A half hour later, Harry and Susan finished up. The leaves now added to the big mulch pile that Sam Holloway, Susan’s deceased grandfather, had built for his wife. It was a long rectangle dug into the earth, three sides held firm by stakes and wooden boards. Each spring, Sam would back the wagon to the edge, then shovel the “cooked” mulch onto it, spreading the mulch on his adored wife’s gardens.
As they walked away from the mulch pile, the wind picked up, a twenty-mile-an-hour gust, subsiding to a steady thirteen-mile-an-hour wind.
“Boy, we got that job done in the nick of time.” Harry pulled her baseball cap lower on her head lest the wind carry it off. “My weather app didn’t say anything about a stiff wind.”
“Just comes up. You can’t really predict the weather by the mountains, maybe big storms but not the little things like this. The other day driving back from Harris Teeter,” she named a high-end supermarket, “a wind devil shot right across the intersection to Crozet. Wind devil? It really was a tiny tornado.”
“Susan, a tornado has to be one of the scariest things on earth. Just the noise alone, and I read somewhere that the average mouth of the funnel is about one hundred fifty yards, but some monsters are much bigger than that.”
“Look at Pewter. My God, she looks like a beached whale.” Susan laughed.
Harry, observing her cat under the oak, laughed, too. “Let’s go say goodbye to your grandmother and I’ll pick up these three amigos when we leave.”
“You pick up Pewter. I’m not strong enough.” Susan laughed again.
Trotting to the back door of Big Rawly, Susan crossed through the spacious enclosed porch. Her grandmother and mother busied themselves in the kitchen, easily visible from the closed-in porch.
Opening the door to the main house, Susan called out, “We’re done.”
Penny, drying her hands on a dish towel, beamed. “Thank you. Step inside. I’ve got brownies for you and Harry. If you don’t want to eat them now, don’t fret. I put them in containers.”
“Thanks.” Susan loved brownies.
Harry, on her heels, also thanked Mrs. Holloway, then asked, “Mrs. Holloway, have you ever noticed the tiny squares scratched into the base of Francisco Selisse’s big tombstone?”
Millicent Grimstead, Susan’s mother, replied, “Actually, I know what they mean.”
“You do?” Her mother was surprised.
“Mother, do you remember Cash Green, older than dirt, when I was little?”
“Cash Green.” Penny’s face broke into a big smile. “That man could talk a tin ear on you. What a good soul he was. He used to tell Sam and me he was born in 1872 right here on Big Rawly and he never left. Lord, that was back in the midforties just after the war. Sam said as long as he could remember, Cash was here.”
“He knew about the squares?” Harry asked.
“He did. He said little squares on the tomb of someone hated called down a curse. Little crosses on the tomb of someone loved called down blessings. He used to add that this came from remembered spirits from Africa. He’d lean toward me and whisper, ‘It’s the old power of my people.’ What stories he could tell!” Millicent grinned and wished she’d had the wit to write them all down, but she had been only a child then.
No one mentioned that Big Rawly had witnessed its share of hard luck over the many decades.
Millicent picked up the conversation after that brief pause. “I bet Cash told the same stories to Father when he was little. Mother, did you ever hear the one about buried treasure?”
“No, I missed that one.” She folded the blue-striped hand towel. “I seem to have missed a lot.”
“According to Cash, and this was relayed with long pauses, drama.” Millicent grinned. “There is buried treasure on Big Rawly. Jewelry and cash. There’s buried treasure at St. Luke’s and at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Tons of treasure. That’s all he ever said.”
“I expect every old estate in Virginia has its buried-treasure story.” Susan took the containers. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they were all true and people found them?”
“Sure, then there could be lawsuits about who does the treasure really belong to and why.” Harry shrugged.
“No. If you own property, you own its history as well,” Penny firmly stated. “So if you girls find the jewelry, it’s mine. I could use a new pair of earrings.”
Laughing, the two friends left to pick up the three animals, still sound asleep.
Harry placed her hand on Susan’s forearm. “Wait. Let’s get in the car and start the motor. That will get them moving.”
Turning toward the front of the house, they slipped into Susan’s Audi A7, cut on the motor. Tucker lifted her head, blinked, then ran like the Devil for the station wagon.
“Wait. Wait for me!”
Mrs. Murphy, hearing her friend, quickly followed suit.
Pewter opened one eye. Then two popped open. “Don’t you dare leave without me! I’ll get even!”
As the large gray cat hurried toward the car, her belly flab swung from side to side, which made the humans laugh. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker shot into the car when Harry got out to open the back door.
“Hurry, Pewts,” Mrs. Murphy encouraged.
Pewter reached the opened door. “If you left me, you’d fall apart. Humans can’t think for themselves. You need me.”
Susan, hand on the shifter knob, remarked, “She’s saying a mouthful.”
“Better we don’t know what she’s saying.” Harry got back in, closing the door. “I doubt it’s praise. Hey, before you drop me back home, let’s go down to Barracks Road.”
“I am not taking you to Keller and George.” Susan named a high-end jewelry store. “You’ve mooned over that pearl necklace for years. You are never going to buy it. It costs thousands and thousands of dollars. And we all know how tight you are.” She paused. “But it really is beautiful, and given that it’s Mikimoto, every time they sell the one you want they order a new one.”
Exhaling loudly, Harry confessed, “It’s so beautiful. But no, I want to go to Liz Potter’s.”
“Don’t you dare get involved in a murder case. That’s another thing you can’t resist.” Susan had been at the beagling plus she knew about the brass chit since it was reported in the paper.
“I am not getting involved.”
“Liar, liar, your pants are on fire,” Pewter helpfully called out from the back.
The parking lot, enormous, made it easy to find a spot, except for Christmastime. The two walked to Liz Potter’s attractive store, inviting display window, near Barnes & Noble, which always enjoyed a lot of foot traffic.
When they pushed the door open, Liz looked up. “How are you two?”
Susan offered, “Good. We just cleaned up the family graveyard at Big Rawly.”
“Your ancestors thank you.” Liz came out from behind the counter to give each woman a hug. “I’ve been in contact with the Wildlife Center of Virginia. Got more brochures and stuff for our next meeting. You know the real problem is the state’s restriction on veterinary treatment of wildlife. Oh, and MaryJo wants to finally report on her research about contraband animals.”
“We know about the vet issues,” the two said in tandem.
“That has got to be changed. We can help so many more animals and relieve suffering. It’s just bloody stupid.” Liz grimaced. “Besides, why shouldn’t a young veterinarian like Jessica Ligon be able to branch out?”
She was referring to the Virginia state regulations that prohibited a veterinarian from treating injured wildlife. If one finds a harmed raccoon, say, it was necessary to drive all the way to a veterinarian certified to treat same. By the time you drive the fifty miles or whatever it is, the poor animal has died in pain more often than not.