Mark blinked. "I will. And I know the Blessed Virgin Mother weeps for them."
27
Harry remarked to Susan as they drove the rig back from a foxhunt, "I am in the best mood. The best mood."
"Good, because when you get home you know those two cats will have shredded something." Susan smiled. The bracing day had improved her spirits, too.
She was right. When Susan dropped her off she walked inside to behold two silk lamp shades slit open, shredded. Then Harry went down to the basement to fetch a jar of orange marmalade and found the birdseed bags that Mrs. Murphy and Pewter had ripped open when she last left them alone in the house.
Tucker, quick to defend herself, told Harry in no uncertain terms that she would never shred silk lamp shades, nor would she spill seed upon the ground like the Biblical Onan although Onan wasn't spilling birdseed.
"Brownnoser," Mrs. Murphy growled at the dog.
"No impulse control." Tucker walked away from the cat, her claws clicking on the kitchen heart-pine boards.
"Why are you so happy? You got left behind today, too," Pewter complained.
"We are not supposed to go to foxhunts. Sometimes Mom will let me sleep in the cab of the truck but we really aren't supposed to go. You know that."
"Tucker, I might know it but I don't agree with it." The tiger cat swatted at the corgi.
The phone rang. Miranda informed Harry that Big Mim had just been told by her daughter that Blair Bainbridge proposed to her on Thanksgiving Day. Big Mim had mixed emotions but put a good face on it. Mim called Miranda to talk it out.
Then the phone rang again.
"Susan, you must have just gotten to the house. What's up?"
"Harry, you and I are both country girls. Today's hunt pulled me out of my torpor. My mind's working again and I'm ready to fight the world."
"I'm ready, too." Harry liked hearing the energy in Susan's voice.
"Here's what I think. G-Uncle Thomas is laid in the coffin, three brothers see him. According to Brother Mark, the lid was nailed down, he's buried. Right?"
"Right."
"All the brothers attend the brief entombment, as do I."
"Right."
"The coffin is heavy. No suspicions. Still with me?"
"Always and ever."
"All right, then. Either Brother Andrew and Mark are lying through their teeth, which I don't discount, or someone removes the body before everyone gets to the cemetery, putting in three bags of potting soil. Something was in his coffin."
"You're right." Harry had already considered this.
"So what do they do with him? None of the brothers left the grounds that night. At least not that anyone knows. No car was taken, and only a few brothers have access to the keys. G-Uncle Thomas was taken somewhere and dumped or reburied. It would be a hard job to rebury him. I figure all this happened within one night, in darkness. He can't be far. How far can you drag a body in bitter cold and snow? I'm willing to bet my great-uncle is within a mile's radius of his grave, or should I say his intended grave."
"Susan, you're on to something." Harry encouraged her, glad that her friend didn't sound as anxious or troubled as she had been in the last few weeks.
"If we find him, maybe we can find out what happened to him."
"We're country girls. If anyone can find him, we can. The cats and dogs can help. We have to be careful. We can't blow through the joint, know what I mean? We'll have to work up from the ravines."
"Thought of that, too. I say we go in from behind the Inn at Afton Mountain just before dawn. Work up to within sight of the Virgin Mary, then work around in a southwest arc. Since it's Sunday the brothers will be in service and prayer, at least early in the morning. We have a shot at it, and we can be out of there before attracting notice. We'll have to work in sections. We can't do it all in one day."
"Great idea." Harry paused a moment. "But, Susan, if we do find him, do you really want to see old Uncle Thomas like, well, like however we find him?"
"I tell myself the soul has left the body. Whatever we find is a husk. And I tell myself that he deserves better. He deserves a decent Christian burial after a lifetime of service to the best of Jesus' teachings."
"You're right," Harry agreed.
"I feel this foreboding. Harry, I feel like he's calling to me. I have a debt to clear, but I don't know what it is."
28
Looking east from the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a thin gray line separated the horizon from the frozen earth. The band expanded until the faintest touch of rose diffused the bottom to cast a pinkish glow on the dark earth.
Harry, Susan, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, and Owen, Susan's corgi, paused to watch the blush of dawn before they plunged into the ravine behind the monastery.
The early morning, still as the tomb and clear, promised a cold day but a bright one. The winter solstice, ten days ahead, brought soft light.
Harry marveled at how the light changed with each season. Winter's light, soft and alluring, offered a contrast to the cold.
The two dogs scrambled down the ravine. The cats picked their way over the fallen branches and the jutting rocks. Pewter, never one for vigorous exercise, grumbled with each obstacle.
"You could have stayed in the car up at Afton Inn." Mrs. Murphy tired of the stream of complaints.
"And miss everything! If we find Brother Thomas you'll need my powers of observation."
"If we find Brother Thomas, you'll throw up. It will be like one big hairball," Mrs. Murphy said as she leapt over a large oak branch, the place where it had torn from the tree a different color.
"I will not." Pewter elected to go around the tree branch. "I don't rejoice in these things. Not like the dogs. Carrion eaters. They love it."
"Dogs can be gross." Mrs. Murphy couldn't imagine eating anything decayed or rolling in it.
"And Tucker brags about her nose." Pewter wrinkled hers.
"She has a good nose. Rot smells like an enticing dinner to her. I don't get it, either. I mean, you and I have good noses, but that's one scent we don't like. Humans, either. I guess buzzards like it, though."
"Ever notice how birds who tear flesh have upper beaks that curve down—sort of? Think of Flatface, not just buzzards." Pewter mentioned the large horned owl living in the barn at home.
"Yes. Ever notice how buzzards don't have feathers on their necks?" Mrs. Murphy answered her own question. "They can stick their entire head inside some really dead animal, but their necks won't get sticky, weighted down. They can keep clean that way, I suppose, and they can fly, too. If a buzzard was pasted over with goo, it'd be harder to fly."
"Practical. Crabs are carrion eaters, too. So why do they have eyes on stalks?" Pewter liked crabmeat, so long as she didn't think about what the crab had eaten.
"To look goofy." The tiger laughed.
Harry's eyes followed the dogs. On the one hand, she hoped they did find Brother Thomas. On the other, she didn't. She had a strong stomach, but still.
Susan, silent, trudged along. The snow shone deep blue in the boulder cracks and fissures. The rim of the sun crested the horizon, but down in the deepest part of the ravine neither she nor Harry could see it.
"How upset is she?" Tucker asked her brother.
"Pretty upset, but once she made up her mind to do something about it, she settled down," Owen replied. "She can't understand why he would disappear. She fears the worst, too."
"Murder," Tucker flatly said, as she slid down an icy bank, then nimbly jumped over a narrow rivulet feeding into a strong running creek.
"Ever notice how humans have to find reasons for things? They can't relax unless they invent a reason. Susan couldn't accept that one human kills another just to kill. Has to be a reason."
"Usually is. In civilian life. War's different. A human gets used to killing then, I guess." Tucker hoped she'd never face a war. "They get used to killing and it doesn't matter. If it's a religious war, then they really want to kill one another." She sighed. "If this thinned the herd it might be good, but all they do is turn around and breed in more and more numbers. They don't learn much."