Cat on the Scent

11

Pewter, wild-eyed and puffed up, charged through the animal flap at the back of the post office. “Come quick!”

Without arguing, Mrs. Murphy rushed outside, closely followed by Tucker. Pewter's short, furry tail disappeared around the corner to the front of Market Shiflett's grocery store. She leapt onto the fruit display outside the front door.

Mrs. Murphy followed, finding herself amid the banana display. “Ever see a banana spider?” she hissed.

She soon forgot about the furry spiders hiding among the yellow bunches because inside, Sir H. Vane-Tempest and Archie Ingram were shouting at the top of their lungs. A small crowd was gathered, including Market Shiflett, who stood beside the screened front door of his store. It was still too cool for air-conditioning.

“You've forgotten—” Vane-Tempest sputtered.

“I've forgotten nothing.”

“You've forgotten who your friends are.” Vane-Tempest stepped closer to Archie, who suddenly hit him on the left cheek. He lashed out so quickly that Archie surprised both himself and the Englishman.

Reeling backward, Vane-Tempest lifted a soft hand to cover the red mark.

Still in a fury, Archie taunted the old man. “You're the one who forgets, Vane-Tempest, and it will catch up with you!”

Before the Englishman could lunge forward, a rattled Archie had backed out of the store, parting the gaggle of people.

Harry stuck her head out of the post office, since the shouts had penetrated even there. She stuck it back in. The altercation was none of her business. Besides, people were soon pouring into the post office, all telling their versions of the tale.

Mrs. Murphy moved over to sit on the apples. “Friendship is like a love affair. When it sours, pfff-t!”

“Ours won't.” Pewter rubbed her cheek against the slender tiger.

“We're cats. We're smarter than people,” Murphy purred. She liked attention and she especially liked being groomed.

“Don't you wonder what's happened?”

“It's the rock quarry,” Pewter said.

“That was ages ago,” Mrs. Murphy remembered.

“Some people are on slow fuses,” Pewter remarked.

Tucker stepped away from the fruit stand to better see the cats. “Bet there's a woman involved.”

“Maybe,” Mrs. Murphy noted.

“Who would go out with H. Vane-Tempest apart from his very expensive wife? A puff adder, that man!” Pewter likened people to animals.

“Who said it was H. Vane?” Tucker winked.

“Gross,” came the tiger's tart comment.

They walked over to the post office, going in by the front door as yet another resident opened it. Sir H. Vane-Tempest was loudly explaining his side of the story.

“He's become irrational. He thinks everyone is against him. Even Aileen has noticed it. I spoke to her last week about Archie's personality disintegration.”

Aileen was Archie's wife.

“It's difficult being on the county commission when opinion in the county is so divided,” Miranda offered.

“He asked for the job,” Big Mim tartly observed.

“Won't have it for long,” Little Mim said, which made her mother smile slightly.

“Ever since the storms this winter when Sugar Hollow washed—the terrible flooding—he's not been the same,” Vane-Tempest said.

“It can't be that,” Miranda shrewdly noticed. “You don't think so either.”

Vane-Tempest eyed her. “Well—well, whatever has come over him has been intensifying since that time. I was the man's friend . . . when no one else wanted to hear about preserving the environment.”

Tucker interrupted. “He's sure tooting his own horn.”

“Quiet,” Harry reprimanded her.

Vane-Tempest continued. “He's argued with everyone. Aileen says he hardly speaks to her when he comes home at night. He goes into his den and pores over papers and maps. And yes, I am angry that he lobbied the commission to deny permission for me to establish a rock quarry. But I'll get over it.”

“Will he?” Mim sharply said.

“I didn't act that badly,” Vane-Tempest defended himself. “He did.”

“He certainly did today.” Little Mim played with the soft leather weave of her Bottega Veneta bag.

“You should have offered him a share of the business when his term expired.” Mim surprised everyone with her comment, then added, “Really, people, how do you think anything gets done here?”

“That's a bribe,” Miranda said firmly.

“No. You don't ask him to vote your way, you simply offer him a job when his term expires. It's done in Washington on an hourly basis and the pity of it is, it isn't done well. We'd have better government if it were.”

“Cynic.” Vane-Tempest smiled.

“Realist.” Mim tapped her foot on the polished wooden floors, polished with use. “People in government can't make money while they're in government. So you must use your position to develop contacts for when your term expires.”

No one said a word for a minute. Mim had a way of boring straight to the heart of a problem. The truth was that Archie, a small printer by trade, didn't make much money. The county-commission post carried no stipend and the time it sucked up diverted his attention from a business that could have been more lucrative.

“He'd never give up his business.” Vane-Tempest betrayed his own thoughts, which was exactly what Mim had hoped to achieve by being forthright. Being an Englishman, he couldn't have known she was baiting him. The Virginians knew exactly what she was doing, which was why they fell silent after she spoke.

“Aileen could run it.” Little Mim worked well with her mother despite her irritation with her overbearing parent. “She runs it anyway.”

“Archie lacks the common touch and a good printer has to be able to deal with people who have little idea of how long it takes to print anything or what it costs. You're right. He ought to turn the whole business over to Aileen. As for why he wanted to be a county commissioner, well, he has his pet concerns, but truthfully, he wanted the power.” Vane-Tempest cracked a knuckle, revealing his rare nervousness.

“Human meetings waste time,” Pewter blandly noted. “Everyone has to express an opinion. Then everyone else has to rebut it or add to it. I say shut up and get the job done.”

“They can't,” Mrs. Murphy shrewdly observed. “Most cats are roughly equal, if you think about it. I mean, we can all jump about the same height, run about the same speed. They're very different from one another. Their talents are wildly different. The only way they can survive is to talk to one another and reach a consensus. All herd animals are like that. We're not herd animals.”

“Neither am I,” Tucker protested.

“You're a pack animal. Same difference.”

“I am an individual.”

“I never said you weren't an individual, Tucker. But dogs tend to run in packs and kill in packs.”

“I herd cows, sheep, anything. I'm not a hunting dog.”

“You're an argumentative one.” Mrs. Murphy flicked her tail.

“Tucker is the exception that proves the rule.” Pewter didn't feel like a fight. Hearing Archie and H. Vane was enough for her.

Vane-Tempest threw back his shoulders. “I can't talk to Arch, obviously, but I do think some of you can. Maybe you can cast oil upon the waters.”

“‘Yet man is born into trouble, as the sparks fly upward.'” Miranda quoted Job, Chapter 5, Verse 7.

“What's that supposed to mean?” the Englishman mildly inquired.

“I don't know. Just popped into my head.” Mrs. H. laughed at herself.

Just then the Reverend Herbert Jones pushed open the door. Everyone stopped to stare at him.

“What do you think?” Herb asked.

He stood there, shoulders back, head erect, wearing his Confederate sergeant major's uniform with the red facings of the artillery.

Then everyone started talking at once.

“Odd,” Tucker said.

“Why?” the cats asked.

“Like the dead coming to life, isn't it?”