“Well, what about religious killing? A Muslim fanatic kills Christians. He believes he’ll go to Allah and also be rewarded with sixty or seventy virgins. I forget the number.” Herb waved his cigar.
“One would be enough.” Tavener laughed, as did the other men.
“All that responsibility!” Fair tapped ash into one of the large crystal ashtrays.
“Women are a responsibility whether virgin or slightly used.” Tavener noticed the last rays of the sun washing the stable and outbuildings. “A woman can send you to heaven or consign you to hell.”
“I wouldn’t trade one minute of my life with my wife.” Herb said this with feeling. His wife had succumbed to cancer a few years ago.
“I agree. I could kill Mim sometimes, but she made a man out of me,” Jim said.
“Maybe you’ll find someone again, Herb,” Fair simply stated.
“Maybe,” Herb said noncommittally. “But I think Blair’s—well, Blair, you tell us.”
The men focused on the handsome model.
He stammered a moment, then surprised even himself with his firm reply. “Any man who could spend a lifetime with Little Mim would be a lucky man.” He call Marilyn by her nickname, as did everyone.
“Indeed.” Fair seconded this, as did the other men.
“She’s spoiled.” Her father smiled. “My fault.”
“It’s hard not to spoil a daughter.” Bill Langston shrugged. “Just an observation. Hope I have a daughter someday.”
“I’ll do my best to spoil Marilyn even more.” Blair smiled, a genuine one.
As Blair had not yet asked for Marilyn’s hand in marriage, this declaration surely meant the time would be forthcoming.
Fair stepped in to save Blair an embarrassing question in case one of the gentlemen forgot himself. “You know I feel the same way about Harry. I sinned. I repented. I need you all to help me win her back, all the way back.”
“Ah.” Herb again closed his eyes from the pleasure of his cigar, then opened them wide. “The way to win back your ex-wife is to work with her on the farm. Other women are wooed by words and flowers, but Harry is wooed by work and, well, I suppose a few flowers wouldn’t hurt.”
“Do you really think so?” asked Bill Langston, new to the community as Hayden McIntire’s new partner in family practice.
“Known her since she was born.” Herb nodded.
“As have I,” Jim said.
“And I.” Tavener nodded, as well.
“Herb’s right. Work is the way to Harry’s heart.”
“I think I knew that.” Fair, too, noticed the incredibly beautiful gold and scarlet light. “But I’m working morning, noon, and night.”
“It’s time for you to take a business partner. I mean that.” Jim held up his hand to silence Fair, who had started to speak. “The money. I know. And for the first year you will make less money, perhaps. But, Fair, you’re killing yourself. If you took on one or two partners you could expand your practice beyond equine reproduction. All these new people that we’ve been talking about at dinner come here and, what’s the first thing they want, a horse. There are only so many vets to go around, and you and Tavener are so specialized and at the top of your professions that you’re going to miss the wave. What do you think, Tav?”
“You’re one hundred percent right. I’m close to retirement or I’d follow your advice.”
“I’ve heard the retirement speech before.” Fair smiled.
“Well, I mean it.” Tavener reached for his glass of port.
“Fair, come talk to me,” Jim advised.
“I will.”
Jim stood up as the ladies were walking toward them. “Ladies, we need some uplift here.”
Tally sassed, “Buy a bra.”
Big Mim rolled her eyes as everyone giggled.
“Does he ever rest?” Tazio asked Big Mim, as she watched Paul de Silva walk out into a paddock to check on a mare and foal.
“My beloved niece is a slave driver.” Tally said this without a scrap of self-consciousness.
“We’re here!” all the dogs shouted as they raced around the lawn.
“I am not a slave driver. Paul loves his work.” Big Mim turned to Tazio. “Would you be interested in designing a stable, or is that too small a commission?”
“I’d love to work with you,” Tazio replied. “I need to study equine behavior, though. I’m not a horsewoman.”
“Well, that’s fine.” Big Mim smiled.
“I’ll walk you down to Paul. Why not start right now? I know some of what Mother wants, and Paul knows the rest.” Little Mim was anxious to escape her mother’s grasp.
Brinkley happily tagged along with Tazio, his sun and moon.
Herb winked at Harry, which meant he had something to tell her and would at the first opportunity. He wanted to tell her what Blair had said. Perhaps the old farm could be purchased from Blair.
A few moments passed, then they heard one shot from behind the stables. The dogs started barking.
“Tucker, stay here,” Harry commanded.
“I will, but I think you’re being mean.” Tucker resigned herself.
Little Mim and Tazio hurried up over the pastures and onto the lawn, Brinkley running alongside.
“Fair and Tavener, we need you!” Little Mim was flushed.
“What’s going on?” Big Mim stood up.
Tazio breathlessly replied, “Paul shot a raccoon. He thinks it was rabid.”
15
Fair had taken charge of the carcass, immediately returning to his clinic, where he removed the head and packed it in a plastic container of dry ice to ship out to Richmond in the morning. Then he called the home of the state veterinarian, a man he liked, Dr. Bruce Akey, informing him the raccoon head would be arriving tomorrow afternoon.
All that was needed was the head, since only brain tissue would be tested. But to satisfy himself, Fair pulled blood. As he hadn’t observed the raccoon, he wasn’t going to jump to conclusions. The animal could have been suffering from other maladies. Distemper can also produce strange behavior before the suffering creature dies. An animal becomes disoriented or, in the case of a wild animal, lethargic, no longer frightened of humans.
Harry, latex gloves on, had been in the operating room with her ex. She hung up her lab coat while Fair was on the phone with Bruce.
She walked into the office as he hung up. “Well, it will be all over Crozet by the morning that we have a rabies epidemic, whether we do or don’t.”
“I know.” He glanced down at Tucker, whose metallic rabies tag was fastened to her rolled leather collar. “What do you think, Sugar?”
“Glad I’ve got my vaccination.”
“Think we could be seeing a surge in the disease?” Harry asked.
“We could. My experience is, rabies goes in cycles coming down from the north. Starts in Canada, moves into New York State, and about three years later it’s here.”
“Guess there’s nothing the Canadian government can do about it with all that wildlife.”
“And think how long our border is with Canada.” Fair stooped down to scratch Tucker’s ears. “Even if you put a ranger every hundred yards, the animals would still run through them. No, the only answer is a pill form of the vaccine.”
“How do you know wild animals will take their pills?”
“If we had access to a pill and could afford it, we could put out thousands and thousands of pills in the various foods.” He thought some more. “Corn; so many animals eat corn. And for the obligate carnivores I suppose we could grind up hamburger. It’s a start.”
“You always have good ideas.” She smiled up at him, then checked her watch, an old Bulova that had been her father’s. “Later than I think!”
“Remember how your mother used to say that time moved faster as she got older? It’s the truth.”
“I know. Kind of scares me.”