Alicia put her hand on BoomBoom’s forearm, since she knew a tirade was dangerously close. “If it’s too big to fail, it’s too big to exist,” she said.
That got them all going.
On the way home in Fair’s vet truck, Harry fluffed her plaid wrap skirt. “Don’t you love our friends? We can talk about anything and I always learn something. And I love that we can agree to disagree.”
“Me, too.”
“Yesterday at a meeting in the chancery, Neil described Hester as a wacko. Well, maybe he didn’t put it that strongly, but we let him know in the nicest way that, yes, she was a little strange, but she was part of Crozet and she did much good. Now he’s hawking those tickets. Maybe this is atonement.”
“Well, that would be nice,” said Fair. “My experience of Neil is he assumes we’re all dumb rednecks.”
“If he wants his fertilizer business to thrive, he’d better get used to it. And you don’t go into fertilizer if you want to discuss Raphael,” said Harry, an art history major at Smith.
Fair laughed. “You have a lot to answer for.”
“Oh,” she mused, “Mother thought whatever I did was fine, but Dad sure was surprised. He’d say, ‘How can you make a dime being an art history major?’ And I’d say, ‘Dad, this is the only time in my life when I can study, when I don’t have to make money. I’ll come back to the farm.’ ” She paused. “Little did I know they’d both be gone by the beginning of my junior year.”
“You never know. I loved your parents. We all did.”
They drove along in silence, then Harry thought out loud, “Do you think anyone ever loved Hester like that?”
A long silence followed. “No,” he answered at last. “But she was part of all of us, she was valued. That counts for something.”
Turning down the long gravel driveway, Harry added, “Alicia was telling me to read a book about the environment. And then she told me to pick up one that’s a few years old, The Great Warming.”
“She’s always been a big reader,” said Fair.
“She said that back in her acting days, there was so much downtime on the sets that she made up for not going to college with one book after another.” Harry saw a redheaded woodpecker dart along the fence line. “I hope our fences don’t have bugs.”
“I doubt it. That pesky fellow is heading for the next tree. You know, sometimes I look at Alicia and I think what a terrific vet she would have made, or a professor. She does read all the time and she wants to learn. A real passion for knowledge.”
“She always told me she hated Hollywood. She felt like a piece of meat. The money was great, but through her, I learned about the sorrows of great beauty.”
He turned to look at her. “You don’t have any?”
At this she let out a war whoop.
Sunday afternoon, Harry and Fair, accompanied by Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, tackled laying out all the heavy-duty extension cords, hooking them up at various places, and running them out to large water troughs in the smaller fenced pastures. The water troughs had heaters in them, and though conditions were mild, it was best to do this before heavy frosts arrived.
The largest pasture, seventy good acres, lay along the creek between Harry’s farm and Coop’s, so it didn’t need a trough.
The horses happily drank from the clear flowing mountain waters, for Harry had extended some fencing onto Coop’s side so they could easily wade around, which they enjoyed. Coop thought that was just fine. Most country people worked at accommodation. The trouble began when an outsider bought an old farm and for whatever reason felt no need to share. They seemed to think that people wanted to take advantage of them and that boundary lines were sacrosanct. Naturally, this created problems and often the newcomers found they had few friends except for other newcomers. Then something awful would happen and their neighbors would show up to help out. It usually changed their attitude. They figured out why their neighbors, whom they had usually disturbed or offended in some fashion, showed up to help. It was the country way. Most learned to be a little country themselves. A few did not and returned to where they had originated or moved on, looking for the next wondrous place. Perhaps this happened all over the country, but it happened in Virginia a lot, probably due to the state’s great beauty. People wanted to live there.
Harry thought all this as she checked her lines. If Coop couldn’t eventually buy the old Jones place and if Reverend Jones one day had to sell, she could be facing this problem.
There were problems enough for now.
She and Fair finished the day’s work, ate supper, then took a sunset walk all the way back to the vast walnut groves Susan owned on this side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
A barred owl flew from one tree to another.
“So silent,” Harry noted.
“And such an efficient hunter,” Fair added.
“I’m just as good,” Pewter bragged from below, never one to tolerate compliments of others.
From a perch high above, the owl looked down at this groundling. “Dream on.”
“I’ll show you,” Pewter sassed, “and furthermore, you don’t come around the barn because Flatface is bigger than you.”
Flatface, the great horned owl, lived in the cupola. She was two and a half feet high. The barred owl was about a foot and a half, with a wingspan just under four feet, impressive enough on his own terms.
“Pewter, I wouldn’t start a fight with an owl, even a screech owl,” Tucker wisely admonished.
“Hoo!” the barred owl replied.
And down below, Harry, once again thinking of who could have killed Hester, thought, “Who, indeed?”
“Why are we going this way?” Pewter asked as she stared out the station wagon window Monday evening. “I’m ready to go home.”
“We’ve only been on the road for fifteen minutes,” Mrs. Murphy replied. “Plus you just ate fresh tuna. Don’t be crabby.”
“I’m not crabby!” Pewter snapped. “I just want to know what she’s doing, that’s all. She checked the roof work at St. Luke’s and now she’s heading west—the wrong direction. You know how she can get if she sees a friend or passes one on the road.” The gray cat referred to Harry’s conviviality; her human was always stopping to chew the fat with another local.
Also staring out the window, Tucker said, “She had to get to St. Luke’s before sunset. She wanted to recheck the roof work.”
“The roof work is fine,” Pewter spoke louder.
The three watched as Harry slowed, then turned in to the old gravel driveway to the three abandoned school buildings.
“Hey, there’s Brinkley.” Tucker stood on her hind legs as she saw her yellow Lab friend sitting in front of the faded clapboard building with paint peeling.
After parking, Harry stepped out, then opened the door for the animals, all of whom rushed to the big sweet dog.
“Hey,” Tazio Chappars called out as Harry stepped through the schoolhouse door, which creaked.
Harry looked around. “I’ve never been in here.”
“Few people have after 1965, I guess.” Tazio dropped her hand to pet Brinkley’s head. “What do you think?”
“Has character. Public buildings don’t anymore. Plus they look so cheap. Ugly boxes.”