Рита Браун - Nine Lives To Die

“Yes, it is.” Susan wormed her way through a narrow aisle to chat with Jan while Harry went over the delivery list with Father O’Connor.

“Susan, if the roads are treacherous off the main roads, put some bags of kitty litter in the back of the truck or SUV,” Jan advised.

“I’ll remember that. We will all start out with plenty of ballast. It’s later, after we drop everything off, that I worry about.”

“Kitty litter,” Jan repeated. “I didn’t grow up in Grundy, Virginia, for nothing.”

Susan laughed, then thanked Jan for pitching in at the last minute.

“You know, Susan, it’s not me. It’s everyone.” Jan was always happy to share praise. “In times like this we’ve got to pull together.”

While those two caught up, Harry unfolded her county map. “The Dybecks are here, right?”

“Don’t you have GPS?” asked Father O’Connor.

“Heavenly guidance of a technological sort?” Harry scoffed. “Why bother? Half the time, the directions take you miles out of your way. It’s not that I don’t know where these back roads are. I bet I know about every back road in this county, but I don’t always know which house is which or exactly where. Some are pretty well hidden.”

“I figure it depends on what they’re growing.” Father O’Connor chuckled.

“There is that,” Harry agreed.

“A lot of the mailboxes have no names or numbers, and some of these people don’t have mailboxes.”

“You know, you have to have your number on your mailbox,” Harry the ex-postmistress said. “But this is the country. If one is a federal employee you serve your people even if there are slight variations in the rules when doing so.”

“Too many rules. Beyond the Ten Commandments, it’s all just paperwork.” Father O’Connor ran his hand over his clean-shaven face. “Okay, after the Dybecks, continue down to the base of the mountains to Mrs. Killigan. She’s elderly and can’t hear too well, so you’ll have to make a racket.”

He marked each delivery spot on the map with colored pens. Father O’Connor used a red marker if someone was hard of hearing, blue if their eyes were bad, black if they had a vicious dog, black and red if they were vicious. Sometimes folks went on a mean drunk. Best to know who. Drunks were marked with a wavy red line. A wavy blue line meant the person was a touch odd.

Both Father O’Connor and Jan helped the girls load up the vehicles. Being animal people, too, they petted the cats and Tucker and Owen, Susan’s corgi, Tucker’s brother.

By the last carry out, Father O’Connor was huffing and puffing. “Whew,” he said to Harry and Susan. “Thank you for this, for being at the Silver Linings fund-raiser, and for taking on so many extra deliveries while we pray for Charlene and her sons, as well as console the boys in Silver Linings.”

“Father,” Harry replied, “we all do what we can.”

“How long is this going to take?” Pewter, leaning toward peevish, asked, as Harry and Susan shut the Suburban doors.

“Who knows?” Owen replied, always smiling.

“Long enough to get you crabby,” Tucker teased the gray cannonball.

“Two seconds. You have two seconds to amend your attitude.” Pewter unleashed the claws of her right paw.

Realizing the back of the SUV now allowed little room to hide or run around, Owen soothed the cat’s feelings. “Oh, Pewter, all Tucker wants is to be the center of your attention.”

After one hour, Harry and Susan had dropped off one quarter of the goods. The back roads—some plowed, some not—made for heavy going.

Harry checked the map. “We’ve got one delivery on that dirt road that runs east and west from Route 240 all the way back past Beaver Dam. No colors by this name. That’s good.”

“Jeez, I don’t want to get stuck back there if there’s ice on the road,” said Susan.

“Know what you mean.” Harry concentrated as Susan turned left, for they were heading north. “It doesn’t always get plowed out and it’s so darn twisty and narrow.”

Susan drove slowly. The bare trees did improve vision back into the various hollows and meadows. “Coming up on Mr. Thompson,” she said. “Haven’t seen him in a long time.”

As they swung round a tight twist, a small, once painted wooden dwelling sat between two majestic oaks, their dry brown leaves still attached.

Many oaks do not drop their old leaves, which are instead pushed off by the swelling buds in spring. So the oaks rustle from late fall until spring, creating a mournful sound, the sound of winter.

“Susan, just stop here,” ordered Harry, sometimes bossy. “There’s no way you can drive in there. Snow’s too deep. It’s not dug out. ’Course, Mr. Thompson’s old and it’s hard work.”

“I can’t leave the car in the middle of this road.”

“Why not? You see any other traffic? You stay here. I’ll carry in the box.”

“It’s heavy,” Susan fretted.

“I’m a strong farm girl. If a car beeps at you, you just go on and turn around and come back for me when you can.”

“All right, but I don’t like this.”

“I didn’t say you’d like it.” Harry opened the door, glad she had on snow boots. Opening the back of the big vehicle, she wiggled out a big box.

With a grunt, she hoisted it up, leaned it against her chest, and pushed through the snow. No path had been dug out to the door either. Tucker, ever mindful of her duties as Harry’s dog, jumped out and followed. By the time Harry reached the screened door, hanging on one hinge, sweat rolled down her back. Once at the door, she put down the package and knocked. No response. Knocked again, harder.

At last, the door creaked open. A once handsome old man, now unshaven, smiled at her. “Harry Haristeen.”

“Mr. Thompson. Merry Christmas from St. Cyril’s.”

“Come on in. It’s cold out there,” said her former eleventh-grade math teacher.

“Only for a minute, sir. Susan and I are making deliveries.”

“Susan Bixby?”

“Tucker.”

“She’ll always be Bixby to me.” He smiled at Harry. “Esther Mercier and I always said you two were good math students. So many girls weren’t.”

“That’s kind of you to say. I liked solid geometry and trig. Once I got to college, I didn’t like calculus.”

“Calculus is the dividing line. Basic mathematics is practical, measurements, weight. But calculus opens the door to theory and, once mastered, that theory allows us to build guided missiles. What you can do with higher math, well, I don’t think we even know the possibilities.” He looked down at Tucker. “I have dog biscuits. My old dog, The Terminator, is sound asleep. Can’t hear or see too good anymore, so he sleeps. He’s in the kitchen by the wood-burning stove.”

“Thank you. Tucker doesn’t need treats. She’s getting a little thick around the middle.” Harry paused. “It was good to see you, Mr. Thompson. I’d better go.”

“You tell Susan hello.”

“I will, sir.”

As Harry trudged back she considered the ravages of alcohol. Mr. Thompson had been such a good-looking man, and so bright.

Each year he drank a little more until he started to sneak a drink at work and then two. Sometimes he didn’t show up for class. Once fired, he worked at manual labor, but he became too unreliable. Good as his mind was, nice as he was, he couldn’t stop with the booze.

“Mr. Thompson says hello,” said Harry, climbing back in the vehicle.

“How’s he look?”

“Like you’d expect. When’s the last time you saw him?” Harry inquired.

“At the convenience store. I was coming the back way from Boonesville. Got thirsty. I was shocked when I saw him.”