A Hiss Before Dying

October 18, 2016 Tuesday

Crackling logs, the odor of sweet pearwood, gave the Virginians for Sustainable Wildlife meeting a cozy air. Harry hosted this month’s gathering, which had started at 6:30 in the evening. The members took turns hosting, which brought them closer together. A few of the people had known one another for years, but others were new to Crozet, to central Virginia. Being invited into someone’s home provided an opportunity to learn more about them, a sense of their taste, perhaps even their priorities. Anyone coming into Harry’s living room might share a seat with Mrs. Murphy or Pewter, both loath to move. Tucker had the sense to sprawl on the floor.

Jessica Ligon, doctor of veterinary medicine, young, well liked, finished up her report. “So we’re still seeing fleas and ticks. Granted, raccoons, possums, other quadrupeds deal with it. Fleas can give animals tapeworms. So when deer season starts and your house dog chews on a carcass left behind by an irresponsible hunter, then your dog gets an infestation. Just keep a lookout for them. But tapeworm is easy to purge, fortunately. Do the mammals have Lyme disease? I’m sure some do.”

“Why can’t we break the cycle in the wildlife?” MaryJo Cranston, an investment broker and the treasurer of the group, asked.

“The horrendous expense, for one thing. Plus, MaryJo, you can’t be sure the animals you want to purge of parasites are the ones ingesting the meds. An animal can carry the tick as well as be bitten by it. As for Lyme, we’d have to trap them, get blood. If infected, it’s an antibiotic protocol. Just can’t do it with wild animals, as it takes so many consecutive days of pills. We’d need to keep them in cages until the antibiotic cycle is complete; also, Lyme fatigues them. It’s just close to impossible.”

MaryJo, newer to the group, nodded. “It does sound complicated.”

Susan Tucker, president of the group and Harry’s childhood friend, checked her notes. “Jessica, thanks, we’re always fascinated with new developments in veterinary medicine for all animals.”

“The research being done now is amazing, especially with stem cells. That’s a whole other topic for another meeting, but it is in the future.”

“I read somewhere that veterinarians are better at managing chronic pain than doctors. You all are taught more about it,” BoomBoom Craycroft, another childhood friend of Harry and Susan’s, responded.

“We’ve made tremendous advances.” Jessica reached for her drink.

“Liz, you have your fowl report. Actually, why don’t I amend that to winged report.” Susan grinned.

“Good.” Liz Potter, a middle-aged African American woman passionate about the environment, checked the Apple tablet on her lap. “To date, a three percent increase in woodcock population in central Virginia. Also, grouse are increasing, especially in the Rockfish Valley. We’re getting ready for the raptors’ migration, so they’ll be in the thermal spirals along the Blue Ridge, especially in our area. That will allow us to count as many as we can and to monitor health. The migration is ten days later than usual this year and we think it is due to the unusual warmth. No frosts yet as you know. They are also late in New England.”

“Isn’t it wonderful to see those hawks just lazing in circles?” BoomBoom had been watching this fall phenomenon since she was a child, a phenomenon that drew birders from as far away as Japan.

“How are we doing with the bald eagles?” Harry said. “I see them here, usually flying along the creek.”

“Big comeback.” Liz nodded.

“Is it true that if you find a dead eagle, osprey, or red-shouldered hawk you can’t take feathers?” BoomBoom asked.

“Sure is,” Liz replied.

“Well, Liz,” BoomBoom prodded, “what difference does it make if the bird is dead? You haven’t harmed it and the feathers are beautiful.”

“State law.” Liz leaned forward. “The Apaches have gotten a pass from the government to wear eagle feathers, but if I walk into your house, say you have worked protected feathers into a big fall floral wreath, how do I know where you found them? Since no one can prove how they come by feathers, teeth, claws, fur, the idea is to ban ownership of anything of protected species unless you’re a member of a federally recognized tribe, and even that’s dicey. Think about the bracelets years ago of elephant hair— you remember, the thick black wristbands? Almost looked like rubber. Two or three would be bound by gold wire. Expensive. You can’t wear them today. I’m super-sensitive to this because of the antique clothing I carry in the store. Anything I carry that’s Native American I produce chain of title. You wouldn’t believe what I went through to establish that quilled Sioux dress as having been made in 1880. I sold a Flathead vest, beaded, made in 1900, and the paperwork was as heavy as the vest.”

Harry, surprised, blurted out, “People think you killed the birds or bears for furs and talons?”

MaryJo replied, “That’s why she has chain of title.”

“People trap endangered species as well as animals with thick winter pelts. Whenever the pelt prices go up for furs, the trappers work overtime just killing beaver, fox, wolf, even bear,” Liz told them, disgusted.

“Good thing cat fur isn’t valuable.” Tucker giggled. “Pewter, you’d be first on everyone’s list. Why, your pelt would be as big as a coyote’s.”

Pewter, on the back of Liz’s chair, narrowed her green eyes. “Yours would make a good coat. Warm, too.”

Mrs. Murphy, in Harry’s lap, added her two cents. “Corgi fur isn’t as soft as ours.”

“Whose side are you on?” Pewter sat up.

“She’s right. Your fur is softer. If someone didn’t want a coat, they could use you for a big pillow.”

Pewter shot off the chair, attacked the dog. The two rolled around on the floor, complete with sound effects, unleashed claws, gnashing teeth. Quite the spectacle.

“Harry, you have an attack cat.” MaryJo, never having met Pewter before, was apprehensive.

Susan laughed. “We always feel safer when Pewter’s around.”

Tucker freed herself from the grip of the large cat and scrambled out of the living room with Pewter right behind. The humans heard the door flap smack in the kitchen door, then the second door flap smack in the screened-in porch.

They also heard a yell. “Watch it!”

Cooper came inside, took off her coat, hung it on the coat peg in the kitchen, and joined the group. “Harry, they about took me out.”

The women laughed and chatted with Cooper until Susan restored a semblance of order. “Cooper, we were just finishing up. Bow season’s started for deer. We were talking about poachers.”

“Not my department, but bow season’s more calm than black powder or regular season, which starts November nineteenth.”

“Think we’ll ever see open season on humans?” BoomBoom half-jokingly said.

“Boom, we have that now,” the sheriff’s department officer replied.

“I thought this was a quiet year?” Susan leaned back in her chair, inhaling the fire’s fragrance.

“Actually, it has been a quiet year. So far only two murders in the county, both domestic violence.”

“Weren’t those two murders related?” Liz asked.

“They were,” Cooper replied. “A small meth lab behind the high school, of all places, run by a husband and wife and another couple. Argument escalated. The usual. Let’s hope that’s it for the year.”

The door flap smacked again and Pewter sauntered in with a satisfied look. “I terrified that miserable dog. Just scared the poop out of her.”

The tiger cat complimented her friend. “Is she hiding in the barn?”

“Cowering in the tack room. Shaking. Pathetic sight. Don’t mess with me.” Pewter puffed out her considerable chest, strolled to the fireplace, sat down in front of the screen, and licked a paw.

Tucker had outrun the fatty. Granted, the dog did run to the barn and did shoot into the tack room—because Harry always had a dish of food for her there.

Liz, never having been in Harry’s old farmhouse, observed the preening cat. “That may be the biggest cat I’ve ever seen.”

“And you could open a beer can with your nose,” Pewter sassed.

Liz’s nose evidenced a slight hook, but it wasn’t that bad.

“We’d love it if you’d join our Virginians for Sustainable Wildlife,” MaryJo invited Cooper, handing her a printed sheet with wildlife statistics and issues.

“I’ll be supportive, but MaryJo, I can’t really commit to meetings. I’m never sure about my schedule. I’m studying ballistics online. I really do think that what you all are doing is terrific,” Cooper replied.

“What got you interested in ballistics? It seems an unusual area of study,” BoomBoom questioned.

She shrugged. “So much of what involves solving crimes is technical. I need to keep learning. Ed Clark suggested I study online.”

“Ed Clark. Really.” MaryJo was impressed.

Ed Clark, one of the founders of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, had a passion for firearm history, even owning old rifles and pistols.

“I was over at the Lyndhurst building. Wanted some wildlife information, recovery rates, that sort of thing, and when I walked by Ed’s car, I noticed a beautiful flintlock rifle in the backseat. I asked him about it,” MaryJo continued. “He really does know a lot.”

“Some of those firearms are works of art. The engraving on the metal, just exquisite. Plus, I like the proportions of the old guns.” Susan appreciated anything aesthetically accomplished.

“Harry, you have an old flintlock,” BoomBoom remembered. “When we were studying the Revolutionary War in school, your father showed it to the class.”

Harry got up, pulled the small library ladder to the bookshelf, climbed up, pulled a wooden box off it, stepped down, and opened it to show the group. The well-preserved firearm rested on satin.

“Harry, take that to a gunsmith. First, it’s valuable. Second, it’s probably serviceable,” MaryJo enthused.

“I never thought of it. Kind of like my great-grandfather’s Army saber. It’s always been there.” She looked closely at the pistol, realizing it was beautiful.

“Who did it belong to?” Liz wondered.

Harry replaced the pistol and returned to the circle. “Mother’s family. They fought in the Revolutionary War. One of my great-greats was at Yorktown. Dad’s family, Johnny-come-latelies, didn’t get here until afterward. I used to tease Mom and tell her we’ve been here since the earth was cooling.”

Susan sighed. “Both of our families go way, way back. My paternal grandmother had a few snotty moments about it. She’s gone now, but Harry’s mother nor mine ever took the grand and airy road.”

BoomBoom laughed. “Oh, there’s nothing quite like a Virginia blood snob.”

“Charleston, south of Broad, is pretty bad.” Susan’s mouth, closed, curled upward.

“Charleston is so beautiful. If we lived there we’d all be snobs.” Liz Potter laughed.

MaryJo returned to her flintlock subject. “Harry, do take that pistol to a gunsmith.” She put her hands on her knees. “Well, let me tell you the best part about Ed’s flintlock.

“He took me away from where the animals are kept. He didn’t want noise to upset them, and he showed me how to fire the rifle.”

Cooper smiled but said nothing. In his enthusiasm he’d had her fire a flintlock pistol. Animal control, wildlife preservation was not her territory, but Cooper met Ed years ago when he was testifying in court about pelt values, illegal trapping. They struck up a friendship, both finding common territory over firearms.

“Cool!” Harry enthused.

“Isn’t it complicated?” Jessica inquired.

“Well, you have to ram the bullet, a ball, down; actually, first you have to put the powder in, or if it’s a rifle with a pan, you put the powder there,” MaryJo babbled on. “Anyway, I guess it is complicated. You have to do the steps in the exact order.”

“And?” Cooper used a Glock in her line of work.

“You pull back the trigger, which as you know is fancy and stands upright, and boom! Lots of smoke. I loved it.”

“Keep your powder dry.” BoomBoom grinned.

“It’s the truth. Anyway, Ed told me about an old firearms club; they have a firing range and I’m going to join. It’s like living history,” MaryJo enthused.

“Now you’ve got me curious,” Harry admitted.

“All we need. Her in the back pastures with a flintlock rifle,” Pewter grumbled.

“You can be very accurate,” MaryJo continued. “But obviously the range isn’t terribly far. I mean, that’s why at the Battle of Bunker Hill the officer said, ‘Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!’ about the advancing British.”

“Those men had courage,” Cooper said admiringly.

“Tell you what. I think whether you marched in a cohort or wore chain mail or stood in a square to repulse a cavalry charge, you had guts.” Harry paused. “I was reading last night about the Battle of Borodino in Russia, Napoleonic Wars, and it made me cry.” She paused for a moment. “I read military history. My husband reads novels. We’re a pair.”

“A pair of what?” Susan teased her and they all laughed.

BoomBoom rose to stand before the fire, next to Pewter, who was not going to move. “Hey, Cooper, did you ever find the driver of that rig? The one left on Afton Mountain yesterday?”

“Funny you should ask. Rick called,” Cooper responded, referring to Sheriff Rick Shaw, her boss. “The search team found him about a half hour ago, wedged under a big boulder.”

“Wedged?” BoomBoom voiced the question for everyone.

“Like he crawled there?” Harry pressed.

“I didn’t see him, but the boss said it appeared he either fell next to the boulder or tried to protect himself, using it as a shield. Half his face was shredded. One eye is missing.”

“Shredded?” Susan exclaimed.

“The sheriff’s exact word.” Cooper’s eyebrows were raised as she said it.

The door flap sounded again. Tucker quietly walked into the room.

Pewter announced, “Hey, they found a body, a one-eyed body.”

“What are you talking about?” the dog wondered.

“The eagle.” Pewter lifted her head up slightly.

“The eagle and the eye,” Mrs. Murphy chimed in.

“Just because they found a defaced body doesn’t mean the eagle did it.” Tucker didn’t feel like giving Pewter any credit.

“Doesn’t mean he didn’t.” Mrs. Murphy stayed in Harry’s lap. “With talons like that I figure an eagle could tear off the side of a Volkswagen.”

“You’ve got a point there.” The dog shuddered.

Pewter loudly announced to the humans, “See! See! This wretch is terrified of me, shaking. I’m the top dog here.”

“Pewter” was all Mrs. Murphy said.

—

A single lamp allowed “the boys,” as their wives called them, to play cards at what had been termed the “colored” schoolhouses, which their wives were now trying to save. Fair Haristeen, Ned Tucker, Bruce Cranston, and Andy Potter avidly studied their respective hands. While each husband esteemed his wife’s community involvement, he did not feel called upon to imitate it, at least where wildlife was concerned. The old schoolhouses elicited a bit more of their interest.

Dr. Jessica Ligon and Cooper were not yet married, and BoomBoom had been married once, one too many times for her. So those “girls,” as the men called them, had no fellow at the table. Given one’s mood, depending on wins or losses, that may have been a blessing.

Fair’s eyebrows lifted slightly. Not a great hand, but not a bad one, either. As they bid, put down cards, picked up others, they chatted. Sometimes escaping into nonessential activities minus the very essential wife proved restorative.

“That damned skin has been hanging in her shop for a year,” Andy grumbled about one of Liz’s prized pieces of merchandise.

“It’s expensive. It only takes the right person to walk through the door,” Bruce Cranston counseled.

Bruce, a landscape architect, wed to MaryJo, stated the obvious, to himself anyway. Ned Tucker, Susan’s husband, was the district’s delegate to the Virginia House of Delegates. Fair was an equine vet, Andy Potter ran an insurance company founded by his grandfather, the first African American insurance company in central Virginia.

“Selling is an art. You sell designs, service, really, just like as you need to prepare the ground, plant stuff. I sell security, peace of mind.” Andy folded his hand, not a good one. “Ben Franklin sold insurance. Fair, you sell your know-how, and Ned, it scares me to think what you sell.”

The fellows laughed.

Ned could take a ribbing. “Mock me if you must, but I sell good government.”

“Ned, do you think anyone gives a damn anymore?” Bruce shook his head.

“If it affects them, yes. But so few people think about the big picture now. That’s tearing us apart.”

This set off a spirited discussion, which put the card game on hold for a while.

“We sure don’t want to work with one another.” Fair laid down his cards.

“Everyone needs to be right and who is? Politics is lots of hot air, give and take, now it’s just hot air and take.” Bruce sighed. “Ned, I don’t see how you stand it.”

“You can inch a few things forward at the state level. Nationally, it’s a disaster. Look, take these two schoolhouses and the identical shed. Three buildings that represent our segregated past and the mess from 1912 of lumping what they called ‘colored’ and ‘Indian’ together. If this were a national project there would be layer and layer of supervision, school buildings. By the time we cleared all the hurdles the buildings would no longer be salvageable and we’d be dead.”

“Racism, don’t you think?” Bruce looked at Andy.

“What am I, the expert?” He half smiled, then did answer. “Our governor is focused on business, on bringing money into the state. Virginia relies on so much federal funding, partly due to all the military bases. That funding has been cut back. Our governor and the delegates haven’t the time for historic preservation unless it’s the Founding Fathers, and even then.” He shrugged. “But their lack of interest has given us a free hand, more or less.”

“You’re right,” Fair replied. “We can do something about these buildings, and thanks to your wife, Andy, and to Tazio Chappers, I think we will save them, in time, in good time.”

“I’m on it.” Ned tidied his cards.

Tazio was a young mixed-race architect bursting with ability.

“The key was raising the twelve thousand for the three heat pumps, then another five to repair the standing-seam tin roofs, which, considering all, have held up, but they did need help. No pipes froze, so we could turn the water back on—which hadn’t been on for about thirty years—and damned if it didn’t do just fine. The well is good, we replaced the old pump just to be sure, but these buildings really were built to last.” Ned ran down the list of what they had accomplished already. “And Governor Holloway, may he rest in peace, helped us with the kickoff. Tazio and Liz were smart enough to let him speak about segregation.” Andy was quite proud of his wife’s acumen, it was just the damned Sioux regalia for sale at her store, the stunning deerskin long dress covered in dyed quills, some beads, that he questioned. The late Governor Holloway was Susan Tucker’s grandfather, a vital man in Virginia history.

“I’m supposed to meet with the girls November ninth.” Ned got up to throw another log into the potbellied stove. “I do what I can, same as I do what I can for the wildlife group.”

“Bears and eagles are everywhere,” Fair noted, making already successful preservation efforts. “The Center for Conservation Biology at William and Mary have counted one thousand seventy bald eagle nests.”

“How about that?” Bruce whistled.

“There are many factors. I think the biggest one is banning certain pesticides.” Ned took his seat. “This whole struggle over chemicals like Roundup, the weed killer, is one of the toughest things we’re facing down in Richmond. What it comes down to—and this doesn’t really impact America’s symbolism—is, I think, now everyone understands the danger of DDT, but realistically how much do you want to pay for a tomato? Really.” The others looked at him, so he continued. “Without some chemical help, farmers will lose, in some cases, eighty percent of their crop. Some crops are fragile by nature. Think of all the bugs that can ruin apples, or deer eating them? We’ve got to find some sort of balance to protect our wildlife and our plant life, as well as provide affordable food for our people.”

“A balancing act. I guess all business comes down to that. Mine certainly does,” Andy said.

“MaryJo has to assure people she’s not investing in companies that use cheap labor in foreign countries. She even has a client who won’t invest in any company doing business with China. Half of what she does is hold hands.”

“Is MaryJo still working with Panto Noyes?”

Panto Noyes, a lawyer from one of Virginia’s unrecognized tribes, oversaw investments from people who considered themselves Native Americans. The Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs deemed otherwise. Virginia suffered for more than a century because the federal government refused to recognize any tribes. Given that Virginia began in 1607 and subsequent Caucasians and African Americans married Native peoples, proof was far more difficult than for someone from Montana.

“Ned,” Andy asked, “still working on getting Virginia tribes recognized? After a century-plus we did get, what?, eight recognized by the federal government? I know that’s a big deal for Panto.”

“I am.” Ned sighed as he looked at his cards. “I don’t know if there’s anything we can do for those unrecognized tribes or individuals. It’s complicated, and places like this schoolhouse created the complications.”

“How?” Fair finally held a good hand.

“Well, when Walter Pletcher got his damnable legislation passed for the state records in 1912 which said any blood not ‘white’ blood is ‘colored’ blood. I mean, that’s really it in a nutshell. What could anyone do back then? And kids who went to schools like this, who maybe didn’t live with their tribe, lived and worked outside those boundaries, they married each other. It can’t be untangled, truthfully. Doesn’t mean I and others won’t keep trying to provide some kind of benefits, to hold the federal government’s feet to the fire. The paperwork a person must fill out to prove tribal affiliation is just about impossible for most Virginians. And, of course, DNA proof is inadmissible. Pletcher muddied the waters by calling, legislating, everyone colored.”

“And it’s an issue way on the back burner,” Andy noted.

“Right now, anything that doesn’t involve the presidential election is on the back burner. These elections literally paralyze government every time around, and it seems in between now, too. Nothing gets done.” Ned hated it.

“That’s a good thing.” Fair laughed. “Remember what Ben Franklin said: ‘No man’s life or property is safe when Congress is in session.’ ”

They all laughed.