Рита Браун - Rest In Pieces

“I’m not touching her!” Simon backed up.

At that moment Mrs. Murphy longed for her corgi friend. Much as Tucker griped and groaned at Mrs. Murphy, she had the heart of a warrior. Tucker would have picked up the snake in a heartbeat.

“Harry has taken good care of you,” the cat pleaded.

Simon grimaced. “Ugh.” He hated the snake.

“Simon, there’s not a moment to lose!” Mrs. Murphy’s pupils were so large Simon could barely see the gorgeous color of her iris.

A shadowy, muffled sound overhead startled them. The owl alighted on the hay bale. Outside, the horses could be heard making a wide circle. Within seconds they’d be smashing to bits the board fencing by the barn. In her deep, operatic voice the owl commanded, “Go to the ladder, both of you. Hurry.”

Bits of alfalfa wafted into the air as Mrs. Murphy sped toward the opening. Simon, less fleet of foot, followed. The owl hopped down and closed her mighty talons over the sleeping four-foot-long blacksnake. Then she spread her wings and rose upward. The snake, heavy, slowed her down more than she anticipated. Her powerful chest muscles lifted her up and she quietly glided to where the cat and the possum waited. She held her wings open for a landing, flapped once to guide her, and then softly touched down next to Mrs. Murphy. She left the snake, now groggy, at the cat’s paws. She opened her wide wingspan and soared upward to her roost. Mrs. Murphy had no time to thank her. Outside, the sound of splintering wood, neighing, and muffled hoofbeats in the snow told her she had to act. Tucker barked at the top of her lungs.

“Pick up your end,” Mrs. Murphy firmly ordered Simon, who did as he was told. He was now more frightened of Mrs. Murphy than of the snake.

Fitz, distracted for a moment by the commotion outside, turned his head toward the noise. He was close to the loft opening. The cat, heavy snake in her jaws, Simon holding its tail, flung the snake onto Fitz’s shoulders. By now the blacksnake was awake enough to curl around his neck for a moment. She was desperately trying to get her bearings and Fitz screamed to high heaven.

As he did so Mrs. Murphy launched herself from the loft opening and landed on Fitz’s back.

“Don’t do it!” Simon yelled.

The cat, no time to answer, scrambled with the snake underfoot as Fitz bellowed and attempted to rid himself of his tormentors. Mrs. Murphy mercilessly shredded his face with her claws. As she tore away at Fitz she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Blair come hurtling out of the stall.

“Orlando!” Blair called.

No sooner had he hollered for his friend than Harry, having shed her winter parka, moved from Tomahawk’s stall like a streak.

Mrs. Murphy grabbed for Fitz’s right eye.

He fired the gun in the air as the cat blinded him. Instinctively he covered the damaged eye with his right hand, the gun hand, and that fast, Harry hit him at the knees. He went down with an “oomph.” The snake hit the ground with him. Mrs. Murphy gracefully jumped off. Tucker wiggled back into the barn.

“Get his gun hand!” Mrs. Murphy screeched.

Tucker raced for the flailing man. Fitz kicked Harry away and she lurched against the wall with a thud. Blair struggled to keep Fitz down but his one arm dangled uselessly. Orlando crept out of the tack room and, seeing the situation, swallowed hard, then joined the fight.

“Jesus!” Fitz bellowed as the dog bit clean through his wrist, pulverizing some of the tiny bones. His fingers opened and the gun was released.

“Get the gun!” Blair hit Fitz hard with his good fist, striking him squarely in the solar plexus. If he hadn’t been wearing the down bomber jacket, Fitz would have been gasping.

Harry dove for the gun, skidding across the aisle on her stomach. She snatched it as Fitz kicked Blair in the groin. Orlando hung on his back like a tick. Fitz possessed the strength of a madman, or a cornered rat. He raced backward and squashed Orlando on the wall. Tucker kept nipping at his heels.

Fitz whirled around and beheld Harry pointing the gun at him. Blood and clear fluid coursed down from his sightless right eye. He moved toward Harry.

“You haven’t got the guts, Mary Minor Haristeen.”

Blair, panting from the effort and the pain, got between Fitz and Harry while Orlando, flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him, sucked wind like a fish out of water.

Her fur puffed out so she was double her size, Mrs. Murphy balanced herself on a stall door. If she had to, she’d launch another attack. Meanwhile, the blacksnake, half in a daze, managed to slither into Tomahawk’s stall to bury herself in shavings. Simon stuck his head out of the loft opening. His lower jaw hung slack.

“You haven’t got a prayer, Fitz. Give up.” Blair held out his hand to stop the advancing man.

“Fuck off, faggot.”

Blair had been called a faggot so many times it didn’t faze him—that and the fact that the gay men he knew were good people. “Hold it right there.”

Fitz swung at Blair, who ducked.

“Get out of the way, Blair.” Harry held the gun steady and true.

“You’ll never shoot. Not you, Harry.” Fitz laughed, a weird, high-pitched sound.

“Get out of the way, Blair. I mean it.” Harry sounded calm but determined.

Orlando struggled to his feet and ran to the phone. He dialed 911 and haltingly tried to explain.

“Just tell them Harry Haristeen, Yellow Mountain Road. Everybody knows everybody,” she called to Orlando.

“But everybody doesn’t know everybody, Harry. You don’t know me. You didn’t want to know me.” Fitz kept stalking her.

“I liked you, Fitz. I think you’ve gone mad. Now stop.” She didn’t back up as he advanced.

“Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton is dead. He went to pieces.” Fitz laughed shrilly.

Orlando hung up the phone. Blair’s face froze. They couldn’t believe their ears.

“What do you mean?” Orlando asked.

Fitz half-turned to see him with his good eye. “ I’m Tommy Norton.”

“But you can’t be!” Orlando’s lungs still ached.

“Oh, but I am. Fitz lost his mind, you know. Off and on, and then finally . . . off.” Fitz, the man they knew as Fitz, waved his hand in the air at “off.” “Half the time he didn’t know his own name but he knew me. I was his only friend. He trusted me. After that car accident we both had to have plastic surgery. A little nose work for him, plus my chin was reduced while his was built up. He emerged looking more like Tommy Norton and I looked more like Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton. Once the swelling went down, anybody would have taken us for brothers. And as we were still young men, not fully matured, people would readily accept those little changes when I next met them: the deeper voice, the filled-out body. It was so easy. When he finally lost it completely, the executor and I put the new Tommy in Central Islip. As for my family—my father had left my mother when I was six. She was generally so damned drunk she was glad to be rid of me, assuming she even noticed.”