Furmidable Foes

6

May 26, 2019

Sunday

“Aren’t those pink and white dogwoods lining the driveway of the old hunt club smashing? I wish Farmington Hunt Club was still there. Although all things change, I guess.” Harry looked out the window as they drove on Garth Road east.

“Yes, they’re gorgeous. I think the work being done on the schoolhouses outside Crozet is impressive.” Fair, driving the Volvo station wagon, mentioned the old schools being rehabilitated.

“What a long haul that was to put the county commissioner’s feet to the fire.” Harry turned around as Pewter wanted to come up from the backseat. “No, if you come up, then the others will want to come up.”

“The dogs can stay in the back. I need to help drive.” With that, Pewter started to step onto the center console.

“I said, ‘No.’ ”

“Spoilsport. You don’t have to sit with these lowlife dogs.”

Mrs. Murphy upbraided Pewter. “Everything’s been fine until now.”

Tucker, curling her lip, snarled, “Shut up.”

Poor Pirate drooped his ears, being the youngest and very sensitive.

Pewter narrowed her eyes, hissed, then returned to the center console. Harry smacked her front paws, which forced no retreat but did stop her forward motion.

“Tazio Chappars testifying at an open county meeting along with the people she organized did the trick.” Harry mentioned a young, talented, mixed-race architect who had also presented plans and the cost. She had been impressively organized.

The schools, called the Colored Schools, a grammar school to eighth grade, and the identical, if slightly larger, building for ninth through twelfth, plus a third for equipment, deteriorated when it closed down in the seventies. The word “colored” had been started in 1911 to lump together children of tribal heritage, mostly Monacans and some Appomatti, with children of African blood. This sleight of hand by Walter Plecker, head of the Virginia census from 1912 until 1946, was one of the worst things ever done in Virginia in the early twentieth century.

The buildings—frame with wonderful floor-to-ceiling windows, narrow oak plank floors, and a potbellied stove in the middle of the room—served generations of children. Served they were, for they had good teachers, not one of them white, also by design. Those were bad times, but those children learned. Their teachers devoted their lives to the young.

Tazio, pushed into this by a lady who had passed now, gathered Harry, Susan, all their friends, and the husbands, too. History teaches us that if we are willing to actually embrace the truth and not the ideology du jour, things are more easily accomplished.

So finally the county released funds and Tazio, with her team, was breathing life into the buildings and our past, which would be visited by students throughout the county. Each class would have a day or two to learn firsthand about former times.

“Think we’ll ever know the truth about anything? Like Caesar’s death? Who was in on it? We know some, but don’t you think there were silent participants? Or what about the rebuilding of Paris under Napoleon II? Will we ever know what they found in those medieval streets and where the people really went?”

“Whoever is in power writes history. Somebody always has an ax to grind. Probably why I didn’t much like history in high school. A bunch of battles and dates,” Fair responded.

“M-m-m. Honey, you forgot to turn at the Beau Pre sign.”

“See, you fascinated me.” He reached over to squeeze her hand.

“Oh, bull. But don’t let that stop you.” She smiled at him. He drove down the quite steep hill to Ivy Creek, even steeper back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The road on which they drove, named after the Garths on the north side, housed the Holloways on the south. Both estates impressed, although Cloverfields, more restrained, heading toward high Georgian, paled before the splendor of Big Rawly, tons of money spent on it by Francisco Selisse. As his wife had studied in Paris at a convent school for well-born young girls, she being filthy rich from the Caribbean, the house looked like a marvelous French château. Reputed to be brutal, Maureen Selisse, later Holloway, reflected high aesthetic values.

He turned right at the bottom of the hill, turned around, no traffic this Sunday, nosed out on Garth Road, and turned left again at the small Beau Pre sign. The area somewhat reflected the French influence and Big Rawly commanded the rise it had commanded since the 1760s. A high view is a good view.

Passing the ferocious angel who guarded Eden in the family graveyard, they pulled into the estate itself. Susan, her mother, and her grandmother, along with Owen, the corgi, came out to greet them.

“Ned’s already in the back,” Susan informed Fair, which meant, “Get to it.”

This he did as Harry walked into the house. Mrs. Holloway’s old dog slept impervious to the commotion.

“A libation?” Grandmother Holloway asked.

“Thank you, no. I’m going out to see if I can salvage anything from your old shed.”

“Well, it’s not as old as the estate”—Susan’s mother smiled—“but it’s older than Mother and I.”

At this, all three of the Holloway women laughed.

Out the back door followed by Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, Pirate, and Owen, Harry walked the twenty yards to the crumbling clapboard structure. Susan followed in a few minutes after bringing her clippers to cut back some vines. Harry reached for a pair of gloves her husband handed to her.

“Ned, you’ve been busy,” Harry noted, observing the crumbling shed before her.

“Time has done a lot of it for me. The roof is shot. All I had to do was tap what was left and the tar paper covering fell.”

“Beams held,” Fair observed. “Look at the size of them.”

“Think any of this building can be salvaged?” Susan asked.

The four of them looked up then down at the wooden floor, part of which also had fallen in.

“Well, once we pull the old siding off, I’m willing to bet the sides of this storage building are also large beams. We could, you know.” Ned felt positive.

“Well, let’s get to work. A four-man or, well, what can I call us? A four-person demolition derby.” Harry picked up a heavy hammer from her husband’s toolbox—he had everything—and started swinging at the siding.

“Four-person, Harry?” Susan lifted an eyebrow.

“I’m trying. So dearie”—she lifted her tone—“how are going to fill out your license? Do you want an X, meaning ‘no gender’?”

“With two grown children, I don’t think I could get away with it.” Susan pulled out ancient nails—some looked hand forged. She placed the nails in a tin can in case they were hand forged.

The friends bantered back and forth, casting aspersions on gender, the temper of the times, and anything else they could think to provoke one another. It wasn’t so much that they were politically correct more than that nothing was correct. They flung one silly jibe after another at each other, as only beloved old friends can do.

The animals, outside, heard the laughter.

“They’re in a good mood. Means treats,” Pewter predicted.

“Greenies.” Tucker, like Owen and Pirate, loved greenies.

“I am not eating a greenie,” Pewter announced.

“Of course not, Pewter, you’ll eat mouse tartar.” Tucker put her nose to the ground to see who had been there and when.

“Steak tartar”—the gray cat’s whiskers swept forward—“I’m not eating some tiny wormy mouse.”

“Of course you aren’t. You’re too fat to catch one,” Tucker let fly.

Fat she was, but even a fat cat is quicker than a corgi. Pewter raced over to the dog, who tried to move away, but Pewter, enraged, put on the afterburners.

Howls filled the air.

“Sounds like someone’s getting murdered.” Susan listened.

“Damn those two. All they do is fight.” Harry knew exactly who was fussing with whom.

Hurrying outside, issuing threats for they easily outpaced her, Harry heard a crash. One wall came down, pushed by the three inside. Dust and wood bits flew upward.

As Ned thought, the beams were very thick. They’d stood for centuries.

“One more squeak, one more growl, and you all are being marched to the house and shut in the porch room. I mean it.”

“She started it.” Pewter glared at Tucker.

“Oh la.” Tucker lifted her head.

Pewter lashed out, smacking the side of Tucker’s face. “Vermin.”

“Pewter. Enough.” Harry turned as they were calling her back to the now three-sided shed.

“Look.” Ned proudly pointed to the beams, all of them hand shaped, the ax marks visible.

“Wow.”

“Ready for the next side?” Fair was already pulling nails, wedging a crowbar into a crevice.

Harry picked up her hammer. “Hey.”

“You all right?” Fair turned as his wife put one foot through the floor, which gave way.

“Well, yes, but we might want to tear up the floor before more of us go through it.”

Ned peered at the hole as he helped Harry out. “She’s right. Come on.”

Working from the edges, they lifted the old oak boards, which would have been fine if the roof hadn’t fallen through on one spot, allowing the floor to rot over the decades.

After a half hour, they had pulled it all up and stacked the wood outside with the removed siding.

Susan, staring at the packed-dirt ground floor, stood with mouth agape. Harry, alongside her, also took a deep breath.

“Let me get Mom and Gran.” Susan ran to the house.

Fair, towering at six five over Ned, a mere six footer, saw Susan running, put down the wood he was carrying, and came to stand by Harry. The men, too, looked down.

“Graves. Has to be.” Fair noted the sunken earth, side by side, each the size of a coffin.

Walking quickly for a woman about to bust ninety, Gran, with her daughter at her one side and her granddaughter at the other, reached them. Her hand flew to her neck.

“So, it’s true.”

“What is, Gran?” Susan thought she knew everything about Big Rawly, but then one rarely did.

“Most of the slaves are buried on the north side of the graveyard, as you know. There are small flat headstones. But the stories were that a small number were buried near the house, slaves who died in the house.”

“House slaves?” Ned wondered.

“Well, usually house slaves would be buried in the cemetery but it could be they were hastily interred due to sickness. People back then knew that some diseases transferred from person to person. The rumors always were that Maureen Selisse Holloway was cruel. It’s also possible some unfortunate slaves died from mistreatment.”

Susan reached for her grandmother’s hand. “What should we do?”

“Notify the county historical society,” Gran replied.

Ned, brushing back his sandy hair, still thick in his early fifties, added, “Mrs. Holloway, the graves will need to be identified and the bones carbon-dated. As to DNA testing, well, I really don’t know but the remains might be able to be identified. Maybe these people have descendants. The county is full of Holloways and Selisses who are mixed race or African American. If these are their people, then they must decide what to do.”

“Well, we know if they were white servants, they’d be in that small graveyard near the big oak,” Gran informed them.

“Good God,” Harry blurted out.

“Harry”—Susan’s mother spoke—“you and Tazio Chappars are close from working to save the old schools. Why don’t you start with her. Go through the old school records to track the names. We need to write down names from the main graveyard and cross-reference. Same with the graves of indentured servants,” she sensibly ordered.

“Yes, ma’am.” Harry had been saying that to Susan’s mother since she was tiny.

She remembered always how good Susan’s mother, grandmother, and grandfather had been to her when her parents were killed in the auto accident.

“More old bones,” Pewter moaned, for she had heard quite enough about the nameless bones at St. Luke’s.

“Our human said when they found the bones at St. Luke’s that no good can come from disturbing the dead.” Mrs. Murphy remembered how upset Harry was at the time.

“That may be so,” Tucker replied. “But in this case, I think it’s like finding the remains of a man who fought in World War II or Vietnam and returning them with honor to the family. So this might be the same kind of exception.”

Owen, her brother, thought about that. “They’ve rested here for centuries maybe. I think they should stay home.”

Pirate, encountering such things for the first time, asked, “Is that how humans think of their dead, as being home?”

“They think home is with God,” Mrs. Murphy told him. “The ritual at the burial is very important to them. But I still think you shouldn’t disturb the dead.”

“If they go to their descendants, it’s not being disturbed.” Pewter had been listening despite her flippancy.

“True, but that doesn’t mean the humans won’t find out things they’d rather not know,” Mrs. Murphy prophesied.

Later

The afternoon sun was gliding to the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the soft slanting rays intensifying the spring colors. In an hour the sun would set, a magical time, for twilight had begun to linger once on the other side of the spring equinox.

The cats and dogs, glad to be home, chatted with the horses in the pasture.

“We haven’t gone up into the walnut grove since last fall. Let’s go,” Tucker encouraged the others.

“The way to get into the walnut grove is a hard climb. I’m not punishing my legs,” Pewter declared.

“Fine.” Tucker had already turned her back on the gray cat.

“I’ll stay with you,” Mrs. Murphy said to Pewter. “Haven’t caught up on the horse gossip in a while. They are always up to something.”

The two dogs trotted through the back pastures, then along the edges where the sunflowers had been planted, finally reaching the edge of the woods. A dirt farm road went straight up the lower grades. As the incline increased once in the large walnuts, the road needed switchbacks with large turnarounds to be serviceable.

Rock outcroppings became more numerous, with trickles of water spilling into streams that ultimately found their way down to the pastures to become a deep, swift running creek dividing Harry’s land from her neighbor Cynthia Cooper’s, currently on vacation. Coop rented from Reverend Jones, as this was the old Jones’s homestead.

“What’s that?” Pirate noticed a small shed protected, somewhat hidden by trees.

“Wasn’t here in the fall.” Tucker noted the last time she had been walked this way.

The two dogs, one so big, one so low to the ground, pushed through the undergrowth.

Tucker pushed open the knocked-together wooden door of a shed, with a slanted roof, wood with tar paper over it. The two dogs inhaled.

“Whew,” Pirate exclaimed.

Tucker, scrutinizing the glass apparatus and the wooden shelves, the strong odor of old fermented corn, said, “Still.”

“Still what?” The Irish wolfhound did not step inside.

“Humans make whiskey, rye, liquors. They do it in secret. The water here is so pure.”

“Tucker, we pass those breweries on 151. Why is that okay but this is secret?”

“That’s beer. This is strong stuff. Mom says the federal government hits them up with nasty taxes.”

“What’s a tax?”

“Pirate, let’s save that for another day. It’s just about impossible to understand. I think you need to be human to believe in it.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s get out of here.” Tucker backed out. “Look up. See the farm road down? Not far from the crest but most people don’t know paths off the ridge. Also, they’re frightened of the bear, bobcat, and coyote. Especially at night. Whoever built this is a cool customer.”

They moved a bit toward the south for their descent. There was less undergrowth there, which had obscured some of the farm road. Harry might clear these roads about every five years. Hard to do even with a Bobcat. A big bulldozer would lurch, possibly tip over, on this grade.

Perhaps a quarter of a mile down, Tucker lifted her head. “Smell that?”

Pirate sniffed. “What is it?”

“Smells like a long dead animal but there’s something else.” She veered off the deer path to a shallow depression, large boulders looking over it. “Ah.”

Pirate stared at bits of human remains. The rib cage, completely exposed, had been stripped clean of flesh. No arms or legs could be seen. Torn, shredded pieces of cloth lay under the rib cage. Part of a skull, hat intact, some hair under the brim, had been wedged against the rock.

“What is that other smell?” the Irish wolfhound asked.

“I don’t know. Smells like nuts, kind of. Pirate, a dead human means trouble. When we get home, don’t tell Pewter.”

“Why?”

“She’ll find a way to get Harry up here. That will be nine miles of bad road.”

“Are we really nine miles away?”

“No. It’s an old saying.” The corgi headed down.

“The bones at Old Rawly didn’t smell awful.”

“Those were old, old, old. These bones aren’t old.”

“They talk about the bones at St. Luke’s,” Pirate remarked.

“Again. Those are really old. Just don’t tell Pewter.”

“I won’t.”

Death be not proud, though some have called you so. Death may not be proud but it certainly seemed prevalent.