirt surrendered to weeds. A ball aimed carefully at a wicket might obey the player—or it might obey the slope. Every shot demanded adjustment. Every turn required patience. Success depended as much on adaptation as skill.

The course occupied a small clearing below the house, tucked among towering trees and surrounded by gardens that had spent decades settling into the mountain. From some spots, the Shenandoah Valley peeked through the foliage below. From others, the trees enclosed the court in a world of their own. Sunlight filtered through the leaves overhead, scattering patches of light and shadow across the grass. No two shots looked quite the same.

A croquet purist would likely find fault with nearly everything about it. The ground wasn’t level. The grass wasn’t uniform. Roots lurked beneath the surface. Gravity inserted itself into nearly every decision. Yet the court possessed a certain stubborn charm. It was not the court one might design from scratch. It was the court the mountain allowed. It was the court that Gary designed, determined to play here on the mountain.

My body remembered this. It had known this posture longer than the mountain had known this court.

To reach that court, I had to climb up a steep flight of concrete steps and walk through a loosely hinged metal gate that opened onto a long expanse of turf, cut close and tight. The starting point was a little way ahead, not far from the double clothesline stretched tight between two iron T’s. It was a narrow yard behind a white, clapboard colonial house across the road where I lived. Looking uphill beyond the fence, I could just barely see the roofline of a small cottage midway up the mountain. Looking to the end of the yard, the grass seemed to end where a fence had once been and where a grove of white pines towered over their needled floor, shading the two-story brick house in their midst.

The court began at the start of the clothesline, continued across the grass, and double-diamonded its way through an expansive and steep pine-needled slope behind the neighboring brick house, where the air turned cool and sharp with the smell of pine. On that court, too, a ball aimed carefully at a wicket might obey the player—or it might obey the slope. Every shot demanded adjustment. Every turn invited improvisation. Success depended as much on imagination as skill.

“You’re taking too long,” Gary called.

The mallet met the ball with a satisfying crack. My burgundy ball started confidently toward the waiting white wicket before surrendering, inch by inch, to the quiet persuasion of gravity.

Gary, shaded beneath his floppy blue sun hat, watched it drift off course and laughed. Beneath the broad brim of my straw hat, I laughed too. There we stood, two old men peering from beneath oversized brims, smelling of sunscreen and freshly cut grass, both convinced that the next shot would surely behave itself.

It didn’t.

Our next shots were even worse. Both balls gathered speed, raced gleefully downhill, crossed the boundary, and disappeared into the weeds. We looked at one another for a moment, then burst into laughter—the kind born of disbelief, optimism, and the certainty that we’d simply climb the hill and try again.

We retrieved our balls, walked back uphill, and tried again.

The older boys—home from college for the summer—were already waiting, mallets in hand. Impossibly slim in their side-tabbed trousers and white T-shirts, bronzed and unworried by the sun, they stood with the easy confidence of boys who belonged to the game. The air around them carried the faint, exotic drift of Jade East. Word traveled fast in a small town. They knew. Before I had even reached the gate, the squabbling began—whose team I would join, whose side would have me. I stepped into my place among them, planted my feet, lowered my eyes to the ball, and looked toward the waiting wicket.

That summer lived inside those arguments over me. I was one of them—not the youngest tag-along, not the kid from across the road, but a player worth having. Damned good, if the squabbling meant anything. The laughter came easily there, too. Cheers rose when a ball slipped cleanly through a wicket. Groans turned into laughter when it didn’t. Before the echoes faded, someone was already settling over the next shot, convinced this one would be different.

The wicket waited.

So did the slope.

So did the laughter.

Hands settled comfortably on well-worn mallets.

Feet found familiar ground.

Eyes followed an invisible line toward a distant wicket.

Everything aligned.

The mallet. The ball. The wicket.

And for one suspended moment, before the swing began, there was only belief that the ball would find its line.