Рита Браун - Sour Puss

Harry rose to shut the kitchen window. "When the sun sets, the chill comes up fast. This is the coolest May I remember."

"It is."

"Hope you don't have any emergencies tomorrow."

"Me, too. What did you have in mind?"

She put on her sweetest smile. "Herb said Coop could move in when she was ready, so why don't we take the horse trailer and load up her stuff? One haul will do it. She doesn't have much."

This wasn't the Sunday he'd hoped for,but he figured silently that with his muscle power and Harry's organizing abilities they should be able to pull this off in three compressed hours. "Sure. She'll make a good neighbor."

"I'll make it worth your while." Harry smiled.

"Even if you don't, it's hard for a man to win when two women gang up on him, and one is his beautiful wife."

"You are such a flatterer." But she loved it.

37

Maps spread over the hood of her truck, Harry pointed to acres she had shaded with different-colored pencils. Susan peered down as traffic pulled in and out at the post office parking lot, a big parking lot for Crozet.

"Here's Carter's Mountain," Harry said as the two cats and dog watched people, arms laden with mail, bills, and magazines, come and go.

"Harry." Susan put her hand on Harry's shoulder. "I can read a map."

"Sorry. Well, anyway, this is what Patricia and Bill own. Down here is what Hy and Fiona own—I should just say Fiona. White Vineyards, about three hundred acres. Over here is Toby's, and Toby is just under two hundred acres, and here is Rollie. Arch andRollie's Spring Hill, the main part, is also two hundred acres—well, two twenty. These days that's a lot for Crozet. Okay, shaded in apple green are small growers who sell to the large ones."

"What's the pink?"

"Those are small farms Rollie and Arch have bought up. When you add Rockland— Toby's—to it, Spring Hill controls just under five hundred acres."

Just then Arch pulled into the post office. He emerged from his truck. "Are you coming back to work here?"

"No." Harry smiled.

"It's not the same without you and Miranda. Yeah, the big building and the extra post boxes are good, but we've lost something." He walked over. "Now, what are you up to?"

"Vineyards. Who owns what, who controls what, and you're coming out on top."

He smiled broadly. "Good for Spring Hill. Harry, any more sharpshooters?"

"No. Not yet anyway."

"You just never know. I sure hope they aren't adjusting to the latitude and the warmer winters. If they do, we're in big trouble. Well, let me go pick up the mail. Nice tosee you." He turned, then stopped. "Are you two going to put more acres in grapes?"

"Not yet," Harry answered.

"Buy land while you can. There will be a point in Albemarle County where it will be only the very rich and the very poor."

"I don't think I'm going to ever qualify as the very rich." Harry laughed.

"Me, either," Susan agreed.

"Not true. If either of you ladies ever sell the land you've inherited, you'll be worth millions. Let me know. Rollie has a big bankroll."

"Arch, if I sell my land, I sell my birthright," Harry said.

"Me, too. The Bland Wade tract has been in our family since right after the Revolutionary War."

"That's well and good, but if property taxes keep going up, and you know they will, and if, for some reason, your nursery business doesn't bring in enough cash, you'll be land poor, sure as shooting."

"Somehow, Arch, we'll hang on. The land is who we are." Harry spoke for herself and Susan.

"Well, keep it in mind. You never know. And you're both very smart ladies." He smiled and left.

"I guess on paper we're already millionaires based on the value of the land." Susan thought it out.

"We are?" Harry hadn't given it a thought.

"Pretty sure. It was our good fortune to be born into families that never sold off their land no matter how bad the times were. How they kept it together through the booms and busts of the nineteenth century, the war, the horrible aftermath, and then the crash in the 1930s—it's a testimony to how much they loved this place and how much they believed in the future."

"It really is," Harry solemnly replied. "We'll do our part, no matter what."

Arch walked back out of the post office, cell phone to his ear, and waved to the ladies. As he drove by, he slowed and said, "Rollie will pay twenty percent over current market value. He's on a roll."

"A lot of land has opened up in the last month," Harry blurted out. "Seems like you two have come out ahead."

Arch stopped the truck for a minute. "Can't let established vines go to ruin. Thewine industry has come too far in Virginia, know what I mean?"

"Fiona is going forward," Susan said.

Arch frowned for a second, then said "More power to her, but she's another one who could cash in and walk away a rich woman."

"She's already rich, plus she gets back the million dollars of Hy's bail. Just think of all that money at one time. It's overwhelming." Harry's eyes lit up.

"See you, ladies." Arch waved and drove on.

"What're you doin' now?" Harry asked Susan.

"Thought I'd go home and see if I can't find southern hawthorne saplings, little guys for us to plant come fall. I ordered the sugar maples, did I tell you?" Susan found that she enjoyed researching tree varieties, then finding them.

"No."

"They'll come in late September. Boy, I'm not used to thinking ahead like this. I'm used to school calendars." She sighed. "Where does the time go? Danny is a junior at Cornell and Brooks goes to Duke next fall."

"Sure goes fast," Harry agreed. "All right, I'm going back to the farm. Have to see if I can work the boom on the tractor. Never used one before. I might wait and cut hay instead. I'll ask Fair to help with the boom."

"Good luck with the boom." Susan kissed Harry on the cheek, then hopped into her Audi and drove off.

Two hours later Harry happily perched on the cushioned tractor seat as she cut the back acres; this was her orchard grass with regular alfalfa. The mix was popular with horsemen. She'd cut the quadrant with drought-resistant alfalfa later. She had to time it just right and allow the rows to dry out completely. Small wonder farmers obsessively watched the weather. But if she didn't give the blister bugs time to get, out of the drying hay, nothing good would come of it.

She made the animals stay back in the barn when she cut hay.

The cats dozed on the tack trunk in the center aisle, the day was so pleasant. Tucker was sprawled in the middle of the barn aisle.

Riding on a tractor always got Harry to thinking. As the diesel engine rumbled, the newly mown hay exerted a hypnotic quality. The symmetry pleased her. The aroma intoxicated her. She hummed to herself, jouncing along. When she cut the last row, she disengaged the blades and slowly bumped back to the shed. As she washed down the equipment, the tiny beads of water caught the sun, thousands of moving rainbows then shattered on the John Deere green paint. Satisfied that she'd done a good job, she strode into her small vineyard, walking down the short rows filling the quarter acre. Not a glassy-winged sharpshooter in sight.

She whistled on her way to the tack room, sat down at the heavy old schoolteacher's desk, and dialed Rollie Barnes. Luckily he was in his office.

"Rollie, this is Harry Haristeen. I was wondering if you'd give me a minute of your time."

"What can I do for you?" Rollie liked women asking him for advice.

"Well, as you know, I have this piddling quarter of an acre in Petit Manseng. I haven't followed this case going before the Supreme Court about shipping wine out of state. What really is this about?"

"First, let me say that for the most part I favor states' rights, but when they interfere with the free movement of goods and services, I believe there has to be a uniform federal law." He sounded like a politician.