Tail Gait

by Rita Mae Brown

  A brief silence followed this, then Lionel said, “To start, we should send a wreath from the team.”

  “Does Trudy want flowers?” asked Rudolph Putnam, fullback 1960, now a rich paving contractor.

  “She and the kids,” said Marshall, “felt this was more important to the giver than to them, but Olivia wishes we will distribute to the hospitals afterward.” The McConnells had two children, one now in her late fifties and another in her early fifties. He then added, “They’re worried there isn’t room for all the people who will attend the service.”

  “Hadn’t thought of that.” Paul frowned, picturing the small chapel.

  “Can they mic the service for those standing outside?” Lionel had picked up a few media terms in L.A.

  “Yes,” Marshall simply said.

  Nelson added, “We also have the use of the lawn and Pavilion Seven after the service. It’s all arranged.”

  Recently, there had been an uproar over the university president being ousted in 2012. She was then reinstated, thanks to a revolt of students and faculty, prompting Willis’s question, “Is the president going to attend?”

  “Not only is Teresa Sullivan going to attend, most of the Board of Visitors, past and present, will be there; former university presidents; both Virginia senators; the governor; a smattering of representatives, as well as state officials. David Toscano is leading the state group, as you would expect. Everyone will be there. Larry Sabato, just everyone.” Marshall beamed. “The Richmond Times Dispatch, of course, already printed a fulsome obituary, but a reporter will also be at the service and at the Pavilion.”

  “If we could announce at the Pavilion that we are endowing a chair in the history department in his name, I can’t think of any more fitting tribute.” Nelson’s voice carried conviction and emotion.

  Paul Huber gasped. “We’ll need millions.”

  “Tim Jardine, class of ’72, made a great deal of money in Wall Street. He’s pledged one million to get us started,” Nelson informed them. “And Tim also pledges to lead the drive.”

  All of a sudden, everyone was talking at once.

  “I pledge another million.” Marshall’s voice rose. “Ginger is one of the main reasons for my success.” Indicating the Fry-Jefferson map on the wall, he said, “I constantly study that map, which was a gift from Ginger. In my work, I’ve always studied the early landowners, tried to keep a bit of the history with the demand for new housing, new people. I put up a marker at the entrance to each development, giving the history of the place. It’s the least I could do.”

  They all knew this, but Marshall was proud, ever reminding people.

  Nelson smiled. “Gentlemen, you can see how important this is, and few of us can give millions. I know I can’t, but Sandra and I will do our best to be generous. I will work with Tim in the drive for funds, but I will need your help—”

  Marshall interrupted. “Tim Jardine says he will also take care of the endowment once we have the monies.”

  “Well, what do we need? I mean, do we need, say, twelve million dollars all at once?” Willis, an artist, made a decent living, but he earned nothing like the others. He did, however, live an exciting and full life. This was a man not suited for business or compromise.

  Marshall spoke again. “Endowing a chair essentially means providing a high salary to attract a leading professor to the school. A star professor in the sciences or medical research might command a million dollars with additional benefits, research assistants, et cetera. For a nationally significant history professor, we have to compete with Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, you name it. I would like the salary to be commensurate with those in medicine or scientific research, to announce our steadfast belief in the humanities. Mr. Jefferson certainly believed in them.”

  Although most of these men had made careers in medicine, law, or business, their educational underpinning in the humanities had served them well. They had a long view of human affairs, thanks to Ginger McConnell.

  Lionel threw in his lot. “Nelson, I think Jennifer and I can scrape up fifty thousand dollars. That might pay for the phone bills, the trips to talk to people personally.”

  “Hear, hear!” the others cheered.

  “I assume the history department will be the ones hiring this person. Why can’t we save money by hiring a young man or woman,” Lionel said, adding hastily, “one on the way up, with salary escalators?”

  “That’s part of a discussion with the university,” Rudolph remarked. “We can’t do anything without their being on board.”

  “I doubt they would pass on such a generous offer,” Lionel wryly commented.

  “Well, we know the university can’t endow a chair. Chairs are always endowed by individuals. Then, too, the budget is approved by the legislature.” Willis sourly added, “That’s the damned trouble with state schools.”

  “So it is, but state school or not, this is one of the leading universities in America,” Marshall proudly stated.

  Rudolph waved his hand dismissively. “Yes, but it’s so difficult for a state school to compete with a private institution like Yale or Stanford.”

  “That’s a discussion for another day.” Nelson guided the conversation back to the topic at hand. “Are we all together on this? The goal is to raise initially ten million, and we’ve already got two.”

  “I’m in.” Willis nodded. “I always do what the quarterback tells me.” Willis was a good fullback in 1959, a position somewhat in flux today with the various offensive formations.

  The rest of the meeting was taken up with each man agreeing to fund-raise from a list of names given to him, all known to him. As the meeting was breaking up, Paul said to Nelson, “What about Ginger’s publisher? He won award after award, so he had to have made them money.”

  “He did, but a history bestseller isn’t like Fifty Shades of Grey.”

  Marshall, overhearing the query, stepped in. “Given some of the punishment out there on the field, I think we could write Fifty Shades of Black and Blue.”

  Nelson smiled slowly.

  Marshall smiled back. “With Trudy’s permission, I did contact his publisher. They will give us one hundred thousand dollars, a goodly sum for them.”

  Paul shook his head. “Strange business. I don’t understand it.”

  “I’m not sure the people in it understand it. Probably what makes it exciting. Building a high-end home is fulfilling, some creativity is involved, but pretty much, it’s cut and dried. I prefer more of a sure thing,” Marshall remarked.

  “Well, you sure hit it,” Paul replied.

  As the men filed out, Nelson began to clean up the glasses, not many.

  “Nelson, the cleaning service will take care of that,” Marshall said, then changed the subject. “I thought that went very well, did you?”

  “I did. I just want to make sure that everyone feels included even if they can’t write a check.”

  “You thinking about Frank Cresey?” Marshall mentioned a spectacular failure from the seventies, now a homeless resident of the Downtown Mall. “You know, Frank wouldn’t give us money even if he had it. He always blamed Ginger for his flameout.”

  Nelson quietly agreed. “No, he wouldn’t.”

  “If Olivia had been my daughter, I would have done the same thing.”

  “Yes, I think most of us would. Frank drank too much, even when he played football.”

  “Drank, hell! He had FUTURE ALCOHOLIC tattooed on his forehead. But he was handsome. All-American. A fun party boy. Olivia thought he was a knight in shining armor.”

  As Marshall closed the door to the office, he flicked off the lights, one of which shone directly on the Fry-Jefferson 1755 map. “On today’s date, Lincoln was assassinated.”

  Nelson murmured, “You always remember historical dates, but I suppose we should all remember that one.”

  “Ginger’s murder doesn’t have the repercussions of a presidential assassination, but it’s terrible. Can’t get it out of my mi
nd.”

  Walking with Marshall to their cars, Nelson agreed that he couldn’t get it out of his mind either. What he didn’t say was that one of the things he had learned in Ginger’s history class was that violence is like a firecracker. One pop sets off explosions. He truly hoped that was not the case now.

  December 19, 1779

  Short and wiry, uneducated but intelligent, Edward Thimble packed mixed mud and straw between the open spaces separating the fir trees used as sides for barracks. His hands were raw from the wet mud.

  Charles, next to him, also shoved mud between the spaces. “Poor stuff. Still, we have to try something.”

  The marksmen stuck together. Those captured from other units gravitated toward these men, and the guards thought that was fine. Charles West was a natural leader and kept his men working. They loved him. Few other British officers cared to work alongside their men or share their hardships; he was a rarity. As it was, most captured British officers were being housed in individual homes in the area, while others had remained in Cambridge. Their hosts, although aware that these men were the enemy, were also aware that they were well born and sophisticated. And, like all Colonials, they aped their “betters” even as they wished to form their own country. Hosting a British or Hessian officer carried social cachet.

  “A storm is coming.” Piglet lifted his handsome head, sniffing toward the north.

  “These people need crofters,” Sam MacLeish grumbled. “Not one house in eight hundred miles was thatched. If we could do that, we’d be warm enough.”

  “So you think they have the right kind of reeds?” Edward asked.

  “Nah, but we can use straw. If we can find some straw or convince the guards to give us some, I can get up there on that worthless roof. Tree trunks with split fir trees overlap. Do not these outlaws know how to build?”

  “You saw the brick homes.” Charles remembered some large, handsome houses between Saratoga and Charlottesville, Virginia—now their home, more or less.

  The Albemarle Barracks—tossed together west of Charlottesville and northwest of Scottsville, the local gathering center on the James River—afforded an inspiring view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but little else.

  Farmers, cobblers, and tailors from Charlottesville and Scottsville began to frequent The Barracks, as they called the prisoner-of-war camp. It was not heavily fortified; there was no need to do so in winter, as most of the captured had sense enough to know they wouldn’t survive long in these winters. Not that a vicious wind and snow could knock the Scottish lowlands or northern England, but the weather here seemed wilder somehow. As for the captured Scots from the Highlands, they could endure anything. They planned their escape for spring.

  The Barracks had been thrown up in haste; more were under construction.

  The American Captain Schuyler walked by. “Chinking.”

  “I beg your pardon, Sir?” said Charles, on the north side of the long twenty-four-foot wall. He raised his blonde eyebrows.

  “That’s what we call filling in the spaces between logs. Unfortunately, what you have isn’t the best, but it’s a beginning.”

  Sam MacLeish called down to Charles, “Sir, might you ask the captain about some straw or reeds?”

  Charles looked directly into John Schuyler’s eyes, as was his habit. “Might we have some, Captain? To help with the roof? Begging your pardon, but these barracks are…”

  Edward finished the sentence, “…windy.”

  Captain Schuyler did not commit himself. Instead, he changed the subject, turning to Charles. “Your drawing book, where did you learn to draw? You drew as we marched. And you draw now.”

  “My father allowed me a tutor when I was young, before he sent me off to Harrow.”

  “Your pictures are true to life. If you would draw one of me, I would send it to my mother.”

  “I haven’t many materials, but if you could bring me some good paper, pencils, and perhaps even paints, yes, I could do it.”

  Schuyler hedged a bit. “No telling when mails will arrive from England, Scotland, or Hesse. I’m sure your father will send money and the enlisted men, perhaps a bit.”

  Charles smiled. “Ah, Sir, my father is a baron, but he is not a wealthy man. He won’t be sending me anything. Perhaps you would make me a loan against my pistol, which you could give me, after I’m released, of course.”

  Schuyler smiled in return. “I will purchase supplies, and I will keep your pistol. For a poor fellow, this is a fine weapon.”

  “Indeed it is. Our harvests had been bad, and even though my father owns large acreages, the bills outrun the means to pay them.”

  “Perhaps when you are exchanged, you will return home and amend that situation.”

  “I’m a younger son.”

  “Ah!” Schuyler simply replied. He knew, given England’s laws of primogeniture, that this young, energetic man would inherit little, if anything at all.

  However, West remained ever motivated. “But if you bring me paper and drawing charcoal or pencils, I will gladly draw you. When your mother receives your portrait, she will feel you are in the room.”

  The young captain’s eyes flickered. He greatly loved his mother. “I’ll see to the straw.”

  April 15, 2015

  Just west of Farmington Country Club on Route 250, on the north side of the road, Ivy Nurseries was doing a robust business. The beautiful day drew in everyone who wanted to try new plantings. On such a day, everyone thinks they can garden.

  Over the holidays, Susan Tucker often filled in at the nursery. Formerly, she worked full-time, but as Ned’s career took up more time and energy for both partners, Susan had cut back on her work hours. Both she and Ned realized that public service, not an easy road, was surely an exciting and expensive one.

  Susan and Harry strolled through rows of boxwoods. “They have English boxwoods,” said Susan. Two lovely rows of old, tight English boxwoods lined the McConnell driveway just down the road at Ednam Forest. This well-established high-end development was exceeded in desirability only by Farmington Country Club, itself on the west end, and the up-and-coming Keswick Club on the east.

  Three things were necessary to live in any of these places: money, affability, and taste. Naturally, the taste was always questionable. What one person finds beautiful, another finds too tried and true, which means everyone else does it.

  “Why don’t we try two dwarf crepe myrtles?” suggested Susan. “If we get them in now, they’ll bloom mid-July, provide a bright note. Trudy likes color.”

  Harry walked with Susan to where the bushes were in pots, ready to go. “You never suggested dwarf crepe myrtles to me.”

  “You have enough to take care of: the quarter acre of grapes, the sunflowers, the corn. You don’t have time to garden, and I don’t have time to do it for you.”

  “Depresses me,” grumbled Harry.

  “Why?”

  “Her gardens meant so much to my mother.”

  “Harry, your mother didn’t have as much to do as you do.”

  As they bickered over what color to purchase, Olivia Gaston, the older daughter of Ginger and Trudy McConnell, came into view across the lot. As she meandered—a stop here, a stop there—Harry spotted her first. “Let’s ask Olivia.”

  They greeted her.

  “I had to get away,” Olivia explained. “I couldn’t take one more guest. Rennie is with Mom. I don’t know how she does it.”

  Rennie, Renata, was Olivia’s younger sister.

  “She’s outgoing,” Susan said. “All the visitors don’t make her tired. You’re more sensible.”

  Olivia smiled. “How diplomatic.”

  “I’m so sorry about your father,” Harry said sincerely.

  “Thank you.”

  Susan reassuringly touched Olivia’s arm. “You’ve heard from so many people. It’s got to be overwhelming, which is why we’re here.”

  “Here?”

  “We wanted to plant two dwarf crepe myrtles for your mother
. They’ll bloom in mid-summer, giving color at an off time, just before the zinnias and mums take off.”

  “What a good idea!” said Olivia. “Well, I’ll buy two, one from Rennie and one from me, so we can sort of mass them, you know?” When Olivia smiled, it was her father’s generous smile.

  “What color should we get your mother?” asked Susan.

  “She will like the hot pink. If she could, she’d wear hot pink to the funeral. I think I’m awash in beige because of her. You know how, when you’re young, you swear you’ll never grow up to be like your mother?”

  “We know,” both women said in unison.

  “Let me go fetch Nathan,” said Susan, naming the man in charge of moving larger plants and trees.

  Harry and Olivia waited, observing the springtime planters: sniffing this, buying that.

  “Is that Elizabeth Taliaferro?” Olivia inquired. “I haven’t seen her in years. Well, that’s what happens when you move away. She’s held up rather well. Let her hair go gray. Looks good.” She lowered her voice. “Daddy so loved my strawberry-blonde hair that I colored it just for him. I suppose I always will color my hair even if I look ridiculous. And I suppose my husband is accustomed to it.”

  “Olivia, you could never look ridiculous,” Harry complimented her.

  They purchased the four crepe myrtles, and Nathan loaded them onto Harry’s truck. The three women leaned against the truck for a moment.

  “Olivia, we’ll come by tomorrow to plant them. What, say noon? You pick the spot.”

  “I wish we could do it now! Mother will be happy. However, I don’t know where she keeps the gardening tools. So doing it tomorrow instead will give me a little time to get things together. Actually, once Mom reached eighty, she hired a gardener. That was my first clue that Mom and Dad are, were, growing old.” Olivia’s eyes misted. “You never really think these things will happen, and now this.”

  “It’s a terrible shock,” Susan consoled her.

  Olivia looked at Harry. “The sheriff and your neighbor came by. They asked a lot of questions. They must, I suppose. One that took me by surprise is that they asked about Frank Cresey. I haven’t thought about him for decades. Oh, I was so in love with him when I was eighteen! He made All-American…1975? Yes, it was ’75, and Dad broke it up. Wouldn’t let me see him. Dad actually told the coach of the football team to give Frank an ultimatum. If he kept trying to contact me, he’d be off the team. The coach demurred, but Dad insisted and finally got his way, I suppose, because Frank never contacted me again. And I learned that football was more important for Frank than I was. Thank God, Dad did break it up. I’d have never been happy.”