Рита Браун: Tall Tail

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.

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.

Most of the damage lay below.

“Okay, sugar, down we go.” She turned the ATV around and put it in creep gear to slowly descend.

Once at the bottom, she could view her farm from the back and much of the old Jones place, which Cooper rented. A herd of deer snuck out of the forest, turned to stare at her, then loped toward Cooper’s.

Back at the barn, driving in the aisle, the minute Harry turned off the motor, she heard the welcome hum of electricity.

“Thank heavens.”

“Imagine life without electricity?” Tucker jumped down. “Think of all the work, of haying without a tractor. Well, a tractor doesn’t use electricity.” The small dog was smart.

“Simon, are you up there?” Harry called up to the hayloft.

No response sent her up the ladder and she spotted him: The possum, awakening, blinked, curled his head tighter to his chest and fell back asleep. Harry then looked up at the barn’s cupola. The big owl, Flatface, safe and sound, dozed in her nest.

Harry scrubbed out the water buckets inside each stall, refilled them, then picked out the stalls, since the horses had spent the night inside. She left the outside stall door open so they could come and go at will. Usually in summer they spent the day outside only when it was cooler. As the rain had pounded and the wind wailed, she had allowed each horse to make up his or her own mind. They elected to stay in. The four broodmares contently ate. She hadn’t bred any this year. Short of cash, it takes a fair amount of money to raise a horse, then train it. So the girls munched away while her two foxhunters, one a Thoroughbred and one a Saddlebred, played outside, lots of chasing back and forth.