Рита Браун - Tail Gait

He sighed. “My mother is kindness itself. Four of us survived. She and my father taught us, taught us many things. Would she be shocked by you? I do think she would be as dazzled as anyone who sets eyes upon you, but then she would look more closely.”

“And would she like someone who serves a perfect tea?”

“Miss Garth, my father is a carpenter. We have a small farm. Farming is much harder in Massachusetts than here. Mother tends the farm. She has rough hands, she walks with a limp, as she broke her leg years ago and it was not set properly. The hard life tells on her, but what she would really want to know is: Do you have a good heart?”

Tears filled Catherine’s eyes. “How I envy you. She sounds wonderful.”

“She is. And so is my father, although he speaks but little. I fear you would find us, what is the expression, ‘beneath the salt.’ ”

Her face flushed, her eyes flashed. “Captain, I am not that superficial. And I hope someday I will have the honor to meet your mother and your father.”

The two sat on their horses. Neither one knew what to say. John felt as though this woman could turn him inside out. He didn’t even know what was inside him to turn out.

Jeddie and the two prisoners reached them at last and called out, “Miss Garth, you must have galloped the whole way.”

Smiling at John, she turned, now in possession of herself. “I outran him.”

—

The group of five spent an hour looking at the two narrow gullies and the wider ravine.

“It evens out a bit to the east,” Corporal Ix noted. “That’s a better place.”

“It is, but that land belongs to Peter Ashcombe,” Catherine said. “We have heard that he was with Howe in Philadelphia. Others have said he went to Nova Scotia. The estate, which is sizable, two thousand acres, is in the care of a farm manager who is for our freedom, but he is loyal to Peter. He betrays nothing.”

“I see,” the Hessian corporal murmured.

While his legs were still cold and not dry yet, Charles West nevertheless sketched quickly, incorporating the Hessian’s suggestions. From her mount, Catherine peeked over Charles’s shoulder. “I’ll make this tidier for your father,” he said.

John Schuyler dismounted, lifted Catherine down. They tied their horses next to the other three, as Jeddie had brought halters and ropes.

“It is possible,” Corporal Ix called out at the bottom of the ravine. “Can you tell me, Miss Garth, have you ever seen water flow through here?”

“In very bad storms. Both there in the wider depression, and then also in the gullies, and the waters run faster in the gullies.”

“M-m-m,” was all the engineer replied.

Once mounted again, they rode back to the Garths’ house.

“If you fell the thickest trees, hardwoods, we can sink them into the earth,” Ix said. “That will take a great deal of digging, but we can do it, then fill and brace around the logs. The force of the water in the narrow gullies demands a strong underpinning, stronger than the bridge we are finishing. That really is the most difficult part, but the timber is here.” The engineer thought it through.

Catherine added, “We can cut our own planks. That will save hauling lumber to a mill and hauling it back…”

“The trick is not to be the man in the bottom of the pit,” John Schuyler remarked, and the others laughed.

“How long might this take?” Catherine asked Corporal Ix.

“That depends on the number of men available. If I had fifty men, I could sink the supports in three weeks. It’s more difficult here than rebuilding the bridge, as I said, and I wouldn’t want to build the bridge itself until we reinforced the supports.” He added, “All in all, figuring in the weather, three months for the supports and the bed. Remember we have to improve this old road to it. This is just ruts, a farm road.”

Catherine smiled. “I think my father will be pleased.”

He was. So much so that he didn’t notice when Catherine slipped upstairs to her bedroom, selected another book, and gave it to John Schuyler before he departed that afternoon.

May 5, 2015

“The dogwoods are finally open. It’s really spring.” Susan glowed as she and Harry, along with Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, bounced on a golf cart to the eleventh hole at Farmington. Ahead of them by one hole played David Wheeler, Paul Huber, and Rudolph Putnam. David, not ready to be buffeted by the winds of Susan’s emotion, had quickly organized the afternoon’s teams, giving himself Paul and Rudy for mates.

Accustomed to Susan’s ups and downs, Harry paid them little attention. Marshall Reese and Nelson Yarbrough, the other two in their group, driving their own cart, carried on a heated discussion about what Virginia football really needed to improve. As they lurched to a halt at the eleventh hole, the subject was whether we need to lure the best high school prospects for defense or offense.

“Defense, Nelson. I’m telling you.” Marshall, club in hand, bounded off the vehicle.

Genial in most all circumstances, Nelson just shook his head, saying in his light, gravelly voice, “You guys don’t win games.”

“Oh? Oh, so how can you say that? How many times did I help take down the opposing quarterback? How many times did I disrupt his timing?”

“Marshall, you were outstanding, but that’s not putting points on the scoreboard.”

“Will you two shut up and play?” Susan good-naturedly commanded, as she was now near the tee.

Nelson grinned, shoved his tee down into the thick sod, and took a practice swing, saying, “Offense.”

Susan pretended to be put out. “You two are overgrown boys.”

“All men are overgrown boys,” Harry rejoined.

They fell silent as Nelson hit a booming first shot.

Marshall quietly groaned. “If I don’t match that shot, I’ll hear about it.”

Susan goaded the still well-built fellow, “Well, blow right by him, then.”

Nelson quietly observed this with a big smile on his face. He respectfully moved out of Marshall’s eyesight.

Marshall really did rise to the occasion. While not as powerful as Nelson, he hit straight down the middle, giving himself a good second shot. He landed close enough to Nelson’s shot that he needed not be embarrassed. That is until Susan teed up and hit the ball so perfectly it sounded like a deep click. Her ball dropped near Nelson’s. Marshall had not played with Susan, as he usually played with his team buddies. He stared, his mouth open.

Nelson hopped in the cart. “Let’s go.”

Marshall dropped next to him. “Damn, that woman is strong.”

“Perfect form,” said Nelson. “She’s fluid, economical, nothing is wasted. If we had her form, we’d be driving three hundred yards. Ever notice how the best at anything always make it look easy?”

“They do,” Marshall agreed.

Back in the “girls’ cart,” Susan allowed herself a small gloat. “I do so love to drive.”

In the back, Mrs. Murphy asked Pewter, “Did you notice that redheaded woodpecker?”

“In the old black gum tree?”

“Right. That could mean the tree will come down sooner or later. Full of bugs.” Mrs. Murphy kept a sharp eye on avian behavior. “ ’Course the groundskeepers will find it. Must be a lot of work to keep up a golf course.”

“It would be better if these were fields of catnip.” Pewter’s eyes half closed with pleasure.

“Certainly would,” Mrs. Murphy readily agreed. “And they could even play their silly game through catnip.”