Sour Puss (9 page)

13

S
low down,”
Pewter growled, running behind Mrs. Murphy.

“No!”

Ahead, a baby bunny ran evasively to avoid the sharp claws of the tiger cat. The little fellow just made it to his warren and the comfort of his mother as the cat pounced a great final pounce.

“Brute!”
the mother bunny scolded Mrs. Murphy.

“Drat!”
The tiger sat down, bent her head for a better look at the large cottontail glaring back at her.

Pewter, panting, pulled up beside Mrs. Murphy.
“Nearly got ’im.”

“We’d have our own Easter Bunny.”
Mrs. Murphy said this loud enough to further infuriate the mother rabbit.

“Maybe the Easter Bunny will have a limp,”
Pewter hopefully remarked.

At this, both Mrs. Murphy and Pewter exploded in laughter.

“You cats think you’re superior.”
The mother rabbit sniffed.
“We’ll see how superior you are when the bobcat gets you.”

“Have you seen him?”
Pewter feared the medium-size predator.

“He passes by. He’s a killer, that one, and one day he’ll have you in his jaws.”

“What a pretty thought,”
Mrs. Murphy saucily replied as she turned and trotted back over the greening-up pastures.

“I hate that cat.”
Pewter fell in alongside her best friend.

“Nearly took me to heaven twice. Thank God for the red fox. He saved me first time out. And Tucker did the second time when that devil snuck up on me.”

“You’d think you would have smelled him. He’s strong.”

“Upwind and a strong wind. I didn’t know until I heard a twig crack.”
Mrs. Murphy ruffled her fur, then it settled.
“I burned the wind and I still couldn’t put enough distance between us. He’s incredibly fast. And ruthless.”

“Why’d the fox help you?”

“Because once I helped him. Also, I always tell the foxes when the hounds will be here. And now that the Bland Wade tract has been added to the holdings, or I should say the use of it all, they’ll be here at least once a month, come fall.”

“You never take me when you visit the foxes.”

“Pewter, you’re flopped in the barn or on the sofa and you don’t want to move your lardass.”

“That’s not true. You’re selfish.”

“Oh la!”
Mrs. Murphy tossed this off, sweeping her whiskers forward.
“Pewter. Stop.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!”
Pewter stepped on a snoozing rattler, a big one.

The membrane rolled back from her eyes and she coiled up, waving her tail, the deadly sound loud.

Both cats jumped sideways as she struck, white fangs poised for action. Then they ran like blazes. The rattler, who could be fast for a short burst despite her winding motion, had no desire to kill the cats. She looked around, sniffed, for she had very good olfactory powers, then moved to a flat rock and decided to doze again in the pleasant, warming afternoon.

The cats raced and raced, finally drawing up under a small, beautiful grove of Alverta peaches on the southeast side of the old Jones home place, a half mile from the house.

Herb had made a lovely sign that read “Homecoming.”

Farther west and at a higher elevation, a small mature orchard of pippin apple blossoms lent fragrance to the last days of April.

The two felines caught their breath.

“Funny. Snakes,”
Mrs. Murphy mused.

“There’s nothing funny about snakes.”
Pewter loathed the reptiles.

“Cold blood. She could move fast because she’d been lying in the sun and it’s maybe sixty-eight degrees or higher, you know. I can’t imagine being cold-blooded.”

“Is that what humans mean when they say someone is cold-blooded? They’re a reptile?”

“Maybe. Maybe that’s where it started.”
The sweet chatter of purple finches and bluebirds added punctuation to her words.
“For them, being cold-blooded is terrible. I mean, they can understand someone killing in anger or passion but not thinking it out, planning. So they call it cold-blooded.”
Mrs. Murphy watched a peach-blossom petal swirl down.

The cold snap had delayed everything, but once the warmth came, the peaches bloomed at about the same time as the redbuds and early dogwoods.

It would be another week or even two, depending on temperatures, before all the apple trees blossomed, although the buds kept swelling, turning the hills lapping up to the Blue Ridge Mountains white.

“Hey.”
Pewter noticed.

Mrs. Murphy walked to the packed-down earth for a better look. She flared her nostrils, opening her mouth, too.
“Someone dug here, then replaced it. Look how careful they were to try and make the turf look undisturbed.”

“Sure seems like a lot of work.”

“Wasn’t Harry. We’d have been with her.”
Mrs. Murphy checked for footprints.
“They covered their tracks.”

“You can’t dig and get the earth packed like that. Whoever did this dumped earth somewhere.”

They searched but found nothing.

“Could have carted it off in a truck.”
Mrs. Murphy found this unsettling.

Pewter, intent on searching, didn’t notice a large buzzard high in an ancient poplar. The buzzard, who had a sense of humor, spread her wings for a sun bath, calling down,
“Lunch.”

Scared twice this afternoon, Pewter had had quite enough. She ran east toward Harry’s farm. The distance between the two houses, if measured in a straight line over the uneven ground, was a little more than one mile. Running, a cat could blaze home in four minutes, but the creek, if it was high like it was now, presented an obstacle.

Mrs. Murphy, following, paused for a moment at the lovely family cemetery, a huge oak within the wrought-iron fence.

“I’m not stopping. And furthermore, why do humans put fences around cemeteries? Do they think the dead will climb out?”
Pewter huffed and puffed.

“I think it’s an aesthetic thing.”
Mrs. Murphy had never thought of why the dead were so often contained.

“I don’t want to be around anything gruesome today. That rattler was enough.”

“Pewter, death waits for us all.”

“Yeah, well, he’s going to have to wait a good, long time for me.”

She was right, thankfully. But death was waiting, no doubt about that.

14

O
n Monday, May 1, Harry and Susan pulled out of Mostly Maples, a nursery to the trade. Harry braked hard, throwing Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker onto the floor of the 1978 Ford truck.

“Jesus Christ!” she exclaimed.

As Harry rarely swore, the animals climbed back onto the bench seat without complaint. They, too, had seen Toby Pittman hurtle by at top speed.

“What is the matter with that man?” Susan indignantly wondered. “He’s become positively unstable.”

“Hell, Susan, he was never wrapped too tight to begin with. Professor Forland going missing put him right over the edge.”

“Living alone.”

“I beg your pardon.” Harry cautiously looked both ways before pulling left onto Route 240 to head into Crozet. “I lived alone for years.”

“Yes, but you’re social. You have many friends and, of course, you have Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and Pewter the rotund.”

“I am not. I’m built round.”

As they were in close quarters, neither Mrs. Murphy nor Tucker corrected Pewter’s illusion. It’s hard to fight in a truck.

“Toby has Jed, his donkey, but that’s about it. His sister hasn’t spoken to him in eight years. Maybe more.”

Susan changed subjects. “We got our first order!” She twisted her head to look at the cars parked at Crozet Vet. “Bo Newell’s there. I didn’t know Bo took Miss Prissy to Marty.” She named the owner and head veterinarian of the clinic.

“That cat is a holy horror. Bo might be there to see if Marty knows anything about land for sale. Grapeland.” She giggled for a second. “If Elvis had only grown wine he could have lived at Grapeland.”

“Harry, you’re mental.”

“Yeah, but I’m fun.”

“I need a hot chocolate so I can better appreciate your humorous, wonderful self.”

“Susan, what’s this thing with you and hot chocolate?”

“I don’t know, but I want a big hot chocolate with mountains of whipped cream.”

“And you’re the woman who obsesses about her weight?”

Susan laughed. “That’s just it. I’ve discovered if I drink a big hot chocolate I’m not so hungry. Another thing, if I eat a couple handfuls of Virginia peanuts, I can go for hours before I want food.”

“Virginia peanuts, best peanuts in the world.”

Crozet, however, was too far west and north in the state to produce the famous crop.

“Did you know when the English first came in the seventeenth century they fed peanuts to their cows and horses? They didn’t think it was a suitable food for humans.”

“Who told you that?” Harry raised an eyebrow. She couldn’t believe humans would be so stupid as to sidestep a rich source of protein.

“Barbara Dixon. I was down in Dillwyn the other day and I stopped by Barbara and Gene’s. You know how she gets wrapped up in history.” Susan named a foxhunting couple they both enjoyed, who were in the process of restoring an early eighteenth-century house and stables.

“And she’s from San Antonio. She just got seduced by Virginia.” Harry laughed.

“Actually, I think she was seduced by Gene.”

At that they both laughed, then Harry returned to peanuts. “Really, they wouldn’t eat them?”

“No. Wouldn’t eat tomatoes, either. Thought they were poisonous.”

“Well, all someone had to do was pop one in their mouth and that would be the end of that,” Harry said.

“Would you do it?”

“Uh, well, let me reconsider my statement.”

They rolled along in the best mood because of their first order and because it truly was spring. Spring fever.

“Wonder when people realized they could eat peanuts and tomatoes?” Susan pondered.

“There’s a project for you.” Harry slowed to thirty-five miles an hour as they entered Crozet.

“I’ll give it to Barbara. You know that once I ask her she won’t rest until she finds the answer.”

“Sue Satterfield is like that, too.” Harry named a friend who had been a teacher and was a good friend of the Dixons.

“Maybe I should give one the tomato question and the other the peanut question.” Susan touched Harry’s shoulder. “Hey, don’t forget about my chocolate.”

“Damn.” Harry had turned into the post-office parking lot. She swung around to wait for traffic to pass.

“Miss it?”

“Sometimes. I miss the people. But I don’t miss the hours, I don’t miss the Federal regulations. You know, Susan, this is crude, but I can’t help it: we are reaching a point where you won’t be able to wipe your ass without the government telling you when to do it, how to do it, and what times to do it.”

Susan roared. “I’ll tell that to Ned.”

“Tell him, while I’m on the subject of wiping, to just wipe ninety percent of the laws off the books. They’re useless, obstructionist, and furthermore costing us all far too much money. Just tend to the roads, encourage business and agriculture, keep the state police strong, and stay out of everyone’s life.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him. That can be his maiden speech. Ought to be a big hit among a group of people whose job security depends on making more laws.”

“Then what in the hell is he doing there?” She continued to look both ways. “Where are these people coming from?”

“North of the Mason–Dixon line,” Susan mused.

“Can’t we send them back?” Harry smiled, then glanced at the clock in the dashboard, still ticking away after decades. “Lunch. Forgot about the time.”

“Then you’d better get me to the café before everyone sits down. I’ll never get my hot chocolate.”

“We can sit at the counter. While I’m waiting for these Yankees to pass you have time to write, ‘will die without hot chocolate’ and pin it to your blouse. The notebook is in the door pocket.”

“And leave us in the car? No fair!”
came the chorus.

“Pipe down. Finally.” Harry pulled out, turned left, then turned immediately right into the old bank parking lot. “We could have gone into menopause waiting.”

“Don’t even breathe that word.” Susan grimaced, notebook in hand, although she hadn’t written anything.

“We’re a long way away.”

“Maybe so but, boy, my mother suffered, and they say it’s hereditary.”

“I’ll buy you a hat with a little fan in it. I, personally, am not going to go through anything.”

“O la!” Susan cracked the window enough for plenty of air.

Harry did the same on her side. “We won’t be long.”

“You always say that.”
Mrs. Murphy dropped her ears slightly.

“Yeah, and someone comes in and the next thing you know it’s who-shot-John.”
Tucker used the old Southern expression for catching up with the news—news to men, gossip to women, although of course the information was exactly the same.

“Yeah. Not fair. We could die of heat prostration in here.”
Pewter tried the medical route, which wasn’t convincing since the temperature outside was fifty-two degrees. It might get to sixty at the most inside the truck with the windows cracked.

“They’re going to abandon us! Just like children in Rio de Janeiro’s slums.”
Mrs. Murphy sounded plaintive.

“They shoot them.”
Pewter licked her lips with not glee so much as pride of imparting shocking information.

“They do not.”
Tucker was aghast.

“Yeah, they do. I heard Fair talking about it to Harry after the news. You were asleep. They shoot them because the children are criminals. I can’t imagine why they steal or maim, can you?”
Pewter sarcastically replied.

The animals erupted into a heated discussion about why humans kill their young as opposed to why and when animals kill their young.

As Harry and Susan walked away, Harry turned, “What’s gotten into them?”

“They’ll settle.”

“Either that or I’ll need to reupholster the seat.”

“Your truck will be fine.”

Small stones breaking through the crumbling old macadam crunched underfoot. “Hey, did I tell you that Fair brought me a new pair of Wolverines and two dozen pink tulips? He is so sweet.”

“Yes, he is. When did you switch to Wolverine?”

“When Timberlands slid downhill. They’re so cheaply made now. I have that pair I bought in 1982—”

“The one your old German shepherd chewed the back off?”

“Yes, but I had Frank Kimball put on a new piece of leather with a roll for my Achilles tendon. It worked.”

“For over twenty years. I’d say Timberland ought to get your business.”

“That’s just it. I went to A&N, tried on a few pair of work boots, and Susan, they just aren’t the same. I was so disappointed. So then I tried on Montrails at the Rockfish Gap Outfitters in Waynesboro, and they are really good but really expensive. Had to pass. Then I went to Augusta Coop and tried a pair of Wolverines. Pretty darned good and affordable, but I was so worn out by trying on all these work boots, I gave up. But I did tell Fair.”

“Harry, only you can agonize over work boots. It’s not the expense, you’re obsessing.”

“You say.” Harry became enlivened. The topic of money usually had that effect on her. “The Montrails were $130! The Wolverines weren’t so much less, maybe thirty dollars, but I thought they were a lot of boot for the money. ’Course, I won’t know until I work in them. I’m on my feet all day. I can’t do with bad work boots or ones that are going to fall apart from horse pee and poop and tractor oil. I have good reason to agonize.”

“You’re right.” It was easier to agree.

They pushed open the door to find the usuals perched on their stools at the counter, where Hy entertained Karen Osborne. Her marriage to Pete deterred Hy not a whit.

Harry sat next to Karen, and Susan sat on the other side of Hy, since those were the only vacant stools.

Susan begged Kyle for hot chocolate, pronto.

“Karen, how are the horses?”

“Good. All the spring visitors want trail rides. I cherish my lunch hour.” She smiled.

“I’ll bet. I don’t see how you can run a hack barn. Takes a special person. I couldn’t do it, deal with people who know nothing about horses but who want to ride.”

“It helps that I have good horses.”

Susan called down to Karen, “In any endeavor. My mother used to say, ‘A second-rate horse makes a second-rate rider,’ and you sure see that in the hunt field.”

Hy, in his element—surrounded by women—flattered them. “I don’t see how you girls can jump those big fences.”

“We don’t, Hy, the horse does,” Harry answered as she held up her forefinger, which meant one cup of orange pekoe tea.

Kyle nodded as he foamed the whipped cream on Susan’s hot chocolate, since she was perishing before his very eyes for want of it.

The door swung open and Toby stomped in. “Hy, what were you doing in my vineyard today?”

Hy, surprised, swiveled around on his stool. “I wasn’t there.”

“The hell you weren’t. I saw your white truck. No one else has a gold fleur-de-lis on his truck.”

“Toby, if I were going to see your vineyards, I’d call on you first. I wasn’t there.”

“That was your truck.” Toby’s face reddened.

“The fleur-de-lis is small. Did you drive up to this alleged truck of mine?”

“No. I saw it from a distance, but I know your truck.”

“And from that distance you determined it was my truck?”

“Liar! It was your truck. You were on my property and I damned well want to know why!”

Hy, out of deference to the ladies, stood up, stepping away from the counter as everyone held their breath. “I told you, I was not at your farm. I don’t think anyone who works for me was at your farm, but I will check as soon as I return home. If they were, I will tell you immediately as well as why. Give me your cell number.”

“What I’m giving you is fair warning. If you so much as put a foot on my land I will shoot you. I know why you’re there. You want to ruin my grapes. You can’t stand that I’m growing better grapes than you are. Stay off my land or I’ll put you under it!”

“You’re utterly deluded.” A look of apprehension crossed Hy’s face.

Toby yanked back his right fist, slamming it hard into Hy’s jaw. Hy had a glass jaw. He sank like a stone, coldcocked.

Kyle flew around the corner, but that fast Toby ran out the door.

“Goddammit!” Kyle cursed.

“I’ll take care of him.” Karen called for one of the waiters to throw her a clean towel. She poured her water on it and knelt down, placing the wet towel on Hy’s forehead.

Both Harry and Susan knelt down with her.

Kyle called the sheriff. Deputy Cooper just happened to be near the new post office. She pulled a three-sixty, hit the siren and lights to cross the road without waiting for the endless traffic.

When she opened the door, Hy was coming to, blood seeping from his mouth for he’d bitten his tongue when he was hit.

“Hy. Hy. Can you hear me?” Cynthia bent over in front of him.

“Uh-huh,” he weakly replied.

She passed her hand in front of her eyes. “Follow my hand.”

His eyes followed the motion of her hand as everyone in the coffee shop talked at once.

“Come on, Hy, let’s put you in a booth.” Kyle searched for an empty booth.

As there wasn’t one, he was about to ask people to move, when Hy stood up unsteadily.

“I’m okay. Hurts, but I’m okay.”