A Hiss Before Dying

November 22, 2016 Tuesday

Oak leaves shivered on trees. They turned gold or sometimes orange then brown. Many did not fall off the tree. Instead, they shook a little. If a breeze intensified, what seemed to be self-inflicted shaking grew more pronounced. The dried leaves would then loudly rustle. Harry often thought no other fall leaves sounded like oak. Virginia abounded in many types of oak. She couldn’t remember if it was forty or fifty or what.

“Susan, how many kinds of oak are in Virginia?”

Next to her friend in the Volvo, Susan shrugged. “I don’t know. Why do you think of these things?”

“I don’t know.” Harry smiled.

“No cat would waste time on that.” Pewter tossed off this criticism.

“No human would waste time on catnip.” Tucker, next to Pewter in the backseat, stared out the window.

“Oh, yes they do,” the gray cat fired back. “They make catnip tea. Why you would want to waste a heavenly herb on tea, who knows?”

“All that catnip she harvested mid-September, hanging upside down in the high rafters of the tractor shed. How I wish we could get at it,” Mrs. Murphy dreamed.

“She’ll bring it down for Thanksgiving and she’ll also make you catnip socks for Christmas,” Tucker predicted.

“She is good about that,” Mrs. Murphy affirmed.

Back in the front seat, Harry asked, “Did you like target practice with the flintlock?”

“I did, actually,” Susan replied. “I’m glad you took me to the shooting range because I would have had a hard time without an instructor. What I found interesting was how good the pistol feels in your hand. Thanks for letting me use it.”

“Does, doesn’t it?” Harry nodded. “So many modern pistols are heavy. ’Course, most law enforcement people like Glocks. Coop uses a Glock. Actually, for a modern gun I still prefer a revolver.” She took a curve on Garth Road. “So many people are dead set against firearms, but I find shooting targets at home or going to the range relaxing. Also, when you consider the history of guns and rifles, that’s fascinating.”

“Today is the day Kennedy was shot in 1963, speaking of firearms.”

Harry thought a moment. “Right. Ever notice if you haven’t lived through an event yourself, you might pay attention but it doesn’t emotionally affect you too much? The people who remember it will be remembering where they were at the time. I’m glad we were born later.”

“Richard Neville was born today in 1428.” Susan held the hand rest as Harry turned right. “Speaking of dates, I’ve always been fascinated by the War of the Roses, and Neville was a brilliant man. I love Philippa Gregory’s books.”

“I think the world does.” Harry slowed on the country road although it was paved. “Some people have the knack of making history come to life. Academics are snotty about historical fiction. I think it’s a great way to learn.”

“You went to Smith. You aren’t an academic but you certainly received the best education.” Susan said this admiringly.

“Did. I’m hoping over time I will get to know Marvella Larson better. She knows more than any of us and I really love the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.” She pointed to her right. “Don’t you wish Cloverfields still stood? That was the site of the main house.”

“I do. We’re luckier than many other states. Virginia has preserved so much of her heritage,” Susan agreed.

“Because we were too poor to tear buildings down at the end of the nineteenth century and for most of the twentieth when everyone put up big glass blocks. Most of that stuff is ugly as a mud fence.”

They both laughed.

“Speaking of Cloverfields, do you have your chit underneath your sweater?”

“Do.” Harry pulled up the brass piece on the box chain. “I wonder who wore this. I wonder about their life and who wore Number Five and Liz’s Number Seven? It makes it real. I like to touch things from the past.”

“That’s what got MaryJo and Panto into all that tribal stuff. How long have people been wearing those skins, dancing, singing? Plus MaryJo sent away for the DNA testing, which she declares proves she has twenty-seven percent tribal blood. At least she’s shut up about it finally. Remember when she’d constantly bring it up?”

“Yeah.” Harry stopped at the crest of the hill at the back of Cloverfields. They looked toward the ravines where the bridges had been built, although you couldn’t see down into the ravines. They were too far away.

“Sometimes, late afternoon, I like to sit with Grandmother and Mother at Big Rawly, look over the fields. Think of footsteps down the hall over the centuries.”

“That place is so beautiful and isn’t it odd that Big Rawly survived but Cloverfields didn’t? The Garths were supposed to be so highly intelligent but Fate doesn’t always play favorites.”

“Apparently not.” Susan stared at the sky, long afternoon rays softening everything as Harry turned, drove over a cut hayfield stopping near the site of the old main house.

As they sat there, a brand-new truck barreled up from the slope to the ravine. Both women watched this $60,000 Ford F-250 diesel rumble by, hesitate as the driver beheld the Volvo near the house site, then move faster, speeding away.

“Isn’t that Panto?” Susan inquired.

“Sure is. He must be making the bucks to buy that new big-ass truck.”

They sat silently for a time.

“I’m going to follow him.” Harry put down her window. “Hear that?”

“Loud.”

“Sounds like he has a glass pack under there but Panto isn’t exactly the hot rod type. That’s the true sound of that beast of an engine.”

“So what?”

“When I stood at the top of the ridge, shooting at whoever shot at me, I heard a truck start up. That’s how loud the exhaust note was.”

“Harry, this can’t be the only truck in the county that sounds like that,” Susan chided her.

“No and yes.” She turned to Susan. “Something’s wrong. Where did Panto get that kind of money? He’s a lawyer who represents tribes. He’s not representing Altria or Anthem. You get the idea. Something is wrong. Plus he knows me. I think whoever shot at me knows me. I’m going to follow him.”

“Harry, you’re nuts, number one. Number two, this Volvo station wagon isn’t exactly inconspicuous.”

“Trust me.”

“Dear God,” Susan whispered.

The animals sat still, preparing for who knows what. When Harry took a notion, things happened, often bad things.

Out on Garth Road, Harry waited for another car to get between her and Panto. Then she pulled out. He drove down Garth Road to Owensville Road, turned left, then turned right down the drive of one of the expensive, lovely homes on the road.

“There. Are you satisfied?” Susan folded her arms over her chest. “He’s going to MaryJo’s. They work together all the time. Put your imagination to rest.”

“I’m hungry,” Pewter whined.

“We’ll be home soon,” Mrs. Murphy told her, as she, too, would be happy to eat.

They reached the intersection of Route 250, turned west, past Duner’s, the popular restaurant at Ivy Commons, then the countryside opened up a bit.

Halfway to the right turn to Route 240 into Crozet, Panto’s truck roared by them at such speed, Harry pulled over. Before she could pull back onto the road, a sleek Cadillac CTS also roared by her. They passed the 240 turn.

“Hey, that’s MaryJo’s car.” Harry wondered what was going on.

Pulling out behind the wildly speeding cars, both Harry and Susan watched MaryJo tail Panto.

“People do this kind of thing if they’re lovers and have had a fight,” Susan observed. “I never thought of the two of them having an affair. Did you?”

“No. Jesus, they’re going eighty miles an hour on a two-lane highway. I’m going sixty and that’s fast enough.”

MaryJo pulled next to the F-250, slammed into the truck, then dropped back as cars came toward her from the opposite lane.

“What the—?” Harry shouted.

“Don’t go near them, Harry,” Susan warned her. “They’re crazy.”

MaryJo again slammed into Panto’s truck, pushing him partly off the road. Again, Harry had to pull back.

“He’s going to head for 64,” Susan predicted.

“I don’t know.” Harry looked in her rearview mirror to see three animals leaning against one another in the backseat, eyes wide open.

The stoplight on old Route 250 to turn to Crozet proper was red and a line of traffic headed east as well as a lot of people in the turnoff lane, including Panto with MaryJo right behind him.

“I’m going to call Coop.” Susan pulled her cellphone out of her purse.

The unloaded flintlock pistol was sliding on the seat so Harry picked it up, dropping it on her lap.

Susan filled Cooper in on what was happening.

“You’re the second report,” the deputy told her. “I’ll be on my way. I’m calling for backup.”

Harry handed the gun to Susan. “Load this up, will you?”

“Why?”

“Just in case.” Harry turned right. “I don’t know, but do it anyway.”

Once Panto drove under the railroad overpass, he turned left at the Amoco station and floored it. MaryJo, hot on his tail, did the same.

Cars, trucks driving in the opposite direction pulled off the road. Some honked. Most had the sense to pull off into a pasture if possible.

The two wild drivers thundered west, even the slightest curve at that speed courted danger.

Harry, no fool, stuck to sixty miles an hour, sometimes less.

“Someone’s going to die,” Pewter prophesied. “As long as it isn’t me.” She thought a moment. “Us.”

“That’s big of you.” Tucker lurched to the right, bumping into Mrs. Murphy, who at least had claws to dig into the plush leather seats.

Panto slowed, allowing MaryJo to pull right beside him. He lowered the driver’s window and fired. While neither Harry nor Susan could see the sidearm, they knew he fired because MaryJo’s back window exploded as she had seen the gun and pulled slightly ahead of Panto, but still next to him. Furious, MaryJo hit his truck harder.

Her CTS, heavy, wasn’t as heavy as the F-250 but she could still push. He fired again, hitting her in the shoulder, and in taking his eyes off the road, crunched off the highway with his right tires. He overcorrected and now slammed into MaryJo. Again, they sped, now on a straightaway.

Susan again called Cooper, who was approaching Crozet from Route 240 and drawing closer, five minutes away at most. Another curve loomed. Panto handling the large truck, tried to corner it but he slid, the heavy-duty truck leaning dangerously to the right and MaryJo used her moment, smashing into the truck with all her might. The new vehicle rolled over but landed upright. MaryJo pulled close, opened her own window, and fired. Harry and Susan saw blood spatter his windshield. MaryJo, half off the road herself, turned around, saw Harry behind her by perhaps fifteen yards. As Harry closed in, MaryJo leveled her .45 Smith & Wesson. She missed the humans but blew out the wide windows in the back. Harry, furious, grabbed the gun from Susan, pulled a U, not easy in the station wagon, and barreled down on MaryJo as the crazed woman was trying to get firmly on the road.

Using the flintlock, Harry fired and MaryJo’s windshield shattered. The Cadillac stopped. Harry kept going.

Susan, adrenaline high, shouted, “Bull’s-eye.”

Covered in glass bits, thanks to the ball’s perfect hit, MaryJo now focused on Harry and Susan, whom she could see just ahead. As she closed in after them, flooring it, Cooper prudently waited about half a mile down the road, as she could somewhat see what was going on. She let Harry pass, then fired her Glock at MaryJo’s tires. One blew, but the woman determinedly tried to keep on. Cooper, a crack shot, blew out another one. MaryJo crashed.

Sirens blared from all four directions. MaryJo, though alive, was toast.

“Dammit,” Harry swore, and she rarely swore. “Now I have to replace those windows.”

“Glass. Little bits of glass,” Pewter bitterly complained. “It will get into my paws.”

Harry pulled into a church driveway near the town, stepped out of the car, lifted up Pewter, came round to Susan, and put the cat in her lap. Then she picked up Tucker and told the wonderful corgi to squeeze next to Susan. Lastly she picked up Mrs. Murphy, holding the tiger in her lap as she drove home.

“She understood.” Pewter was amazed.

“Sometimes humans get it,” Tucker replied. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Ever.”

“Let’s hope it was the first and last time,” Mrs. Murphy added. “A new Cadillac banging into a new truck. Usually if people spend money on something they take care of it.”

“He’s dead. We’ll only hear one side of the story once Cooper drags MaryJo out of the car,” Pewter reasoned.

“Susan, let me go home after we give Coop our statements. Fair should be home soon and he can drive you back. I don’t want to drive this car any farther than I must.”

“Sure.” Susan’s heart slowed down a bit. “I think Panto or MaryJo would have killed us if they’d had the chance.”

“Maybe they’ve tried before.” Harry glanced at her friend.

“Dear God.” Susan exhaled. “That was the craziest thing I have ever seen. If they’d hit people, other cars, deer, house, dogs, they wouldn’t have stopped or cared. Lunatics. Madness.”

“Sure was, but even mad men have a kind of logic,” Harry replied.