Рита Браун - Hiss Of Death

Even without vision, Miranda was not one to panic. She braked smoothly, and the right side of the car dropped into the ditch. The car rocked a little.

Asleep on the backseat, Harry’s two cats and dog rolled off.

“Hey!” Pewter, the rotund gray cat, howled.

The tiger cat, Mrs. Murphy, and the corgi, Tee Tucker, scrambled back up on the seat.

“No other cars,” the dog noted.

The tiger cat looked around. “Right.”

“I was asleep.” Pewter hauled herself up to sit next to her friends.

“We all were,” Mrs. Murphy drily noted.

“Well—I was more asleep.”

Harry, already outside, having punctured the air bag with the penknife she always carried in her hip pocket, crouched down to look at the undercarriage. Then she walked to the right front side of the car, front end in the ditch.

“See anything?” As best she could, Miranda rolled up her air bag, which Harry had also punctured.

Harry called back, “Your right tire is cracked; the rubber’s flat, too. Do you have Triple A?”

“I do.” Miranda slid out as Harry helped her. “But I’m going to call Safe and Sound instead.”

Safe & Sound, founded and run by Alphonse “Latigo” Bly, was headquartered in Charlottesville. Specializing in auto insurance, the company covered the mid-Atlantic and coastal South. Many business people believed Safe & Sound would go national, sooner or later.

As Miranda called, Harry opened the back door of the Outback.

“Does anyone need to go potsie?”

“Must she put it that way?” Pewter grumbled. “And I am not about to get my paws wet.”

“We’re okay.” The corgi answered for the rest of the animals. Not seeing one of her best friends budge, Harry closed the door to the rear, then did her best to fold her air bag back into the dash.

Miranda was already on the phone with Safe & Sound, spilling out details, perhaps too many.

With difficulty, Harry opened the glove compartment, pulling out the manual.

Having concluded her phone conversation, Miranda informed Harry, “Someone will be here in twenty minutes. Says don’t call Triple A. He takes care of this stuff all the time.”

“Always best to do business with friends,” Harry observed. “When you try to save money, you usually waste time or spend even more money. Safe and Sound is local.”

Miranda sighed. “The older I get, the more I realize time is more precious than money.”

Harry, flipping through the manual, stopped at a schematic drawing of the auto frame. “You’re not old. Anyone who sings in the choir, gardens like you do, and is a member of every ‘do-good’ group in the state of Virginia isn’t old.” Changing the subject—a habit with dear friends—Harry declared, “Whatever happened, it wasn’t the engine. It may be a defective wheel, but there was that odd pop sound.”

“Yes. I couldn’t steer after that.”

“Weird.” Harry glanced back at the manual. “Subaru makes great cars for the money.” A fresh breeze brought the aroma of blossoms, flowers, hay coming up, filling her nostrils.

“I’ll be curious to find out what happened. How lucky we were that the car swerved to the right, not the left into oncoming traffic. Better yet, there wasn’t any traffic.” Miranda exhaled.

“Monday afternoon. Everyone’s at work or in the fields. Herb’s truck is in the shop, too, after his collision last week.” Harry said, thinking of the minister at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, the Very Reverend Herbert Jones. “Things go in threes. Maybe I’m next.”

“I don’t know what happened, but I bet that will cost Herb an arm and a leg. Truck’s still at ReNu,” Miranda said, naming the garage favored by the insurance company. “He was driving his Chevy truck. His ‘big fib’ truck.”

They laughed, because the Chevy, used for fishing and filled with tackle, was also filled with fish stories. Oh, how Herb could wax poetic on the one that got away! He was also all too happy to show what he had actually snagged, though the cats generally proved more interested in the display than did the humans.

“If you’re going to be stuck on the side of the road, best it happens on a beautiful spring day.” Harry smiled. “We were lucky. Unlike Tara Meola.”

Harry shuddered at the thought of the poor young woman killed last week in the hard rains when a deer smashed into her vehicle.

“True.” Miranda nodded.

“You just never know,” Harry sighed.

A fter a bitterly cold winter, spring had stayed cool until late April. It was now late May. Nights in the mid-forties or mid-fifties promised days in the sixties. Late-blooming dogwoods dotted the forests and manicured lawns. Over pergolas, the wisteria hung pendulous with lavender or white blossoms. The roses threatened to riot.

Harry walked through her tended acres. The farm maintained a healthy balance of crops, hay, and woodlands. Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and Pewter followed, taking numerous side trips to investigate rabbit warrens and fox dens. The butterflies danced together, swirling, fluttering their beautiful veined wings.

Eying them deviously, Pewter crouched down.

“They see you,” Tucker said.

Ignoring the ever practical dog, Pewter wiggled her gray butt, then leapt upward.

Without breaking rhythm, the butterflies flew away.

“Almost had ’em.”

“Dream on,” the corgi teased.

Mrs. Murphy at her heels, Harry turned. “Come on, you two.”

“She’s always giving orders,” Pewter grumbled.

“True,” the handsome dog agreed. “And she also always feeds us on time.”

Considering this, the fat cat trotted toward Harry, who was now leaning over to inspect the tops of sunflower plants just breaking the surface.

“With a little luck, I’m going to have a good year.” Harry smiled, then moved on to her quarter acre of Petit Manseng grapes.

Dr. Thomas Walker, Thomas Jefferson’s guardian after Peter Jefferson died, tried to grow grapes. Jefferson did, too. The types they wished to grow didn’t flourish. With the passing centuries, viniculture advanced, thanks to people on both sides of the Atlantic. The wine industry now poured millions upon millions into the area’s coffers, a boon to growers and a boon to Virginia.

The horse business alone contributed $1.2 billion to the state economy. Not that any horse wishes to be compared to a grape.

Shortro, a very athletic Saddlebred, and Tomahawk, an old Thoroughbred, hung their heads over their paddock fence.

“This will be the first year she can sell her grapes,” Tomahawk noted. “Remember, she had to let the first year’s stay on the vine.”

“Even the broodmares know that.” Shortro laughed. “Harry’s obsessed with her grapes and her sunflowers. She’s just sure both will bring her money.”

In the adjoining paddock, one of the broodmares heard Shortro’s comment. “I resent that.”

“Ah, Gigi” —Shortro called the Thoroughbred by her barn name— “I didn’t mean anything by it. You girls are all wrapped up in your foals.”

Gigi tossed her dark bay head. “If she makes money, she overseeds the pastures in alfalfa. We all want Harry to succeed.”

The other broodmares nodded in agreement. Their foals, the youngest only a month old, hung by their sides.

Blissfully unaware that she was the topic of conversation, Harry chatted with her house animals. “I can put up scarecrows and big plastic owls, but, you know, gang, sooner or later the birds figure that out, so I mustn’t do that too soon. I’ll wait until the grapes appear—tiny—on the vine, then I’ll put that stuff up.” She shook her head in exasperation. “Tell you what, birds and deer can wipe you out.”