The Big Cat Nap (24 page)

The hay wasn’t the finest horse quality, but it would do okay for cattle. She’d sell out of her seven-hundred-pound round bales by February. The quality was good, but Harry, fussy about nutrition, only square-baled her alfalfa—orchard-grass mix for the horses. She also had twenty acres in timothy and alfalfa. Perfect hay. Naturally she’d cut and baled that first, having gotten half of it up before the hydraulic pump expired.

Susan, happy to be outside, was running the spider-wheel tedder, turning cut hay to dry while Harry mowed down the cattle hay. Susan had always loved farm work. When they were kids, she’d often begged Harry’s parents to let her help.

Harry and her friends were bound by hoops of iron. It wasn’t just the years, it was the accumulated births, passings, victories, defeats—the sheer intensity of the experiences they’d shared. They knew one another’s weaknesses and strengths. Observing the various generations, they noticed downright peculiarities popping up again and again, parent to child, and so on. Even if there was a Nobel Prize for intelligent farming and Harry had won it, it wouldn’t mean as much as what she felt for her friends and what they felt for her. Naturally, she believed that her friends had more peculiarities than she did. They felt the same way about her. Never was there a shortage of laughter.

Even with her husband. Sometimes the two of them would laugh so much they’d fall out of bed. Fair’s motto was “If you can’t laugh while making love, you aren’t making love.” Well put, Harry agreed.

“She’s methodical.”
Mrs. Murphy admired Harry’s system.

Pewter observed Harry, who was now off the tractor and swinging the polo whip, the grasses bending over. Carefully, Harry covered much of the field she intended to cut. She did this in sections. Her whistle carried even to the hayloft.

“She is. Humans learned to be patient and precise from us. They watched us hunt,
stay still, figure out where the quarry is. They’re alive because of us, you know.”
Pewter puffed up.

“Hoo. Hoo. Hoo,”
Flatface, on her nest in the cupola, called down.
“Cats aren’t as important as owls. The Egyptians carved beautiful friezes of us. The Greeks put us in their myths, and I remind you, Fatty Screwloose, that we are sacred to Athena—an owl accompanied her. No cat traveled to Mount Olympus.”

Pewter, voice low, grumbled,
“I hate it when she calls me Fatty Screwloose.”

Mrs. Murphy whispered,
“Keep it to yourself. She’s strong enough to pick you up in her talons. Flatface is powerful and smart—very, very smart.”
The tiger cat then called up to the huge owl,
“You’re right, but there was a tiger cat in baby Jesus’s cradle. It was so cold we kept the baby warm.”

“Might could be. Human stories interest me. Some of them are beautiful. With others, you can tell right away they’re off their nut. Leda and the swan. Now, I tell you, why would Zeus seduce a woman as a swan?”

“Bet you’re right.”
Pewter decided to humor the big girl.

“He would have come down as an owl.”
Flatface issued this judgment with absolute conviction.

The owl looked through the slats in the cupola.

The cats, too, saw the doe and fawn run away from Harry.

“Good she did that,”
Mrs. Murphy said.

“The fawn so often gets killed.”
Flatface turned her head at that odd angle that birds can.
“They hear that fearsome racket, but the mama has told the baby to stay. She runs away, thinking she might well divert the danger, and
, wham,
the fawn is ripped up by the equipment. If Harry had killed that fawn, she’d be a wreck for all this week.”

“She knows animals. Softhearted, so softhearted.”
The tiger cat smiled.
“She gives to the animal shelter. Tight as she is, she’ll give money to panhandlers even. I wish she wouldn’t.”

“Why?”
Pewter asked.

“So many of those people lie. They can work. A lot of them are drunks. It’s a scam. I don’t like to see her fall for a sob story.”

“Why don’t they just die?”
Pewter remarked.
“Any animal that doesn’t find its food, work for it, dies except them. They keep everyone going no matter how useless. It’s sick.”
Pewter watched as Harry reached the edge of the pasture, which bordered the strong-running, deep-sided creek.
“Well, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know if it’s sick, but it’s wasteful.”
Mrs. Murphy considered the subject.

Flatface called down,
“Humans think human life is more important than any other kind of life. Ego. All ego.”

“Harry’s not like that. She treasures life. Susan, Fair, and BoomBoom do, too.”
Mrs. Murphy felt a flash of pride as Harry crossed back to the tractor and waved to Susan, careful to walk in her same steps so as not to tramp down more hay.

“The exceptions prove the rule,”
Flatface countered, then called down,
“Someone’s coming. I don’t know who it is.”

A snoozing Tucker awakened when the car reached a quarter mile from the house. If awake, the dog would have heard the tread all the way down to the mailbox, almost a mile away.

“Intruder.”

Harry heard the bark. She called to Susan, climbed up on the tractor, and—grateful the hydraulics were working—lifted the non-rotating bush hog up off the ground, as she’d shut off the PTO. Then she drove back to the house—where she beheld the alluring WRX STI.

“Harry.” Victor Gatzembizi greeted her, stepping out of the Subaru. “You could appear in a John Deere ad. You look darned good on a tractor.”

Swinging down, she replied, “Thank you. Victor, I am so sorry for all your troubles. Come on in and let’s have a cold drink together.”

“Thank you, but I’ve got to get back to the shop.” He turned as another car approached. “Jason’s driving me back.”

“How about if I give you both cold drinks to go?” She ran into the house, returning with two cans of iced tea. “Nothing’s as good as the tea you make yourself, but these aren’t so bad.”

“Thank you.” Victor took the cans and walked back to Jason, who was driving a Nissan Altima, newly repaired and out for a test spin.

“Nice car. I see so many of those on the road,” Harry remarked.

“Nissan, Subaru, Toyota. Good cars, but I’m telling you, the Koreans are catching up fast. Really fast.” Victor reached into the shiny black WRX STI and pulled out the keys, handing them to her. “I can’t stand to look at this car right now and neither can Mrs. Ashby. You
keep it, drive it until after July fourth, and then tell me what you think.”

Harry hesitated a moment, thought about the circumstances. “I really don’t see how I can afford this, but I’ll keep it until then. I can imagine that seeing Nick’s car might be difficult.”

He shook his head. “Three men, all from my shop. I can’t find any connection other than that they worked for me. Not one of them played around with drugs, stuff like that. I even had a wild thought about one of them bringing in illegal immigrants. I’ve tried to think of anything that would be high profit, against the law. What is there but drugs and workers?”

“Prostitution.”

“Harry, I know Bobby, Nick, and Walt didn’t go that route. Watching porn, well”—he shrugged his shoulders—“probably, but paying a hooker? No.”

“I meant running a high-class or even low-class hooking ring. I bet you there’d be takers in the audience at drag racing.”

An astonished look crossed his regular, pleasant features. “Uh, I never thought of that. Anyone ever tell you you have an unusual mind?”

“Fair and my friends, all the time.” She laughed. “But you said illegal, and I assume high profit. That’s all I can come up with.”

He folded his hands together. “It’s driving me crazy.”

In the background, they heard the rumble of the truck as Susan drove the spider-wheel tedder, still at her chores.

“I can imagine.”

“I knew those guys, I really knew them. By the way, the report from the chief medical examiner’s office said Bobby was full of Quaaludes. He couldn’t have defended himself. I never saw him take any drug. He had to have been purposefully drugged, then killed.”

“I truly am sorry.”

“I’ve hired special security for the shop. I can’t really afford it, personally, for Jason”—he nodded in the direction of the Altima—“Sammy, or Lodi. I’ve advised them to always have someone with them when they travel. I’ve even suggested they not drive. Have a
family member take them to work and pick them up—at least until this is solved.”

“Good advice.” Harry felt the keys in her hand. Someone—Nick, likely—had hung a lucky rabbit’s foot on the key chain.

After more chat and another thank-you from Harry, Victor and Jason drove down the long driveway. Harry felt the temporary use of the car was also a peace offering for Jason’s behavior the other day. She couldn’t wait to tell Susan, to give her friend a drive, but first Harry marched right in to the kitchen and took the rabbit’s foot key chain off the key. She put on a key chain of her own, with a little flashlight hanging from it.

That rabbit’s foot was anything but lucky.

T
his is fantastic.” Susan, while hardly a car enthusiast, still appreciated the acceleration of the WRX STI when she mashed the pedal to the floor.

“That’s why it’s called a pocket rocket. Handles like butter.” In the passenger seat, Harry grinned.

Harry wanted to treat Susan for turning hay in the unremitting sun. What Harry had just cut needed at least two days to cure, partly to let the blister bugs run out. Susan had turned yesterday’s cutting. They showered after that sweaty job.

They’d known each other all their lives—sisters, really. Neither woman had siblings, a rare occurrence for their generation. Kindergarten, grade school, high school, Harry and Susan did everything together. They did attend different colleges but spent summers together and even went to Europe upon college graduation. Susan’s people had more money than Harry’s, but Harry’s wonderful mom and dad saved for a year to send her overseas as a graduation present. Susan was a business major, while Harry studied art history. Like most traveling young people, they enjoyed and endured many adventures. They returned to their native Virginia with a deeper appreciation of their own state and country, as well as a wider view of the world. Both had learned that every country has gifts and every country can do many things better than we do.

“Do you know how many years it’s been since I drove a stick shift?” Susan slowed for the intersection with Route 240.

As she lurched forward, one of the Zippo lighters with a flag on it given to the men by Blair Bainbridge slid out from under the seat.

“Given that you’re knocking the fillings out of my teeth, I’d guess it’s been a good twenty years.”

Laughing, Susan replied, “That’s about right. God, it is fun, though. I really feel like I’m driving the car.”

“Remember that Dodge Dart you had junior year?”

“Tinker Bell.” Susan smiled. “Hey, Tinker got me where I wanted to go.” She paused. “With some help from you and BoomBoom. She suffered from chronic conditions.”

“Brake fade, numb steering, faulty timing, bald tires. Tinker was a basket case.”

“Half the time so was I. Why anyone looks back on their high school days with fondness is beyond me. Every day was an invitation to a new drama.”

“Well, every day you fell in love. You were a hot mess.”

“You always had Fair. But you were still a mess.” A gleam shone from Susan’s eyes, which never left the road.

“Oh, we all were. What scared me the most was taking the college boards.”

“You aced them. Got you a scholarship to Smith.”

“Scared me to death. Actually, I do sort of look back fondly sometimes. When we were tiny, we saw the world as so wondrous: butterflies, horses, shiny cars, listening to the car radio. But high school was more about emotions for the first time—adult emotions, I guess.”

“Coming from you, that’s a statement.”

“Why?”

“Harry, I think of you as a part-time adult.”

“You know, I could cancel our lunch, even if you did turn my hay.
Mean
. You are just hateful mean.”