Рита Браун: Claws And Effect

They both watched with lurid fascination as BoomBoom Craycroft pushed open the gym doors. "Speak of the devil."

"Hi, girls." The buxom, quite good-looking woman waved to them.

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked, since BoomBoom had skipped gym in high school. Her only physical outlet, apart from the obvious, was golf.

"I saw everyone's cars parked outside and thought I might be missing something."

"You did. We beat the pants off them and then discussed whether we were capable of murder," Harry deadpanned.

"Ah. Well, the other reason I stopped by was that I saw Sheriff Shaw at Market Shiflett's store. Coop, he knows you have plans but will you work tonight? Bobby Yount came down with the flu and he thinks it's going to be one of those nights. He asked for you to call him in his car."

"Damn. Oh well. Thanks, Boom." Cynthia turned to Harry and Isabelle. "There goes my date with Fair." She knew this would tweak BoomBoom's raging curiosity.

Eyes widening, BoomBoom edged closer to Coop, hoping to unobtrusively pull her away from the other two women, to get the scoop on what sounded like a romance or at least a real date.

Harry took care of that by saying, "Gee, Boom, maybe you ought to fill in."

"You can be hateful. Really hateful." BoomBoom turned on her heel, the heel of an expensive snow boot bought in Aspen, and stormed off.

Isabelle's jaw dropped at the adults' antics.

"Spike." Coop clapped Harry on the back.

4

In one of those weather shifts so common in the mountains, the next few days witnessed temperatures in the middle fifties. The sounds of running water, dripping water, and sloshing water filled everyone's ears as rivulets ran across state roads; thin streams crossed the low spots of meadows spilling into creeks; streams and rivers rose halfway to their banks, and were still rising.

The north faces of ravines held snow in their crevasses, lakes of pristine snow trackless since animals avoided the deep drifts. Ice, turquoise blue, was frozen in cascades over rocks on the north face of outcroppings.

Fearing the onslaught of another sweep of Arctic air soon, farmers scrubbed and filled water troughs, suburban gardeners added another layer of mulch on spring bulbs, car dealers washed their inventory.

An early riser, Harry knocked out her farm chores, rode one horse and ponied the other two, climbed up on the ladder to sweep debris out of the barn gutters and the house gutters also.

Mrs. Murphy hunted mice in the hayloft, careful not to disturb Simon, the sleeping possum, the hibernating blacksnake, or the huge owl dozing in the cupola. Pickings were slim, since the owl snatched everything up, so Simon ate grain from the tack room. However, neither the owl nor Murphy could eradicate the mice living in the walls between the tack room and the stalls. The mice would sit in their cozy home and sing just to torment the cat.

Pewter, not one to get her paws wet, reposed in the house, flopped on her back on the sofa. Tucker followed Harry, whom she considered her human mother, which meant her stomach was filthy but she too felt a great sense of accomplishment. She picked up the small twigs and branches which had fallen, dragging them over to the toolshed. Small though the corgi was, she could pull four times her weight.

She'd grab the fat end of a branch, plant her hind legs, jerk the weight up a bit, then backpedal. Her yard work always made Harry laugh.

By eleven Harry was ready to go to town this Saturday. Fox-hunting was canceled since the rigs and vans would get stuck in the mud. Parking was always a problem on rainy or muddy days.

"Tucker, let's clean you up in the wash stall. You're not getting in the truck like that."

"I could sit in one spot. I won't move." Her ears drooped since she wasn't thrilled about a bath in any way, shape, or form. On the other hand she'd happily sit in a puddle, leap into the creek. But there was something about soap married to water that offended her canine sensibilities.

"Come on."

"Why don't you wash off Mrs. Murphy's paws, too?" A gleeful malicious note crept into Tucker's voice as she headed into the barn.

"I heard that, you twit." Murphy peeped over the side of the hayloft.

"Any luck?" Harry called to her beloved cat.

"No," came the growl.

"Slowing down, aren't you?" Tucker wanted to get a rise out of her friend. She was successful.

"I could smoke you any day, lardass. Tailless wonder. Dog breath."

"Ha. Ha." Tucker refused to glance upward, which further infuriated the sleek, slightly egotistical cat.

"All right. If you won't stand I'm going to put you in the crossties," Harry warned the little dog.

Turning on the warm water, she hosed off Tucker's stomach, which now returned to its lovely white color.

Mrs. Murphy, keen to enjoy her friend's discomfort, hopped down from the hayloft to sit on the tack trunk in the aisle. "Cleanliness is next to godliness."

"You think you're so smart."

"Cats are smarter than dogs."

"That's what you say but it's not true. Cats don't save shipwrecked humans. Newfoundlands do that. Cats don't rescue people in avalanches. St. Bernards do that. Cats don't even herd cows or pull their weight in the fields. Corgis do that. So there."

"Right. I told you cats were smarter than dogs. Further proof: You'll never get eight cats to pull a sled in the snow." She hurriedly washed her paws since she didn't want Harry to think she could wash her down.

"You two are chatty." Harry finished with Tucker, cut the hose, then wiped her off with an old towel.

A frugal soul, Harry saved everything. She had a pile of old towels in a hanging basket in the aisle outside the washroom. She also kept old towels in the tack room and she even picked up worn-out towels from the country club, purchasing them for a few dollars. For one thing, she needed them, but for another, Harry couldn't abide waste. It seemed like a sin to her.

"Beauty basket." Murphy smiled slyly at Tucker.

"Thank you. I thought you'd never notice. If she's cleaning me up it means we're going somewhere. Wonder where?"

"Well, Augusta Co-op for feed, always high on Mom's list. Wal-Mart. A and N for jeans if she needs any. Oh, don't forget AutoZone. She'll pick up a case of motor oil, windshield-wiper fluid, oil filters. Then again she might go to James River Equipment to get oil and oil filters for the tractor. You know her. It won't be the jewelry store. She's the only woman I know who would like a new set of wrenches for Valentine's Day as opposed to earrings or even flowers."

Tucker laughed. "She loves flowers, though."

"She'll send Fair flowers." Murphy laughed because in most ways Harry was quite predictable, but then cats always knew humans better than humans knew cats.

"Let me look at you." Harry walked over to Mrs. Murphy, who didn't bother to run away from her. After all, if she did and made Harry mad, she wouldn't get to ride in the truck, and Murphy adored riding in the truck, lording it over lowly cars.