Рита Браун - Sour Puss

"Runs in the family. All the Pittmans are difficult people." Harry accepted Toby but avoided him.

"What's an anthracnose?" Susan asked.

"Bird's eye," Hy replied. "It's a fungus on the leaves that looks like a bird's eye. Tricky. The grapes seem okay, but the leaves wilt. Two or three years pass, everything seems okay. Eventually, though, the infection reaches the fruit and one gets misshapen grapes."

"Sure are a lot of things that attack grapes."

"There's no foolproof crop." He shrugged.

"Weeds." Susan cupped her head in her hand.

Harry laughed. "When people talk about a natural garden, I figure they mean weeds." She turned her attention back to Hy. "By the time I apply every remedy to my little vines, I won't have a penny of profit."

He smiled. "You're too smart for that."

Tapping his thick cup, he continued. "You only apply fertilizer or spray when it is

needed or at the right time as a preventive.We're lucky here, so far. We've managed to keep grapes healthy."

"Persistence." She paused, then smiled slowly, "And ego."

"You need ego to do anything well." He agreed. "Gargantuan ego. Pantagruel. Yes, the Pentagruel of ego. That's Toby. I have an ego. Felicia has an ego. Patricia has an ego, but we also have sense. Toby has none." He assumed both ladies knew their Rabelais, and being well educated, they did know the work of France's greatest comic writer, who worked in the first half of the sixteenth century.

"Can anyone be a vintner without a huge ego?" Susan marveled at the complexity of the task. One had to select the correct grape for the soil, nurture it, harvest it, then sell it, or actually make the wine oneself.

It remained a science and an art to create the right medley of sensation on a discriminating palate.

Harry, a foxhunter, evidenced a bit of the slyness of the fox herself. "Hy, surely Toby didn't threaten to knock you off the stool because of pruning grapes. What exposed nerve did you touch today?" She smiled flirtatiously, since Hy believed himself attractive to all females worldwide.

"Ah, yes." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "Vincent Forland. I said I thought both those men at the panel gave everyone a blueprint for bioterrorism. Irresponsible!"

"Hy, I didn't think of that at the time. It was so fascinating, but you know, you've got a point there," Harry said.

Hy shrugged a Gallic shrug, one imitated but never perfected by those not born to the greatness of France. "Mark my words, ladies. It will all come to a bad end."

"Why would that set off Toby?" Susan knew Toby had a short fuse, but he seemed extra agitated.

"Ah, Toby, the morally superior Toby. When I suggested to him that Professor Forland and Dr. Jenkins might as well work for the terrorists given that they'd told us too much, he cursed me and swore that was ridiculous. I said, no, smart. The two experts appear to be warning us, but they're scaring people. Plants as lethal agents, common enough plants, such things could be distilled by someone who knows less than Professor Forland."

"Toby seems to have a volatile relationship with Professor Forland," Susan said.

"Toby likes him, but I guess he's never really gotten over not being hired by Tech," commented Harry, who in her typical fashion didn't believe there would be emotional repercussions in her life because of Arch's return.

"He takes things so personally," Susan said compassionately.

"And now Arch is here, a partner to Rollie Barnes. That grates on Toby's high-strung nature," Harry said.

Hy nodded gravely. "This is so. You have a big heart, Susan. First, Toby lost his temper when I suggested that his esteemed Professor Forland might as well give terrorists a blueprint if he's not already in their employ. Then when I said Professor Forland could also work for Homeland Security or some other agency, he erupted. He shook his finger at me and declared Professor Forland would never stoop to cooperating with our right-wing government."

"Is that what he called our government?" Susan's cheeks reddened.

"Alas, madam, he did."

"Toby prides himself on being an anarchist." Harry felt the warmth from her cup on her hands. "But you know, irritating as he can be about stuff like that, it's good we hear it. Otherwise, we're just a bunch of sheep."

"Still, can't a man be amusing?" Hy held up his hands in bafflement.

6

Rollie Barnes touched a stock; it surged upward. His gorgeous wife, twenty-two years younger than Rollie, prudently hid her intelligence from him, for he was not a man comfortable with formidable females. For all his brains, Rollie was rather a weak fellow emotionally. This in turn made him aggressive, a quality not appreciated in its raw form in the South.

Born on the wrong side of the tracks in Stamford, Connecticut, Rollie slogged through the local community college. Yet once he found his gift, to his credit he made the most of it.

"Periosteal elevation." Rollie pronounced this with finality.

Fair, who had delivered the foal, tried not to smile. "An invasive procedure, Mr. Barnes. This little fellow doesn't need aP and E." He used the shorthand version for the procedure, one known to horsemen.

Mim would have known instantly what Fair was discussing — surgery required on the knee of the foreleg.

"I want this foal to have straight legs." Rollie folded his arms across his chest as he stood, legs apart, under a completely unnecessary chandelier in the stable.

"Honey, he likes me." Chauntal put her blonde head down to the colt, who nuzzled her as his mother turned to look.

Fair smiled. He liked Chauntal. He didn't envy her. It's easier to make money than to marry it.

"Mr. Barnes, this colt has carpal valgus: knock-knees. I think he'll straighten out in time. Right now I wouldn't do anything restrictive. I wouldn't even put a splint on him, because it's not that bad." He didn't say a P and E would be the wrong thing to do, because, being a sensitive man, Fair didn't want Rollie to take offense.

"Well, it looks bad to me." Rollie's lowerjawjutted out.

"I'm sure it does, but it's a mild case.Truthis, you don't want a horse with straight, straight legs. A truly straight leg actually promotes knee problems."

"But I read that this stripping is used on knock-kneed foals."

"I guess some vets do it, but I'd really only do a P and E for an ankle problem or badly bowed legs. It really will take care of itself. This little fellow will be just fine."

Chauntal couldn't keep her hands off the lovely bay colt. "Dr. Haristeen, what is periosteal stripping?"

"It's pretty interesting, ma'am. You make a small, inverted T-shaped cut through the periosteum, right above the growth plate. You lift the edges of the periosteum, and in most young foals the leg will grow straight after four to six weeks. What the surgery really does is allow the slower-growing side of the leg to catch up. The cut releases the tension on the membrane that covers the growth plate—that's what's called the periosteum. Guess I should have said that in the first place." He smiled reassuringly.

"Well, I'm going to ask Dan Flynn." Rollie mentioned a nationally famous equine vet who lived in Albemarle County.

"Sir, you won't find anyone better. You can also call Reynolds Coles or Annegonda or Greg Schmidt. They're all excellent vets. Dan, as you probably know, is so famous he's in demand all over. I'm surprised one of those Saudi princes hasn't offered Dan and Ginger," he mentioned Dan's wife, a small-animal vet, "a million to practice in Dubai."

That Fair hadn't been insulted surprised Rollie, who imagined every exchange with another man as a contest of wills, wits, and, of course, money.

Chauntal, often embarrassed by Rollie, tried not to show it. Born poor in Mississippi, she was raised by people with beautiful manners, people who respected other people. Her mother, father, and sister didn't rejoice in Rollie's wealth. They thought him rude and unfeeling. They prayed their beautiful girl would have a good life. That her husband would respect her. Not that they showed anything to Rollie but pleasantness. He tried to buy them things, which they refused.