Рита Браун - Tall Tail

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.