Tall Tail

by Rita Mae Brown

  Monday, August 15, 2016

  “Cooler down here.” Harry welcomed the temperature.

  “Remind me why we’re down here,” Susan grumbled as she followed the narrow deer trail along the creek.

  “I knew we should have stayed at home,” Pewter complained in chorus with Susan.

  Mrs. Murphy sidestepped a tree root. “We could leave you here.”

  “But then we’d have to come back.” Tucker leapt over the root.

  “I never said anything about coming back.” Mrs. Murphy brushed against an increasingly irritated Pewter.

  Without a peep, Owen, Tucker’s brother, steadfastly followed the two humans.

  “You promised your DAR chapter that you’d walk the creek that used to divide the old Garth property down to your grandparents’ farm, which was founded shortly before the Revolution. Was the Selisse farm first.”

  “I did.” Susan took a breath. “I never realized how far it was.”

  “On the topo map, it reads five miles over various terrain.”

  “My ancestors didn’t walk this creek. They used the farm roads. Why am I walking? What was I thinking?” Susan complained louder.

  “The old map from the time, the one around the time of the Jefferson-Fry map, shows this creek. Well, it shows all the tributaries into the rivers, of which this was one. Running water changes, so banks change, bends change, and the modern map shows some differences. We are walking to see it and to see if any old foundations are visible,” Harry patiently explained, for she was fascinated by natural phenomena. “Remember, back then, many of the poor built right by water so they wouldn’t have far to haul it. Digging a well could be expensive.”

  “Still is.” Susan sat on a big stump. “Let me catch my breath.”

  “Sure.” Harry plopped down on an upturned log.

  The dogs happily sniffed everything while the cats peered into the creek, searching for guppies, crawdads, anything that moved.

  “Can you imagine owning all the land that the Garths owned or the Holloways? And they were so smart they never subdivided over the decades. Even after 1865, they hung on pretty much until World War One, when cars changed things. A bit of money began to creep south of the Mason-Dixon Line.”

  “It’s a flood now.” Harry laughed. “But you know, I respect those people who held it together, who didn’t want to divide up their land even though they no longer had money.”

  Susan smiled. “No weed wackers, tractors, or snowplows. Tough, how tough they were.”

  “Your people have a wild history. All that talk about Creole blood.”

  “Harry, it was just talk, because Francisco Selisse and Maureen, the first wife, didn’t have children. Well, she didn’t. He availed himself of local talent.”

  “It’s kind of like the Cherokees, isn’t it? They interbred with the white people and the blacks, and certain last names underline that. Selisse is a name still seen in the phone book and at Junior League.”

  Susan sniffed. “Oh, when I was in Junior League, Marilyn Selisse always claimed to be descended from Francisco. She had that Creole look. I never paid attention to it.”

  “Getting snotty, are we?” Harry teased her.

  “I couldn’t stand her then and I can’t stand her now. I will shortly be facing her for the country club championship, and you know she does nothing but play golf. Once she married Leigh T. Roudabush, can’t forget the T, she focused exclusively on golf.”

  Leigh T. Roudabush created and owned a plumbing supply company that expanded as housing expanded. If a fixture was created of marble with gold faucets, he’d find it for you.

  “She had what he wanted,” Harry remarked.

  “Six children later, yes.” Susan laughed.

  “Speaking of Creoles, today is Napoleon’s birthday, 1769, and he married a Creole.”

  “She must have been a real bombshell.” Susan took another deep breath, getting her wind back. “History records her as having bad teeth, being of average intelligence, but a woman who drove men crazy.”

  “You know, I don’t envy any woman that. I just want to drive one man crazy,” Harry said thoughtfully.

  “I think you do,” cracked Susan. “Me, too, but when I was little I used to wonder about the Selisse monument in the graveyard. And I wondered if I had Selisse blood. G-Mom swore no and said G-Pop’s grandmother, who was still alive when she married Sam, said the Holloways did not have a drop of Selisse blood. As you know, we’ve got all the family Bibles, as much as the discharge papers for Mother’s family for the men who served. Francisco didn’t serve in the war, but he helped pay for it.”

  “As did Ewing Garth. Those kind of people never get credit.”

  “No, but they usually thrive in business or run for office. Holloways have been running for office since the time of Monroe. I can’t decide if we are anchored by our past or imprisoned by it.”

  Harry reached down to pet Tucker, who, like the cats, had given up on the guppies. “We’re southerners. We’re imprisoned by it.”

  “You can’t say that to a member of the DAR,” Susan teased her.

  Harry unfolded the new topo map. “What I can say is let’s go. We should reach the corner of the Selisse tract in an hour if we keep a steady pace.”

  Susan was already tired. “Then we have to climb that hill.”

  “One step at a time,” Harry encouraged. “Come on.”

  “What I look forward to is a big lemonade and Mignon or Mother driving us back to my station wagon. We sure aren’t walking back.”

  “Susan, you walk the golf course when you can,” Harry said.

  “That’s different. Actually, I wish Farmington and Keswick and all the courses would outlaw carts. You’re supposed to walk. It’s part of the game; plus, you feel great after eighteen holes.”

  “Money. Jam ’em on the links.”

  “Hate it,” Susan forcefully said, then noticed a rock outcropping. “Look on the map.”

  They stopped. Harry pulled the map out of her back pocket. “It’s here. There are two more back on Garth’s. This one’s pretty jagged.”

  Pewter sat down. “I’m not going in there. Too dark.”

  “You can see in the dark,” Tucker chirped.

  “Doesn’t mean I’m sticking my head in there.”

  Mrs. Murphy dashed in. “It’s teeny. Two people could wedge in. No bears.”

  Pewter was having none of it.

  “These rock outcroppings aren’t common down here in the Piedmont. More the farther west you go, but I think the rock outcroppings and little caves we do have were formed by the glacier,” Harry noted. “Virginia owes the glacier a big thank-you. All that soil that was pushed down and little plants and creatures that don’t live elsewhere. We are the true dividing line between a northern climate and a southern one.”

  “Ned is fascinated by that, too,” said Susan. “Once he got on the environmental bandwagon he’s made it a priority to study everything unique to Virginia. He knows even more than G-Pop, who made environmental protection a priority when he held office.”

  “The environment wasn’t so important politically then, so he was ahead of his time,” Harry remarked. “But these little caves and outcroppings, they were part of the Underground Railroad.”

  “G-Pop knew that. He was always interested in the war and he told me when I studied history in high school that the Underground Railroad started when some of the northern states outlawed slavery, end of the eighteenth century, more in the nineteenth. Until then there wasn’t anywhere to run.” Susan found the railroad daring.

  “Wouldn’t it be great to start a tour company that took you on the different paths of the Underground Railroad?” Harry shaded her eyes. They were close to the corner of the old Selisse tract.

  “Would. You’d think someone would have done that.”

  “Susan, here’s the thing. Well, let me back up. Reverend Jones says that the Wests, the people that built St. Luke’s, questioned slavery, and their chil
dren and their grandchildren became part of the train, so to speak. But no one knows too much about how they did it. Things like just getting food to the runaways without someone smelling you out, literally.”

  Susan put her hands in her back jeans pockets. “Why would we know about it? If we did, wouldn’t it mean they got caught? Or were killed, sent to an early grave?”

  “You’re right. Never thought about that.”

  Leaving the cool creek bed, the sound of running water, they climbed the steep hill. The animals panted. Harry and Susan would slip, bend over, go up on all fours. Finally reaching the top, they beheld the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. To their left, the gathering of buildings could be seen, the distinctive rooftop of the château easily visible.

  Sitting for a few moments under a chinquapin, everyone waited until they weren’t breathing heavily.

  Back on their feet, they approached the graveyard in fifteen minutes, the Selisse tomb dominating all. The animals ran ahead, the cats leaping onto the carefully laid stone wall about two and a half feet high around the family graveyard, a neat rectangle thirty-five yards by thirty-five yards, planned with enough space for future generations if the deceased were carefully laid out.

  “Tucker!” Mrs. Murphy smelled something wrong and hollered. “Bark!”

  Without questioning, Tucker barked loudly, and Owen followed his sister.

  Pewter jumped off the wall, running to the Selisse tomb. She let out a horrendous yowl.

  Knowing their animals, Harry and Susan ran toward the graveyard.

  “Oh, no!” Susan quickly opened the wrought-iron gate.

  Right behind her, Harry rushed to the monument.

  Governor Samuel Holloway was sprawled at the foot of the Avenging Angel, the flaming sword aloft. He lay on his side, his feet toward the monument, his body across the tomb for Jeffrey Holloway, his hand on the grave of Holloway’s second wife, Marcia West Holloway. Sam had joined his ancestors at last.

  Monday, August 15, 2016

  Fifteen minutes later

  Noticing Mignon’s car parked in the driveway, Harry put her arm around Susan’s waist. “Will you be all right alone here for a minute?”

  “Yes.” Susan nodded, tears in her eyes.

  “Let me check the house just in case.” Harry ran toward the governor’s house, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker preceding her.

  She cautiously opened the front door. Not a sound. Walking down the main hallway, she looked into each room. Tucker sniffed the closets in the rooms containing them.

  “In here!” Mrs. Murphy meowed.

  Hurrying to the call, Harry stepped into Mignon’s small office. She was slumped over her desk, her face on the keyboard. Harry immediately rushed to her, took her pulse. She was alive.

  Picking up the phone, Harry called 911, calmly gave the location and the situation. It wasn’t until she put the phone in the cradle that she realized Mignon’s computer was gone.

  Harry ran out of the house and back to Susan, who was now sitting on the ground next to her grandfather.

  “The sheriff’s department will be here in a few moments.” Harry sat next to her childhood friend. “I’m sorry.”

  Owen, wedged next to Susan’s leg, gazed up at her with soft brown eyes.

  Tucker joined her brother.

  Mrs. Murphy and Pewter sat next to Harry.

  “I wonder why he came out here?” Mrs. Murphy asked.

  Intently studying the freshly mown grass, Pewter said, “Looks like he crawled for part of it.”

  “Poor man. How painful it must have been. He had to have known he was dying.” Mrs. Murphy hated to see Susan cry.

  Harry put one arm around her dear friend. What could she say?

  Susan finally gasped. “He had a good life, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sometimes I think of G-Pop in the war, jumping off that sinking ship, staying in the water until he got everyone onto a life raft or anything to hang on to.”

  “He had incredible courage.”

  A siren lifted their heads and the animals’, too.

  Susan wiped her eyes. “That was fast.”

  “He was our governor. It should be,” Harry soothingly said.

  “Can you imagine being governor?” Pewter asked, whiskers swept forward, as she noticed the rooster-tail plume of dust from the squad car, an ambulance right behind.

  “No,” Mrs. Murphy replied.

  “You two aren’t pack animals, you don’t understand.” Owen nuzzled Susan. “Pack animals need a leader.”

  “I always thought it was because humans don’t have much sense. If someone is your leader you can blame it all on him,” Pewter thoughtfully replied.

  “And I suppose they always can, because the leader won’t have any more sense than the rest of them,” Mrs. Murphy responded.

  Tucker stood up as the squad car parked in front of the house. “You all are too independent.”

  They left off the subject as Sheriff Shaw and Cooper walked toward the cemetery. Two people from the ambulance unloaded a gurney. The driver stepped out of the vehicle, too. Everyone made their way toward the fallen governor.

  Harry called out, “Go into the house first. Miss Skipworth is the third door on the right.”

  Susan wiped her eyes again. “What’s wrong with Mignon?”

  “I’m not sure. I think she was hit on the head.”

  “Harry, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “There’s nothing you could have done and you deserved a quiet moment with your grandfather. I thought it best to leave her. If I’d moved her I might have harmed her more.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I think she was knocked out.” Harry said this loud enough for Rick and Cooper to hear.

  Rick left her. “Coop, you stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  Cooper expressed her sympathy to Susan even as she studied the ground with a practiced eye. She noted, as did the animals, the marks on the turf for the last fifteen yards. The governor had struggled with what little strength he had.

  “Coop, we walked up from the creek and found him,” Harry informed her. “Maybe a half hour ago now. I think he had just passed.”

  Cooper knelt down, touched his throat where the jugular is, then touched the inside of his wrist. “Yes, I think you’re right.” She pulled out her cellphone with the camera, expertly taking pictures, including the turf. Then she told the ambulance boys to take his body to the ambulance.

  If Susan had thought about it, she would have understood why. The day was hot. Best to take the body to the morgue, wait for Penny’s orders on whether to perform an autopsy or take the remains directly to the funeral parlor.

  The ambulance driver had gone into the house with Sheriff Shaw, come back out, and pulled another gurney from the back of the ambulance.

  As he waited in the house for the other two to join him, Cooper asked a few questions.

  “Susan, do you know where your grandmother or your mother are?”

  “It’s Monday. Mom has been coming over daily to help G-Mom with shopping, little things like that. G-Mom’s usual day is Tuesday for shopping, but with G-Pop’s increased needs, she goes out more often now. She usually takes Wendell Holmes, the dog, as he has his own special fan in the car. G-Mom doesn’t like to be without the dog. I haven’t called her. I thought I would wait for you all.”

  “Would you like me to call her?” Cooper offered.

  “No. I’ll do it. I’d like to call her now.”

  “Of course. Let’s go into the house or in the shade.” Cooper put her hand under Susan’s elbow to walk with her while Harry walked on the other side.

  Tears ran down Harry’s cheeks. She loved Susan and hated to see her in sorrow, and she also loved G-Pop. She’d known the ex-governor all her life as Susan’s grandfather, which was how she would always regard him. Fame and success meant little to Harry. Friendship meant everything.

  Once in the house, Harry and Cooper walked
Susan to the kitchen. She sat down and called her grandmother while Harry opened the fridge to fetch everyone an iced tea.

  “Tuna?” Pewter stood on her hind legs, patting Harry’s knee with her paw.

  “Not now.” Mrs. Murphy swatted at her.

  “This is a terrible time. I need to keep my strength up.” Pewter did, however, drop to her four paws.

  “G-Mom, is Mother with you?” Susan, hearing an affirmative answer, said, “Come home. G-Pop has passed. Harry and I found him. There’s nothing you can do. The ambulance is here and so is the Sheriff and Cooper. But come home.”

  “Where are they?” Harry asked, when Susan ended the call.

  “Down at Barracks Road.” Susan named the shopping center.

  “I’ll wait with you. Let me go out to Rick for a minute.”

  As Cooper left them, Susan slumped in her chair. “It’s not like we didn’t expect it, but”—she paused—“I guess you’re never ready.”

  “No. No. Especially for him. He was a force of nature,” Harry consoled her.

  Susan nodded, then added in a small voice, “That’s why it was so hard to see him go down. He fought it hard. He faced death with courage.”

  Harry reached across the table, taking her hand. “He’d faced death before. He’d seen a lot of it.”

  —

  Later, back at the farm, Harry jumped when her cell rang. Fair jumped, too.

  “Is she all right?” Harry asked Susan.

  “They think Mignon suffered a mild concussion. Her sight is blurry in one eye, but she seems clear in her mind. She remembers nothing, doesn’t think she heard anything. I wonder if G-Pop heard her get hit over the head, got up and tried to follow whoever did it?”

  “I don’t know. How’s your mother and grandmother?”

  “Philosophical. Accepting. They don’t know why he went outside, but pretty much G-Pop did what he wanted.”

  “Do you need anything? Fair and I will zip right over.”

  “Thank you. Ned’s here. The kids will be here tomorrow. If I had to find my grandfather, I’m glad it was with you.”

  Susan’s son and daughter, adults working in big cities, would bolster her. Anytime she saw them, her spirits lifted.