Hiss Of Death

Where does the time go?” Harry leaned on the three-board fence of the pasture behind the barn.

Twilight lingered, a languid, early-May twilight enrobing the Blue Ridge with cobalt velvet.

The cloudless sky—backlit, for the sun had set a half hour ago—promised a crisp night.

Matilda, the blacksnake who lived in the hayloft, had finished her hunting and slithered back to the barn. She paused for a moment, flicked out her tongue, emitting a little hiss. This was not a comment on anything; it was more of a little salute to Harry, whom she recognized.

Like all farmers, Harry focused on weather with intensity. Too much rain, crops rotted in the field. Too little, they burned up. If one could afford an irrigation system, one could fight a drought. Nothing could combat too much rain.

Her tough sunflowers continued to grow. Her grapes, in their second year, sported leaves, ever enlarging, on the trained vines, which thrilled her. She had worried because of the ferociously cold winter, the worst winter for one hundred years. Spring, remarkably cool, was wet.

So wet, she’d rented a drill seeder only a week ago. Usually she over-seeded her pastures in early to mid-April.

Since Mother Nature was her business partner, she did as Mother dictated. Harry limed the fields in the spring. Sometimes she put down weed-and-feed fertilizer, but usually she put down chicken poop or commercial fertilizers in the fall. When the oil prices climbed through the sky, non-manure-based fertilizers skyrocketed to nine hundred percent of their former cost. This did not make the news. Agriculture economics rarely did. A frost in Florida’s orange groves might get coverage, or a terrible drought in the Midwest, but the distressing effect of oil prices on your everyday small farmers wasn’t news. They suffered plenty, whether that suffering was reported to their fellow citizens or not.

A nine-hundred-percent price rise is beyond comprehension.

She hadn’t fertilized for two years. The price to spread chicken poop floated out of reach, too. You burn gas putting it down.

It made Harry miserable. Just thought it was the worst. She laughed at herself as she watched Venus begin her majestic ascent, shining her lovelight over all living things, fascinating Harry as she had fascinated people since they cast their eyes upward. Another hour and Harry would be able to identify the constellations.

“Why she’s doing that chuckle thing people do?” wondered Pewter, sitting on the fence next to Mrs. Murphy, who sat next to Harry.

“Don’t know.” Mrs. Murphy put her paw on Harry’s forearm.

Wedged next to Harry’s leg, Tucker was determined not to let her beloved human out of her sight.

“Someone wants their chin scratched.”

“I prefer tuna,” Pewter replied.

“Do you ever think of anything other than your expanding stomach?” Mrs. Murphy said.

“World peace.” Pewter giggled, making the odd little intake of breath that accompanies the feline giggle. Tucker howled with glee.

“What’s cookin’, kids?” Harry scratched Mrs. Murphy’s chin.

“If only you could understand us, you’d be laughing, too.” Tucker sighed, as she often felt frustrated with human limitations.

“You know,” Harry spoke to them, “what a clear crisp evening. Must be about fifty-five degrees, and it’s seven-thirty. Glad I wore my sweater. Of course, you all are always dressed just right for the weather.” As she rubbed her hand over Mrs. Murphy’s back, her undercoat shed out.

“Murph, you shed too much,” Pewter grumbled, as some of the undercoat landed on her lovely gray fur.

“You shed as much as I do.”

“Do not. No one sheds as much as you do. You’re like a dalmatian.”

“Pewter, you’re trying to start something.” Tucker stood on her hind legs to get closer to Pewter.

Harry—even on her two legs—recognized the signs of Pewter gearing up to be a bad girl. Sometimes she’d taunt the others. Sometimes she’d be asleep, wake up, shoot straight up in the air, race around the house, then pounce on Tucker. The dog suffered endless abuse from the cat, who would wrap her front legs around the corgi to wrestle her to the ground. Truth be told, the dog loved it. Tucker would growl, but she’d flop down as though the cat really had thrown her. Sometimes Mrs. Murphy joined in, but usually she watched, because with her Pewter sometimes unleashed her claws, if only for effect. Still, it made the tiger cat mad.

“You know”—Harry folded her hands together as Venus, bright now, seemed a pure beacon in a deepening sky—“I fretted so during the oil crisis, which corresponded to the tail end of those wicked drought years. My hay burned up in the fields, too, from that unremitting heat. Thought it couldn’t get much worse.”

“We remember.” Tucker dropped back down.

“We remember because you kept us up at night, walking the floor.” Pewter relished the negative detail, as always.

“Now I wonder if the rains will water down my grapes, so to speak. Remember, this is the second year, so I can harvest them and sell them to a vintner. Boy, I hope I can make a little money. I must have been out of my mind to put in a quarter acre of grapes. Hardest work ever, and there’s so much to learn.”

“They look good,” Mrs. Murphy hopefully meowed.

“Now this. Before, I worried about my crops; now I’m worried about myself. I know I’m going to live. Really, you all, I do.”

“Of course you’re going to live!” the two cats meowed in unison.

“You can’t die, Mom. I couldn’t live without you.” Tucker’s soft brown eyes looked so sad.

“Sounds funny, but I believe I’ll know when I’m going to die, and it’s not now. But I am so scared of being cut and then radiation. God, I don’t want to do it.”

“You’re doing it,” Tucker firmly ordered her.

“I feel betrayed by my own body, and then I think about Paula Benton. Dead, sitting on the stool at her potting shed, head down on the table. She was about my age. I don’t know. Dumb things are running through my head.”

“That’s natural,” Tucker consolingly murmured.

“Certainly is. Dumb things are always going through her head.” Pewter giggled again.

“Pewter, you’re a pill tonight.” Mrs. Murphy rubbed her cheeks against Harry’s arm.

“Hey, I love her. But she is what she is, and humans can’t help it. They’re, well, limited. And I think she does know when she will die. This isn’t her time, but from what I hear everyone saying, sounds like she’ll be pooped out before the treatments are over.”

As the sky turned Prussian blue, Harry looked back at the farmhouse, her birthplace. The light went on in the living room. She saw the glow through the kitchen window. Fair would be building a fire, since the temperature would dip into the low forties tonight.

What a wonderful man, she thought. Just a good guy. She needed this time to herself. Harry thought best when it was just her and her animals.

Tomahawk, her old Thoroughbred, still in great shape, lifted his lovely head to watch a great blue heron fly high overhead. “Going late to the nest, aren’t you?”

“Fishing was too good to leave,” the large, beautiful bird called down in his harsh voice, so at odds with his body.

Shortro, a five-year-old Saddlebred, given to Harry by Renata de Carlo, a client of Joan Hamilton’s at Kalarama Farm, also followed the bird, its huge wingspan impressive as he dipped lower, his beautiful colors more visible now in the twilight. “Can you imagine flying?”

“Sort of,” the older horse replied. “I don’t think anyone below me would much like it.”

It took Shortro a minute to get it, then he laughed. Both horses walked over to Harry to have their heads rubbed. Mrs. Murphy, on excellent terms with all the horses, daintily stepped onto Tomahawk’s back.

Harry observed her four-footed friends and thought how fortunate she was to have them and how lucky she was to have her human friends, too.

Last week she’d told Susan the minute she received her results. Tonight all her close friends and even a few close acquaintances had come out to the farm with food.

Even Aunt Tally, at one hundred years of age, arrived with her best friend and former William Woods University classmate, Inez Carpenter, D.V.M. As Inez was a mere ninety-eight, she rubbed this in.

Inez hired Fair shortly after he graduated from Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine. As one of the nation’s best equine vets, specializing in reproduction, she had taught him so very much, and his association with her had also enhanced his own reputation. Inez did not suffer fools gladly. Her unique skills garnered her a reputation in what was once an exclusively male field. Young women vets worshipped Inez as a groundbreaker. Also, throughout her career, Inez was happy to help a young vet who showed promise and was dedicated. While she was as happy guiding a male as a female, she understood the barriers the women faced. Her low-key, sensible approach prevented many a meltdown.

Inez had been going to live with Fair and Harry this year, as she had lost a lot of money in the stock market. Also, age was taking its toll. But Aunt Tally threw a major hissy, so Inez had moved in with her.

In the living room, Harry asked her how she liked rooming with the ultra-rich Tally Urquhart. Inez answered, “I’ve sat down in the lap of luxury, and I don’t want to get up again.”

Franny Howard showed up, a surprise. Susan had called her. Harry had bought a set of BF Goodrich all-terrain ten-ply tires the day after her diagnosis. She had not said anything, even though Franny would likely have been helpful. Harry was reticent to talk about herself. She’d talk about the weather, farming, books, horses, world events, but she talked about herself only with Susan, Coop, BoomBoom, and, of course, her husband.

The four tires would have cost $796, and Franny, true to her word, gave her a preacher’s price and knocked off $150. At the farm, this raucous evening, Franny gave Harry all the information she needed if she wished to join her support group. She offered to pick her up and drive her, too, if it was a punk day.

Harry’s consolation dinner turned into a lively party. Aunt Tally belted out some tunes from old musicals. Tucker sang along, too. Harry forgot for a while that her operation would be early Monday morning.

Now, after her walk, she’d had her fill of the starry sky. Even with her sweater, Harry felt the night air’s chill. “Going in.”

Tomahawk showed his teeth, smacking his gums. “Good luck. We love you.”

The animals echoed this, all of them: “We love you.”

Hearing their murmurs, although not understanding, breathing in the beauty of the night, tears filled her eyes. She wiped them away, but they kept coming. “I do so love this life, and I love you all.”