The cats raced and raced, finally drawing up under a small, beautiful grove of Alverta peaches on the southeast side of the old Jones home place, a half mile from the house.
Herb had made a lovely sign that read "Homecoming."
Farther west and at a higher elevation, a small mature orchard of pippin apple blossoms lent fragrance to the last days of April.
The two felines caught their breath.
"Funny. Snakes,"Mrs. Murphy mused.
"There's nothing funny about snakes."Pewter loathed the reptiles.
"Cold blood. She could move fast because she'd been lying in the sun and it's maybe sixty-eight degrees or higher, you know. I can't imagine being cold-blooded."
"Is that what humans mean when they say someone is cold-blooded? They're a reptile?"
"Maybe. Maybe that's where it started."The sweet chatter of purple finches and bluebirds added punctuation to her words."For them, being cold-blooded is terrible. /mean, they can understand someone killing in anger or passion but not thinking it out, planning. So they call it cold-blooded." Mrs. Murphy watched a peach-blossom petal swirl down.
The cold snap had delayed everything, but once the warmth came, the peaches bloomed at about the same time as the red-buds and early dogwoods.
It would be another week or even two, depending on temperatures, before all the apple trees blossomed, although the buds kept swelling, turning the hills lapping up to the Blue Ridge Mountains white.
"Hey."Pewter noticed.
Mrs. Murphy walked to the packed-down earth for a better look. She flared her nostrils, opening her mouth, too."Someone dug here, then replaced it. Look how careful they were to try and make the turf look undisturbed."
"Sure seems like a lot of work."
"Wasn't Harry. We'd have been with her."Mrs. Murphy checked for footprints."They covered their tracks."
"You can't dig and get the earth packed like that. Whoever did this dumped earth somewhere."
They searched but found nothing.
"Could have carted it off in a truck."Mrs. Murphy found this unsettling.
Pewter, intent on searching, didn't notice a large buzzard high in an ancient poplar. The buzzard, who had a sense of humor, spread her wings for a sun bath, calling down,"Lunch."
Scared twice this afternoon, Pewter had had quite enough. She ran east toward Harry's farm. The distance between the two houses, if measured in a straight line over the uneven ground, was a little more than one mile. Running, a cat could blaze home in four minutes, but the creek, if it was high like it was now, presented an obstacle.
Mrs. Murphy, following, paused for a moment at the lovely family cemetery, a huge oak within the wrought-iron fence.
"I'm not stopping. And furthermore, why do humans put fences around cemeteries? Do they think the dead will climb out?"Pewter huffed and puffed.
"/think it's an aesthetic thing." Mrs. Murphy had never thought of why the dead were so often contained.
"/don't want to be around anything gruesome today. That rattler was enough."
"Pewter, death waits for us all."
"Yeah, well, he's going to have to wait a good, long time for me."
She was right, thankfully. But death was waiting, no doubt about that.
14
On Monday, May 1, Harry and Susan pulled out of Mostly Maples, a nursery to the trade. Harry braked hard, throwing Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker onto the floor of the 1978 Ford truck.
"Jesus Christ!" she exclaimed.
As Harry rarely swore, the animals climbed back onto the bench seat without complaint. They, too, had seen Toby Pittman hurtle by at top speed.
"What is the matter with that man?" Susan indignantly wondered. "He's become positively unstable."
"Hell, Susan, he was never wrapped too tight to begin with. Professor Forland going missing put him right over the edge."
"Living alone."
"I beg your pardon." Harry cautiouslylooked both ways before pulling left onto Route 240 to head into Crozet. "I lived alone for years."
"Yes, but you're social. You have many friends and, of course, you have Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and Pewter the rotund."
"/am not. I'm built round."
As they were in close quarters, neither Mrs. Murphy nor Tucker corrected Pewter's illusion. It's hard to fight in a truck.
"Toby has Jed, his donkey, but that's about it. His sister hasn't spoken to him in eight years. Maybe more."
Susan changed subjects. "We got our first order!" She twisted her head to look at the cars parked at Crozet Vet. "Bo Newell's there. I didn't know Bo took Miss Prissy to Marty." She named the owner and head veterinarian of the clinic.
"That cat is a holy horror. Bo might be there to see if Marty knows anything about land for sale. Grapeland." She giggled for a second. "If Elvis had only grown wine he could have lived at Grapeland."
"Harry, you're mental."
"Yeah, but I'm fun."
"I need a hot chocolate so I can better appreciate your humorous, wonderful self."
"Susan, what's this thing with you and hot chocolate?"
"I don't know, but I want a big hot chocolate with mountains of whipped cream."
"And you're the woman who obsesses about her weight?"
Susan laughed. "That's just it. I've discovered if I drink a big hot chocolate I'm not so hungry. Another thing, if I eat a couple handfuls of Virginia peanuts, I can go for hours before I want food."
"Virginia peanuts, best peanuts in the world."
Crozet, however, was too far west and north in the state to produce the famous crop.
"Did you know when the English first came in the seventeenth century they fed peanuts to their cows and horses? They didn't think it was a suitable food for humans."
"Who told you that?" Harry raised an eyebrow. She couldn't believe humans would be so stupid as to sidestep a rich source of protein.
"Barbara Dixon. I was down in Dillwyn the other day and I stopped by Barbara and Gene's. You know how she gets wrapped up in history." Susan named a foxhunting couple they both enjoyed, who were in the process of restoring an early eighteenth-century house and stables.
"And she's from San Antonio. She just got seduced by Virginia." Harry laughed.
"Actually, I think she was seduced by Gene."
At that they both laughed, then Harry returned to peanuts. "Really, they wouldn't eat them?"
"No. Wouldn't eat tomatoes, either. Thought they were poisonous."
"Well, all someone had to do was pop one in their mouth and that would be the end of that," Harry said.
"Would you do it?"
"Uh, well, let me reconsider my statement."
They rolled along in the best mood because of their first order and because it truly was spring. Spring fever.
"Wonder when people realized they could eat peanuts and tomatoes?" Susan pondered.
"There's a project for you." Harry slowed to thirty-five miles an hour as they entered Crozet.
"I'll give it to Barbara. You know that once I ask her she won't rest until she finds the answer."
"Sue Satterfield is like that, too." Harry named a friend who had been a teacher and was a good friend of the Dixons.
"Maybe I should give one the tomato question and the other the peanut question." Susan touched Harry's shoulder. "Hey, don't forget about my chocolate."
"Damn." Harry had turned into the post-office parking lot. She swung around to wait for traffic to pass.
"Miss it?"
"Sometimes. I miss the people. But I don't miss the hours, I don't miss the Federal regulations. You know, Susan, this is crude, but I can't help it: we are reaching a point where you won't be able to wipe your ass without the government telling you when to do it, how to do it, and what times to do it."
Susan roared. "I'll tell that to Ned."