Tail Gait

April 17, 2015

“Purest blue,” Harry said to the two cats and Tucker as they walked around the house, inspecting her flower beds and the sky above. “Those huge cumulus clouds, so white, set off the blue.”

Tucker tagged right behind her human, the faint scent of a rabbit somewhere nearby enticing her. Mrs. Murphy picked up the odor too. “That bunny better not nip off the daffodils.”

Daffodils, four inches above the ground, bulbs swelling, promised color soon to come along with the jonquils. The snowdrops had passed, crocuses still bloomed here and there, but the riot of color was only a week away, if that, that first burst of spring. Three weeks would pass until the redbuds, the yellow willows, and finally the dogwoods would explode on lawns and on the mountainsides. High spring brought with it spring fever to animals. Calves frolicked, horses chased one another, while deer observed from the distance, amused. Birds opened the sunrise with a chorus that ended only at twilight, which then filled with whip-poor-wills’ calls. Other night creatures also sang or croaked. Spring in the Blue Ridge Mountains so intoxicated people that only the most insensitive or overly burdened could keep their minds on practical matters.

Harry ran her hands over the top of the boxwoods along her walkway. The quiet whoosh, the snapping back of the branches, satisfied her that those dark green shrubs would grow a lot this year. Not that English boxwoods ever enjoyed the annual growth of American boxwoods, but the density and shape of the English boxwood couldn’t be duplicated by any other bush.

“Let’s go to the barn,” Pewter urged Harry. “I’d like to check the mouse holes.”

Tucker, walking next to the gray cat, replied, “You’d like to see if there’s any kibble in the tack room bowl.”

Pewter ran ahead before Tucker could bump her. “What’s it there for, Bubblebutt?”

Mrs. Murphy ran to catch up with Pewter. This morning was a morning for running. The tiger cat drew alongside Pewter, passed her, then bolted in front of her. She stopped, then leapt over the other cat, landing behind her. “Whoopee!”

Tucker trotted up to the cats. “You’re too fat for acrobatics.”

“Peon!” The gray cannonball jumped and soared over the corgi with surprising grace.

The show made Harry laugh. She joined the dash, ran up to them, passed them. Harry ran to the tractor shed and back to the barn, the three animals frolicking with her. Sheer exhilarating silliness—what could be better? Breathlessly, they all dashed into the barn, first squeezing through the small opening in the large double doors. As winter receded, Harry would open the barn doors at both ends of the aisle for more air circulation.

The cats proceeded to play tag. Mrs. Murphy reached the ladder built on the wall up to the hayloft. Nimbly, the cat clawed her way up, Pewter in pursuit. They chased each other around the square hay bales, on the bales, between the bales, their speed increasing. Down in the main aisle, Harry listened to the thumps overhead.

She looked at the stoic corgi. “Oh, Tucker, to be a cat for a day.”

Tucker had many occasions to question the intelligence of the human she loved. This was one of them. “Better to be a corgi.”

“Don’t touch me!” Pewter cried from up in the loft. She had her back to a hay bale, standing on her hind legs, claws unsheathed, as Mrs. Murphy crouched, ready to pounce.

Behind the plump puss emerged another, decidedly different form. Matilda, the huge blacksnake, out of hibernation but still groggy, flicked her tongue. What was this fatty doing at the entrance to her home? Egad.

Matilda had used the same hay bale for years, and Harry gave her a wide berth, plus a few treats in the spring before she revved herself up for hunting. Matilda hunted a radius around the barn, sheds, and house from which she never varied. You could tell the time of spring or summer by where Matilda was. High summer she lived in the gorgeous old tree by the back screen door. Occasionally she would hang from a branch and swing, which sent Pewter into orbit.

Another rocket launch was about to happen, because Matilda, eyes now wide open, drew herself up, large body curled underneath her, and let out a loud “Ssssst!”

Pewter shot straight up, fur puffed out, turned in midair to reach the top of Matilda’s hay bale. This further irritated the snake, who now stuck her head out.

The drama queen screamed, “A dragon! I’m going to die!”

Prudently backing up, Mrs. Murphy hollered, “Calm down. It’s just Matilda.”

Those glittering snake eyes now focused on the tiger cat. However, Matilda, half in, half out of her hay bale, twisted around to give Pewter the full effect.

“Save me!” cried Pewter.

“What the hell is going on up there?” Harry climbed the ladder, passed the hay bale where Simon the opossum hid, way in the back. Discretion seemed the better part of valor for the opossum. Although half a pet after all these years, he mostly stayed out of view.

Seeing Harry, Pewter wailed more piteously. “The biggest snake in the world. She’s as long as the barn.”

Pewter and Matilda regarded each other. Harry, who quite liked this snake, spoke in a low voice. “I’m going to reach over you and lift off this terrified cat.”

Matilda turned around to fold herself back into her cozy quarters, although in fairness to Pewter’s frazzled nerves, it did take quite a bit of time for the serpent to whirl around her hind end. At last she was back in the rear of the bale, comfortable in her home.

Harry leaned over to lift up the cat, who put her arms around Harry’s neck. “She is huge, Pewts. I’ll give you that.” Walking to the ladder, Harry put the cat down. Mrs. Murphy already sat nearby, her expression bemused.

“You could have tried to help me.” Pewter swatted at Mrs. Murphy, who deftly avoided the slap.

“I give Matilda a wide berth,” the tiger cat admitted. “She’s okay, but still…”

Most of the expensive alfalfa and orchard grass/clover mix hay had been used up, and the hayloft was almost empty. Harry was reminded to clean the rafters. Cobwebs in summer catch flies, but by this time of the year, those cobwebs hung in dark clumps and strings. Time to take the leaf blower, bring them down, and sweep up the debris. The next generation of spiders would build silky new webs to catch the next generation of flies.

Climbing down, Harry walked into her tack room, sat down at her desk, and made a note to clean. Under it, she added the need to purchase more square alfalfa hay bales. Harry ran a tight ship. She grew her own orchard-grass hay, round-baled it, and if the hay was exceptionally good, when she needed square bales, she’d unroll a round bale and square-bale it. All this took expensive equipment. When he died, her father left hay equipment behind. Harry used the same equipment today as had her father, who had kept things in the best order. Sooner or later some of it would wear out. However, if well cared for, farm equipment from good manufacturers could last decades and decades.

Scribbling on a notepad designed by Gustave Eiffel, she whistled. The day was beautiful. She actually loved making lists and planning. She’d like to think it was in part due to her efficiency that her crops had brought in enough money last fall so she now had a little cushion. Purchasing alfalfa wasn’t going to crack her budget. Harry counted her blessings.

The phone rang. Susan’s voice sounded as if she was in the next room. “Hey, I called the house. No answer, so I’m calling the barn.”

“What’s up?”

“Frank Cresey tried to kill himself.”

Harry thought for a moment. “What did he have to live for? Poor devil, he even failed at suicide?”

Knowing how Harry’s mind worked, Susan was not put off by this response. “I don’t know what he’s got to live for, but maybe if he makes it, he’ll find something.”

“How’d you find out?”

“Olivia called me. Sobbing. Feels this is her fault.”

“How could it be her fault? He started his love affair with the bottle a long, long time ago.” Harry marveled at the human capacity to feel guilt. And then there were those who felt no guilt at all, regardless of what they’d done. Did Ginger’s killer feel guilt?

Susan stated the obvious. “Olivia’s a very emotional woman.”

“Trudy’s not. Where did she get that?”

“Harry, it doesn’t matter. She just is, and she’s upset. She didn’t tell her mother or Rennie about the scene on the mall. She called me because, well, you know, it’s obvious.”

“I guess,” said Harry, to whom it wasn’t obvious at all. “Is there anything I can do, or we can do?”

“Yes, meet me at the McConnell house. We’ll take Olivia for a drive or something. Her mother and sister know she’s upset. They don’t know much more.”

“All right. I’ll be over there shortly. Right now I’m in my work clothes. And I have to put the animals in the house. I don’t think Olivia would mind them, but it’d just be us.”

“That’s fine.”

—

Harry reached the house in Ednam Forest in twenty-five minutes. In the driveway, she stepped out of her truck and into the backseat of Susan’s Audi station wagon. Olivia sat in the front seat.

As Susan backed out, Harry reached forward, putting her hand on Olivia’s shoulder. Olivia covered Harry’s hand with her own.

The women talked in the car as Susan drove all the way to Sugar Hollow.

“I set him off,” Olivia cried. “I never imagined he would recognize me.”

“You’ve changed very little,” Susan remarked, observing from the road here that this part of Albemarle County was about one week behind the rest with its spring flowers and such.

“How did you find out, Olivia?” asked Harry.

“Sheriff Shaw.”

“What!” Both Harry and Susan exclaimed.

Olivia stared straight ahead, but didn’t seem to see the road. “When Frank was picked up on the mall after a nine-one-one call, he was writhing, retching, screaming in pain. So the ambulance driver obviously took him immediately to UVA Hospital, which is close by. They stabilized him, washed him, cleaned him up, and put him in a room by himself. He was unconscious by then, plus the doctor had given him something to calm him down.”

“Poor devil!” Susan exclaimed, checking in the rearview mirror to see Harry’s expression.

Olivia composed herself. “Well, when he became conscious, he asked for the sheriff. Sheriff Shaw and Deputy Cooper came to the hospital. Frank confessed to killing Daddy.”

“What!” Both Harry and Susan exclaimed again in unison. They were a regular Greek chorus.

“Frank said he shot Daddy with a .45.”

Harry’s keen mind was like a blade being sharpened. “Frank yelled on the mall that he wished he’d killed your father. Now he says he did.”

“Yes, I told the sheriff that, too.”

“And?” Harry’s voice lifted.

Olivia turned all the way around in the seat and looked Harry in the eye. “He pointed out that Daddy was killed by a .45. But Frank says he walked up, faced him at a distance, called out his name, and shot him. Obviously, he didn’t. Brinsley Sims said no one was on the fairway when Dad was shot.” Brinsley Sims, a longtime friend of Ginger’s, had been playing golf with him that horrible day.

“I’ve read where people confess to crimes they haven’t committed,” Susan thoughtfully mentioned as she slowed for a curve on the old gravel two-lane road.

Olivia’s tears slowed. “Why? To save someone else?”

“That, or for attention,” and Susan. “And then there are always those who are crazy, flat-out crazy,” she added.

“Frank would seem to fit the bill,” Olivia softly replied.

“Being a drunk makes someone deceitful, shrewd even, but not necessarily crazy,” Harry said.

“Alcohol kills brain cells. Sooner or later, the mind unravels.” Olivia stared out the window. “Frank had a good mind. He remembered all those complicated football plays. How he could run, how he could run and fly through tackles as though they weren’t there.” She sighed at the memory. “And he was a good history student. Daddy liked him until we started dating.”

“Somehow, seeing someone with a good mind, with athletic talent, ruin themselves with alcohol, it seems worse than if they were average.” Susan pulled to the side of the road.

“Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have become a drunk. Think of all the brilliant people who destroy themselves and everyone around them by drinking,” Harry replied.

A flash of humor enlivened Olivia. “Harry, you sound like Carrie Nation!”

“I’ll bring my hatchet next time.” Harry was glad to see Olivia bouncing back just a touch. “She wasn’t really wrong, but Prohibition was. You can’t legislate human behavior. Murder. Right! The Ten Commandments: ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal,’ but we’ve been fleecing one another for thousands of years. And how does one circumvent ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’?”

“Nations always come up with a reason. Daddy used to say there are times when the only answer is war. Without that, some problems will never be settled.”

Harry’s curiosity rose up. “Did he mention murder?”

“Funny you ask that, because I was trying to remember if he talked about that, and I don’t think he did. Oh, if there was something in the news, he would discuss it, but other than something like that, no. Dad concentrated on the grand sweep of history, on the lives of our ancestors. Sometimes he might talk about the crime rate, such as after the Revolutionary War.”

Susan turned around to head back toward town. “There is a difference between murder and war. At least I think there is.”

“Volume, for one thing.” Harry tossed that off.

“There is that,” Olivia agreed.

“For whatever reason, Frank’s confession is peculiar,” said Susan. “Peculiar, unbelievable, some weird fantasy.”

Harry turned sideways to put her right leg up on the rear seat. “Did Sheriff Shaw say how Frank tried to kill himself?”

“Rat poison, but he didn’t take enough. He also said that all that retching only brought up alcohol. Frank hadn’t eaten for days, and that seems not to have been unusual.”

“Forgive me for asking this, but it could be important.” Harry leaned forward. “Did you ever sleep with Frank?”

“Oh, my God, no! Not back then. I mean, if I had, and Daddy had found out, he would have killed Frank.” Harry looked into the rearview mirror and saw Susan looking back at her.

Harry changed the subject. “Ginger, as always, was hard at work on something. He said that he was returning to the Revolutionary War and immediately after. He also said that he had to have lived this long to ask the right questions.”

Olivia smiled, remembering her father’s enthusiasm. It was like a kid’s. “Oh, Daddy would say to me when we talked on the phone, ‘Before now, I never wondered how those who secretly thought we were wrong to separate from England accepted the new order. The really passionate ones fled to Canada or returned to England.’ ”

Harry knew something about early history. “It is interesting, but apart from the Whiskey Rebellion, people did accept the new ways. Trying to figure out how to run a new country, how to make money, no doubt took up everyone’s time,” she mused.

“Your father really was enthusiastic,” said Susan. “He bubbled over. When I was in school, they’d focus on the wars only, and you had to memorize the dates. But the periods leading up to war and then their aftermath are critical. If you don’t get it right, boom!, another war, or at least some form of collapse.” Susan smiled. “That’s what Ned says. He’s the reader, not me.”

“Maybe we all need to go back and read about that time,” Harry suggested, although she couldn’t understand what had set off Ginger’s killer. Sometimes, nearly anything sets off a new idea or radical course of action.