The Litter Of The Law

Friday the air sparkled, the leaves exploded with color, and the temperature hung at about forty-seven degrees. Fall ushered in many changes. Fur-covered animals now had their thick undercoat, the outer coat shining luxuriously. With the waning of daylight, chickens laid less eggs. All those creatures slowed down by summer’s heat now surged with energy. Robins and some ducks and geese had already departed on their southern journey, as had the monarch butterflies. Everyone else busied themselves with nest repair. Turtles readied for sleep, along with other amphibians and reptiles. Toads lined their shallow nests with straw, hay, anything that could insulate, as did mice, who could unravel a sweater quickly.

Harry had once left a thick wool sweater in the tack room only to come back the next morning to find mice had chewed big holes in it, all of that fine wool now lining their nests behind the wall. Those mice lived good.

This perfect October morning, having just finished the barn chores, Harry tossed up some jelly beans for the possum in the hayloft, then shook the hay bits out of her hair.

“Don’t shake that on me,” complained a perfectly groomed Pewter, languishing below.

“All right, who’s ready to go?” asked Harry.

“Me!” Tucker ran in from the back of the barn.

“Me, too,” Mrs. Murphy echoed her friend.

Both eagerly sat in the center aisle as Harry hung up her big wide sweeper. “That’s two. Let me check on Pewts.”

“Leave her here,” Tucker advised. “She’s such a priss and a pain.”

Pewter lifted her head from her paws. “I heard that.”

She’d been sleeping in the tack room, disturbed only when Harry had shaken out the hay while looking in the big mirror.

“Come on,” Harry urged her.

“I have nothing to wear,” Pewter replied facetiously.

“Just leave her,” Tucker practically begged.

Much as Pewter wished to languish in the tack room, the prospect of irritating the corgi held greater allure. She rose, stretching fore and aft, then daintily leapt to the floor and sauntered out the tack room door.

“Peon,” the gray cat remarked to the sitting dog as she passed.

“Pissant,” Tucker fired back.

Tucker flattened her ears and readied herself to lunge after the large cat, but Mrs. Murphy whispered, “Cool it.”

“How can I let her get away with that?” asked Tucker.

“If you growl or chase after her, Mom will leave you here. She hates fights in the truck or car, you know that.”

Tucker’s ears drooped, her expression saddened. “That cat gets away with murder.”

Pewter, full sashay working—a swing to the right, a swing to the left—called over her shoulder, “I am fascinating. Harry never likes to go anywhere without me. You, on the other hand, are a mere drooling dog. So eager to please. Peon. You really are a peon.”

Mrs. Murphy walked tightly next to her canine friend. “Ignore her.”

Harry opened the door to the 1978 Ford F-150, a half-ton pickup truck you couldn’t kill on Judgment Day. The two cats jumped onto the floorboard while the human bent over to pick up the solid dog. “Onf.”

“Don’t call me fat.” Pewter grinned as the dog was placed on the seat.

“I’m a lot bigger than you,” Tucker said, defending her weight.

“Oh, la,” the cat sang out, then crawled onto Harry’s lap once she was behind the wheel.

Harry could easily drive with a cat in her lap, so she fired up the old engine, listened to the melodic deep rumble, then pulled around and down the long drive.

“Where are we going?” Pewter asked.

“Okay, you all, we’re going to Crème de la Crème. I am finally going to break down and buy two of those heavy Italian mugs.”

“She understood?” Tucker’s ears shot up.

“Of course she didn’t,” Pewter laughed. “She just likes to hear herself yak.”

“Look who’s talking,” Tucker said in a low voice to Mrs. Murphy.

“I have good ears, you know,” Pewter said.

“You do,” Mrs. Murphy agreed.

“It’s your attitude that’s not so good.” Tucker had to say it.

The gray cat turned her back on the other two on the bench seat, rested her chin on Harry’s left forearm, and watched the passing scenery out the side window.

Slowing for a turn, Harry could see the houses on the ridge at the Old Trail development. Below, she spotted Buddy Janss on his huge tractor, harvesting his soybeans. The other side of the road was filled with corn: some rows cut, others left standing to dry. On the road, yellow metal signs about the size of the old Burma Shave signs marked the rows. Each sign showed a golden ear of corn with two green leaves folded back. Below that, the seed company Demeter was identified in red letters, and under that in black Arabic numerals were the seed ID numbers. Buddy Janss had worked with Demeter for years and this was his test field. His other acres were dedicated to revenue crops.

Harry pulled off the road as Buddy cut the motor of his tractor. He climbed down to check something on the attachment. Satisfied, he turned to climb back up.

“Buddy!” Harry called out as she walked toward him, with three four-footed friends in tow.

“Harry.” He smacked his baseball hat on his leg. “After hearing the news, I was going to call you, girl, but I figured you’d had enough.”

He wrapped his massive arms around her, giving her a hug as she kissed his cheek.

“I appreciate that. It was crazy.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “I can’t believe it, just can’t believe it.”

“Me neither.”

“Now, Hester was peculiar, no doubt, but she was a good girl.” He wiped a tear from his eye with his handkerchief.

“I’ve been racking my brain to think who could do such a thing.”

“Can’t think of a soul, can you? Who would want to hurt Hester?” He looked into her eyes. “She could get in your face about things, stuff she really cared about, like ethanol, but you don’t kill someone over ethanol. And there were certain people she just wouldn’t do business with, but how much money would a farmer lose by not having his produce sold at Hester’s? I’m like you, racking my brain.”

“I’ve been thinking over her many pet projects, pet peeves,” said Harry. “We all know she loved the Crozet Library. She loved history and wanted to preserve as much of our history as she could. She also cared about farming practices.” Harry laughed as the tears rolled down her face. “I don’t think Hester ever saw an abandoned building she didn’t want to save. Like some people save animals, she tried to save existing buildings or raise funds for a building the community needs. Remember when she was afraid the old Coca-Cola building would be torn down? And I think she checked into the three abandoned school buildings there by your one hundred acres. Oh, also she wanted to have designated as a historical spot the house where Georgia O’Keeffe lived ever so briefly. You don’t murder someone over any of that.” Harry cried more, which made Buddy join in.

Buddy, like most powerful men in this part of the world, readily showed emotion. Bighearted to a fault, they wanted to hold babies, pet your dogs, take your arm as though you needed guidance, and to help any lady, old, young, pretty or not.

Harry wiped her eyes, then reached up and wiped Buddy’s. “I hate that someone made a mockery of her in her death,” she said.

“You know, girl, sooner or later that S.O.B. will make a mistake, and I want to be there.”

Little did Buddy or Harry know, he would get his wish.