Early corn, tiny shoots just breaking the furrows, gave the red clay fields a green cast. The hay in other fields already swayed over her head. She pushed through a field of rye and timothy mix. Tucker could identify any grass crop by its odor. She reached a rutted farm road and thought she'd go down to the old Mawyer place. Booty Mawyer, seventy-seven, farmed his three hundred acres pretty much as he always had. A shrewd fellow, he sank no money into large purchases like tractors, manure spreaders, hay balers, and the like. He kept four Belgian horses and worked them in teams of two. The cost of feeding and shoeing his horses proved far less than tractor payments. And he managed to get everything done. His grandson, Don Clatterbuck, helped him in the evenings, and during hay-cutting time, Don worked full-time with him.
Tucker could hear the old man and his horses in the distance. A faint whiff of onion grass floated across the light southerly breeze. Tucker stopped and sniffed. Wind from the south usually meant moisture and lots of it, yet the day was achingly clear. Still, the dog trusted her senses. She figured she'd better get back to the post office by lunchtime.
She hurried down the road, eager to visit anyone at all, first coming to the old tobacco-curing sheds. Booty Mawyer, like many central Virginia farmers, once upon a time made a good profit from his tobacco allotments. After World War II the business slacked off, the cost of labor zoomed upward, and many farmers allowed their allotments to fall into disuse. But the accoutrements of a lively tobacco trade still stood—curing sheds, storing sheds, and in town, the old auction house.
Foxes especially like curing sheds. Just why, Tucker couldn't understand, except that having a burrow under a nice structure was always a plus. There were lots of sturdy outbuildings, yet the tobacco-curing sheds held a fascination for Vulpes vulpes. Tucker didn't mind foxes. Mrs. Murphy hated them and hissed with the mention of a fox's name. From time to time the cat would declare a truce, but the real reason Murphy loathed them was that they competed for the same game.
The milk butterflies flitted upward along with Tucker's thoughts as she reached the shed. She walked around the side of it and stopped. Sitting right in front of her was the 1987 GMC pickup, the faded Cowboys football team jacket jammed up on the top of the seat.
26
Tucker blasted through the animal door at the post office with such velocity that her feet skidded sideways and she fell over, sliding. A bump into the mail cart stopped her unusual progress.
Scrambling to her feet she shouted, “I found it! I found the truck.”
Mrs. Murphy, who watched the dog's slide with mirth, hopped off the table. “Where?”
“At Booty Mawyer's.”
“What?” The cat couldn't believe her ears.
Pewter, roused from yet another slumber, shook herself, stuck her head up from the mail cart in which she was sleeping. “Tucker, what are you talking about? And you woke me up.”
“I'm telling you that the GMC truck is parked at the old tobacco-curing shed at Booty Mawyer's place.”
“How do you know it's the right truck?” Pewter, skeptical, asked.
“Has the Cowboys jacket on the seat. Like Sean said. Remember?” The dog's eyes shone with intelligence.
“He did say that, didn't he?” The gray cat pulled herself up and out of the mail cart using her front paws.
“What's the commotion here?” Harry smiled down at her friends.
“Oh, Mom, I wish you could understand me.” The corgi's ears drooped a bit, then perked back up.
Harry handed the dog a Milk-Bone. For good measure she gave the cats a few bits of Haute Feline, then returned to her task of reorganizing the carton shelves.
“I think we'd better check this out. This just doesn't sound right.” Mrs. Murphy brushed her whiskers with her paws. “For one thing, Tucker, Rick Shaw and Coop could have traced the truck to Booty Mawyer easily enough. License plates alone would do that and even though Sean didn't get the number all they would have to do is tap into the Department of Motor Vehicle computers for 1987 GMC trucks in the county. So something's amiss.”
“That's just it, Murphy, there are no license plates. ‘Farm Use' is painted where the plates should go. This truck is long off the records.”
“Well, why didn't you say that in the first place?” The cat was already heading for the door.
“You didn't give me the chance. And you know, Murphy, ‘Farm Use' trucks aren't supposed to go out on the roads. Who would remember this old truck?”
“Tucker, I'm sorry. Come on.” She disappeared through the door, her tail swishing through last.
As Tucker hurried after the sleek tiger, Pewter wailed, “I smell rain. I'll get wet.”
“Stay here, fatso.” The corgi couldn't resist a parting shot.
“Don't leave me! I hate to miss anything.” Under her breath the gray cat grumbled, “I know I'm going to regret this.”
“What is going on?” Harry scratched her head as Pewter's gray bottom vanished through the door.
“Must be a good party somewhere.” Miranda laughed. “Here, let me hold that package or you'll tip the shelf over.”
The three animals streaked along the lawns. Tucker held other dogs at bay, declaring they were just crossing and would be off that particular dog's property soon enough. The corgi also advised other dogs they would probably be returning that way and she was sorry to disturb them but important business was at hand.
The other domesticated animals behaved reasonably, except for one Australian shepherd who mouthed off so abusively that Tucker told the cats to run on. She advanced on the medium-sized dog, who, seeing the determination of the corgi plus the bared fangs, decided that passage through his lawn might not be so offensive.
Tucker caught up with the cats as they entered the rye field.
“Guess you shut him up.” Murphy brushed the slender rye blades.
“For now.”
“How much farther?” Pewter sneezed as pollen tickled her nose.
“I told you to stay at the post office,” Tucker chided her.
“I'm not complaining. I just want to know how far,” she snapped back.
“Ten minutes.” Tucker pushed through the rye.
They journeyed in silence until emerging on the farm road. The ruts seemed even deeper to Tucker this time. In the near distance they could hear a tractor whine.
“Doesn't sound right, does it?” Pewter noted.
“No.” Tucker, spying the tobacco barn up ahead, put on speed. She rounded the structure, the long-distant whiff of decades of smoke still pungently perceptible. “What!”
The two cats almost collided into her.
“Where's the truck?” Pewter caustically asked.
“It was here. I swear it!”
“That tractor sounds stuck. Let's find it. Maybe Booty's using the truck to pull it out,” Mrs. Murphy suggested.
Finding Booty proved easy enough not only because of the whine of the tractor but because he was cussing a blue streak. The animals heard words they'd never heard before.
The tractor had sunk into a soft pothole that must have been deceptive from the driver's seat. The rear wheels were mired a quarter of the way up the large yellow hubcaps. Booty, overalls shiny with fresh mud, placed stones, anything he could find, in front of the wheels, then he'd swing back up into the seat to try again.