Claws and Effect (7 page)

12

“Intruder! Intruder!”
Tucker barked at the sound of a truck rolling down the driveway.

Murphy, her fabulously sensitive ears forward, laconically said,
“It's Fair, you silly twit.”

Murphy, like most cats, could identify tire sounds from a quarter of a mile away. Humans always wondered how cats knew when their mate or children had turned for home; they could hear the different crunching sounds. Humans could tell the difference between a big truck and a car but cats could identify the tire sounds of all vehicles.

Within a minute, Fair pulled up at the back door. Murphy jumped on the kitchen windowsill to watch him get out of the truck, then reach back in for a box wrapped in red paper with a white bow.

He glanced up at the sky, then walked to the porch, opened the door, stopped at the back kitchen door, and knocked. He opened the door before Harry could yell, “Come in.”

“It's me.”

“I know it's you.” She walked out of the living room. “Your voice is deeper than Susan's.”

“Happy Valentine's Day.” He handed her the red box.

She kissed him on the cheek. “May I open it now?”

“That's the general idea.” He removed his coat, hanging it on a peg by the back door.

“Wormer! Thanks.” She kissed him again.

He'd given her a three-month supply of wormer for her horses. That might not be romantic to some women but Harry thought it was a perfect present. “I have one for you, too.”

She skipped into the living room, returning with a book wrapped in brown butcher paper yet sporting a gleaming red ribbon and bow. “Happy Valentine's Day back at you.”

He carefully opened the present, smoothing the paper and rolling up the ribbon. A leather-bound book, deep rich old tan with a red square between two raised welts on the spine, gave off a distinctive aroma. He opened to the title page. The publication date was in Roman numerals.

“Wow. 1792.” He flipped through the pages. “Ever notice how in old books, the ink on the page is jet black because the letter was cut into the page?”

“Yeah. The best.” She stood next to him admiring the book, an old veterinary text printed in London.

“This is a beautiful present.” He wrapped his arms around her, kissing her with more than affection. “You're something else.”

“Just what, I'd like to know.”
Pewter, ready for extra crunchies, was in no mood for romance.

“I've got corn bread from Miranda, if you're hungry.”

“I am!”

“Pewter, control yourself.” Harry spoke to the now very vocal Pewter, who decided to sing a few choruses from
Aïda
at high register.

Harry poured out crunchies.

“Yahoo.”
The cat dove in.

“Anything to shut her up.” Harry laughed.

“She's got you trained.” He pulled two plates out of the cupboard as Harry removed the tinfoil from the corn bread.

As they sat and ate she told him what had happened at the post office with Bruce Buxton.

After hearing the story, Fair shook his head. “Sounds like a cheap trick.”

“Bruce doesn't win friends and influence people,” Harry truthfully remarked.

“Arrogant. A lot of doctors are like that, or at least I think they are. Then again, a lot of vets are that way. I don't know what there is about medical knowledge that makes a man feel like God but Bruce sure does.”

“You've got a big ego but you keep it in check. Maybe that's why you're such a good equine vet. Not good, really, the best.” She smiled at him.

“Hey, keep talking.” He beamed.

“Come to think of it, I don't know anyone that really does like Bruce. Too bad they couldn't have seen his face when he opened the Jiffy bag. Whoever sent it would have been thrilled with their success. 'Course if they could see him in the hunt field, they'd have a giggle, too.”

Bruce liked the excitement of the chase, the danger of it, but in truth he was a barely adequate rider, as was Sam Mahanes. It was one more place where they could get in each other's way.

“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.

“He's not on the top of my love list but if you needed knee surgery, he'd be on top of yours. He's that good. When they fly him to operate on Jets linebackers, you know he's good.”

She held up her hand. They stopped and listened. In the distance she heard the Huntsman's horn, so she knew exactly where to go.

“Sam, we're going to have to boogie.”

“Okay.”

They cantered over a meadow, the powdery snow swirling up. A stone wall, maybe two and a half feet, marked off one meadow from another.

Harry called to Sam, “Give with your hand. Grab mane. Never be afraid to grab mane.” Taking her own advice she wrapped her fingers around a hunk of Tomahawk's mane and sailed over the low obstacle. She looked back at Sam and he reached forward with his hands, a small victory.

Ranulf popped over.

“Easy.” Harry smiled.

The two of them threaded their way through a pine forest, emerging on a snowy farm road. Harry followed the hoofprints until they crossed a stream, ice clinging to the sides of the bank in rectangular crystals.

“Up over the hill.” Sam pointed to the continuing tracks.

“Hounds are turning, Sam. We're smack in the way. Damn.” She looked around for a place to get out of the way and hopefully not turn back the fox into the hounds, a cardinal sin in foxhunting.

Sam, not an experienced hunter, really thought they should charge up the hill but he deferred to Harry. After all, she'd been doing this since she was tiny.

She pushed Tomahawk into the woods, off the old farm road. They climbed over a rocky outgrowth and stopped about forty yards beyond that. No sooner had they reached their resting point than the red fox sauntered into view, loping onto the farm road. He crossed, hopped onto a log, trotted across that, scampered along, and then, for reasons only he knew, he flipped on the afterburners and was out of there before you could count to ten.

Within two minutes the first of the hounds, nose to the ground, reached the farm road.

Sam started to open his mouth.

“No,” Harry whispered.

He gulped back his “Tally Ho,” which would have only disturbed the hounds. “Tally Ho” was sometimes called out when a fox was seen but only if the witness was sure it was the hunted fox, and not a playful vagrant. Also, if hounds were close, the human voice could disturb them, making their task even more difficult. Yet it was human nature to want to declare seeing the fox.

In about five minutes, the Huntsman, the person actually controlling the hounds, who had been battling his way through a nasty briar patch, emerged onto the road.

“Okay, Sam, turn your horse in the direction in which you saw the fox, take off your cap, arm's length, and now you can say ‘Tally Ho.' Hounds are far enough away.”

Excited, Sam bellowed, “Tally Ho!”

The Huntsman glanced up, winked at Harry, and off he rode, following his hounds, who were on the line.

In another two minutes the field rode up, Harry and Sam joining them in the rear. Sam, being an inexperienced hunter, needed to stay in the back out of other people's way.

They ran a merry chase until the red fox decided to disappear and in that maddening way of foxes, he vanished.

Ending on a good note, the Huntsman, after conferring with the Master, the person in charge of the hunt, called it a day.

Riding back, Sam thanked Harry.

Little Mim came alongside Harry as Sam rode up to Larry Johnson to chat. “Think he'll ever learn?”

“Yeah. At least he's not a know-it-all. He doesn't like advice but eventually it sinks in.”

“Men are like that,” Little Mim remarked.

“Jeez, Marilyn, think of the women we know like that, too.”

“You mean my mother?”

Harry held up her hand. “I didn't say your mother.”

“Well, I mean my mother.” Little Mim glanced over her shoulder to make certain Mother wasn't within earshot.

She wasn't. Big Mim at that very moment was pressing Susan Tucker to join the Garden Club, which was supposed to be a great honor, one Susan devoutly wished to sidestep.

Back at the trailers, people shared flasks, hot tea, and coffee. Susan brought Mrs. Hogendobber's orange-glazed cinnamon buns. The mood, already high, soared.

“Gee, I hate to go back to work.” Harry laughed.

“Isn't it a shame we couldn't have been born rich?” Susan said in a low voice, since a few around them had been, like Big Mim and Little Mim.

“Breaks my heart.”

“What'd Fair give you for Valentine's?”

“Wormer. Ivermectin.”

“Hey, that's romantic.” Susan, a hint of light sarcasm in her voice, laughed.

“I gave him a vet book from 1792.”

“Hey, that
is
romantic.” Susan handed Harry a mug of hot tea. “You know, this new thermos I bought is fabulous. We've been out for two and a half hours. I put the tea in the thermos a good hour before that and it's piping hot.”

“Yeah. I'll have to get one.”

Sam walked over. “Harry, thank you again.”

“Sure.” She offered him a sip of tea. He held up his flask.

“A wee nip before returning to drudgery.” He bowed, said “Ladies,” then walked back to his trailer.

Susan looked at Harry. Neither one said anything. They neither liked nor disliked Sam. He was just kind of there.

Larry Johnson, carrying a tin of chocolate-covered wafers, came over. “Ladies. Don't worry about the calories. I'm a doctor and I assure you any food eaten standing up loses half its caloric value.”

They laughed, reaching in for the thin delicious wafers.

“How's the mood at the hospital?” Susan asked.

“Good. Hank's death may not be hospital related.” He paused. “But as you know I'm semi-retired so I'm not there on a daily basis.”

“Semi-retired.” Harry laughed. “You work as hard as you did when I was a kid.”

Larry had an office in his home. Years ago he had taken on a partner, Hayden McIntire, vowing he would retire, but he hadn't.

“That was good of you to nurse Sam along,” Larry complimented Harry. “Soon you'll be in Tussie Logan's class. She's wonderful with children.” He laughed low. “I kind of regard Sam in that light.”

“You didn't see me stop to help him.” Susan ate another chocolate-covered wafer. “The run was too good.”

Larry, in his early seventies, was in great shape thanks to hunting and walking. “A straight-running fox, joy, pure joy. But you know, I think he doubled back. He was so close, then—” He snapped his fingers.

“Fox magic.” Susan smiled, checked her watch, and sighed, “I'd better get home.”

“Well, back to work for me.” Harry finished off her tea.