Rest In Pieces

by Rita Mae Brown

  Tomahawk and Gin Fizz, glad to see their mother, trotted over. Soon the little family was back in the barn. Picking up the tempo, the rain pelted the tin roof. A stiff wind knifed down from the northeast.

  As Harry mixed bran with hot water and measured out sweet feed, Mrs. Murphy prowled the hayloft. Since everyone had made so much noise getting into the barn, the mice were forewarned. The big old barn owl perched in the rafters. Mrs. Murphy disliked the owl and this was mutual, since they competed for the mice. However, harsh words were rarely spoken. They had adopted a live-and-let-live policy.

  A little pink nose, whiskers bristling, stuck out from behind a bale of timothy. “Mrs. Murphy.”

  “Simon, what are you doing here?” Mrs. Murphy’s tail went to the vertical.

  “Storm came up fast. You know, I’ve been thinking, this would be a good place to spend the winter. I don’t think your human would mind, do you?”

  “As long as you stay out of the grain I doubt she’ll care. Watch out for the blacksnake.”

  “She’s already hibernating . . . or she’s playing possum.” Simon’s whiskers twitched devilishly.

  “Where?”

  Simon indicated that the formidable four-foot-long blacksnake was curled up under the hay on the south side of the loft, the warmest place.

  “God, I hope Harry doesn’t pick up the bale and see her. Give her heart failure.” Mrs. Murphy walked over. She could see the tip of a tail—that was it.

  She came back and sat beside Simon.

  “The owl really hates the blacksnake,” Simon observed.

  “Oh, she’s cranky about everything.”

  “Who?”

  “You,” Mrs. Murphy called up.

  “I am not cranky but you’re always climbing up here and shooting off your big mouth. Scares the mice.”

  “It’s too early for you to hunt.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that you have a big mouth.” The owl ruffed her feathers, then simply turned her head away. She could swivel her gorgeous head around nearly 360 degrees, and that fascinated the other animals. Four-legged creatures had a narrow point of view as far as the owl was concerned.

  Mrs. Murphy and Simon giggled and then the cat climbed back down the ladder.

  By the time Harry was finished, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker eagerly scampered to the house.

  Next door, Blair, cold and soaked to the skin, also ran into his house. He’d been caught by the rain a good half-mile away from shelter.

  By the time he dried off, the sky was obsidian with flashes of pinkish-yellow lightning, an unusual fall thunderstorm. As he went into the kitchen to heat some soup, a deafening crack and blinding pink light knocked him back a foot. When he recovered he saw smoke coming out of the transformer box on the pole next to his house. The bolt had squarely hit the transformer. Electric crackles continued for a few moments and then died away.

  Blair kept rubbing his eyes. They burned. The house was now black and he hadn’t any candles. There was so much to do to settle in that he hadn’t gotten around to buying candles or a lantern yet, much less furniture.

  He thought about going over to Harry’s but decided against it, because he was afraid he’d look like a wuss.

  As he stared out his kitchen window another terrifying bolt of lightning hurtled toward the ground and struck a tree halfway between his house and the graveyard. For a brief moment he thought he saw a lone figure standing in the cemetery. Then the darkness again enshrouded everything and the wind howled like Satan.

  Blair shivered, then laughed at himself. His stinging eyes were playing tricks on him. What was a thunderstorm but part of Nature’s brass and percussion?

  * * *

  7

  Tree limbs lay on the meadows like arms and legs torn from their sockets. As Harry prowled her fence lines she could smell the sap mixed in with the soggy earth odor. She hadn’t time to inspect the fifty acres in hardwoods. She figured whole trees might have been uprooted, for as she had lain awake last night, mesmerized by the violence of the storm, she could hear, off in the distance like a moaning, the searing cracks and crashes of trees falling to their deaths. The good news was that no trees around the house had been uprooted and the barn and outbuildings remained intact.

  “I hate getting wet,” Mrs. Murphy complained, pulling her paws high up in the air and shaking them every few steps.

  “Go back to the house then, fussbudget.” This exaggerated fastidiousness of Mrs. Murphy’s amused and irritated Tucker. There was nothing like a joyous splash in the creek, a romp in the mud, or if she was really lucky, a roll in something quite dead, to lift Tucker’s corgi spirits. And as she was low to the ground, she felt justified in getting dirty. It would be different if she were a Great Dane. Many things would be different if she were a Great Dane. For one thing, she could just ignore Mrs. Murphy with magisterial dignity. As it was, trying to ignore Mrs. Murphy meant the cat would tiptoe around and whack her on the ears. Wouldn’t it be fun to see Mrs. Murphy try that if she were a Great Dane?

  “What if something important happens? I can’t leave.” Mrs. Murphy shook mud off her paw and onto Harry’s pants leg. “Anyway, three sets of eyes are better than one.”

  “Jesus H. Christ on a raft.”

  The dog and cat stopped and looked in the direction of Harry’s gaze. The creek between her farm and Foxden had jumped its banks, sweeping everything before it. Mud, grass, tree limbs, and an old tire that must have washed down from Yellow Mountain had crashed into the trees lining the banks. Some debris had become entangled; the rest was shooting downstream at a frightening rate of speed. Mrs. Murphy’s eyes widened. The roar of the water scared her.

  As Harry started toward the creek she sank up to her ankle in trappy ground. Thinking the better of it, she backed off.

  The leaden sky overhead offered no hope of relief. Cursing, her foot cold and wet, Harry squished back to the barn. She thought of her mother, who used to say that we all live in a perpetual state of renewal. “You must realize there is renewal in destruction, too, Harry,” she would say.

  As a child Harry couldn’t figure out what her mother was talking about. Grace Hepworth Minor was the town librarian, so Harry used to chalk it up to Mom’s reading too many touchy-feely books. As the years wore on, her mother’s wisdom often came back to her. A sight such as this, so dispiriting at first, gave one the opportunity to rebuild, to prune, to fortify.

  How she regretted her mother’s passing, for she would have liked to discuss emotional renewal in destruction. Her divorce was teaching her that.

  Tucker, noticing the silence of her mother, the pensive air, said, “Human beings think too much.”

  “Or not at all” was the saucy feline reply.

  * * *

  8

  The rain picked up again midmorning. Steady rather than torrential, it did little to lighten anyone’s spirits. Mrs. Hogendobber’s beautiful red silk umbrella was the bright spot of the day. That and her conversation. She felt it incumbent upon her to call up everyone in Crozet who had a phone still working and inquire as to their well-being. She learned of Blair’s transformer’s being blown apart. The windows of the Allied National Bank were smashed. The shingles of Herbie Jones’s church littered the downtown street. Susan Tucker’s car endured a tree branch on its roof, and horror of horrors, Mim’s pontoon boat, her pride and joy, had been cast on its side. Worst of all, her personal lake was a muddy mess.

  “Did I leave anything out?”

  Harry cleaned out the letters and numbers in her postage meter with the sharp end of a safety pin. They’d gotten clogged with maroon ink. “Your prize pumpkin?”

  “Oh, I brought her in last night.” Mrs. Hogendobber grabbed the broom and started sweeping the dried mud out the front door.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know I don’t have to but I used to do this for George. Makes me feel useful.” The clods of earth soared out into the parking lot. “Weatherman says three more da
ys of rain.”

  “If the animals go two by two, you know we’re in trouble.”

  “Harry, don’t make light of the Old Testament. The Lord doesn’t shine on blasphemers.”

  “I’m not blaspheming.”

  “I thought maybe I’d scare you into going to church.” A sly smile crossed Mrs. Hogendobber’s lips, colored a bronzed orange today.

  Fair Haristeen came in, wiped off his boots, and answered Mrs. Hogendobber. “Harry goes to church for weddings, christenings, and funerals. Says Nature is her church.” He smiled at his former wife.

  “Yes, it is.” Harry was glad he was okay. No storm damage.

  “Bridge washed out at Little Marilyn’s and at BoomBoom’s, too. Hard to believe the old creek can do that much damage.”

  “Guess they’ll have to stay on their side of the water,” Mrs. Hogendobber said.

  “Guess so.” Fair smiled. “Unless Moses returns.”

  “I know what I forgot to tell you,” Mrs. Hogendobber exclaimed, ignoring the biblical reference. “The cat ate all the communion wafers!”

  “Cazenovia at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church?” Fair asked.

  “Yes, do you know her?” Mrs. H. spoke as though the animal were a parishioner.

  “Cleaned her teeth last year.”

  “Has she gotten in the wine?” Harry laughed.

  Mrs. Hogendobber struggled not to join in the mirth—after all, the bread and wine were the body and blood of our Lord Jesus—but there was something funny about a cat taking communion.

  “Harry, want to have lunch with me?” Fair asked.

  “When?” She absentmindedly picked up a ballpoint pen, which had been lying on the counter, and stuck it behind her ear.

  “Now. It’s noon.”

  “I barely noticed, it’s so dark outside.”

  “Go on, Harry, I’ll hold down the fort,” Mrs. Hogendobber offered. Divorce troubled her and the Haristeen divorce especially, since both parties were decent people. She didn’t understand growing apart because she and George had stayed close throughout their long marriage. Of course it helped that if she said, “Jump,” George replied, “How high?”

  “Want to bring the kids?” Fair nodded toward the animals.

  “Do, Harry. Don’t you leave me with that hoyden of a cat. She gets in the mail bins and when I walk by she jumps out at me and grabs my skirt. Then the dog barks. Harry, you’ve got to discipline those two.”

  “Oh, balls.” Tucker sneezed.

  “Why do people say ‘balls’? Why don’t they say ‘ovaries’?” Mrs. Murphy asked out loud.

  No one had an answer, so she allowed herself to be picked up and whisked to the deli.

  The conversation between Fair and Harry proved desultory at best. Questions about his veterinary practice were dutifully answered. Harry spoke of the storm. They laughed about Fitz-Gilbert’s blond hair and then truly laughed about Mim’s pontoon boat taking a lick. Mim and that damned boat had caused more uproar over the years—from crashing into the neighbors’ docks to nearly drowning Mim and the occupants. To be invited onto her “little yacht,” as she mincingly called it, was surely a siren call to disaster. Yet to refuse meant banishment from the upper echelon of Crozet society.

  As the laughter subsided, Fair, wearing his most earnest face, said, “I wish you and BoomBoom could be friends again. You all were friends once.”

  “I don’t know as I’d say we were friends.” Harry warily put down her plastic fork. “We socialized together when Kelly was alive. We got along, I guess.”

  “She understands why you wouldn’t want to be friends with her but it hurts her. She talks tough but she’s very sensitive.” He picked up the Styrofoam cup and swallowed some hot coffee.

  Harry wanted to reply that she was very sensitive about herself and not others, and besides, what about her feelings? Maybe he should talk to BoomBoom about her sensitivities. She realized that Fair was snagged, hook, line, and sinker. BoomBoom was reeling him into her emotional demands, which, like her material demands, were endless. Maybe men needed women like BoomBoom to feel important. Until they dropped from exhaustion.

  As Harry kept quiet, Fair haltingly continued: “I wish things had worked out differently and yet maybe I don’t. It was time for us.”

  “Guess so.” Harry twiddled with her ballpoint pen.

  “I don’t hold grudges. I hope you don’t.” His blond eyebrows shielded his blue eyes.

  Harry’d been looking into those eyes since kindergarten. “Easier said than done. Whenever women want to discuss emotions men become more rational, or at least you do. I can’t just wipe out our marriage and say let’s be friends, and I’m not without ego. I wish we had parted differently, but done is done. I’d rather think good of you than ill.”

  “Well, what about BoomBoom then?”

  “Where is she?” Harry deflected the question for a moment.

  “Bridge washed out.”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot. Once the water goes down she’ll find a place to ford.”

  “Least the phone lines are good. I spoke to her this morning. She has a terrible migraine. You know how low pressure affects her.”

  “To say nothing of garlic.”

  “Right.” Fair remembered when BoomBoom was rushed to the hospital once after ingesting the forbidden garlic.

  “And then we can’t forget the rheumatism in her spine on these cold, dank days. Or her tendency to heat prostration, especially when any form of work befalls her.” Harry smiled broadly, the smile of victory.

  “Don’t make fun of her. You know what a tough family life she had. I mean with that alcoholic father and her mother just having affair after affair.”

  “Well, she comes by it honestly then.” Harry reached over with her ballpoint pen, jabbed a hole in the Styrofoam cup, and turned it around so the liquid dribbled onto Fair’s cords. She got up and walked out, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker hastily following.

  Fair, fuming, sat there and wiped the coffee off his pants with his left hand while trying to stem the flow from the cup with his right.

  * * *

  9

  The creek swirled around the larger rocks, small whirlpools forming, then dispersing. Tucker paced the bank, slick with mud deposits. The waters had subsided and were back within their boundaries but remained high with a fast current. A mist hung over the meadows and the trees, now bare, since the pounding rains had knocked off most of the brilliant fall foliage.

  High in the hayloft Mrs. Murphy watched her friend through a crack in the boards. When she lost sight of Tucker she gave up her conversation with Simon to hurry backward down the ladder. Cursing under her breath, she surrendered hope of keeping dry and ran across the fields. Water splashed up on her creamy beige belly, exacerbating her bad mood. Tucker could do the dumbest things. By the time Mrs. Murphy reached the creek the corgi was right in the middle of it, teetering on the tip of a huge rock.

  “Get back here,” Mrs. Murphy demanded.

  “No,” Tucker refused. “Sniff.”

  Mrs. Murphy held her nose up in the air. “I smell mud, sap, and stale water.”

  “It’s the faintest whiff. Sweet and then it disappears. I’ve got to find it.”

  “What do you mean, sweet?” Mrs. Murphy swished her tail.

  “Damn, I lost it.”

  “Tucker, you’ve got short little legs—swimming in this current isn’t a smart idea.”

  “I’ve got to find that odor.” With that she pushed off the rock, hit the water, and pulled with all her might. The muddy water swept over her head. She popped up again, swimming on an angle toward the far shore.

  Mrs. Murphy screeched and screamed but Tucker paid no heed. By the time the corgi reached the bank she was so tired she had to rest for a moment. But the scent was slightly stronger now. Standing up on wobbly legs, she shook herself and laboriously climbed the mudslide that was the creek bank.

  “Are you all right?” the cat called.

  “Yes.”
r />   “I’m staying right here until you come back.”

  “All right.” Tucker scrambled over the bank and sniffed again. She got her bearings and trotted across Blair Bainbridge’s land. The scent increased in power with each step. Tucker pulled up at the little cemetery.

  The high winds had knocked over the tombstones Blair had righted, and the bad side of the wrought-iron fence had crashed down again. Carefully, the dog picked her way through the debris in the cemetery. The scent was now crystal clear and enticing, very enticing.

  Nose to the ground, she walked over to the tombstone with the carved angel playing the harp. The fingers of a human hand pointed at the sky in front of the stone. The violence of the wind and rain had sheared off the loose topsoil; a section was rolled back like a tiny carpet. Tucker sniffed that too. When she and Mrs. Murphy passed the graveyard last week there was no enticing scent, no apparent change in the topsoil. The odor of decay, exhilarating to a dog, overcame her curiosity about the turf. She dug at the hand. Soon the whole hand was visible. She bit into the fleshy, swollen palm and tugged. The hand easily pulled out of the ground. Then she noticed that it had been severed at the wrist, a clean job of it, too, and the finger pads were missing.

  Ecstatic with her booty, forgetting how tired she was, Tucker flew across the bog to the creek. She stopped because she was afraid to plunge into the creek. She didn’t want to lose her pungent prize.

  Mrs. Murphy, transfixed by the sight, was speechless.

  Tucker delicately laid down the hand. “I knew it! I knew I smelled something deliciously dead.”

  “Tucker, don’t chew on that.” Mrs. Murphy was disgusted.

  “Why not? I found it. I did the work. It’s mine!” She barked, high-pitched because she was excited and upset.

  “I don’t want the hand, Tucker, but it’s a bad omen.”

  “No, it’s not. Remember the time Harry read to us about a dog bringing a hand to Vespasian when he was a general and the seers interpreting this to mean that he would be Emperor of Rome and he was? It’s a good sign.”