Mad Cow Nightmare (9 page)

“Stolen,” said Henrietta, and hugged her partner. “The rope was cut through. Someone must’ve come in while we were asleep and taken her.”

“But the saddle’s still here,” said Franny.

“But not the mare,” Henrietta said, and Franny sobbed into the soft, saggy flesh of Henrietta’s cheek.

Ruth had a moment of hope. “It could have been an accident then, the mare simply broke away. And someone will call in—you just wait and see.”

Franny waved a freckled arm. “Rode her without a saddle. Someone used to bareback. Like a gypsy,” she said, pursing her lips, staring Ruth in the eye.

“Like a gypsy,” said Henrietta, baring her teeth on the last syllable. “That man they talked about on the radio. I heard it again this morning. He was with that missing woman.”

“The one who took a bath in your tub,” said Franny, pointing a finger at Ruth.

Now Ruth was on the defensive. She was here to help a neighbor and
she
was under attack.

“We’ll call the police then,” Ruth said, “tell them about Ophelia. It’ll make it easier for them to find the man if he has a horse.”

“But that’s just it,” cried Franny, jumping up, knocking Henrietta back, squealing, into the pile of hay. “He won’t have her for long. He’ll sell her to somebody, take the money, and buy some other old nag. Buy a truck. Gypsies love their trucks, they paint them yellow and red—I saw that trailer on your land, Ruth. He could be in Orlando, Florida, by now!”

“It’s only ten o’clock,” said Henrietta, “how could he be?” When Franny frowned at her, she cleared her throat and told Ruth: “Oh my poor dear Franny. She had a breeder for Ophelia. Phelia was a prize-winning mare.”

“Don’t say ‘was,’“ Franny cried. “She’s still alive. That man’s not stupid enough to kill her! He just wants the money he’ll get for her.”

“Or he wants
her”
said Henrietta, and Franny said, “What do you mean by that, damn it?”

“Nothing. What could I mean?”

“You think he’s going to mount her, do you? Rape her?”

“Of course not, Fran. We’re not talking kinky here. I just meant he wants to keep her ‘cause she’s so beautiful. That’s
why you
keep her, isn’t it, Fran?”

“You’re jealous,” said Franny. “You’ve always been jealous of my horse. For God’s sake, Hen, she’s a horse, not a woman. Who could be jealous of a horse?” She clasped her hands together, lifted her chin, sighed. “But such a beautiful horse, oh dear God, those eyes, you can just float in them. And they’re gone now, gone.” She flung herself at the sturdy Henrietta; her partner caught her in a noisy embrace.

“I’ll call the police then,” said Ruth, needing closure to this frustrating session. They weren’t getting anywhere with all these histrionics.

“Oh no,” cried Franny, running after her. “They’ll just botch it up. Why, they have guns. If there’s a showdown with that man, they could shoot Ophelia!” Her face was a disaster, all quivers and gullies and tears.

“Colm,” Ruth said. “I’ll call him. He’ll tell them not to shoot. Now look, Franny, we’ll find her. Just leave it to Colm. He’ll want a full description of the mare, of course, you can e-mail it to him at his office, okay?
Moonlightcolm at shoreham.net
.” The women looked at her. “Moonlight,” she explained, “because he has three jobs: Realtor, mortician, and cop. The only way to make a living in Branbury, Vermont. Now go in and contact him and then have a cup of strong coffee. Relax. We’ll call with any news.”

“We don’t drink coffee,” Henrietta said. “Only green mint tea. We grow the mint ourselves.”

“Whatever,” said Ruth, feeling powerless, the way she felt increasingly these days, and she jogged slowly back to her battered green pickup.

Chapter Seven

Nola hunched closer to the car window; the man was too quiet. He just sat there nursing a bottle of Woodchuck cider—5% alcohol, the label read. It was hard to talk anyway, with the radio blaring some rock tune that killed her head it was so loud. He’d locked the doors after she got in. She was sorry now she’d hitched the ride, but she had to get away. Already the sheep man who locked the door on her would be calling the police. They’d be after her, that was what Ritchie had shouted after he surprised her in the tub. He’d heard something on the kitchen radio—she hardly knew what he was talking about. “You didn’t tell me you had that filth inside,” he yelled. “Now I’ll get it, too.”

“What filth?” she’d said, covering the scar on her breast with her hand—Ritchie found it unsightly, and it was. “What you talking about, Ritchie?”

He’d stood over her in the tub, ranting about some disease. They were both doomed and it was her fault. “They’re looking for you,” he said. “That hospital wants to make a test mouse out of you. Now the police’ll be on the case and they’ll want to talk to me. You want me behind bars, do you? That guy I knifed died, they’ll think I started it when I didn’t. It was him. I was justified.”

“What man died, who?” she’d cried, but he didn’t answer. He put a hand on her head like he’d push her under and she panicked. “Hand me a towel, will you, Ritch? I’ll go give myself up.” The thought of that hospital again was comforting, actually, she needed a long rest, good food, those backrubs. But she’d said the wrong thing. He was hollering about police again. He was dead anyway, he said, thanks to her. They were to get out of there, fast. He threw her a towel but it landed in the water, soaked through.

“All right,” she’d said, stalling for time. “All right, but get me some coffee, will you? It’s on the stove. I can smell it. I’ll get ready.”

He’d gone in the kitchen then and she’d jumped out of the tub, slipped on the floor, pulled herself up by the sink edge. Pulled on her nightgown—it was faster than jeans and shirt—grabbed her rosary beads from the pocket, she’d need them. Out in the kitchen she heard him grunt and swear. It was her chance. She heard him open the fridge—he’d steal what he could. The bathroom window was open, she shoved it all the way up. It was a short drop to the ground. She climbed out, scraping an elbow on a nail. It bled, but she hardly felt it. She made the jump and ran through the kitchen garden, trampling some plants—she couldn’t help it, she had to get away. She was afraid of Ritchie, he’d almost drowned her. He would of drowned her—she’d seen the look on his face, a queer coldness in those black eyes. And she ran.

“Where you headed?” the driver shouted. He finished off the bottle of hard cider, grabbed another out of a cardboard carton on the floor. Offered her one but she shook her head. He was older than she’d thought at first: receding hairline, a hardness in the face brought about by time and bad luck, she knew the look. Her father had that look, her mother, too, after the father, full of drink, knocked her about for the millionth time. The look said, “I hate the world. I hate you.” In America, that was the way most people looked at travellers. That was why they had to lie low, keep out of the news.

And here she was, making the news.

“Stop and lemme outa here,” she shouted back. She didn’t know where they were but what did it matter? She’d get to the cops, there was no point in running. She could die, running. They’d lock their doors on her, like that sheep man. All she’d wanted was to use his telephone, call the farmer woman, tell her to tell Maggie she was okay, not to worry. She and Maggie had grown up close, their trailers side by side. How many times Maggie’d come to help put down the fights between her parents, save her from her father.

When the man didn’t stop she shouted, “Take me to the police station. I need to talk to somebody there.” She had her hand on the door handle. If he didn’t stop she’d jump out.

He just laughed. “It’s locked, baby. We’re not stopping at no police station. Not on your life. We’ll cruise a little, then we’ll stop.” He guzzled the Woodchuck, then let out a long belch.

“I can’t hear you. Can you turn that thing down? I got a headache.” She pointed at the radio dial. Her head was pounding, she felt ready to die.

He gave a harsh laugh and turned it down. “Got a headache, huh? Pretty thing like you? Got a funny way of talking. Where you from anyway?”

“North Carolina,” she said. She didn’t want to say New York; he’d probably heard a news broadcast. They might have mentioned she was an Irish traveller. “Scottish by birth. I might’ve got some of my mother’s talk.”

“Yeah?” he said. “Scottish.” He tried to imitate the accent, but the word came out “Scoottish.” “Got a lotta sheep there, huh? Mountains and stuff, like Vermont? I might like to go there, see what it’s like.”

“Sure, and you’d like it.” Though she’d never been there herself, nor to Ireland, either. She’d like to go one day and take Keeley. Keeley especially wanted to go; he talked of Ireland like it was some paradise. She supposed she should ask this man a question but she didn’t really want to get to know him. Not with that hard face of his. He could be another Ritchie and she couldn’t bear that. Not that Ritchie was so bad when he was younger. It was just that a lot of bad things had happened to Ritchie, and, like layers of dirt, the bad things clung to him and weighed him down and now he couldn’t seem to hold his head up. He just fought back at the world. It was maybe one of the reasons she’d stayed with him. She was sorry for him.

Anyway, where else would she have gone? She had no money of her own. No education beyond parochial school. And who would want a woman with an ugly scar on her breast?

“Got an idea,” the driver said, throwing the second old soldier into the backseat. “We go to Scotland together, you and me. I got no girlfriend. One I had, left, she were a bitch anyways. You and me we’d make a team. Whatya say, huh? You running away yourself? Huh? Got no place to go tonight? You running away from some Joe?”

He reached out a hand and it slapped down hard on her knee. She let it stay. She was afraid of him, she wanted out of the car. But it wouldn’t do to antagonize him. “Sure,” she said, “we’ll run away to Scotland. You pay for the tickets?”

He thought that was hysterically funny, he laughed and laughed. “Sure, baby, I’ll pay. I’m rich. Saved up big bucks from the last job I had.”

She didn’t want to know what the job was. It could have been a robbery. Ritchie always had his radio on, like he was hoping not to hear his own name mentioned. He listened to news about thefts and bank holdups and killings, and once he broke down and cried when he heard about some criminal getting the gas chamber.

Nola just wanted out now, she was getting claustrophobic.

“I gotta take a pee,” she said. “Can we stop?” They were moving beyond town; the houses were fewer and farther between. That was a worry and a comfort. But if she got out and ran he could probably outrun her. He had a flabby belly, short legs, she was a fast runner. But she was exhausted—it made them even.

He was looking hard at her, he suspected something. “Not here,” he said, and put his foot on the accelerator. It was an old car, the odometer read over 120,000 miles. When the car got up over seventy it wobbled. She wasn’t ready to die, not yet. She wanted to live a little, maybe find a good man who wouldn’t mind about the scar— she wasn’t married to Ritchie. She wanted a daughter, to do for her and Keeley what her ma wasn’t able to do for her, with her father spending what Ma begged or worked for on drink. Her mother had hated begging, she hated telling fortunes—all those lies.

They drove a few more miles into the countryside. The driver was quiet again, he probably had to pee himself. He put on the brakes a quarter mile beyond a farmhouse. “Okay,” he said, “you can go take a leak, but don’t go anywhere. You won’t like it you start running off. You won’t get far anyways.”

God but it smelled good, the woods. He unzipped in front of her, started to pee. There was evidently more than that, thank God—he was moving into the bushes—it was her chance. “I’ll be behind that tree over there,” she called to him. A trail ran alongside the tree. She started running. Her head was beginning to clear, she hardly felt the pain. She only knew she needed to get away, over to that house. If they locked her out she’d break a window, climb in, she was that desperate. Or she’d crawl under the porch. When he came after her he’d think they took her in and he’d leave.

She heard him behind her, yelling. “Bitch, bitch—stop, bitch,” and she kept running. She could see the slate roof through the trees, a TV aerial. Her whole body seemed airborne, her breath one huge pain in her side. The running was consuming her, she couldn’t feel anything—feet, legs, head, torso. She was all air, hovering like some cyclone, headed down for the house.

She flung herself up on the porch; a chair was still rocking there, as though someone had been sitting in it and just got up. She banged on the door and no one came. She twisted the handle and it opened. Something was zooming toward her. She flung herself at the glittery object—something on wheels.

“Well, look what the wind blew in,” a rough voice said. And then there were a dozen voices clucking over her.

* * * *

Three federal agents were in Ruth’s kitchen when she got home from the horse farm. They’d walked in past Sharon’s protests, her daughter hissed when she met her mother at the door. Then she had to leave—”Sorry, Mom, Robbie’s dentist appointment.” One of the men had a rim of sugar on his upper lip—she bristled at that! A uniformed woman was on her knees, inspecting tub, sink, and floor, although the police had already ordered it done, and appropriated the traveller woman’s clothing. The trio took no notice of Ruth—she might have been a gust of wind that had blown through the door.

She cleared her throat. “I’m Ruth Willmarth, owner of this dairy farm.” She stuck a hand on her hip for emphasis. “This is my kitchen, not a Dunkin’ Donuts, thank you.”

The man with the sugar on his lip looked over and apologized. “They were mighty good,” he said, with a slight southern accent. “We’re here, ma’am, from the—”

“Department of Agriculture,” Ruth said. “The logo is on your shirt. We’ve nothing to hide here, a woman took a bath, that’s all. The police were here before you. There’s no proof she carries any disease.”

“Oh no, ma’am,” said Southern Accent. “We’re just being cautious. Sometimes the police, well, they overlook things. Everything turns out negative for CJD—then hey, you’re off the hook, you know, I mean unless they find that woman and she’s—”