Earlier, seeing Harry leaning on the fence watching had encouraged the horses to play harder until finally they’d raced up to the fence as though they were going to blast through. At the last minute, the boys stopped, turning sharply left or right, hollering like banshees as they did so.
The girls, in their large pasture, took no part in the gelding foolishness.
“Just wait, Tomahawk is going to rip Shortro’s blanket,” the oldest broodmare snorted.
“Oh, Pots, that will make Harry furious,” Silver Cups replied to Pot O’Gold’s prediction.
Just as Pots said, Tomahawk lunged out with his long Thoroughbred neck (he was a good 16.2) and grabbed the side of Shortro’s blanket. The rip had resounded through the pastures. Even Harry heard it.
Now, as Shortro munched away in his stall, she investigated that rip. The side of his wonderful Rambo blanket bore a ragged scar, testimony to the force of the effort and Tomahawk’s teeth. Ripping a Rambo takes real strength.
“Well, after I repair it with duct tape, this will get us through the winter, but I’ll have to get it sewn up after the last frost. You all live to make me spend money.”
Shortro lifted his head, his deep brown eyes utterly sympathetic. “He did it.”
“Wimp,” the old Thoroughbred called from his stall.
Above in the loft, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Simon listened and laughed.
Tucker, already sitting at the tack room door, knew the routine. Harry would go inside, check the barn phone for messages, sit for a moment, pull out her notebook, make notes on horsefeed and behavior, then shove the notebook back in the middle drawer of the desk.
Next, she’d lean over and double-check the large wall calendar. She’d scribbled in the big squares. Tucker never interfered with this ritual, but she couldn’t understand why Harry would curse and throw pencils or ballpoint pens in the trash. This often happened when she’d write on the calendar.
Why did she aggravate herself? Tucker didn’t see the logic of it.
“Let’s go down and get in there.” Mrs. Murphy headed for the ladder.
“You first,” Pewter said.
“Such good manners!” said a surprised Mrs. Murphy, for it was right that Pewter, younger, show deference.
“I like to keep you off guard.” The gray cat swept her considerable whiskers forward, then she said to Simon, “We’ll be out later, I think. Need to drag out some food for Odin.”
“He’s been coming around regularly just lately,” the possum noted.
“Winter’s hard, even on as good a hunter as a coyote,” Mrs. Murphy called as she backed down the ladder.
“Luckily, I have Harry,” said Simon. “She even unwrapped some Jolly Ranchers for me. Yum. Watermelon.” The marsupial salivated at the thought of the hard candy he especially favored.
“How can you eat that junk?” Pewter headed after Mrs. Murphy.
“It’s so delicious. Every color is a different taste. I like them even more than jellybeans.”
“More than molasses?” Mrs. Murphy called from the aisle.
“Nothing is better than molasses,” came a firm reply.
The cats shot through the animal door to the tack room, the deep fragrance of leather filling their nostrils.
“We miss anything?” Mrs. Murphy asked.
“She’s been writing notes,” Tucker replied. “Lots of good it does her.”
Harry finished with the notebook and dialed Susan. “Do you need anything for tonight’s meeting?”
“No. I don’t think it will take that long. The Christmas drive was a tremendous success, due to everyone’s hard work.”
“Especially yours. Not even a bottle of wine, something like that?”
“No. I’m good. Your husband is picking up mine, I’m sure you know. Going to the movies. Ned says he’s not going to be in the house with a bunch of churchwomen. So I asked him, would he prefer a bunch of hookers?”
Harry chuckled. Indeed, it seems politicians in general had a penchant for working girls. Birds of a feather, Harry supposed. “And?”
“A big smile. Ned said if it got ex-Governor Spitzer a TV show, maybe it would get him one. We could use the money.”
“How thoughtful.”
“Yes, that’s what I said.” Susan laughed. “See you at six.”
Harry left the barn, walked into the house, saw Fair at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. She relayed Ned’s conversation with Susan.
“Ha!” was his reply.
“I’ll leave you to your thoughts. I’m taking a shower, then heading out for the meeting. Pasta’s in the fridge. Just heat it up.”
“Thanks, honey. Ned and I are going to eat on the mall. I made him promise not to talk about politics. Actually, with the topic of hookers to discuss instead, that might be easier than I thought.”
Harry threw up her hands, said nothing, hurried back to her shower.
Once cleaned up, wearing a plaid wraparound skirt and white blouse, a sweater tied around her neck, she walked into the kitchen. He looked up. “You look good.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t your legs get cold?”
“Sometimes. The high socks help, and I guess there aren’t as many nerve endings in your legs as elsewhere.”
“Maybe women have less than men, because my legs would be blue. But you look like a college girl. Really.”
“Hold that thought.” She kissed him. “I really hope this meeting won’t drag on. I’m shooting to be home by nine-thirty.”
“I should be back around then, too.”
By the time Harry reached Susan’s house, all the girls were there from St. Luke’s and St. Cyril’s. Jan McGee sat at the dining room table, too. The other paired-off churches also had meetings on this night, Sunday, December 29. They wanted to review the deliveries while memories were fresh. Then the heads of each church’s food drive would meet in a week, and any new suggestions for improvement would be thrown on the table. The system worked quite well, for each year they did better. Pressure stayed high, however, for each year the numbers of those in need rose, and this provoked a lively discussion from all. Charlene Vavilov, Arden Higham, and Jessica Hexham tried to help Susan in keeping the meeting moving. Charlene and Arden, it seemed, just wanted to be with friends, anything other than being home at dark without their husbands. While Harry thought their attendance at the meeting was perhaps too early to be out in public, she wasn’t scandalized, as her mother’s generation would have been. The old rules had a logic to them, but some folks needed to find their own way.
Owen, Susan’s corgi, was sleeping through this vigorous meeting. Food would have kept him awake.
BoomBoom rapped her pencil on the table. “Why can’t we keep tabs on the needy throughout the year?”
Cooper, who was in charge of the sheriff’s department group, was also present, especially since she was close to the St. Luke’s group. “BoomBoom, that’s an enormous amount of work.”
“I don’t doubt that, but why can’t we have a liaison with Human Services and each month go over those who are new to the list of needy and those who have gotten jobs or improved?”