Tall Tail

by Rita Mae Brown

  Susan Tucker, Harry’s closest friend, also knew Barbara. Susan’s grandfather Samuel Holloway had been governor of Virginia in the early seventies. Diagnosed with leukemia, he’d ignored it and kept going, but finally the disease and his advanced age were taking their toll. Barbara was at the farm, Big Rawly, Monday through Friday. The nurse’s buoyant personality lifted everyone’s spirits.

  “At least she died quickly.” Cooper exhaled. “I suppose that’s some consolation.”

  Saddened to see a longtime acquaintance in such a state, Harry simply shrugged. Yes, a lingering death is painful to watch, but a sudden death, especially when the deceased is young, is a shock.

  “I guess you’re never too young for a massive heart attack or stroke.” Cooper then ordered Harry, “You go on.”

  “I’ll wait with you until the ambulance comes.”

  “Go. I heard over the radio driving here that the winds will pick up. This is turning into some kind of storm. We’ll catch up later and you can give me what details you have.”

  Back in the truck, Harry cut on the motor. The rumble always sounded glorious to her ears.

  “No food?” Pewter pressed.

  Harry reached over to pet the fat gray. She kept her flashers on, slowly driving down the road. It took her forever to reach St. Paul’s, where she turned right. Moving with care, she noticed cars pulled off to the side of the road, cowed by the inclement weather. Branches flew around, a few landing on the pavement and forcing Harry to drive around them. By the time she reached her farm, she uttered a prayer of thanks. It felt like a miracle that she’d made it.

  Cooper was right, this was some kind of storm. The rain dropped like a steel gray curtain, and the wind blew dangerous gusts of sixty miles an hour.

  Rolling down her stone-covered farm road, she noticed trees that had fallen in the rain. She pulled the truck in front of the barn, ran in, and opened the outside stall doors, all of which opened onto paddocks. She could barely see the horses, huddled with their backs to the wind. She whistled and they happily trotted in, each horse entering his or her stall. Petting her friends as she moved from stall to stall, she closed those outside doors, then closed the big end doors, leaving them open a crack. It wouldn’t be too smart in this situation to allow the interior of the barn to keep a higher pressure than the outside.

  The wind screamed. Slipping back outside, she opened the truck door. The cats shot out, flying for the house, nearly colliding as they hit the animal door in the screened porch door.

  Lifting out Tucker, Harry, too, bolted for the house. Tucker, even faster, ran ahead.

  Once inside, she stripped off the wet clothes, dried herself with a fluffy towel, pulled on dry clothes. She left her soggy garments in the shower. She’d come back to wring them out and take them downstairs to the washer, but right now she was hungry and worried.

  The lights flickered and went out. She put down food for the animals and tried calling her husband on the cell, as the power was out. She couldn’t get through. Not that she was worried about her six-foot-five-inch husband. The equine veterinarian was equal to just about any task, but she wanted to hear his voice.

  The windows rattled. Tucker looked worried.

  The cats did, too.

  Harry knelt down to pet everyone, in case the violence of the storm frightened them. “We’ve been through a lot together,” she said consolingly.

  “Yes, we have,” Tucker agreed.

  Mrs. Murphy rubbed against Harry’s leg. “Indeed. We have been through a lot together.”

  “And most of it was your fault,” Pewter firmly stated.

  “Pewter, you are so full of it,” Mrs. Murphy shot back.

  “Buttface,” Pewter grumbled.

  “Your language has deteriorated,” Tucker criticized her.

  “You all drive me to it. On my own, I am perfectly well behaved.” The gray cat said this, knowing it was a major fib no one within hearing distance would believe.

  Standing up, Harry smiled. “What are you two chattering about?” A ferocious gust of wind diverted her attention to the kitchen window. “I can’t see a thing.”

  She opened the refrigerator door. Without its light, she knew where everything was and pulled out a piece of cheese and a Co-Cola. Sitting down, she shoved the cheese in her face, she was so hungry.

  “I like cheese, too,” Pewter announced.

  Harry glanced down at the cat, who put on her best begging face, then looked up again as the windows rattled more. “I wonder if Barbara’s ghost will haunt the curve where she went off the road.”

  “What?” Tucker asked.

  Harry shook her head. “It’s the Avenging Angel in that boneyard. Makes me think of ghosts. I don’t know if I believe in ghosts, but people say animals can see them.”

  “I don’t want to see one,” Pewter replied. “If I see one, I’m going the other way.”

  “What if the ghost had tuna?” the dog said.

  “Well, that’s different,” the fat gray cat responded.

  “But wouldn’t the tuna be ghost food?” Mrs. Murphy tormented Pewter.

  “Fish aren’t ghosts.” Pewter declared this with authority.

  “You don’t know.” Mrs. Murphy licked her front paw. “Maybe Moby-Dick is out there, scaring everybody.”

  “Really, why would anyone write a giant book about a pea-brained whale? If humans intend to write, they should write about cats.” Pewter puffed out her cheeks. This was a sore spot for Pewter. She hated Melville’s storytelling. When alone, Harry had been known to read to them from Moby-Dick.

  Now, as the animals bantered back and forth, Harry thought about the tenuousness of life. She’d seen people die. It didn’t upset or frighten her. But Barbara Leader wasn’t old. Death arrives when He wishes, most generally unannounced. Harry said a prayer for Barbara Leader and then thought again about her spirit. A ghost would not haunt that spot. That was silly.

  She said another prayer and then thought that was the end of it.

  It wasn’t, of course.

  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.

  Wednesday, July 13, 2016

  Sliding sideways, recovering, Harry slowly drove her year-old ATV down the farm road. With two exceptions, the pasture fences remained unbroken. Near the creek that separates Harry’s place from Cooper’s place, two trees had crashed into the far pastures. Uprooted sycamores, mud clinging to their roots, littered the creek bed. Rumbling to the beaver dam, she cut the motor, swinging her leg over the seat.
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br />   Hands on her hips, Tucker by her side, she examined the beaver dam. Part of it, torn away, was already being repaired by the industrious beasts, who paid little attention to Harry. Seeing her over the years, they knew her, of course. She never bothered them, nor did Tucker, with rare exceptions. None of them slapped their tail on the water as warning. Perched on their haunches, they looked at the human for a moment before returning to their task. Intelligent creatures, they retrieved those pieces of wood entangled in roots or hung up behind rocks halfway in the water. Other beavers chewed at saplings farther away from the creek.

  “Come on, Tucker.” Harry remounted as Tucker jumped onto her lap, muddy paws and all.

  Harry considered pawprints her fashion signature.

  The ATV had been altered so instead of pushing a little lever for the gas with her right thumb she could twist the right handlebar cover as one would do on a motorcycle. Sure made long trips on the ATV easier. She felt she had better control.

  Harry preferred two wheels to four, but covering the kind of terrain she did in various weather conditions, an off-the-road motorcycle wasn’t as useful—plus, on a motorcycle she couldn’t carry anything. A toolkit affixed to the back of her machine met most needs. Much as Harry loved her old 4x4 truck, this was cheaper on gas and she could wiggle into places forbidden to the truck, unless she wanted to wreck it.

  Up the east side of the Blue Ridge they climbed, dodging downed limbs along the way. This side occasionally saw weather fly over it, dipping to the lower land below, which rested at eight hundred feet above sea level. The top of this particular ridge hovered at two thousand five hundred feet, high enough. Humpback Mountain’s top stood higher than that. The gap for Interstate 64 neared three thousand feet, and Humpback even stood higher. Along this old path, Harry had cut out turnarounds. Halfway up the mountain stood a sturdy shed. All was in order. The walnut trees were unscathed, but then they were more than a century old, with root systems deep and wide unlike the loblolly pines. Other conifers also stood tall; they, too, were very old. Harry thought some of them might even be virgin trees, along with some old oaks and hickories, impressive.