Рита Браун - Rest In Pieces

Getting up at five-thirty in the morning appealed to her except in darkest winter, when she did it anyway. The outdoor chores took so much of Harry’s free time that she wasn’t always able to keep up with the house. The outside needed some fresh paint. She and Susan had painted the inside last winter. Mrs. Hogendobber even came out to help for a day. Harry’s sofa and chairs, oversized, needed to be reupholstered. They were pieces her mother and father had bought at an auction in 1949 shortly after they were married. They figured the furniture had been built in the 1930’s. Harry didn’t much care how old the furniture was but it was the most comfortable stuff she’d ever sat in. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker could lounge unrestricted on the sofa, so it had their approval.

A small, strong creek divided Harry’s land from Foxden. Tucker scrambled down the bank and plunged in. The water was low. Mrs. Murphy, not overfond of water, circled around, revved her motors, and took a running leap, clearing the creek and Tucker as well.

From there they raced to the house, passing the small cemetery on its knoll. A light shone out from a second-story window into the darkness. Huge sweet gum trees, walnuts, and oaks sheltered the frame dwelling, built in 1837 with a 1904 addition. Mrs. Murphy climbed up the big walnut tree and casually walked out onto a branch to peer into the lighted room. Tucker bitched and moaned at the base of the tree.

“Shut up, Tucker. You’ll get us both chased out of here.”

“Tell me what you see.”

“Once I crawl back down, I will. How do we know this human doesn’t have good ears? Some do, you know.”

Inside the lighted room Blair Bainbridge was engaged in the dirty job of steaming off wallpaper. Nasty strips of peony paper, the blossoms a startling pink, hung down. Every now and then Blair would put down the steamer and pull on the paper. He wore a T-shirt, and little bits of wallpaper stuck to his arms. A portable CD player, on the other side of the room, provided some solace with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto Number One. No furniture or boxes cluttered the room.

Mrs. Murphy backed down the tree and told Tucker that there wasn’t much going on. They circled the house. The bushes had been trimmed back, the gardens mulched, the dead limbs pruned off trees. Mrs. Murphy opened the back screen door. The back porch had two director’s chairs and an orange crate for a coffee table. The old cast-iron boot scraper shaped like a dachshund still stood just to the left of the door. Neither cat nor dog could get up to see in the back door window.

“Let’s go to the barn,” Tucker suggested.

The barn, a six-stall shed row with a little office in the middle, presented nothing unusual. The stall floors, looking like moon craters, needed to be filled in and evened out. Blair Bainbridge would sweat bullets with that task. Tamping down the stalls was worse than hauling wheelbarrows loaded with clay and rock dust. Cobwebs hung everywhere and a few spiders were finishing up their winter preparations. Mice cleaned out what grain remained in the feed room. Mrs. Murphy regretted that she didn’t have more time to play catch.

They left the barn and inspected the dually truck and the gooseneck, both brand-new. Who could afford a new truck and trailer at the same time? Mr. Bainbridge wasn’t living on food stamps.

“We didn’t find out very much,” Tucker sighed. “Other than the fact that he has some money.”

“We know more than that.” Mrs. Murphy felt a bite on her shoulder. She dug ferociously. “He’s independent and he’s hard-working. He wants the place to look good and he wants horses. And there’s no woman around, nor does there seem to be one in the picture.”

“You don’t know that.” Tucker shook her head.

“There’s no woman. We’d smell her.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know that one might not visit. Maybe he’s fixing up the place to impress her.”

“No. I can’t prove it but I feel it. He wants to be alone. He listens to thoughtful music. I think he’s getting away from somebody or something.”

Tucker thought Mrs. Murphy was jumping to conclusions, but she kept her mouth shut or she’d have to endure a lecture about how cats are mysterious and how cats know things that dogs don’t, ad nauseam .

As the two walked home they passed the cemetery, the wrought-iron fence topped with spearheads marking off the area. One side had fallen down.

“Let’s go in.” Tucker ran over.

The graveyard had been in use by Joneses and MacGregors for nearly two hundred years. The oldest tombstone read: CAPTAIN FRANCIS EGBERT JONES, BORN 1730, DIED 1802. A small log cabin once stood near the creek, but as the Jones family’s fortunes increased they built the frame house. The foundation of the log cabin still stood by the creek. The various headstones, small ones for children, two of whom were carried off by scarlet fever right after the War Between the States, sported carvings and sayings. After that terrible war a Jones daughter, Estella Lynch Jones, married a MacGregor, which was how MacGregors came to be buried here, including the last occupants of Foxden.

The graveyard had been untended since Mrs. MacGregor’s death. Ned Tucker, Susan’s husband and the executor of the estate, rented out the acres to Mr. Stuart Tapscott for his own use. He had to maintain what he used, which he did. The cemetery, however, contained the remains of the Jones family and the MacGregor family, and the survivors, not Mr. Tapscott, were to care for the grounds. The lone descendant, the Reverend Herbert Jones, besieged by ecclesiastical duties and a bad back, was unable to keep up the plot.

It appeared things were going to change with Blair Bainbridge’s arrival. The tombstones that had been overturned were righted, the grass was clipped, and a small camellia bush was planted next to Elizabeth MacGregor’s headstone. The iron fence would take more than one person to right and repair.

“Guess Mr. Bainbridge went to work in here too,” Mrs. Murphy remarked.

“Here’s my favorite.” Tucker stood by the marker of Colonel Ezekiel Abram Jones, born in 1812 and died in 1861, killed at First Manassas. The inscription read: BETTER TO DIE ON YOUR FEET THAN LIVE ON YOUR KNEES. A fitting sentiment for a fallen Confederate who paid for his conviction, yet ironic in its unintentional parallel to the injustice of slavery.

“I like this one.” Mrs. Murphy leapt on top of a square tombstone with an angel playing a harp carved on it. This belonged to Ezekiel’s wife, Martha Selena, who lived thirty years beyond her husband’s demise. The inscription read: SHE PLAYS WITH ANGELS.

The animals headed back home, neither one discussing the small graveyard at Harry’s farm. Not that it wasn’t lovely and well kept, containing her ancestors, but it also contained little tombstones for the beloved family pets. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker found that a sobering possibility on which they refused to dwell.

They slipped into the house as quietly as they had left it, with both animals doing their best to push shut the door. They were only partially successful, the result being that the kitchen was cold when Harry arose at five-thirty, and the cat and dog listened to a patch of blue language, which made them giggle. Discovering that the hook had been bent on the screen door called forth a new torrent of verbal abuse. Harry forgot all about it as the sun rose and the eastern sky glowed peach, gold, and pink.