Catch as Cat Can (10 page)

16

At seven o'clock Sunday morning, Fair Haristeen drove through the puddles in Harry's driveway. He stopped in front of the barn because he knew she'd be feeding the horses. At the slam of his truck door, Tucker joyously dashed out to greet the vet. Tucker loved Fair.

“Wasn't that an awful storm?”
The corgi wagged her tailless bottom.

Small tree limbs were scattered over the yard and dogwood petals covered the ground.

“You're the best dog.” Fair bent over to pat the silky head.

“I'm in here,” Harry called out from the center aisle of the attractive old barn.

“Figured.” Fair jumped over a puddle. “You should see the roof of BoomBoom's barn. Swiss cheese.”

“Your first call?”

“Not exactly. When I drove by I saw her and Thomas standing out by the barn so I pulled up. You know when Kelly”—Fair mentioned BoomBoom's deceased husband—“built that barn I couldn't believe he'd put on such a cheap roof. The man was a paving contractor. He knew better.”

“Yeah, but riding wasn't his thing so he built a cheap barn. Pretty tacky of him.”

Fair removed his baseball cap. “Never thought of it. He had more money than God.”

“Just a little revenge on his part. Control. And to what do I owe your company?”

“Does the word ‘control' have anything to do with it?”

Mrs. Murphy, lounging in the hayloft with Simon, the opossum, remarked,
“You know, I think he's gaining insight.”

“M-m-m.”
Simon evidenced scant interest in human couplings and uncouplings.
“Did I show you the beads I found?”
He rolled out his treasure.

“Simon, those aren't beads, they're ball bearings, and if you found them around here it means a piece of Mom's equipment is about to die a horrible death.”

“Really?”

“Really. Where did you find them? And I assume this had to be a few days ago. You weren't fool enough to go out in that storm.”

“I'm not telling.”

“All right. Don't tell but put them back—maybe she'll see them before the damage is done. Something's broken.”

“I'm not putting them back and I'm not telling. Anyway, maybe I didn't find them here. They're shiny and I found them fair and square. I like shiny things.”

“Marsupials are weird.”
Mrs. Murphy lashed her beautiful tail to and fro. She didn't like being disobeyed.

“Pewter grabbing a dead woodpecker and then Harry picking it up is pretty weird.”

“She took it to the taxidermist.”
Mrs. Murphy laughed, her good humor restored.
“And you know that Pewter will tear it to shreds the minute that stuffed bird is brought back into the house.”
The cat tiptoed over to the edge of the hayloft, having decided that the human conversation might be more interesting than her own. Not that she didn't like Simon, but he was a bit simpleminded at times.

Pewter reposed in the tack room on a neatly folded Baker blanket. She'd gorged herself at breakfast and would need half the day to digest.

“It's been quite a Dogwood Festival.” Fair dipped a clean old towel in water, rubbed it on a glycerin bar, and began wiping down Harry's hunt saddle.

“You don't have to do that.”

“No, but I like to be useful.” He hummed a Billy Ray Cyrus tune, then cleared his throat. “You seem to have hit it off with Diego.”

“Yes,” came the terse reply.

Fair knew better than to expect an explanation out of Harry. He'd known her all his life and having been married to her he felt he knew her better than anyone except maybe Susan Tucker. But women's friendships existed on a separate plane from spousal relationships. He often laughed to himself when he'd hear idle chatter about the differences between men and women. Women, according to the experts, were more forthcoming about their emotions than men and they bonded through sharing emotions whereas men bonded through activity. In all the years he'd known Mary Minor she'd never volunteered an emotion. You had to pry them out of her. She'd happily tell you what she thought, read, saw, did, but not what she felt. Susan used to harangue her over it but Harry was Harry and that was that. “Take me or leave me” was her attitude, and when Fair thought about it, he concluded she was right. You either accept someone or you don't and no amount of jawing about it will change them or bring you closer.

“The guy looks like a movie star.” Fair flipped the stirrup iron up over the saddle seat so he could better clean the flaps. The saddle was clean but he needed a task.

“He does but you're pretty great-looking yourself.” She winked.

“You say that to all the boys.” He laughed, glad to be in her presence. “Lottie Pearson is on the warpath, by the way.”

“Against me or BoomBoom?”

“Anyone that gets in her way but I think you and BoomBoom are, well, let's just say, hold on to your scalps.”

“What is Lottie's problem?” Harry scrubbed out a water bucket in the sink in the tack room. It had hot and cold water, a nice feature in a tack room. “I mean it's not like I woke up one morning and said, ‘Today I will piss off Lottie Pearson.' And I only agreed to be Diego's date after pressure from BoomBoom. She said Lottie would bore him to tears whereas I could talk about farming.”

“Lottie's getting scared and she's getting bitter.”

Harry tipped her head up to stare into Fair's blue eyes. “Scared about what?”

“She's in her thirties, never been married, and no prospects in sight.”

Dropping the bucket in the sink, Harry put her hands on her hips. “Oh, come on, you don't believe that.”

“About Lottie I do. Man-hungry.”

“Said by a man.” Harry giggled.

“Hey, we may be the slower sex but I don't know any man who doesn't have radar for a woman crazed to get married. The pheromone of fear or mating or something is what she sends out. Nothing turns a man off faster than that except personal uncleanliness, I guess.”

Harry resumed scrubbing. “Never thought about it but you're probably right. What's to get scared about, Fair? You can't just go out and find a mate. It's not like shopping for a car.”

“No, but it is a big-ticket item.” He smiled. “What I find offensive about Lottie is that she wants to get married but no one is good enough. Roger O'Bannon was crazy about her and, well, now he's dead. He wasn't right for her.” Fair lost his train of thought. “It's hard to talk about him in the past tense.”

“I know what you're trying to say.”

“She wants someone who is First Family of Virginia. That stuff is so superficial.”

“Easy for us to say because we are.”

“Have you ever cared for one moment that your ancestors arrived here in 1620? No, 1640. Good memory.” He tapped his forehead.

“No. I'm proud of them but it doesn't make me better than anyone. And the slave trade really picked up at the end of the seventeenth century so as far as I'm concerned those African-American families are F.F.V., too.”

“If there's one thing that I really hate about Virginia it's the great game of ancestor worship.” He flipped over the other stirrup. “On the other hand, it gives us stability, I suppose. Anyway, even if Lottie marries one of us she's not F.F.V.”

“No, but her children will be.”

“Great. Another generation of snobs.” Fair laughed again. “My favorite low moment for Virginians was when the descendants of Thomas Jefferson had a reunion and argued about whether to let Sally Hemings's descendants join when the DNA tests proved they carried Jefferson's blood. I mean here we are in the twenty-first century and someone is going to argue about this.”

“You're expressive this morning.” She shook her head.

“Actually,” he exhaled, “I'm so glad I didn't find Diego here.”

She shot him a searing look. “Oh, like I'd go to bed with him on the first date, so to speak?”

“Uh—yes.”

“Fair, it's my body.”

“I love your body.”

“Oh, Fair—” She threw up her hands.

“I love your mind, too.”

“This is getting good.”
Mrs. Murphy leaned way over the edge of the hayloft.

Even Pewter woke up. Tucker sat, tongue out, listening to every syllable.

“You can be real smooth when you want to be. Now look, I'm doing what I want, when I want, and with whom I want. Don't fence me in.”

“I haven't.”

“Yeah, and you haven't had any rivals either.”

“Oh, now I do?”

“Might.”

“I hate it when you're coy.”

“Well, I hate it when you try to manage me.”

“I'm not managing you.” He leaned over the saddle. “I'm being truthful.”

“Then I'll be truthful right back. I like Diego and I'll see him again, most likely. Other than that, I don't know squat.”

“Don't go to bed with him.” Fair's voice grew stronger.

“I'll do as I damn well please.”

“Latin-American men are faithful to their mothers and no one else. You don't know who he's slept with. You can't be too careful.”

“That's pretty racist.” Acid dripped from her voice.

“It's true. They're dominated by their mothers!”

“Fair, you are so full of shit.” Harry laughed. He was unintentionally funny.

“I'm trying to protect you.”

“No, you're not. You don't want me to go to bed with anyone but you.”

“I admit that.”

“Get over yourself.”

“Harry, go slow. Think things through. What kind of future would you have with a man from a country full of ex-Nazis?”

“Fair, for Chrissake!”

“It is.”

“So are Argentina and Paraguay and, for that matter, the United States. After the war didn't our government spirit out any German who had knowledge we needed or wanted? And furthermore, that was over fifty years ago. Somehow I think most of those dudes are dead. Now you're an expert on Uruguay?”

“Can't blame a guy for trying.”

“Yeah, yeah. To change the subject, are you going on the coon hunt tonight?”

“Thought I would.”

The best time to hunt coons is the fall but sometimes a hunter would train his young hounds with an older hound before then. Summer was too hot so spring often was a good time to work young hounds. The female coons, “heavy,” usually gave birth in April through May to litters of between one and eight. They'd only be hunting males.

She filled the cleaned-out bucket with clean sponges, placing the bucket under the sink. “I wonder when Roger's funeral will be.”

“Wednesday or Thursday. Unless Sean thinks he'll have to wait for the weekend because of out-of-towners. I doubt it though. Herb will know. Brings death a little closer, doesn't it?”

“Nah.” She shook her head. “Can't think about it. It doesn't do any good. You can die at four years of age or one hundred. But you can't think about it.”

“Sounds like your dad.”

“It's true, though.”

“I suppose, but Roger's death makes me think about it. One minute he's sitting in the chair and the next minute he's on the floor with Little Mim pulling on his arm and Lottie screaming.”

“Been quite a weekend. Lottie falls off the float. Oh, wait, it started with Miranda's hubcaps getting stolen and winding up at O'Bannon's. Then Lottie bounces off the float. Given the hoopskirt I'm surprised she didn't bounce right back or she could be our own living Taco Bell symbol. Then Roger goes to his reward. The twerp who stole Miranda's hubcaps shows up parking cars at Big Mim's party. Tracy tackles him. Then the storm from hell rips through Albemarle County. And you're worried that I'm going to sleep with someone other than you? Isn't there a Chinese curse, ‘May you live in interesting times'?”

17

Diego and Thomas spent the day at Windy Ridge, an estate owned by the retired Ambassador to the Court of St. James's. Since she didn't need to be a tour guide for the visitors, Harry worked, suppressing her excitement about the coming evening's coon hunt. She loved to hunt. Picking up the debris around her house took two hours. Then she walked her fence lines to make certain they weren't torn up. Blair Bainbridge's cattle loved to amble over onto her lush pastures. Not that she minded herding them back but she didn't always have the time to drive them across the creek, repair the fence, check for injuries. Also, her three horses, Poptart, Tomahawk, and Gin Fizz, disliked the cattle. They'd pin back their ears, bare their teeth, hurl crude insults usually involving the fact that cows have four stomachs.

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker accompanied Harry on her rounds. Pewter declared the storm frayed her nerves; she needed to rest in the house. The offending blue jay swooped around the kitchen windowsill. Seeing Pewter asleep on the kitchen table, he unleashed a torrent of abuse.

After a day's work the tiger cat and Tucker felt entitled to participate in the coon hunt. Both waxed furious when Harry shut them in the house, closing off the animal door, then driving off in her 1978 blue Ford pickup.

“You'll pay for this!”
Murphy threatened as the red taillights receded into the gathering twilight.

“Pipe down.”
Pewter rolled over.

“You've slept all day. Don't tell me you're tired.”

“I didn't sleep all day. That horrid blue jay perched on the windowsill. He called me a fat gray sow, a sea cow, a ponderous pachyderm. I'll kill him!”

Mrs. Murphy walked back from the door, jumped onto the kitchen counter, trotting to the window over the sink.
“I can't believe she left me! We worked today. We deserve a party.”

“We were invited to Aunt Tally's tea party. Of course, that didn't turn out so good, did it?”
Tucker thoughtfully added.

“That's not the point.”
Mrs. Murphy batted at the windowpane.

Pewter jumped up on the counter, too. She headed for the large bowl of crunchies, stuck her head in, and munched away.

“Noisy eater.”
Tucker giggled.

“Tailless wonder.”
Pewter flicked a nugget on the floor for the dog.
“I've endured enough insult for one day.”

“It's a dumb time to coon hunt.”
Murphy hoped to find a way to make her loss less. She adored any form of hunting, even if only to watch from the bed of the pickup. After all, she was the best hunter in central Virginia, maybe all of Virginia.

Put out as she was, she should have been grateful to be left behind.

The sodden ground sucked the boots right off the hunters' feet. The bushes and branches, loaded with droplets, soaked each person who brushed by. Durant Creek, a tributary of Beaver Creek, roared like a diesel dump truck on full throttle.

Harry, hardened by outdoor life, didn't much mind. BoomBoom was a surprising trouper. Thomas bravely soldiered on in his expensive Holland and Holland outfit. Diego wore what Harry told him. He had bought a pair of Red Wing work boots after leaving the former ambassador to Great Britain and topped his outfit off with a pair of old jeans and a canvas shirt. Thomas thought Diego's boots were too country and not English enough. He regretted it now, though, as he tried to keep up in his green wellies, a wonderful high rubber boot for country chores but not for running behind hounds. Thomas was hard put to keep up, his flashlight bobbing as he labored. Boom stayed back with him, a sacrifice for her since she liked being up front.

Jack's hounds treed two coons in rapid succession. He called them off, walked about a quarter of a mile, and set them to work again. Joyce, his wife, walked along, too.

Fair enjoyed good hound work and was pleased to see shiny coats on the hounds. He wanted to stay behind Harry and Diego but forced himself to run ahead of them.

Jim Sanburne brought up the rear along with Don Clatterbuck, both men moving at a leisurely pace, happy to listen to the music.

Harry held the flashlight as she and Diego ran behind Fair.

“They're on another one. Picked him up by the creek,” Harry said, but the words were no sooner out of her mouth than a rumble overhead surprised her.

Low clouds moving fast presaged another storm. She'd felt the temperature drop but paid little attention to it. The cloudy skies held the scent down; the falling temperature, now in the high forties, made for a glorious night of hunting about to be cut short.

A flash over the creek side stopped everyone in their tracks.

“Folks, I got to pick up. We don't want to be out here.” Jack put his grandfather's huge cow horn to his lips, blowing in his hounds.

Joyce peered up at the sky. “Sure hope it's not like last night.”

As the people turned to head back to their trucks the thunder moved closer and a light splattering of rain began.

Impulsively, Diego reached for Harry's hand, drawing her to him, and kissed her. She kissed him back, then they broke off, racing toward the trucks, laughing.

A glitter caught Harry's eye. “Hold up.”

The rain fell steadier now but she moved to the left, off the path. Diego followed her. She knelt down, picking up the Mercedes star and a snapped chain. “The hubcap thief.”

“Odd.” Diego studied the object.

“He wore it around his neck.” A bone-rattling clap of thunder convinced her to hasten back to the truck. Running, she pocketed the hood ornament. By the time she and Diego reached their safe haven they were drenched and shivering.

They'd parked at the end of a gravel road northeast of Crozet, the boundary between Booty Mawyer's farm and that of Marcus Durant. Durant, out of town this weekend, was an avid coon, fox, and rabbit hunter. He'd hunt just about anything. He'd built a twenty-foot-by-sixteen-foot shack. With a tin roof, a wood-burning stove, and two sets of bunk beds by the walls, he could roll in and sleep if his hounds kept running late into the night. A generous man, he shared his shack with his buddies, so long as everybody cleaned up.

Fair, using well-cured wood stacked outside under a protective overhang, started up a fire. Soon the little group was thawing out, passing the jug, and telling tales in the time-honored tradition of night hunters.

Thomas and BoomBoom sat next to one another on the edge of a bunk bed, as did Jack and Joyce. The others sat on upturned milk crates and wooden chairs in front of the stove.

Jim leaned back, putting his cold, wet feet in front of the stove. Everyone peeled off their shoes, boots, socks, hoping they'd dry before they had to put them back on.

“Ever tell you about the first time I coon hunted with Mim?” Jim cast his eyes around the room. “Guess not. Well, I'd come back from Korea in one piece and I hadn't been home three days when I spied Mim coming out of Crozet National Bank arguing with Aunt Tally. I stopped my truck, hopped out, took off my hat to the ladies, and asked Mim out then and there. Heard her family broke off the romance with another fellow because he wasn't high-class enough. Hell, he was more suitable than I but faint heart ne'er won fair lady and to hell with suitability. Aunt Tally looked me over like I was a horse to buy. Well, Mim said yes. So Tally says, ‘Where you taking her?'

“‘Coon hunting,' says I. ‘See that's what you hunt, young man.'” He laughed, imitating Tally's voice. “A fine night. Crisp, you could smell the leaves turning. Marcus's father, Lucius, had a good pack of hounds, turned 'em loose, and what a hunt.

“Mim was a speedy little slip of a girl. She kept right up and the next thing we heard was screaming and cussing. Lord o'mighty. The hounds ran right up on Arnold Berryman, covering Ellie McIntire.

“She was screaming. He held up his coat over her. Scared the hell out of the hounds. I thought that would be my last date with Mim.

“She enjoyed herself so much she asked when we could do it again.” He slapped his thigh and laughed, the others laughing with him.

“Ellie McIntire.” BoomBoom shook her head, remembering the spinster librarian who had struck terror in their hearts when they were children.

“Thank you,” Thomas said as he received the jug from Fair. After a long draft he handed it to BoomBoom.

“Thomas, how do you like our country water?” Jack, who didn't drink, asked.

“Potent and smooth,” the older man replied.

“Thomas, tell them how your grandfather brought the telephone to Montevideo.” BoomBoom slipped her arm through his, leaning into him.

“Oh . . .”

“Tell,” the others chimed in.

“My grandfather saw the telephone in London. He was our ambassador there before World War One. He formed a company and started the first telephone service in our country. Then my father, not to be outdone, founded the first television station. I remember when I was a boy being very disappointed to find out that Jojo, the clown on the children's show, emitted the distinct aroma of gin.” They all laughed.

“Tell them what you did.”

“My dear,” he demurred.

“Thomas brought satellite technology to their communications company.”

“BoomBoom, it was the logical progression. That didn't take the intelligence or courage of Grandfather or Father. Or the determination of my mother, who took over the television business. She's slowed down a bit by heart trouble but really, she's smarter than I am.”

“The Steinmetzes are quick to see the future and profit,” Diego said admiringly. “The Aybars are running cattle instead of satellites.” He laughed.

“Nothing wrong with running cattle,” Jim said. “You come on over and look at my Herefords.”

“Hunting down your way?” Jack politely asked.

“Yes, and fishing. If you like deep-sea fishing, you must come down,” Thomas said, a hint of pride in his voice.

“Sounds like machine-gun fire.” Joyce looked up at the tin roof as the rain intensified.

The four hounds thought so, too, as they edged closer to their humans.

“You know, I'd like to come on down and go fishing.” Jim smiled at Thomas. “Mim and I have never been to Uruguay. Is there something we could bring . . . like jeans? When you visit Russia you bring jeans. At least we used to in the seventies. People would pay a lot of money for jeans from the United States.”

“Not a thing,” Thomas replied. “We'll take care of everything.”

“Some things cost three times as much and some things are extremely inexpensive,” Diego added. “Now, we don't have foxhounds or coonhounds. Those would fetch a high price.”

“They're my babies.” Joyce laughed.

“Almost forgot.” Harry pulled out the Mercedes star.

“Where's the car?” BoomBoom laughed.

“That's the only part I could afford.” She laughed, too. “Actually, I found this on the path back a ways. When Tracy brought Wesley Partlow back to the house at Mim's party, he wore a star like this around his neck.”

“Anyone report one missing?” Fair logically asked.

“Not that I know of,” Jim answered, “but many of our guests were feeling no pain.”

They all laughed.

“It can cost two hundred and ninety dollars to replace that star,” Thomas said. “Hang on to it.” He stopped a moment. “Had to replace one once.”

Harry didn't get home until one in the morning. She headed straight for bed, missing the shredded needlepoint pillow in the living room, compliments of Mrs. Murphy.