"Spike." Coop clapped Harry on the back.

4.

In one of those weather shifts so common in the mountains, the next few days witnessed temperatures in the middle fifties. The sounds of running water, dripping water, and sloshing water filled everyone's ears as rivulets ran across state roads; thin streams crossed the low spots of meadows spilling into creeks; streams and rivers rose halfway to their banks, and were still rising.

The north faces of ravines held snow in their creva.s.ses, lakes of pristine snow trackless since animals avoided the deep drifts. Ice, turquoise blue, was frozen in cascades over rocks on the north face of outcroppings.

Fearing the onslaught of another sweep of Arctic air soon, farmers scrubbed and filled water troughs, suburban gardeners added another layer of mulch on spring bulbs, car dealers washed their inventory.

An early riser, Harry knocked out her farm ch.o.r.es, rode one horse and ponied the other two, climbed up on the ladder to sweep debris out of the barn gutters and the house gutters also.

Mrs. Murphy hunted mice in the hayloft, careful not to disturb Simon, the sleeping possum, the hibernating blacksnake, or the huge owl dozing in the cupola. Pickings were slim, since the owl s.n.a.t.c.hed everything up, so Simon ate grain from the tack room. However, neither the owl nor Murphy could eradicate the mice living in the walls between the tack room and the stalls. The mice would sit in their cozy home and sing just to torment the cat.

Pewter, not one to get her paws wet, reposed in the house, flopped on her back on the sofa. Tucker followed Harry, whom she considered her human mother, which meant her stomach was filthy but she too felt a great sense of accomplishment. She picked up the small twigs and branches which had fallen, dragging them over to the toolshed. Small though the corgi was, she could pull four times her weight.

She'd grab the fat end of a branch, plant her hind legs, jerk the weight up a bit, then backpedal. Her yard work always made Harry laugh.

By eleven Harry was ready to go to town this Sat.u.r.day. Fox-hunting was canceled since the rigs and vans would get stuck in the mud. Parking was always a problem on rainy or muddy days.

"Tucker, let's clean you up in the wash stall. You're not getting in the truck like that."

"I could sit in one spot. I won't move." Her ears drooped since she wasn't thrilled about a bath in any way, shape, or form. On the other hand she'd happily sit in a puddle, leap into the creek. But there was something about soap married to water that offended her canine sensibilities.

"Come on."

"Why don't you wash off Mrs. Murphy's paws, too?" A gleeful malicious note crept into Tucker's voice as she headed into the barn.

"I heard that, you twit." Murphy peeped over the side of the hayloft.

"Any luck?" Harry called to her beloved cat.

"No," came the growl.

"Slowing down, aren't you?" Tucker wanted to get a rise out of her friend. She was successful.

"I could smoke you any day, larda.s.s. Tailless wonder. Dog breath."

"Ha. Ha." Tucker refused to glance upward, which further infuriated the sleek, slightly egotistical cat.

"All right. If you won't stand I'm going to put you in the crossties," Harry warned the little dog.

Turning on the warm water, she hosed off Tucker's stomach, which now returned to its lovely white color.

Mrs. Murphy, keen to enjoy her friend's discomfort, hopped down from the hayloft to sit on the tack trunk in the aisle. "Cleanliness is next to G.o.dliness."

"You think you're so smart."

"Cats are smarter than dogs."

"That's what you say but it's not true. Cats don't save shipwrecked humans. Newfoundlands do that. Cats don't rescue people in avalanches. St. Bernards do that. Cats don't even herd cows or pull their weight in the fields. Corgis do that. So there."

"Right. I told you cats were smarter than dogs. Further proof: You'll never get eight cats to pull a sled in the snow." She hurriedly washed her paws since she didn't want Harry to think she could wash her down.

"You two are chatty." Harry finished with Tucker, cut the hose, then wiped her off with an old towel.

A frugal soul, Harry saved everything. She had a pile of old towels in a hanging basket in the aisle outside the washroom. She also kept old towels in the tack room and she even picked up worn-out towels from the country club, purchasing them for a few dollars. For one thing, she needed them, but for another, Harry couldn't abide waste. It seemed like a sin to her.

"Beauty basket." Murphy smiled slyly at Tucker.

"Thank you. I thought you'd never notice. If she's cleaning me up it means we're going somewhere. Wonder where?"

"Well, Augusta Co-op for feed, always high on Mom's list. Wal-Mart. A and N for jeans if she needs any. Oh, don't forget AutoZone. She'll pick up a case of motor oil, windshield-wiper fluid, oil filters. Then again she might go to James River Equipment to get oil and oil filters for the tractor. You know her. It won't be the jewelry store. She's the only woman I know who would like a new set of wrenches for Valentine's Day as opposed to earrings or even flowers."

Tucker laughed. "She loves flowers, though."

"She'll send Fair flowers." Murphy laughed because in most ways Harry was quite predictable, but then cats always knew humans better than humans knew cats.

"Let me look at you." Harry walked over to Mrs. Murphy, who didn't bother to run away from her. After all, if she did and made Harry mad, she wouldn't get to ride in the truck, and Murphy adored riding in the truck, lording it over lowly cars.

"Clean as a whistle."

Harry inspected each dark paw, the color of Mrs. Murphy's tiger stripes. "Pretty good there, p.u.s.s.ycat."

"Told you."

Harry picked up an animal under each arm, strode outside and put them inside the truck. No dirty paw marks on her seat covers. To haul her horse trailer, a year ago she'd bought a new dually, a one-ton truck with four wheels in the back for greater stability. She'd agonized for years over this decision, fretting over the financial drain, but it worked out okay because Fair helped a bit and she watched her pennies. But for everyday running about she used the tough old 1978 Ford, four-wheel drive, half ton. She'd bought cushy sheepskin covers for the bench seat as she'd worn out the original sheepskin covers.

When she closed the door, she thought about Pewter, then decided to let the cat sleep. True, Pewter would be grouchy on their return but she wanted to get rolling. Once a job was completed, Harry wanted to move on to the next one.

Her grandmother once said that Harry was "impatient of leisure," an apt description.

Once on the road they headed toward Crozet instead of going toward Route 64, which would take them to Waynesboro where Harry shopped. She avoided Charlottesville for the most part since it was so expensive.

"Bag Augusta Co-op." Murphy observed the sodden landscape.

Both animals were surprised when Harry turned down the long, tree-lined drive to Dalmally Farm, pa.s.sed the chaste yet still imposing main house, and continued on to a lovely cottage in the rear not far from the stables, so beautiful most people would be thrilled to live in them.

"Little Mim?" Tucker was incredulous.

Little Mim, Harry's age, was not an especially close friend of Harry's. Little Mim had attended an expensive private school whereas Harry, Susan Tucker, BoomBoom, Fair, and the gang all attended Crozet High School. Then, too, Little Mim had a chip on her shoulder, which Harry usually knocked off. One would not describe them as close friends under any circ.u.mstances. Over the years they had learned to tolerate one another, always civil in discourse as befit Virginians.

"Now don't get off the sidewalk or she won't allow you in the house. You hear?" Harry ordered.

"We hear."

Neither animal wanted to miss why Harry was calling on young Marilyn Sanburne.

Little Mim opened the door, greeted them all, seating Harry by the fireside. Her Brittany spaniel kissed Tucker, who didn't mind but felt the display of enthusiasm ought to be tempered. Murphy sat by the fireside.

"I'll get right to the point." Little Mim pushed over a bowl of candies toward Harry. "I'm going to run for mayor and I need your help."

"I didn't know your father was stepping down," Harry said innocently, for Jim Sanburne had been mayor of Crozet for almost thirty years. Jim was good at getting people together. Everyone said Mim had married beneath her when she selected Jim from her many beaus. She did, if money and cla.s.s were the issues. But Jim was a real man, not some fop who had inherited a bundle of money but no brains nor b.a.l.l.s. He worked hard, played hard, and was good for the town. His Achilles' heel proved to be women; but then men like Jim tend to attract more than their share. Mim used to hate him but over time they had worked things out. And she had to admit she'd married him on the rebound after a torrid affair with Dr. Larry Johnson back in the fifties. She'd had a breast cancer scare a few years back and that more than anything settled down Jim Sanburne.

"He's not," came Little Mim's blithe reply as she leaned back on her sofa.

"Uh, Marilyn, what's going on?"

"Crozet needs a change."

"I thought your dad was doing a great job."

"He has." She crossed one leg over the other. "But Dad wants to bring in more business and I think that's going to damage the town. We're doing fine. We don't need Diamond Mails."

"What's Diamond Mails?"

"Dad's trying to lure this big mail-order book club here from Hanover, Pennsylvania. You know those book clubs. There's all kinds of them: history, gardening, investing, best-seller clubs. He wants to build a huge warehouse out there just beyond the high school, where the abandoned apple-packing shed is, on the White Hall Road? The groves are still behind it-on that nasty curve."

"Sure. Everyone knows where it is."

"Well, that's where he wants them to relocate. He says he'll take the curve out of the road. The state will do it. Fat chance, I say, but Dad has friends in Richmond. Think about it. This monstrous ugly warehouse. About fifty to sixty jobs, which means sixty houses somewhere and worse, think of the mail. I mean, aren't you already on overload?"

"But they'll have their own shipping and mailing."

"Of course they will but the workers will go through you. Private mail."

"Well-that's true." Harry had just shoveled piles of Valentine's Day cards. A future with more canvas bags bursting with mail loomed in her imagination.

"It's time for our generation to make our contribution. You know everybody. People like you. I'd like your support."

"That's flattering." Harry's mind was spinning. She didn't want to offend Little Mim and she certainly didn't want to offend Mim's father, whom she liked. "This is an awful lot to think over. I'll need a little time. And I'm not crawfishing. I do want to think about it. Does your father know you plan to oppose him in the fall election?"

"Yes. He laughed at me and said there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip." Her face darkened. "And I said that's for sure and who knows what will happen between now and November."

"What's your mother say?"

"Oh." Marilyn's face brightened. "She said she was neutral. She wouldn't get in the middle of it. That was really good of her, and I didn't expect that."

"Yes." Harry thought Big Mim was taking the only sane course of action.

"The other thing is that Dad and Sam Mahanes plan to raise the money for a new wing on the hospital, which I don't oppose but I want to make sure nothing slips under the table, you know, no sneaky bond issue. If they want a new wing then they can raise the money privately. Larry Johnson agreed to head the drive. Dad talked him into it."

"You wouldn't by any chance know what's going down between Sam and Bruce Buxton, would you?"

"Budget." She clipped her words.

"You mean the hospital?"

"Bruce wants everything brand spanking new. Sam preaches fiscal responsibility. That's what Dad says."

"Well, I guess people will always fight over resources." Harry had seen enough of that.

"It's turned into a feud too because other doctors support Bruce but the nurses support Sam. They say they know how to work the older equipment, old IVAC units and stuff, and they don't want stuff that's so technologically advanced that they have to go back to school to use it."

"Larry Johnson will calm them down." Harry knew that Larry and Mim had had an affair but as it was long before she was born she paid little attention to it. He'd come back from the war to establish a practice. He was handsome, but Mim's mother had felt he wasn't rich enough or cla.s.sy enough for her daughter. She broke up the relationship and Mim had never forgiven herself for her cowardice. She should have defied her mother. Marrying Jim certainly was an act of defiance although too late for Larry, who had subsequently married a girl of his own cla.s.s. As it turned out, Jim Sanburne had a gift for making money in construction, which over time had somewhat mollified Mrs. Urquhart, Mim's mother. And over time, Jim and Larry had become friends.

"He certainly will," Little Mim agreed.

"Thanks for asking me over. I've got to run some errands. The feed truck couldn't get into the farm last week and Thursday's delivery day. So I'd better get odds and ends just in case we get clobbered again. February is such a b.i.t.c.h."

"Doing anything for Valentine's Day?"

"No. You?"

"Blair's in Argentina on a photo shoot. So no." She paused. "Do you know if Bruce Buxton is dating anyone?"

Harry, wisely, did not comment on what Marilyn perceived of as a romance and what Blair Bainbridge thought of as a growing friendship. At least, that's what Harry thought was her peripatetic neighbor's position regarding Little Mim. "I don't know much about Bruce other than that he comes in for his mail. He's a little bit moody-but I never see him with a woman. Too busy, I guess."

Little Marilyn stood up, as did Harry. "You can talk to anyone you like about my candidacy. It's not a secret and I'll make a formal announcement March first."

"Okay." Harry reached the door, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker behind her, and then she turned and stopped. "Hey, did you get a chain letter last week?"

"I probably did but I throw them in the trash after reading the first line. Why?"

"Your mother got one and it upset her."

"Why?"

"Just junk mail, but you know how those things predict dire consequences if you don't send out the money and pa.s.s them along."

"A tidal wave will engulf your home in Tempe, Arizona." A gleam of humor illuminated Little Mim's attractive face.

"Right, that sort of thing. Oh well. I'll see you." Harry opened the door as her cat and dog scampered for the truck.

A tidal wave wasn't about to engulf Tempe, Arizona, but the creeks were rising fast in Crozet.

As Harry headed toward Route 64, she noticed Deputy Cynthia Cooper on Route 250 heading in the opposite direction, siren blaring, lights flashing. Harry pulled off the two-lane road.

"Another wreck, I'll bet," Harry said to her pa.s.sengers.

"Pretty bad." Mrs. Murphy, sharp-eyed, had noticed how grim Coop looked.

It occurred to Harry, the way things usually occurred to Harry-meaning it just popped into her head-that she didn't know what an IVAC unit was.