Mad Cow Nightmare (13 page)

Chapter Ten

When James Perlman heard about the sick cows in upstate New York—the Leary farm in Tonawanda, according to the Friday morning news—he reasoned that the gypsy couple might well have come from that farm. He’d tried to phone the Willmarth woman, but she was always “away from her phone,” damn her. He’d have to go in person, there was no way out of it. He wanted to avoid reporters as well as police; reporters were always digging up one’s ancestors, pointing a finger at someone a hundred years ago who’d robbed a bank or embezzled funds. Outrageous! Something should be done about the snooping media. They had the power to ruin lives, it wasn’t right.

And there were his sheep. The one pair from Scotland, but perfectly healthy. No one knew about them. And he didn’t want anyone to know. No, he had to team up with the Willmarth woman, they’d have to work up a defense between them against the world of so-called health and science. Not that he wanted to be chummy with that female—oh no, he just wanted his bases covered.

He found her in the back of the barn, examining a small bull calf, patting and probing it, peering into its mouth, like she was a dentist. He’d worn the wrong shoes. They were covered with pig shit after someone told him the farmwoman was down in the pasture and he’d gone there first. Then the pig woman said she was in the barn—Christ! Couldn’t the farmwoman get rid of that crowd? He hoped she kept her doors locked. Those gypsy types were light-fingered.

She didn’t lock up, though, according to the newscast. The traveller woman had walked right in to take a bath—disgusting!

He came up behind the farmer, said, “Hello,” and the muscles in her shoulders rippled. He saw an attractive woman, on the tall side, full-hipped, gray-brown hair pulled loosely up off her damp neck, fine freckles on the perspiring brow. Nice breasts, too, he thought, as she pulled her arms back and jumped to a standing position. Divorced, he’d heard, and there was that tweaking again in the groin.

“Didn’t mean to scare you. The old lady sent me up here.”

She was taking a stance, arms akimbo, like he was an interloper, come to steal her cows. She didn’t say anything, just looked him in the eye, like he was meat she wanted to examine. Waited for him to explain. It smelled in here, worse than his sheep barn. More than that—it stank.

He felt more at ease now. She must think he was a government man, here about the Mad Cow scare, wanting to monitor her herd. He nodded. “James Perlman. I have a small flock of sheep a mile from here. I’ve been trying to call you but you’re always, uh, unavailable.”

She didn’t seem a bit sorry that she was always unavailable. She seemed a tad more relaxed, though, her full lips gave in to what might be called a smile. He smiled back to show he understood, he was on her side. He thrust out his hand and she took it, though not with enthusiasm. “I know you’re worried and I’m worried, too,” he said. “My sheep are everything to me now. I’m trying to make a go of it up here. Still learning, of course, about sheep.”

“And now you’re afraid we have Mad Cow here. It will spread to your place. Someone will put your sheep under quarantine, take them away, barely compensate you.” She patted the calf again, gazed at it as if to say, “Look. My calves are A-l healthy.”

“Oh no, not quite like that.” He didn’t want her to think he was coming to accuse her because she allowed that encampment of gypsies—though under the circumstances she damn well shouldn’t allow it! He’d never tolerate such a madcap gang. Even now he could hear singing down in the fields—female voices. It was intolerable. Who knew what diseases they’d acquired on the road? He’d been a nurse; he knew all the germs a person carried.

He spread his hands in truce. It was time to get to the point. “I have information about the missing woman.” She looked up; she was interested. “Monday morning, it was, she wandered into my yard. She was in a nightgown, there was blood on it. I thought she’d escaped from the local hospital.”

Now she was angry, her freckles thickened. She took a step toward him. For a moment he thought she’d strike him and he stepped back. “Why didn’t you call the police? She’d have just come from my house. It would have relieved all of us here to have her back at that hospital.”

“I didn’t know where she’d come from,” he said, determined to keep his cool. “Not then. I didn’t think the police would want her—thought her one of the homeless. Then when I heard the radio report I tried to call you. But no one answered. I left a message for you to call back.” He hardened his gaze. He wasn’t tall, only five-foot-nine-and-a-half, but she was an inch or two shorter than he. His wife had been exactly his height; he’d never liked that. Maureen always wore two-inch heels, like she wanted to lord it over him.

The woman was contrite, she obviously remembered. “We’ve been under siege here,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many crank calls we’ve had, how many sightings. I can’t respond to them all.” She leaned back against the wall. He could see her breasts swell with the heavy breathing. A fly landed on her cheek and she brushed it off. She was quite—seductive. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, turned slightly away so she wouldn’t see his growing erection.

“Then what? Where did she go? What direction? Did she speak to you? Did she seem distraught? Was she alone? No man with her—in the background maybe?”

“Alone,” he said, and told her the story. How he’d brought food to her, how he’d offered his ex-wife’s clothing—he emphasized the ex-wife, to show his availability. He told how she’d flagged down a car and gone off. “Run off,” he said, not wanting to tell how she’d banged on his door. “I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t. It’s happened twice now.”

“What? You saw her twice? Look, you’d better come back to the house with me. I’ll call my friend Colm Hanna, he’s a cop—part-time anyway. You can tell him the story. You’ll need a good excuse for not getting to us right away.”

She was taking an attitude and he didn’t care for it. “I told you, I tried,” he said. He picked his way slowly behind her where she was heading for a back door. The stink was bad, the manure slippery underfoot. The July heat, the drought, made the smell overbearing. She was in heavy boots, she was used to the cow shit. Cows were bigger than sheep; they were messier. He was in his good shoes, his visiting shoes. Already he felt them heavy with dung.

“So where was the second time she ran off?” she asked when they got to her kitchen. She gave him coffee—that was some compensation for her attitude. But she was a no-nonsense kind of female, he saw that. She was beginning to remind him of that head nurse in the Buffalo hospital. She’d suspect him of having his own reasons for not wanting to contact the police. He was uncomfortable; his bowels were beginning to loosen.

He told her about the Healing House, his job, the abused woman he was taking there. How he’d seen the traveller woman again—and no, he didn’t recall what she was wearing—maybe the green print dress of his wife’s. For some reason he decided not to tell her he’d seen the man Ritchie twice as well, the second time charging into the woods behind the Healing House, like he’d been hanging about, looking for the woman there.

He thought of that other woman the director had told about, killed in the swamp, her body rotting no doubt when they found her. He clasped his hands together to keep them still.

“She disappeared again after she saw me in the dining room. Like she didn’t want to see me. Like I’d call the police, have her taken away. She seemed paranoid, that’s why I knew I had to talk to someone.” He put his elbows on the table, leaned his chin in his hands—a sincere kind of gesture, he felt. “I figure you and I are in the same boat. Both of us exposed to this woman. Our animals at stake, our livelihoods. I thought you’d know the next step to take. It isn’t always the police, is it?”

He held her gaze a moment, saw she was coming round to his point of view, saw the attractive face soften. Police weren’t always the answer for her, either. He’d heard the scuttlebutt.

“We’ll get Colm here,” she said. “You might be right after all. About the police, the bureaucracy. They might scare her off. Colm’s an insider, so to speak, but we can trust him. This happened when?”

He felt she’d decided to trust him, and he relaxed, unclasped his hands, slurped the coffee. “Yesterday afternoon, she was on foot— out toward the Branbury swamp, I believe. She’s somewhere in the neighborhood still, I’m sure. We can get a search party together. We’ve got to find her, get her back to that hospital, have her tested. Get us all off the hook.”

“Or on it,” she said. “Hooked like a steer, right through the eye.”

He clapped a hand to his face. The eye stung, like she’d thrown acid in it. His bowels were acting up again; he didn’t want an accident in front of this woman who could talk about a hook through the eye. He was in her hands now, he’d let her take the lead. He was glad he’d come, glad he’d told her about the woman. So she’d back him up if the police did come, accuse him of something.

It was terrible to be accused, whether or not you did it. The humiliation, the sick feeling in the gut. The shame of it in the eyes of the public. That was the worst of it: people looking at you, judging, suspecting.

Already the Willmarth woman was dialing, calling that Colm fellow. The one who worked part-time for the police. How far could one trust the guy? The thought of police made him sick to his stomach. He’d been wrong to come, wrong to offer his story. No one would have known, suspected him of any implication if he’d stayed home, minded his own business. He couldn’t talk to any policeman now, part-time or not. He was feeling sick, in a minute his bowels would let go. He wished now those gypsies were out of the county, out of the country, back in Canada at that hospital. He wished he’d taken things into his own hands, given them money, made them return. He wanted to find them—the man in particular. The man was the worst of the pair. He didn’t trust that fellow.

“I’ve left a message for Colm—he’s out with a client,” Ruth Willmarth said. “I’ll have him call you. Perlman, you said?”

“James, yes. And I’ve got to get back to work. I’m already late.” He pushed up out of his chair, and bolted. He had to get to a bathroom, hadn’t wanted to ask the farmwoman. Wouldn’t want to use that bathroom anyway. He revved up the Honda, headed back to his place. Almost hit a dog that ran out in the road—swerved just in time. Stupid dog! Just standing there in the road, an old hound dog, like it had ten lives.

* * * *

The police said the thief had probably taken Franny’s mare off in a horse van, left town with her. They said Franny must prepare herself for not getting Ophelia back. But Franny consulted a psychic, who told her Ophelia was still in town. So Franny was going to ride her stallion, Hamlet, through all the town trails, however obscure. Ophelia knew Hamlet’s smell, his whinny—she’d whinny back. Franny had a map of the town. If Sybil Moon was right, she’d find Ophelia. At the very least she’d find evidence of her, a clue that would lead to the recapture of her adorable mare.

Sybil Moon couldn’t tell Franny exactly where, but knew she was somewhere in the area. And it made sense. That man wouldn’t leave without his woman, would he? Though God knows where
she
was! Escaped from him at any rate, at least that was the rumor. But the police were wrong. There had been no evidence of a van coming up to the barn—only Ophelia’s tracks leading out of the barn and up the back trail into the woods. This was clearly the work of a horse thief, and Irish travellers were famous for stealing horses. Oh yes, she’d heard that all over the place. The fellow was still hiding her mare somewhere in the woods—that’s what the psychic said. Or maybe the swamp, Sybil said, though Franny hated that thought—her darling horse mucking through the Branbury swamp.

The landscape was a spider’s web when she set out at dawn, a shining layer of mist enveloping the underbrush. Only the tops of trees visible, like they’d been cut in half but still grew, disembodied, on top. She felt like one of Arthur’s knights, riding forth in search of the sacred chalice. While her companion lay in bed, snoring softly with the radio on. She’d kissed her lady Henrietta goodbye on the lips—it was indeed a sacred moment.

Yesterday she’d ridden through the north end of town. Today she’d follow the psychic’s advice and ride to East Branbury, and into the adjoining swamp. She was wearing her rain jacket, riding boots, blue jeans, cell phone clipped to her belt—prepared for come what may. The psychic had not only mentioned the swamp, she spoke of something that might lie in it. A surprise of sorts. Her mare, Franny thought, an immense love swelling her breast.

Henrietta’s radio had sputtered something about a sick animal— but far away in upstate New York, where people were trapped in snow and ice all winter long—worse than Vermont. It was nothing that could affect her Ophelia. For Ophelia was alive—exhausted perhaps, traumatized, but alive—the psychic had felt that. Franny had two red apples in her backpack, a carrot, and salves for the mare’s hide in the event she’d been ridden hard. When she got the mare back she’d weave a garland of flowers. Like Shakespeare’s Ophelia—only unlike the drowning woman, her mare would be alive and galloping home.

She took the main road for two miles, then veered east onto Swamp Road, a dirt road that led to a covered bridge over Otter Creek and to the place where in 1776 the widow Ann Story had dug a tunnel for her five children and held out against the Indians and Tories. For weeks Ann had holed up there, listening to the enemy glide past hunting for the gunpowder Ann had stored inside her cave. Franny was working up a one-woman show, using Ann’s persona. Franny had married, had one child before she realized her true sexuality—that child, sadly, had died in adolescence of leukemia. But Franny knew what it was to defend one’s offspring against the enemy. In her case the enemy was the child’s father, who had spread lies like manure on the veggie garden. Now Ophelia was Franny’s child.

A narrow trail led into the swamp, where hunters ventured during deer season. The place was full of deer, otters, muskrat; it teemed with life. She examined the ground for hoofprints but saw none. Or if there had been prints, they’d been erased by fog and other animals. A snake skittered across their path, yellow eyes popped up, and then vanished. But brave Hamlet kept to the path. He was a sturdy fellow, she felt he would bring her to the mare. The way was thicker now, murkier; Hamlet had to slow his pace. After a quarter of an hour the path divided and she hesitated; then took the one to the right that led deeper into the swamp. There was no sign of human life here, few came to this wet place in summer. But there was the rich gold of swamp marigolds, of white saxifrage, and thick pink and white honeysuckle.