Tall Tail

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

6:30 P.M.

Knowing most everyone in the area, Fair drove down the country roads and cleared debris along the way. Doing so, he also checked on the local horses in pastures and poked down driveways, usually finding the owner clearing mess from the storm. The miracle was no horses had been hurt at any place Fair checked. Cell service fluctuated, meaning the weather fouled a lot of stuff. Whatever this storm was, it wasn’t over. He just prayed the strong winds wouldn’t return.

Fair finally drove down his own driveway at six-thirty P.M. Drenched, tired, hungry, he walked through the door, lights on, thanks to the generator, a five-thousand-dollar job worth every penny.

“Honey!” Harry turned from the stove to embrace him. “You look like the dogs got at you under the porch.”

“I resent that,” Tucker grumbled.

“If you got at anyone under the porch, only their ankles would be bleeding.” Pewter smirked.

The dog curled her lip. “You could do better?”

“Better! I’d claw their eyes out. Then I’d attack from every direction. They’d be shredded like government documents.” She puffed up.

“You could sit on them. That might break a few ribs.” Tucker reached out a paw to tap her.

Pewter hissed. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me!”

“Oh, shut up,” said Mrs. Murphy. “I want to hear what Daddy has to say.” She leapt onto the counter.

Harry was so relieved her husband was home. “Sit down. I’ve been waiting for you. Tried to call, but even cell service is out.”

“I know.” He wearily dropped his large frame onto a chair at the kitchen table.

“Snow peas. Rice and flank steak. Not French cooking but good for you, plus it’s all I could find. Today is shopping day and I never made it.” She placed the food in front of him, sitting down to eat, too.

The animals’ bowls were full, so they didn’t bother either of the humans, especially since Harry had sliced up some steak. Spoiled doesn’t begin to cover it.

“How much damage did you see?” she asked.

He swallowed a big bite of snow peas, which he loved. “Roofs peeled off, especially the standing seam roofs. Just as though a can opener had cut open a side. But only narrow sections. I didn’t see one structure without some roof damage. Large branches down. Loblolly pines are uprooted, and here’s a strange thing, anytime I passed a creek, downed trees everywhere.”

“The creeks must have acted like a wind tunnel,” Harry wondered.

“I guess.”

“If our cellphones start working again, we can find The Weather Channel.”

“Power crews are everywhere. Gotta give it to the utility companies.”

“Honey, what we give the utility companies is our money, lots of money.” Harry was tough about money and service.

She worked hard for a living, as did her husband, and she expected anyone with whom she did business to do the same. The problem with the utilities and cell servers, Internet stuff, was holding their feet to the fire if they slogged off. If sufficiently disgusted, she cut off the service. She’d been studying ways to generate her own power with old-fashioned farm windmills. A very exciting cube structure using wind was being developed in Akron, Ohio. Once engaged, she stuck to it, and none of her friends doubted she would be the first to generate her own power with the latest affordable technology. Solar panels sounded good, but days and occasionally a week might pass without sunlight, thanks to heavy cloud cover or fog. The surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains had their own weather system. Harry, being born to it, could feel the weather in her bones. Seeing the clouds when they piled up behind the nearby peaks gave her fair warning of a storm. She didn’t know how fierce it would be, though.

Fair shoveled the food into his mouth before asking, “Do I need to pump more gas for the generator?”

The farm had two pumps, one for regular gasoline, one for diesel. Most farms had their own pumps. You can’t plow, bushhog, or make hay if you have to run to the gas station and keep filling up five-gallon cans.

“No,” Harry answered. “Thought I would wait until I told you what happened to me today. It was upsetting.”

His demeanor changed to immediate concern. “Honey, what happened? You didn’t need to wait.”

“Would have spoiled supper. I dropped by Susan’s family just for a minute, you know. I gave her grandmother a small gardenia for her garden. She looks great, by the way. No one would ever believe that Penny Holloway is eighty-eight. Just there a minute, then I drove down the drive and turned left onto Garth Road. Black clouds were piling up behind the mountains, so I hurried to get home. Anyway, I no sooner reached the tiny white clapboard church when a raindrop splashed, then another, and then boom, rain. Slowed down, put on my turn signal to turn left, and this little red Camry was barreling down Garth Road in the opposite direction. It was Barbara Leader coming and missing me by a hair before going off the road.

“Well, Fair, I rushed over, but there was nothing I could do. She was dead. Coop was there in ten minutes.”

“Honey, I’m so sorry.” He reached over and took her hand. “What a shock. Barbara, that’s a loss. She’s one of those people always ready to pitch in, or she was. She was a good cheerleader, too,” he reminisced.

“I think she was dead before the car stopped. At least, I hope she was.”

“Sounds like a heart attack or stroke. I’m sorry she’s gone, but I’m glad you weren’t hit.”

“Me, too,” Pewter agreed.

“You never know.” Harry sighed, then glanced out the kitchen window. “More rain. Is it possible?”

“Sure is.”

“Let’s run over to Cooper’s. This will be a long day for her. Lots of accidents, I bet. We can start her generator and put some food in the fridge. We have plenty left.”

—

Once over at Cooper’s, Fair carefully walked around the house, checking her old generator, while Harry put covered dishes with a note in the fridge. Just as they were leaving the house, Cooper drove up.

Fair greeted her first as she walked inside.

“Cooper, perfect timing,” said Harry. “Your supper is in the fridge.”

“God, Harry, thank you. I’m bushed.” Cooper headed for the fridge.

Harry pulled out the covered dishes. “Sit down. You sit right down.”

Fair, who knew Cooper’s kitchen almost as well as his own, pulled out heavy everyday china.

“I could use a special treat,” Pewter informed them.

“Top cabinet, lower shelf.” Cooper told them what they already knew.

“Cooper, you don’t need to feed my animals,” said Harry, knowing she occasionally overindulged them.

“Oh, it makes them happy, and me, too.” Cooper filled her fork with rice. “Still warm.”

“We just came over.”

“You cleared my driveway of branches. Wood chips gave you away. Thank you.”

“Wasn’t too bad.” Harry handed Cooper a beer as Fair sat down.

“I should have offered to warm everything up and let you get out of those wet clothes,” Harry said.

“Starved. By now I’m half dry.”

“A lot of accidents?” Fair asked.

“Some, but not as many as I’d feared. All the stoplights went out, but people are smart. They do the who-came-first routine and that takes care of it. I think most people had the sense to get off the road. Still, that storm hit us fast.”

“You know, just before the wind hit, no birds were flying. No deer out in the field. The horses seemed fine. I should have noticed they all faced the same direction. Hindsight makes us all smart.”

“Sometimes it does, but most times I kick myself in the butt,” said Cooper.

“Oh, let me do that for you,” Harry teased her. “That’s what friends are for.”

The wooden steps reverberated again. Fair rejoined them after double-checking the generator. “You’ve got an extra five gallons down there.”

“Glad I did that. I try to back up everything, but I don’t like keeping gasoline in the house.”

“I don’t, either, but if you think about it, wood near the fireplace isn’t always the smartest thing, either,” Harry added.

“True, but wood won’t explode.” Cooper had finished her plate in record time.

Harry uttered those sweetest words. “You’re right.”

Rain started again, medium not driving.

“Here it comes again.” Cooper stared out the window at the downpour. “Rick and I”—she named the sheriff—“had to tell Jordan Leader about Barbara at work. You know, that’s the hardest part of the job. His coworkers were wonderful, drove him home. One of them is staying with him.”

“No idea what went wrong?”

“Often with sudden death the family requests an autopsy, just a basic autopsy that can be done by a hospital pathologist. He said he wanted one. Said she was the picture of health.”

Harry nodded. “Funny, isn’t it? People want to know. It makes them feel better somehow.”

Fair replied, “It does, but if someone died of a condition that can be inherited or is transmittable, it makes sense. And things like stroke are silent killers. How many times have you heard about someone who just had a complete checkup and they drop dead of a heart attack? I guess it’s good to know the exact cause of death.”

“Right,” Harry concurred. “But it doesn’t really change anything.”

In this case, it would.