Santa Clawed (12 page)

“Even if it snows harder, we’ll make it,”
Tucker replied optimistically.

“As long as we can see. A whiteout scares me.”
The cat felt the barometric pressure slide a bit more.

“If only she could move faster.”
Tucker looked back at Harry striding purposefully along.

“She can run, but with all those clothes on she can’t run for long.”
Mrs. Murphy fluffed out her fur, for it now felt even colder.

Even with the weight of her coat and the sweater underneath, Harry could keep up, as long as the two kept it at a trot. She reached the walnut stand in a half hour, snow falling thicker now.

“Over here.”
Tucker bounded to the outcropping.

“Someone’s coming.”
Mrs. Murphy heard a motor cut off perhaps a quarter of a mile away.

Tucker heard it, too.
“We’d better hurry.”

Harry reached the box protected by the low rock overhang. Just then a gust of wind sent snow flying everywhere. The denuded walnut tree bent slightly, and the pines beyond bowed as if to a queen.

She knelt down, opened the box. The crisp bills, neatly stacked, promised some ease in her life. However, Harry, raised strictly by her parents, would never take money that wasn’t hers. She’d turn this over to Cooper, as she realized immediately that something was terribly wrong. This had to be blood money, more or less.

She didn’t realize how wrong things were, even though Tucker barked loudly and Mrs. Murphy leapt up on the overhang. The wind, whistling now, obscured sound to human ears. Harry never saw what was coming. One swift crack over the head and she dropped.

Tucker started to attack, but Mrs. Murphy screamed,
“Leave him. He wants the money, not Mom.”

She was right. Brother George hurried back up to the old fire road before the snow engulfed him.

Tucker licked Harry’s face. Mrs. Murphy jumped down. A trickle of blood oozed down the side of Harry’s head. Her lad’s cap had fallen off.

“I can’t wake her.”
Tucker frantically licked.

“She’s alive. I hope her skull isn’t cracked.”
The cat sniffed Harry’s temples.
“Tucker, Fair should be home. You have to get him. I’ll stay here. This storm is only going to get worse. Help me push her cap back on. At least she won’t lose so much heat from her head.”

“I can’t leave you all.”

“Tucker, you must. She’ll suffer frostbite if she’s here too long. She might even freeze to death. And if she wakes, what if she’s disoriented? I don’t know if I can get her home. You have to go NOW.”

The dog touched noses with her dearest friend, licked Harry one more time.

“I’ll see you.”
The mighty little dog left them.

Tucker ran for all she was worth, goaded by both fear and love.

Mrs. Murphy curled around Harry’s head. The low overhang offered some protection. It wasn’t so bad, the tiger told herself. She desperately wanted to believe that as the world turned white.

T
hanks, Coop. Call me on my cell, okay?” Fair punched the off button.

He’d arrived home an hour ago. Harry’s beloved truck sat in the driveway. He assumed she was in the barn. But when Tucker failed to rush out and greet him, he poked his head inside. No Harry. Not a sign of her in the house. Pewter meowed incessantly, even though Fair had no idea what the cat was telling him.

He wasn’t a worrier by nature, but what set him off was ten thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills, bound by a cardboard sleeve, sitting on the kitchen table, big as you please.

Where did Harry get the money? Why would she just leave it on the kitchen table? This was so out of character for his wife that he had called Cooper to find out if she was over there. Cooper’s farm was the old Jones family place, which the young detective rented from Reverend Herb Jones.

Cooper, also at a loss over the money, was now worried herself.

Fair called her back. “Hey, I’m sorry to bother you again, but I just noticed the sleeve on this wad of bills has teeth marks.”

“Human?” Cooper was more than intrigued.

“No. Looks like a dog or a very big cat.” He looked in Pewter’s direction and she pointedly turned away.

“Fair, I’ll be right over.”

“Coop, I don’t want to trouble you.”

“Too late.”

Within seven minutes she rolled down the driveway. Snow was falling steadily now.

“Jesus, you burned the wind getting here.” Fair laughed, trying to make light of his fear.

“Show me the money.” She smiled, but she was as worried as he was.

He pointed to the kitchen table, Pewter now sitting on one chair.

“They’re up at the walnut stand, and I bet you can’t see the hand in front of your face up there,”
Pewter told them, even though she knew it was hopeless.

Cooper sat down. She didn’t touch the money, just stared at the sleeve. “Teeth marks, all right.” She looked up at the tall vet. “Maybe she dropped the money and Tucker picked it up.”

“That’s as good an explanation as any, but we both know Harry wouldn’t just put money like this on the table, and if she took it out of her bank account, she’d tell me.”

“Not if it’s your Christmas present.”

“Cash?” He was surprised.

“Maybe she’s buying something big.”

“With cash?” He inhaled sharply. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“Yeah, about a lot of things, but not about your Christmas present.”

He appreciated her humor, which took off the edge. “Right.”

“I take it you keep separate bank accounts?”

“We do, but we have a joint account to cover the farm costs.” He sat down opposite Cooper, who now turned the money over in her hands. “Something’s wrong.”

“Maybe.” She thought so, too.

“Should we call Rick?”

“Not without a body.” The minute the words fell out of her mouth, Cooper repented. “I don’t mean that.”

“I know. Unfortunately, there have been bodies.”

“Harry’s not a monk. If she is, it’s news to me.”

“Given that we found Christopher, she can’t help but stick her nose in it; that’s her nature. Much as I love her, I could smack her upside the head right now. What if she’s run up on the killer?”

Cooper studied the money for too long, then her eyes met Fair’s. “I know. I guess I haven’t done the job of a friend, which is to calm and console you.”

He smiled wanly. “I don’t want consolation. I want my wife.”

Barking made them both sit up. Pewter ran to the dog door just as Tucker burst through it.

“Hurry! Hurry!”
The corgi turned in tight circles, pushed though the door, then leapt back in again, only to repeat the process.

Fair threw his coat on, with Cooper right behind him. Pewter brought up the rear.

“What’s wrong?”
the gray cat asked the dog, who was tired but ready to go all the way back up again.

“Brother George hit her over the head and took the money. She didn’t see him, and we didn’t, either, until the last minute. High winds, could hardly hear. Blew scent away, and sometimes you couldn’t see.”
The dog caught her breath.
“Heard the motor cut off way up on the fire road. That was it.”

“Is Harry all right?”

“I don’t know. She was unconscious when I left, and Murphy is with her.”

Pewter, now running with the corgi, said nothing. Insouciant as she might appear, at bottom she loved her little family, and if that meant going out in what was becoming a whopper of a storm, then she was going.

Tucker, realizing the humans couldn’t keep up, slowed. She’d forgotten for a moment about the fact that they followed on two feet, encumbered by winter wear.

She barked loudly.

Fair responded, “Hold hard, Tucker.”

Pewter, waited, closed her eyes. The snow, coming hard in swirling winds, stung her eyes.

“I’m glad you’re with me,”
Tucker panted.

“It’s my new exercise program.”
Pewter saw Fair’s huge frame loom in the snow, Cooper’s smaller one beside him.

Tucker knew how worried Pewter was. For one thing, she would never admit she was fat—and she just did. The dog turned to face the onslaught, Pewter shoulder to shoulder with her.

The humans kept up, since Tucker trotted now. Fortunately, the snow wasn’t deep yet. Footing could be dicey in those places where the old snow had hardened like vanilla icing, and in some spots, there was nothing but ice.

They pressed on, balloons of steam coming from four mouths, four heads down against the wind, which sounded like a Mercedes at full throttle.

As they began to climb, conditions worsened, but the exhausted dog never faltered, nor did the gray cat. Behind them, the humans—who were wiping the snow from eyes and eyelashes, breath coming sharper now—knew they had to keep going and stay together.

Slowed by conditions, they reached the walnut stand in forty minutes instead of thirty.

Tucker called,
“Murphy!”

“Here!”

Even with the wind, the two humans heard the piercing meow.

Pewter raced to her friend, Tucker alongside, with Fair and Cooper almost at their heels, rejuvenated by Mrs. Murphy’s voice.

They found the cat draped over Harry’s head, her tail swishing to keep the snow from pasting Harry’s eyes and filling up her nostrils.

Fair and Cooper knelt down, and Cooper gently lifted the cap.

“God damn, that’s nasty,” she cursed.

Fair took Harry’s pulse, fingers cold since he’d pulled off his glove. “Strong.”

The snow had already covered the blood as well as Brother George’s tracks.

“Maybe we can rig up a sled like the Indians used: two poles crossed. I’ll put my coat on them to hold her,” Cooper offered.

“No tools. I can carry her down, but it will take a while.”

“I can do the fireman’s carry. Spell you.”

“You’re a good woman, Coop. Remind me to tell you that more often.”

Tucker and Pewter huddled around Mrs. Murphy, who was half frozen herself.

“Can you make it?”
Tucker asked.

“Yeah.”
Mrs. Murphy stretched, then shivered.

Fair touched the cat’s snow-covered head. “God bless you, Mrs. Murphy.” He looked over to Cooper. “You could carry her for a bit.”

“Will do.”

Fair stood back up, shook his legs, then knelt down and lifted Harry. Since he was accustomed to patients that weighed 1,200 pounds, Fair’s five-foot-seven-inch, one-hundred-forty-two pound wife felt light enough. He knew as time wore on she’d feel heavier and heavier, though.

He used the fireman’s carry and they began the trek down, at times hardly able to see. The ruts in the old wagon trail began to fill up, pure white with no rocks protruding. A few saplings here and there helped keep their bearings. Tucker and Pewter, better able to keep on track, also helped. Tucker barked if anything needed to be sidestepped or if the humans began to lose their way.

After twenty minutes, slipping and sliding now, Fair gently laid down Harry. He bent over, hands on knees, and gulped in air.

“I’ll take a turn.” Cooper was taller than Harry and accustomed to lifting human burdens on occasion—since a cop’s duties require many strange moments with truly strange people. The deputy grunted, but she hoisted Harry on her shoulders and stood up. “I won’t last as long as you did.”

“A breather helps.” He scooped up Mrs. Murphy, opening his coat and putting her inside, then zipping it back up, with her head outside for air.

To her surprise, Cooper lasted fifteen minutes, almost the rest of the way down the mountain.

She and Fair exchanged burdens. Mrs. Murphy noted that Pewter, quick to want to be carried, made not one peep.

Tucker and Pewter, wind to their tails now, pushed ahead. Occasionally the wind would swirl, a white devil blowing snow into their eyes and mouths again, but they turned their heads sideways, keeping on, always keeping on.

When they reached the creek, Fair again took a breather, sweat pouring over his forehead, little icicles forming.

Cooper picked up Harry again and struggled through the creek, as there was no way to jump it. Some water crept into her boots where the soles had worn. The shock of the frigid water energized her for a little bit, although her legs had begun to weaken. Her back was holding up, but her quads burned. She knew she couldn’t make it too long, and she hoped she could get back to the farm on her own steam.

Ten minutes seemed like a lifetime. Cooper faltered, lurched, and slowly sank to her knees so as not to drop Harry.

“You okay?” Fair knelt beside her.

She nodded, gasping for breath. “You hear stories,” she gulped again, “about guys carrying wounded buddies for miles in wartime.” Gulped again. “Heroes.”

In a quiet voice he said, “Love comes in many forms. Some times I think it’s disguised as duty. Are you sure you can make it?”

“I’m sure. Get her back. I’ll get there.”

“I’m not leaving you. This will turn into a real whiteout. You could be one hundred yards from the barn and not know it. We’ve got to stick together or we might not make it.”

“Okay. Let me see if my cell will work now.” She knew she usually couldn’t get a signal on the mountainside.

Fair handed Mrs. Murphy to Cooper, who put her in her coat, and Fair hoisted up Harry again.

Finally Cooper got a signal and called an ambulance. The line crackled, but she could hear and so could they. She told them to come to the Haristeens’. Next she called Rick.

Twenty minutes later, after Fair and Cooper took more breaks, they finally stumbled through the back door.

The ambulance arrived a few minutes after they did. Fair hadn’t even taken his coat off before the attendants bounded the gurney into the living room, where he and Cooper had placed Harry on the sofa.

“I’ll go with her,” Fair said.

“I’ll follow you with the truck,” replied Cooper.

“Don’t do that. You’ve done enough.”

“Won’t be long before the roads are treacherous and the only thing out there will be emergency vehicles. Also, I have my badge just in case. With any luck you can bring her home.”

Too tired to argue, he gratefully acceded. “I’ll see you there.”

Given the weather and the wrecks on the road, they made it to the emergency room in fifty minutes. Normally the trip would take thirty minutes.

Rick met Cooper there.

Back at the house, a warming Mrs. Murphy licked her paws.
“Thanks, Pewter.”

“Don’t think I’ll do it again.”
Pewter was feeling sufficiently relieved to sass.

Tucker and Murphy looked at each other, then the tiger cat rubbed across the dog’s broad chest, thanking her.

“Let’s pray that Mom is okay,”
Tucker said.

“Take more than a crack on the head to keep her down,”
Mrs. Murphy said, and the other two hoped she was right.