Рита Браун - Rest In Pieces

“I’m going to take this to my place, because we can drive the tractor straight off. Then you can help me slide off the wooden ramp. Wish they made an aluminum ramp that I could use, but no luck.”

“At the hunt meets I’ve seen trailers with ramps.”

“Sure, but those kinds of trailers cost so much—especially the aluminum ones, which are the best. My stock trailer is serviceable but nothing fancy like a ramp comes with it.”

She backed up to the earthen ramp. Took two tries. They could hear Tucker barking in the house. They rolled off the tractor, after which they pushed and pulled on the wooden ramp.

“Well, how are we going to get it off the bank?” Blair was puzzled, as the heavy wooden ramp was precariously perched on the earthen rampart.

“Watch.” Harry pulled the gooseneck away, hopped out of the truck, and unhitched it. Then she climbed back in the truck and backed it over to the old hay wagon. A chain hung from the wagon’s long shaft, a leftover from the days when it was drawn by horses. She dropped the chain over the ball hitch on her bumper. Harry wisely had both hitches on her trailer: the steel plate and ball bolted into the bed of her truck for the gooseneck and another hitch welded onto the frame under the bed of the truck, with its adjustable ball mount. Then she drove the hay wagon alongside the embankment.

“Okay, now we push the ramp onto the wagon.”

Blair, sweating now despite the temperature, pushed the heavy wooden ramp onto the beckoning platform. “Presto.”

Harry cut the motor, rolled up her windows, and got out of the truck. “Blair, I spoke too soon. I think it’s going to snow. We can put the tractor in my barn or you can drive it over to yours and I’ll follow you in your truck.”

As if on cue the first snowflake lazed out of the darkening sky.

“Let’s leave it here. I don’t know how to work one of these contraptions yet. You still gonna teach me?”

“Yeah, it’s easy.”

The heavens seemed to have opened a zipper then; snow poured out of the sky. The two of them walked into the house after Harry parked the tractor in the barn. The animals joyously greeted their mother. She put on coffee and dug out lunch meat to make sandwiches.

“Harry, your truck isn’t four-wheel drive, is it?”

“No.”

“Hold those sandwiches for about twenty minutes. I’ll run down to the market and get food, because this looks like a real snowstorm. Your pantry is low and I know mine is.”

Before she could protest he was gone. An hour later he returned with eight bags of groceries. He’d bought a frying chicken, a pork roast, potatoes, potato chips, Cokes, lettuce, an assortment of cheese, vegetables, apples, and some for the horses too. Pancake mix, milk, real butter, brownie mix, a six-pack of Mexican beer, expensive coffee beans, a coffee grinder, and two whole bags of cat and dog food. He truly astounded Harry by putting the food away and making a fire in the kitchen fireplace, using a starter log and some of the split wood she had stacked on the porch. Her protests were ignored.

“Now we can eat.”

“Blair, I don’t know how to make a pork roast.”

“You make a good sandwich. If this keeps up like the weather report says, there’ll be two feet of snow on the ground by tomorrow noon. I’ll come over and show you how to cook a pork roast. Can you make waffles?”

“I watched Mother do it. I bet I can.”

“You make breakfast and I’ll make dinner. In between we’ll paint your tack room.”

“You bought paint too?”

“It’s in the back of the truck.”

“Blair, it’ll freeze.” Harry jumped up and ran outside, followed by Blair. They laughed as they hauled the paint into the kitchen, their hair dotted with snowflakes, their feet wet. They finished eating, took off their shoes, and sat back down with their feet toward the fire.

Mrs. Murphy sprawled before the fire, as did Tucker.

“How come you haven’t asked me about taking BoomBoom to the Knickerbocker Ball?”

“It’s none of my business.”

“I apologize for not asking you, but BoomBoom has been helpful and for two seconds there I found her intriguing, so I thought I’d take her to the Waldorf as sort of a thank you.”

“Like buying the groceries?”

He pondered this. “Yes and no. I don’t like to take advantage of people and you’ve both been helpful. She met someone there that I went to college with, Orlando Heguay. A big hit.” He wiggled his toes.

“Rich?”

“Um, and handsome too.”

Harry smiled. As the twilight deepened, a soft purple cast over the snow like a melancholy net. Blair told her about his continuing struggles with his father, who had wanted him either to be a doctor like himself or go into business. He talked about his two sisters, his mother, and finally he got to the story about his murdered girlfriend. Blair confessed that although it had happened about a year and a half ago he was just now beginning to feel human again.

Harry sympathized and when he asked her about her life she told him that she had studied art history at Smith, never quite found her career direction, and fell into the job at the post office which, truthfully, she enjoyed. Her marriage had been like a second job and when it ended she was amazed at the free time she had. She was casting about for something to do in addition to the post office. She was thinking of being an agent for equine art but she didn’t know enough about the market. And she was in no hurry. She, too, was beginning to feel as if she was waking up.

She wondered whether to ask him to stay. His house was so barren, but it didn’t seem right to ask him just yet. Harry was never one to rush things.

When he got up to go home, she hugged him good-bye, thanked him for the groceries, and said she’d see him in the morning.

She watched his lights as he drove down the curving driveway. Then she put on her jacket and took out scraps for the possum.

45

Tucked into bed with the latest Susan Isaacs novel, Harry was surprised when the phone rang.

Fair’s voice crackled over the line. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, kind of.”

“The lines are icing up. You might lose your power and your phone. Are you alone?”

“What kind of question is that? Are you?”

“Yes. I’m worried about you, Harry. Who knows what will happen if you’re cut off from the world?”

“I’m in no danger.”

“You don’t know that. Just because nothing has happened recently doesn’t mean that you might not be in danger.”

“Maybe you’re in danger.” Harry sighed. “Fair, is this your way of apologizing?”

“Uh . . . well, yes.”

“Is the bloom off the rose with BoomBoom?”

A long silence filled with static was finally broken. “I don’t know.”

“Fair, I was your wife and before that I was one of your best friends. Maybe we’ll get back to being best friends over time. So take that into consideration when I ask this next question. Have you spent a lot of money on her?”