Nine Lives To Die

Harry, Fair, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, the horses, and even the hayloft animals—Simon and Flatface, the great horned owl—didn’t open their presents until Christmas morning. Matilda, the hibernating blacksnake, didn’t receive fresh eggs until spring. Harry thought of that as an Easter present. While giving a snake eggs may seem strange, a blacksnake in one’s barn does a world of good, cleaning out vermin.

The temperature climbed to thirty-eight by noon. Water rattled down gutters, flowed in ditches alongside roads. For all the melting, the snow wouldn’t disappear unless a week of warm weather stayed over Central Virginia, and even then snow would pack in the crevices on the north side of the mountains or in deep, narrow ravines.

The robin’s-egg-blue sky, the snow, the drip, drip of melting icicles, with sunshine passing through them pleased Harry to no end. Outside, doing her chores, she’d stop to listen to the music of the water.

“Boy, this will pack the snow down,” she said to her crew as she swept out the center aisle.

“More snow is coming,” Mrs. Murphy chatted as she walked alongside. “I can feel it.”

“She can’t.” Pewter reposed on a center-aisle tack trunk bearing Harry’s initials front and center.

“You don’t think if she stood still outside, lifted her nose, she wouldn’t smell the edge of the front?” Tucker could never understand diminished human senses.

“No!” Pewter declared.

“She’ll feel it where she broke bones when it draws closer,” said Mrs. Murphy. “By tonight. But, Tucker, you know she can’t smell much. You have to stick whatever it is right under her nose.”

“I can’t imagine anything worse,” the intrepid dog said.

“Simon’s got a decent nose.” Pewter liked the possum. “But he’s a night creature, and I think scent is stronger at night.”

“It most certainly is.” Tucker was happy to discuss scent, a favorite subject. “And that’s why women should be careful how much and what type of perfume they put on at night. The scent is always stronger. Too strong and it makes my eyes water.”

“That’s why Harry spritzes her Amouage perfumes.” Mrs. Murphy loved to sit on Harry’s small makeup table. “Just a hint and it carries her through the evening. She’s smart about some things, but then again, she spends a lot of time with us.”

The high whine of an old four-cylinder engine sounded at the end of the long driveway.

Tucker rushed to the barn doors. “Stranger! Stranger!”

A beat-up old Toyota, a wire coat hanger twisted on for an aerial, skidded to a stop. No four-wheel drive and bald tires meant the driver was either poor, lazy, or just stupid.

Flo Rice crawled out, slamming the door. Poor seemed to be her category.

Seeing the dog in the open doors, then Harry, who stopped to turn around, she strode in.

“Give me that bracelet!”

“Miss Rice, I found that bracelet fair and square.”

“I found it!” Pewter crowed.

“We found it!” Tucker corrected.

“Bother.” The cat unsheathed her claws. She was on guard, thanks to Flo’s behavior.

Mrs. Murphy had climbed up to the hayloft. “Pewter, get up here. If there’s a problem, we can leap off and knock this lady off her feet.”

“I’ll do the rest.” At Harry’s heels, Tucker raised the hackles on her ruff.

“Where’d you find it?” Flo eyed her suspiciously.

“In the tack room. I’ll show you.” Harry walked to the room, opened the door, and the two walked in, Harry first.

“Rats!” Mrs. Murphy exclaimed, hurrying to back down.

Pewter was thinking ahead. “If we climb onto the highest saddle on the rack, we can still dive-bomb her.”

“Right.” Mrs. Murphy blew through the tack room animal door.

“The upturned helmet was here,” Harry explained. “My friend picked it up and out fell the bracelet. Finders keepers.” She smiled, hoping to diminish Flo’s anger.

“It’s not yours.”

“No. Is it yours?” Harry attempted her sweetest voice.

“No, no, but I should have it.” Flo’s voice quivered. “I worked hard. I should have something pretty.”

“Would you like something to eat?” Harry frantically thought of things to distract Flo, and then she hoped to send her on her way.

“No.” She paused. “Don’t tell Esther I came over here, please. She hates me. She has always hated me.”

“Oh, I hope not.”

Pleased to be able to recount old disagreements, Flo nearly shouted, “You don’t know. I was the pretty one. Esther hated me for that. I had more beaus. She’d try to steal my beaus. Ha. Never worked. Esther always wants what she can’t have. Finally, when I went away to college, I thought I was rid of her.”

“And?”

“She followed me to Mary Washington. She’s like a giant tick! I hate her.”

“Miss Rice, I am sorry.”

“Give me the bracelet.”

“No.” Harry spoke with firmness.

Now downhearted, Flo started to cry. “I never get anything.”

“Miss Rice, please. I am sorry you’re upset. I’m sorry you feel your sister has been unfair to you.”

“No, you’re not. You have something that I should have for hard work. I never get anything. Esther promised me a car. Where is it? She wants me to die in a wreck in my old car.” Flo headed for the open doors, the cold air flowing into the barn. “I’m going to see Cletus.”

Harry, following Flo, knowing there could be more trouble, queried, “Cletus?”

“How many Cletuses do you know? Of course it’s Mr. Thompson.”

“He’s a nice man. I’m sure you know Mr. Thompson has a drinking problem?”

Flo turned on her heel, put her face almost into Harry’s as Tucker growled low. “How do you know he’s not thirsty?” she asked. With that, she got into her car, turned the key.

The cats, now at Harry’s feet, stepped back just a little.

“Let’s pray she doesn’t get stuck or we’re stuck with her,” Pewter said.

With the rear of the car sliding out, Flo took her foot off the gas for a moment and steered into the swerve. Her driving skills remained sharp.

She rolled down the window. “You’ll be sorry,” she warned Harry. “You shouldn’t wear things that don’t belong to you.” She fishtailed out of the long driveway.

Harry walked back into the barn, closing the big doors behind her.

“People are crazy,” Harry exclaimed.

“That one is,” Pewter agreed as she, too, walked into the tack room. “I’m exhausted. I don’t know why that made me so tired.”

The cat, on the desk, had no answer.

Tucker did. “When it’s over, danger makes you tired.”

Harry opened the phone book. It seemed to grow larger every year. She found Al Toth’s number and called.

“Mrs. Toth, it’s Harry Haristeen.”

“Harry, I’d know your voice anywhere,” Esther warmly responded.

“I am sorry to trouble you on Christmas Eve, but your sister just left my farm and she was upset and angry.”

“Flo? Angry at you?”

“Yes, ma’am. That old gold bracelet, she wants it. She said it doesn’t belong to her but she should have it. She was very put out.”

A brief silence followed this. “She’s getting worse. I’m sorry she—well, really, this is my fault. I don’t want to put her in some kind of assisted living. She’s healthy, she can take care of her little place, but her mind just isn’t what it should be. I’m the one who is in the wrong. I don’t want to admit it. I don’t want to put my sister away.”

“Has she always seen you as a competitor?” Harry’s curiosity got the better of her.

“Oh, what sisters don’t fight? If it wasn’t one thing, it was another, but for the most part we got along. This sullenness started in the late 1980s. I always thought it was her divorce and then Momma’s death that started this.”

“That’s why she goes by Rice instead of Mercier?”

“I told her to take our name back, but she said she was tired of hearing people mispronounce a French name. She refused to be addressed as Mrs. Oh, I don’t know. I’m not making much more sense than she is right now.”

“This is upsetting news. And she’s on her way to Cletus Thompson if her car can stay on that back road. Should be plowed out by now.”

“Cletus Thompson? Good Lord.” Esther sounded at her wit’s end. “Well, I’d better drive over there and get her home. I really am so sorry you have to deal with this on Christmas Eve, and I thank you for telling me where she is.”

“Despite all, Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too.”