Tall Tail

by Rita Mae Brown

  Pewter opened an eye, closed it again. “He’s old.”

  Mrs. Murphy laughed. “Doesn’t mean he wants to die.”

  Impulsively, Harry picked up the office phone, dialing Cooper. “Hey.”

  “Hey back at you.”

  “Work?”

  “Long day. I’m on my way home.”

  “I know you received the medical examiner’s report on Barbara Leader or you wouldn’t have been on your way to Big Rawly yesterday.”

  “She was murdered. The odd thing was she had ingested the thallium chloride. They aren’t a hundred percent sure how, but the consensus is she took a gelatin tablet, like a gelatin Motrin or vitamin, and it was inside the tablet. Once the outside dissolved, the drug could take effect.”

  Harry considered this. “Someone knew her routine if it was in a vitamin tablet or even a Motrin tablet. Do you think someone at Big Rawly did this?”

  “No idea, although she was traveling toward Big Rawly.”

  “Right.” Harry then asked, “Maybe the governor was the intended victim?”

  “Given all the pills he’s taking, you’d think he’d be long gone by now if that was the intent,” said Cooper. “As it is, not to sound heartless, he will soon be gone.”

  “Right,” Harry simply replied. The thought of the beloved old man’s death saddened her.

  Tuesday, September 21, 1784

  “There.” Charles sprinkled sand on the parchment. He tilted the skin to the side, and the sand fell into a small glass container.

  Upon hearing the sand, Piglet’s ears pricked up.

  Catherine took the proffered document. “Remarkable.”

  Smiling, Charles added, “Forging discharge papers helped my comrades, the other prisoners of war, live unmolested once they escaped. Truth is, I don’t think the guards or even your Congress wanted to find them. Still.”

  John leaned down to study Charles’s writing on the document, beautiful flourishes. A hand like that took years to develop. “When you wrote letters to my mother, she thought they were pretty as paintings.”

  Rachel looked out the window; Charles’s workroom glowed with light from the setting sun. “The autumn equinox,” she announced before turning to the others. “Can Moses read at all?”

  “No,” Catherine answered. “But he’ll know a manumission paper when he sees one. He will have to keep this on him at all times until he’s settled, and even then.” She sighed. “Rachel, Charles, I am sorry to draw you into this. John, Bettina, and I pray day and night for guidance. How do we save Moses and Ailee without compromising Father? And without compromising ourselves? You all know what will happen if either of them are caught.”

  Sitting at his drafting table, Charles solemnly reached up to touch his sister-in-law’s wrist. “There might be another way.”

  John pulled a chair over for his wife and then for Rachel. He sat on a small high bench after removing papers, books, twine.

  “What do you do with this?” John held up the twine.

  “I put a little lead sinker on the end and use it for a straight line. Like we did when we built the bridges only wee, tiny. Sometimes if I can see something off the page, see all the dimensions, I can think better.”

  Catherine returned to the problem. “A plan?”

  “I have been given the commission to design St. Luke’s, as you know. Well, St. Luke’s is a Lutheran church in a new land. I know Winchester Cathedral”—he smiled—“wouldn’t fit here. And a Lutheran church must not be confused with Catholic, right? Or these newer faiths, the evangelical faiths. The Quakers. Lutheran is distinctive. It’s still high church, but less”—he twirled his right hand as he tried to convey his meaning—“bombastic.”

  Catherine smiled. “You think the Church of England is bombastic?”

  “After Harry the Eighth, it had to rival Rome.” Charles smiled back. “The Dissolution scars still disfigure my homeland, and I truly pray such a terrible thing never happens here.”

  “It can’t,” said John. “We have the separation of church and state, thanks to James Madison, who crafted that for Virginia.” John hadn’t fought in the war for nothing.

  “And let us hope it holds forever, but back to St. Luke’s,” said Charles. “There are few models in Virginia, but I know there are many in Pennsylvania. Captain Bartholomew Graves, whom John will recall, now lives in York. He says the churches there are uncommonly beautiful, both Episcopal and Lutheran. The good captain swears every second person is a Lutheran, but he mentioned a particular church, Christ Lutheran on George Street.”

  “Do you think they will change the street names?” Rachel blurted this out.

  “Why? We were a colony of the king. Better to remember than forget,” John levelly declared.

  “If it’s any further help, there’s also a King Street, a Queen Street, a Prince Street, a Duke Street. The residents of York will keep their king and queen, which brings me to this church. It was a log cabin in the 1600s. They say it is the first church west of the Susquehanna River. Over the decades, with trade increasing and people moving there, the church has been built out of red brick, all surmounted by a most beautiful proportionate steeple. It can be seen for miles around.”

  Rachel bestowed upon her husband her sweetest smile. “Charles, dear, what has this to do with Moses and Ailee?”

  “Oh, I digress. What would I do if I didn’t have you to bring me back to the path?”

  “You’d listen to me bark.” Piglet guffawed, which made the others laugh, although they didn’t know what the brave fellow had said.

  “Yes, dear.” Rachel smiled.

  “Yes, well, I will tell all and sundry that I must go to York to study these Lutheran churches, most especially Christ Lutheran. This will be a short visit. Karl can help me build a steeple, an example.” He held up his hands. “A steeple to be looked over by the Lutheran pastors and their architects. We will hide Moses in the steeple, which I will cart up there on a wagon. The steeple will have slits so he can breathe and a door so he can step out at night and sleep in the straw, which will fill the wagon to protect the steeple. A steeple is the only structure I can think of that will work. It can be big enough that he can sit in it. When out of sight, we can pass food and drink to him. At night we can pull into an Ordinary, put the wagon under a shed roof or something. He can climb out, burrow under in the straw, and sleep.”

  No one uttered a word. Even Piglet remained silent.

  Finally Catherine stood up, stared at the setting sun, the thrilling beauty of an equinox sunset over the Blue Ridge Mountains. “Charles, you may have found the way. I pray to God you have.” She mused. “The changing seasons. How it marks time.” She turned to the others. “I have involved each of you in a dangerous enterprise. Please do forgive me, but when I saw Moses and Ailee, when they first sought refuge here, my heart near broke. I could not turn them in nor turn them away.” She paused for a long time. “Rachel, remember when Mother and Father would read us Bible passages?”

  “I do.”

  “Remember how upset we were when she read to us about Cain and Abel? And Cain says, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ ” She stared at her lovely sister, recalling their mother’s liquid voice. “I believe we are our brother’s keepers. I don’t know what it means except that I must save these two souls. I think Mother would.”

  Quietly, with conviction, Rachel replied, “I think so, too. We are all in danger, Catherine, but it isn’t your doing. It started with Francisco Selisse.”

  Charles ruefully added, “It started thousands of years before that. Catherine, what you’ve done has awakened us. If we are careful, if Moses keeps his wits, he will be safe with Captain Graves as a freedman worker. We can give the captain and his wife money to help feed and clothe him. In time, if Moses wants to move on, he can, just so long as he doesn’t return here.”

  “He can never return,” Catherine spoke with determination. “He will never see Ailee again.”

  “You two have not seen
her.” John spoke to Charles and Rachel. “Her face has been broken. She is blind in her left eye.”

  “Maureen Selisse wrought her revenge on a poor creature who was innocent.” John surprised them with his vehemence. “Wicked. At least Francisco deserved what he got.”

  “Wicked and very female,” Rachel opined, but without rancor.

  “We aren’t going to solve these foolish things,” Charles said. “Karl and I can have the steeple built in two days. I’d like to cover the top with copper, but that will slow us down. Shakes will do for now. Can you ready Moses for the day after tomorrow?”

  John nodded. “Father Gabe and Bettina will have to do that.”

  “Will they?” Charles asked.

  “Yes.”

  “The other slaves know. Are Moses and Ailee safe? And what about us? Slaves talk just as much as any other group of people.” Charles felt a creep of apprehension on his skin.

  “They will keep silent,” Catherine said. “Charles, think of what they stand to lose.”

  “What of Ailee?” Charles inquired.

  “She doesn’t speak. She has lost the power. If anyone were to see her, they would know who she is. She is so light-skinned. Everyone knows that, too. The story of Francisco’s murder has strong legs.”

  Rachel looked at her sister. “Where can she go, and is she strong enough to travel?”

  Catherine shook her head. “She’s not strong enough. Father Gabe moved some bones back into place, but she will never look as she did, and she is blind in that eye. And yet the other side of her face remains so beautiful, so very beautiful. We must keep her until we can find a way. Moses can grow a beard. He’ll look like so many other young men. But Ailee will only ever look like Ailee.”

  “She can’t stay in that cave forever,” Charles exclaimed. “I haven’t been there, nor should I, but caves are damp and cold, and the nights grow longer and colder.”

  Rachel spoke this time. “Let’s get Moses out first. Then we can attend to Ailee.”

  “There is another complication.” Catherine took a deep breath. “She is with child. Bettina believes this to be so.”

  Rachel again spoke: “As I said, we will attend to Ailee later.”

  Walking back to their house, arm in arm, Catherine and John admired the sunset, now in full flame.

  “Change,” Catherine simply said.

  “I welcome it.”

  “I do, too, but now I feel as though the earth is moving under me. I thought things were clear, right and wrong. Simple. Am I changing or are the times?”

  He bent down to kiss her cheek. “Both. When I fought I knew what I had to do even if I didn’t know how to do it. And I found a way. The cannonade, the whistle of bullets. War is both difficult and easy. This is not easy. Maybe, Catherine, everyone faces such moments or difficulties as we now find ourselves facing. The problem we have is certainly dangerous, but we will do the best we can.”

  “And we will do it together.” She stopped, reached up, put her hand behind his neck, pulled his face to hers, and kissed him. “I love you so.”

  Sunday, August 7, 2016

  “She looks so young.” Harry’s eyes misted as the photograph of her mother appeared on Fair’s large computer screen. She was feeling sentimental. Her dearest friends had gathered at her house to celebrate her birthday, and now looking at these old photos was making her emotional.

  “She was,” Susan said. “Her senior year at Smith. I guess all your maternal side of the family attended Smith.”

  Harry nodded, then smiled as a photo of her father appeared. Standing in a vaulted doorway at Cornell, his arms were thrown over the shoulders of two fraternity buddies.

  Photo after photo of Harry’s family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, then the marriage photo of her mother and father at Greenwood Episcopal Church back in 1972. Two radiant young people, the bride’s veil now off her face, the groom in a morning suit, with a large crowd of friends surrounding them.

  Ned pointed to the screen.

  “Hey, isn’t that Samuel Holloway?”

  “I think so. They were all good friends. There’s Miranda and George Hogendober.” Harry cited her longtime work partner and her late husband.

  She missed working with Miranda as she missed the old post office.

  Now peering over her shoulder, Miranda lamented, “George had hair in the photograph.”

  They all laughed.

  The photograph that drew the biggest laugh was the one of Harry and Susan in the new sandbox, followed by another photo of the ruined sandbox.

  Watching the screen from the side, Pewter called down to Tucker, “She wore a bow in her hair.”

  “Little girls did that. Still do.” The corgi thought bows silly.

  Sitting in Fair’s lap, Mrs. Murphy enjoyed the pictures. Included here were images of long-deceased dogs, mostly German shepherds, and other kitties.

  After the show, Harry, Fair, Susan, Ned, Miranda, the Very Reverend Herbert Jones, BoomBoom Craycroft, Alicia Palmer, and Cooper repaired to the kitchen. Susan pulled a giant devil’s food cake out of the refrigerator and lit the candles, which glowed against the vanilla icing.

  “How did you fit that cake in our fridge?” Harry wondered.

  “Moved the shelves,” Fair informed her, quickly adding, “Don’t worry, I’ll put them back.”

  “Okay. Blow out the candles and make a wish,” Susan ordered her friend.

  Harry blew them out in one big, long breath. “I’m not telling my wish.”

  “Can’t. Then it won’t come true,” BoomBoom affirmed.

  In the living room, thankfully cool, as Harry had put air-conditioning in the old farmhouse years back, the happy group ate their cake, drank some champagne, and reminisced.

  “I can’t believe we wore our hair like that in college,” Harry mused.

  Harry was moved. “I can’t believe you all gathered up these pictures and took them down to Rae Tait and she did this, given all that’s happening at Crozet Media.”

  “Said she had a wonderful time scanning them in.” Cooper smiled. “It beats us asking her more questions.”

  “Such an odd thing.” BoomBoom put her plate on the coffee table. “Why would anyone go through Rae’s files when all that expensive equipment was there? The keyboard, soundboard, everything? Video equipment, apart from the cameras, costs a pretty penny.”

  Ned put his arm around his wife’s shoulders as she sat next to him. “Well, you know they weren’t druggies, or they’d have cleaned out anything that could bring a dollar.”

  “Cooper and I went through all that was left, the outtakes,” said Harry, then looked at Cooper. “Did I just say too much?”

  Cooper shrugged. “No. It helped to have two sets of eyes looking at the discarded footage, or I should say unused footage.”

  “The outtakes we saw from Ed Cunningham’s website had the governor in some of them,” said Harry. “Seeing him at Mom and Dad’s wedding, I’m reminded what a handsome man he was. Still is.”

  “Many politicians are.” Susan poked her husband, who laughed.

  “Hey, not me,” Ned replied.

  “You are to me.” Susan blew him a kiss.

  “Ned, you’re good-looking and not fat. That’s a victory.” Harry teased him. “I mean, you’re even older than I am, or your wife.”

  “That reminds me.” Susan rose, left the room, returning with a wrapped tube, a big bow in the middle. “Happy Birthday.”

  Harry shook the tube. “What’s this?”

  “Open it. Then we’ll all find out,” Fair encouraged her.

  “Leave the empty tube,” Pewter begged.

  “Why? You’re too fat to fit into it,” said Tucker. A hint of malice pricked her ears.

  Pewter shot over to the dog, boxed her ears, then returned to sitting under the coffee table.

  “What was that all about?” BoomBoom wondered.

  “Around here you never know.” Harry laughed as she gently edged out a piece of hea
vy paper. “What in the world?” Then she laughed. “I don’t believe you!”

  Susan held up the paper, which was a birth certificate. But this birth certificate had been backdated three years, so that Harry would still be thirty-nine. “See, your mother lied on your birth certificate.”

  Everyone crowded around to look and the certificate looked proper. They all laughed.

  Alicia, unbelievably beautiful, like Sophia Loren is unbelievably beautiful, and who had been a movie star in the fifties and early sixties, studied the document. “Susan, can you get me one of these?”

  Everyone laughed again and Fair poured more champagne. “To my wife. In my eyes, she will always be the most beautiful, the most fascinating, sometimes the most irritating, but always my girl.”

  They cheered.

  Mrs. Murphy somehow managed to wiggle into the tube. Pewter maliciously rolled it. Harsh words were spoken and the tiger cat backed out of the tube, intent on her revenge. Two cats flew out of the living room. A crash in the kitchen did not bode well.

  Harry shook her head. “Oh, we’ll find it later.”

  “Must be wonderful not to know how old you are.” Miranda laughed at the cats.

  Tucker supplied an answer. “We don’t know like you know, but we know. Not so much years as memories. We remember everything.”

  The humans talked, ate some more, drank some more, and loved every minute of being together, as old friends do.

  Harry piped up. “Seeing the governor like I said earlier, young, handsome, makes you realize the power of time.”

  “And burdens. Governor Holloway carried heavy burdens.” Miranda offered that insight. “His mistakes will stick to him, but I hope what he did for us will, too. He built so many state roads, he protected our battlefields from developments, he tried to keep the peace—unfortunately, in the wrong manner, but I think he brought prosperity to Virginia.”

  “Being governor of Virginia means you have an easy or uneasy relationship with the president.” Ned spoke from his experience in the House of Delegates. “We are loaded with military bases and we all benefit from the huge shipyard in Norfolk. Federal money pours into this state, but the governor has to be wary of the president. If the president is not of the governor’s party, might not be a smooth ride. Anything affecting the military affects Virginia. And Governor Holloway’s record on that is outstanding.”