Рита Браун - Sour Puss

"Clouds black as the devil's eyebrows." Miranda gave a shiver.

" 'Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?'" Harry quoted the most famous line from the story.

"Why, Harry Haristeen, I'm impressed." Miranda smiled.

"I can also quote the Pledge of Allegiance, but that's about it." Harry heard the first great splat as raindrops big as plums hit the windows. "Glad Paul put up the horses."

"Yours in?"

"Put everyone in for a little rest from one another."

A blinding bolt of lightning struck perhaps a half mile away. The lights flickered, then died. Within seconds another bolt struck a lone shed out in one of the large pastures. The color was pale pink, and Harry saw spots when the powerful lightning touched the lightning rod.

"Jesus Christ," Susan blurted out, for it was pitch black except for lightning flashes.

"Candles," Mim called, as Little Mim and Gretchen, her majordomo, followed, the matches and lighters flicked to help them.

Within five minutes, beeswax candles glowed in hurricane lamps in the various downstairs rooms.

"She is always prepared." Miranda admired her childhood friend.

However, even Big Mim wasn't prepared for the crash when Fair flew backward into the coffee table. People's drinks splattered all over the floor, along with a candle, which Jim quickly picked up before it could burn anything.

Arch, without a word, turned on his heel, walked down the front hall, opened the door, and went outside into the storm.

Fair followed, also without a word.

Harry put down her lemonade, then sprinted after them.

"There goes my hair," Harry grumbled to herself, as she was soaked in seconds.

Susan stood at the door, rain lashing in, and shouted, "Harry, come back in here. Let them settle it." She then hurried to the closet to rummage for a raincoat or umbrella.

Harry didn't waste energy yelling at the men to stop. Her shoes sunk into the earth; the rain was coming at her sideways. She could barely see the hand in front of her face.

"You son of a bitch!" Fair slugged Arch.

Both men, in the prime of life, hurt each other when they landed a blow, which wasn't as often as they would have liked, since footing was slick. They fell down, scrambled up, traded blows, only to slide into the grass again.

Fair, more powerful, taller, in a little bit better shape, and with a longer reach, connected with Arch more than Arch could hit him.

Men, donning raincoats, hurried out of the house behind Susan, the borrowed umbrella now blown inside out.

Ned opened his car door and turned on the headlights, for it was pitch black.

The headlights created a ghostly tableaux in the unrelenting rain. Blair, also tall and strong, grabbed Fair, as Jim and Ned pulled Arch away, blood pouring over his left eye, only to be washed clean by the rain.

Harry walked on Fair's other side, Susan with her, as Blair opened Harry's truck door, passenger side, and Fair climbed in.

"Thank you, Blair," Harry simply said as she scrambled into the driver's seat.

"You okay?" Harry, now cold, shivered as she turned on the engine. She waved to Susan, who followed the others back into Mim's house. Ned and Jim, however, walked Arch toward the stables, no doubt to clean him up. Also, the enforced march was calming Arch down.

"Broke the heel of my shoe." Harry grinned, water still running down her face from her wet head. "A genuine tragedy." She took Fair's swollen hand. "Hurt?" She noticed his left cheek was bright red also.

"I'll put it in ice when we get home." He looked down the front of his suit. "Ruined my new tie."

"I can fix that, too, once it dries out." She prudently did not ask him what the fight was about, because it would anger him all over. In time, he'd calm down and she'd find out.

The cab of the truck was warm now that the motor was running. Harry, driving slowly in the undiminishing rain, made it home in a half hour. It usually took ten minutes.

They stripped off their clothes on the screened-in porch, the slate floor cold underneath their feet.

Harry, shivering, hung his bedraggled tie over a peg. They then both burst into the kitchen.

"Two drowned rats." Pewter opened one eye from her bed.

Fair dashed into the bathroom, returning with two large bath towels. He wrapped one around Harry and the other around himself.

As he did so, Harry devilishly said, "Honey, looks like your part got shrink-wrapped."

Teeth chattering, he managed to say, "Things do contract in the cold."

"I can fix that." She laughed as she opened the refrigerator, took out ice, putting it in a bowl. "First, let's work on your hand."

30

The storm purified the air. At sunrise the mountains turned red, then pink, and finally gold. The trees at the very top were beginning to bud. Spring marched onward.

Mrs. Murphy marched onward, too. She liked hunting alone. Pewter complained the farther from the house they traveled, so the tiger pounced on field mice without the whining of the fat gray cat to warn them of a feline presence.

She reached the confluence of the two creeks, Potlicker with Harry's Creek. The oak torn open by the bear served as a shattered sentinel.

The hard rains had knocked blossoms off trees and bushes but also brought down the pine pollen, a relief to anyone suffering from spring allergies. Mrs. Murphy sawglobs of yellow pollen swirling in the creek. She peered down at a deep spot where the water, swollen from the hard rains, came perilously close to the bank. She liked watching fish, turtles, and crawfish, but the current and silt nixed that.

She walked along the eastern bank. Even with the beaver dams and lodges, some damaged by the debris moving in the water, she couldn't cross the creek. Not that it mattered. There was plenty of game on this side of the creek.

Two mourning doves flew overhead as the sun rose higher. Flatface, the great horned owl, silently winged toward the barn. The mighty bird dipped her wings as Mrs. Murphy looked up at her, then continued on her way. Mrs. Murphy respected Flatface for her hunting prowess and for her good sense. Good hunters usually respected one another, including humans. The bad ones pulled everyone down with them, unfortunately.

A surge of water sent a small wave crashing against the bank. The cat jumped high, then turned and trotted away from the creek. Getting her paws wet in the pastures and soggy ground was one thing, being sprayed by the creek was another.

As she headed down toward the back pastures of the farm, she thought she heard a motor on the other side of the creek. The water muffled the sound. She stopped, listened intently, then burst into a run, heading straight for the old hickory in the center of the back pasture. She leapt onto the textured bark, dug in her claws, and rapidly climbed up.

She strained to hear. The rise of the land on the western bank blocked sight of the farm road. She definitely heard a truck. Frustrated, she listened as the motor cut off. Ten minutes passed, the motor cut on again, and the truck, in low gear, drove away.

Whoever had been on the Jones land didn't stay long.

Mrs. Murphy backed down the hickory. Back at the barn, she climbed into the hayloft, where Simon slept, tiny snoring noises coming from his long nose. She noted the Pelham chain prominently displayed. Simon loved his stolen treasures.

She padded across the expanse, half open and swept clean; the other half was filled with high-grade alfalfa-orchard grass mix. Harry always kept a hayloft's supply of good forage in case someone needed to be kept in a stall. Luckily all the horses were easy keepers and didn't need fancy grain mixes. One or two scoops of crimped oats mixed with sweet feed kept everyone happy.

Simon liked the oats, too, eagerly dining on what the horses dropped along with the bits of dry molasses. Harry, after wetting her hand, tossed in a small handful of molasses if someone was picky. Never failed.