"Fatty" Tucker fired back.
The cat, lightning-fast, swatted the dog, who scooted backward.
"Ugly. I don't expect my friends to be ugly." Harry flipped her steak in the frying pan.
"It's Tucker's fault."
"Sure." Tucker shrugged. "To change the subject, I think our mother is on the trail again."
"But how would she know? She can't understand what the cardinal is saying." Pewter had already gotten over being angry at Tucker.
"The tears of blood." Mrs. Murphy cleaned her face.
"Huh?" Pewter began her grooming, too.
"She saw the tears of blood. Originally she wanted to go back and double-check, but Brother Frank cooled her with his phone call. Then Susan called and told her Brother Thomas died in front of the statue. Set her off. You know how her mind works." Mrs. Murphy knew her human very well.
"Or doesn't." Pewter moaned. "More treks in the cold."
"You don't have to go," Tucker airily said.
Pewter gave her an icy stare as Harry sat down at the kitchen table.
"We'd better be extra vigilant." Mrs. Murphy leapt onto an empty kitchen chair.
"Is there a state cat of Virginia?" Tucker asked.
"I don't think so." Pewter thought this a terrible oversight.
Virginia license plates carried various messages. Some had a ship with the date 1607, the year Jamestown was founded. Others had a yellow swallowtail butterfly, the state butterfly. Some had a horse on them, others a school logo. Harry's old license plates were simply white with blue letters, but she liked the ones with a cat and dog on them, signifying the driver as an animal lover. Pewter thought there should be a license plate devoted exclusively to cats, using her slimmed-down image, of course.
"How can that be?" Tucker wondered. "If we have a state butterfly, a state flower, a state tree, how can there not be a state cat?"
"Certainly it should be a tiger cat." Mrs. Murphy smiled.
"No, it should be a gray cat just like me." Pewter jumped onto another kitchen chair, peeking over the tabletop.
"I see you and you're not getting one morsel off my plate." Harry squinted at Pewter.
"We want you to start a petition so we can be the state cats." Pewter used her sweetest voice.
"And if we don't get selected—good old everyday cats—then I say we call on all alley cats in the state to descend on the state house, shred furniture, pull out computer plugs, and pee on papers!" Mrs. Murphy gleefully imagined the state house overrun by rioting cats.
"Bet the governor would have a fit and fall in it." Pewter laughed.
"He's seen worse, but this would be a first, a first for the whole nation." Tucker liked the idea.
"You all are chatty." Harry glanced at the newspaper. "Hmm, we still haven't gotten all the money the federal government promised us for security."
The animals as well as Virginia's humans knew if anything went wrong, they'd be on the front line. The image, ever-present in their minds, was the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Also, much of the Revolutionary War was fought in the state as well as sixty percent of the War Between the States.
"Why do people believe their government?" Pewter asked.
"Because they have to believe in something. They get scared without a system. They'll accept a system that doesn't work rather than create a new one; they're lazy. They're like a pack of hounds that way" Mrs. Murphy, a cat and therefore a freethinker, remarked.
"I'm a canine." Tucker tilted her head upward toward the tiger cat.
"Of course, you are," Pewter said soothingly, "but you spend your time with us. Our habits have rubbed off on you."
Mrs. Murphy laughed. "Maybe. But Tucker, it's like this: if you or I are scared there's a real reason—you know, the bobcat has jumped us behind the barn. We fight or run and then we're over it. They carry their fear all the time. It's what makes humans sick, you see. And it's why they have to believe in things that can't be true."
"Like a bunch of men sitting on top of a mountain with no women, no children, and thinking a statue of the Virgin Mary is crying tears of blood." Pewter let her tail hang over the edge of the chair.
"You don't believe in miracles?" Tucker hoped that there were miracles.
"Every day you're alive and someone loves you is a miracle," Mrs. Murphy wisely said.
"If Brother Thomas is resurrected, I'll believe in the tears." Pewter giggled.
Brother Thomas had been resurrected in a manner of speaking. The smooth stone with his name, birthdate, and death date beautifully incised marked an empty grave. Who would notice since it was a fresh grave? And it was a grave dug with difficulty since the ground was frozen. A backhoe had been used, and it was still a chore. The earth was replaced and tamped down. The next snow squall would obscure even the lovely stone that Brother Mark had labored to make perfect.
17
On Tuesday, November 29, a crowd of two hundred people gathered before the closed iron gates at the monastery. Brother Handle refused to unlock the tall, wrought-iron barriers. But by Friday, December 2, when the crowd surpassed one thousand people, many of them holding candles while reciting the rosary, he relented. The people walked slowly, in an orderly manner, to the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mother. Many, like the late Brother Thomas had done, fell to their knees. Some people prayed, immobile, for hours in the frigid air. When they tried to rise, they found they could not and other supplicants had to help them. During the afternoon, when the mercury nudged up to thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, Mary's tears began to melt and fresh ones slid down her cheeks, dripping onto the folds of her robe, onto the base of the statue. People dabbed handkerchiefs into the blood as it slid onto the base.
Fearing excessive devotions—perhaps a few pilgrims might be unbalanced—Brother Handle hastily organized a watch of brothers. These groups of four men took three-hour posts—one by the statue, the other three at the edges of the crowd. Another monk was stationed down at the open gates should anyone need assistance. In a concession to the cold, Brother Handle allowed them to wear gloves. Brother Mark, a month earlier accompanying Brother Thomas to a plumbing supply store, had cleverly procured heat packs from the mountain sports shop on the east side of Waynesboro. While others experienced shooting pains in their feet and hands, he stayed toasty
Nordy Elliott tried to get a TV crew up to the statue, but Brother John, down at the gate, adamantly refused. This ultimately worked to Nordy's benefit, because he interviewed the faithful as they returned to their vehicles. Many people cried, others couldn't speak, but all believed that the Virgin Mary had sent them a sign. Nordy's cameraperson, Priscilla Friedberg, used a lens almost as long as she was tall. She shot footage of Mary in the far distance, which made the statue and the crowds appear ethereal in the soft winter light.
The piece, which aired on the six o'clock news, looked terrific. Much as people would like television to transmit news, in essence the medium can't do this. It can only transmit images, with a splattering of words. The fact that millions of Americans believed they were informed because they watched the news was both ludicrous and frightening. To understand any issue or event, a person must take time, time to read well-written, well-argued positions about same.
Pete Osborne knew this. He read magazines and newspapers because he truly cared about government, world affairs, and the arts. To his credit he understood TV, tried to get the best images possible given the budget constraints of his small station. He checked all on-air copy. The material was cogent, concise, and packed with as much information as possible in the proverbial two-minute sound bite.
The tears of blood had a big bite.
Nordy's career kicked into a higher gear, as did Pete Osborne's, since NBC affiliates again took the feed from Channel 29.The difference between the two men was that Pete knew there would be a price to pay. He couldn't, of course, have known how very high, but he did know that success was demanding. There was a reason the great bulk of humanity elected to be mediocre.