Catch As Cat Can

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.