"Perhaps, but he's been very good to St. Elizabeth's."
Quickly Kendrick said, "I understand your position, Roscoe, you'd take money from the devil if you had to. You're a good businessman.
"I'd rather be a good headmaster," Roscoe replied coolly. "I was hoping you could illuminate me concerning Jody."
"Because she hit Maury?" His voice rose. "Wish I'd seen it."
"No, although that's an issue now. She skipped school the other day with a black eye. She said she got it in practice, but Coach Hallvard said, no, she didn't and as far as she knew there were no fights after practice. Does she roughhouse with neighborhood kids or—?"
"Do I beat her?" Kendrick's face darkened. "I know what people say behind my back, Roscoe. I don't beat my daughter. I don't beat my wife. Hell, I'm not home enough to get mad at them. And yes—I have a bad temper."
Roscoe demurred. "Please, don't misunderstand me. My concern is the well-being of every student at St. Elizabeth's. Jody, a charming young girl, is, well, more up and down lately. And her grades aren't what they were last year."
"I'll worry about it when the first report card comes out." Kendrick leaned on his knee.
"That will be in another month. Let's try to pull together and get those grades up before then." Roscoe's smile was all mouth, no eyes.
"You're telling me I'm not a good father." Kendrick glowered. "You've been talking to my bride, I suppose." The word "bride" dripped with venom.
"No, no, I haven't." Roscoe's patience began to erode.
"You're a rotten liar." Kendrick laughed harshly.
"Kendrick, I'm sorry I'm wasting your time." He stepped down out of the bleachers and left a furious Kendrick to pound down and leave in the opposite direction.
Sandy Brashiers awaited Roscoe at the other end. "He doesn't look too happy."
"He's an ass." Roscoe, sensitive and tired, thought he heard implicit criticism in Sandy's voice.
"I waited for you because I think we need to have an assembly or small workshop about how to handle losing. Jody's behavior was outrageous."
Roscoe hunched his massive shoulders. "I don't think we have to make that big a deal out of it.''
"You and I will never see eye to eye, will we?" Sandy said.
"I'll handle it," Roscoe said sternly.
A pause followed, broken by Sandy. "I don't want to make you angry. I'm not trying to obstruct you, but this gives us a chance to address the subject of winning and losing. Sports are blown out of proportion anyway."
"They may be blown out of proportion, but they bring in alumni funds." Roscoe shifted his weight.
"We're an institution of learning, not an academy for sports."
"Sandy, not now. I'm fresh out of patience," Roscoe warned.
"If not now, when?"
"This isn't the time or place for a philosophical discussion of the direction of secondary education in general or St. Elizabeth's in particular." Roscoe popped a hard strawberry candy in his mouth and moved off in the direction of the girls' locker room. Perhaps April had some information for him. He noticed that Naomi had shepherded Maury toward the quad, so he assumed she would be serving him coffee, tea, or spirits in her office. She had a sure touch with people.
The cats scampered out from under the bleachers, catching up with Harry, who was in the parking lot calling for them.
17
Late that night the waxing moon flitted between inky boiling clouds. Mrs. Murphy, unable to sleep, was hunting in the paddock closest to the barn. A sudden gust of wind brought her nose up from the ground. She sniffed the air. A storm, a big one, was streaking in.
Simon, moving fast for him, ran in from the creek. Overhead Flatface swooped low, banked, then headed out to the far fields for one more pass before the storm broke.
"That's it for me." Simon headed to the open barn door. "Besides, bobcat tracks in the creekbed."
"Good enough reason."
"Are you coming in?"
"In a minute." She watched the gray animal with the long rat tail shuffle into the barn.
A light wind rustled the leaves. She saw the cornstalks sway, then wiggle in Harry's small garden by the corner of the barn. This proved a handy repository for her "cooked" manure. A red fox, half grown, sashayed out the end, glanced over her shoulder, beheld Mrs. Murphy, put her nose up, and walked away.
Mrs. Murphy loved no fox, for they competed for the same game.
"You stay out of my corn rows," she growled.
"You don't own the world," came the belligerent reply.
A lone screech froze both of them.
"She's a killer." The fox flattened for a minute, then got up.
"You're between a storm and a bobcat. Where's your den?"
"I'm not telling you."
"Don't tell me, but you'd better hike to it fast." A big splat landed on the cat. She thought about the fox's predicament. "Go into the shavings shed until the storm blows over and the bobcat's gone. Just don't make a habit of it."
Without a word the fox scooted into the shavings shed, burrowing down in the sweet-smelling chips as the storm broke overhead.
The tiger cat, eyes widened, listened for the bobcat. Another more distant cry, like a woman screaming, told her that the beast headed back to the forest, her natural home. Since the pickings were so good in the fall—lots of fat mice and rats gorged on fallen grain plus fruits left drying on the vine—the bobcat ventured closer to the human habitation.
The wind stiffened, the trees gracefully bent lower. The field mouse Mrs. Murphy patiently tracked wanted to stay dry. She refused to poke her nose out of her nest.
More raindrops sent the cat into the barn. She climbed the ladder. Simon was arranging his sleeping quarters. His treasures, spread around him, included a worn towel, one leather riding glove, a few scraps of newspaper, and a candy bar that he was saving for a rainy day, which it was.
"Simon, don't you ever throw anything out?"
He smiled. "My mother said I was a pack rat, not a possum."
The force of the rain, unleashed, hit like a baseball bat against the north side of the barn. Flatface, claws down, landed in her cupola. She glanced down at the two friends, ruffled her feathers, then shut her eyes. She disdained earthbound creatures.
"Flatface," Simon called up to her, "before you go to sleep, how big is the bobcat?"
"Big enough to eat you." She laughed with a whooing sound.
"Really, how big?" he pressed.
She turned her big head nearly upside down. "Thirty to forty pounds and still growing. She's quick, lightning-quick, and smart. Now, if you two peons don't mind, I'm going to sleep. It's turning into a filthy night."
Mrs. Murphy and Simon caught up on the location of the latest beaver dam, fox dens, and one bald eagle nest. Then the cat told him about the false obituaries.
"Bizarre, isn't it?"
Simon pulled his towel into his hollowed-out nest in the straw. "People put out marshmallows to catch raccoons. Us, too. We love marshmallows. Sure enough, one of us will grab the marshmallow. If we're lucky, the human wants to watch us. If we're unlucky, we're trapped or the marshmallow is poisoned. I think a human is putting out a marshmallow for another human."
Mrs. Murphy sat a long time, the tip of her tail slowly wafting to and fro. "It's damned queer bait, Simon, telling someone he's dead."
"Not just him—everyone."
18
The storm lashed central Virginia for two days, finally moving north to discomfort the Yankees.
Harry's father said storms did Nature's pruning. The farm, apart from some downed limbs, suffered little damage, but a tree was down on the way to Blair Bainbridge's house.
On Saturday, Harry borrowed his thousand-dollar power washer. Merrily she blasted the old green-and-yellow John Deere tractor, her truck, the manure spreader, and, in a fit of squeaky-clean mania, the entire interior of the barn. Not a cobweb remained.