Рита Браун - Claws And Effect

"Don't you wonder what Hank Brevard did to get himself killed? I mean, there's another guy not exactly on the top of anyone's 'A' list." Fair cut a bigger piece of corn bread. "Still, you didn't want to kill him. Now I could see someone doing in Bruce. Being around him is like someone rubbing salt in your wound. Murder is-dislocating."

"For the victim." Harry laughed at him.

"You know what I'm trying to say. It calls everything you know into question. What would push you to kill another human being?"

"Yeah, we were talking about that at volleyball." She pressed her lips together and raised her eyebrows, her face a question. "Who knows?"

"Did you think Hank Brevard was smart?" Fair asked Harry. He trusted her reactions to people.

"M-m-m, he knew how to cover his ass. I'm not sure I would call him smart. I guess he was smart about mechanical things or he wouldn't have been plant manager. And I suppose he'd be pretty efficient, good at scheduling maintenance checks, that sort of thing."

"Yeah," Fair agreed.

"No sense of culture, the arts, enjoying people."

"Cut and dried. I think the only people really upset at his death are his wife and family." Fair stood up and walked to the window. "Damn, this weather is a bitch. This afternoon the mercury climbed to fifty-two degrees and here comes the snow."

"What's my thermometer read?" She had an outdoor thermometer on the kitchen window, the digital readout on the inside of the window.

"Twenty-nine degrees Fahrenheit."

"Let's hope it stays snow. I'm over it with the ice."

"Me, too. Those farm roads don't always get plowed and horses get colic more in the winter. Of course, if people would cut back their feed and give them plenty of warm water to drink I'd have fewer cases and they wouldn't have large vet bills. I can't understand people sometimes."

"Fair, it takes years and years to make a horseman. For most people a horse is like a living Toyota. God help the poor horse."

He looked back at her, a twinkle in his eyes. "Some horses know how to get even."

"Some people do, too."

13

The next day proved Fair's theory. The snow, light, deterred no one from foxhunting that morning. Foxhunting-or fox chasing, since the fox wasn't killed-was to Virginia what Indiana U. basketball was to the state of Indiana. Miranda happily took over the post office, since the mail lightened up after Valentine's Day. She felt Harry needed an outlet, since all she did was work at the post office and then work at the farm. As foxhunting was her young friend's great love, she liked seeing Harry get out. She also knew that Fair often hunted during the week and she still nurtured the hope that the two would get back together.

Cold though the day was when Harry first mounted up, the sun grew hotter and by eleven o'clock the temperature hit 47 degrees Fahrenheit. As the group rode along they looked at the tops of the mountains, each tree outlined in ice. As the sun reached the top of the mountains the crests exploded into millions of rainbows, glittering and brilliant.

At that exact moment, a medium-sized red fox decided to give everyone a merry chase.

Harry rode Tomahawk. Fair rode a 17.3 Hanoverian, the right size for Fair's height at six four and then some in his boots. Big Mim had so many fabulous horses Harry wondered how she chose her mount for the day. Little Mim, always impeccably turned out like her mother, sat astride a flaming chestnut. Sam Mahanes, taking the morning off, grasped his gelding, Ranulf, with a death grip, tight legs and tight hands. The gelding, a sensible fellow, put up with this all morning because they were only trotting. Once the fox burst into the open and the field took off flying, though, Sam gripped harder.

Coming into the first fence, a slip fence, everything was fine, but three strides beyond that was a stiff coop and the gelding had had quite enough. He cantered to the base of the jump, screeched on the brakes. Sam took the jump. His horse didn't. Harry, riding behind Sam, witnessed the sorry spectacle.

Sam lay flat on his back on the other side of the coop.

Harry hated to miss the run but she tried to be helpful so she pulled up Tomahawk, turning back to Sam, who resembled a turtle.

Dismounting, she bent down over him. "You're still breathing."

"Just. Wind knocked out of me," Sam gasped, a sharp rattle deep in his throat. "Where's Ranulf?"

"Standing over there by the walnut tree."

As Sam clambered up, brushed off his rear end, and adjusted his cap, Harry walked over to the horse, who nickered to Tomahawk. "Come on, buddy, I'm on your side." She flipped the reins over his head, bringing him back to Sam. "Sam, check your girth."

"Oh, yeah." He ran his fingers under the girth. "It's okay."

"There's a tree stump over there. Make it easy on yourself."

"Yeah." He finally got back in the saddle. "We'll have a lot of ground to make up."

"Don't worry. I'll get us there. Can you trot?"

"Sure."

As they trotted along, Harry was listening for hounds. She asked, "Ever been to Trey Young's?"

"No."

"He's a good trainer."

Still miffed because of his fall, which he blamed completely on his horse, Sam snapped, "You telling me I can't ride?"

Harry, uncharacteristically direct with someone to whom she wasn't close, fired back, "I'm telling you you can't ride that horse as well as you might. I take lessons, Sam. Ranulf is a nice horse but if you don't give with your hands and you squeeze with your legs, what do you expect? He's got nowhere to go but up or he'll just say, 'I've had enough.' And that's what he said."

"Yeah-well."

"This isn't squash." She mentioned his other sport. "There's another living creature involved. It's teamwork far more than mastery."

Sam rode along quietly. Ranulf loved this, of course. Finally, he said, "Maybe you're right."

"This is supposed to be fun. If it isn't fun you'll leave. Wouldn't want that." She smiled her flirtatious smile.

He unstiffened a little. "I've been under a lot of pressure lately."

"With Hank Brevard's murder, I guess."

"Oh, before that. That just added to it. Hospital budgets are about as complicated as the national budget. Everybody has a pet toy they want, but if everyone got what they wanted when they wanted it, we'd be out of business and a hospital is a business, like it or not."

"Must be difficult-juggling the egos, too."

"Bunch of goddamned prima donnas. Oh, you probably haven't heard yet. The blood on the blade sent to Bruce was chicken blood." He laughed a rat-a-tat laugh. "Can you believe that?"

Rick Shaw had contacted Sam when the blade arrived in the mail. When the lab report came back Rick called Bruce Buxton first and Sam second.

"Fast lab report."

"I guess chicken blood is easy to figure." Sam laughed again. "But who would do a fool thing like that? Sending something like that to Buxton?"

"One of his many fans," Harry dryly replied.