Furmidable Foes

by Rita Mae Brown

Susan rose, too. Too much time on her knees had finally gotten to her.

  Harry called out to the two other members of the Dorcas Guild, the main ladies group, “We’re about finished here. Going over to the grave at the red oak. How you two doing?”

  Janice Childs, tall, well groomed, wearing a gardener’s apron over her summery dress, called back. “Meet you there.”

  Mags Nielsen, on the high end of that quad, hollered down, “Me, too.”

  Harry and Susan walked to the red oak on the western side of the quad, which contained the graveyard.

  “What are you doing?” she hollered to Pirate, her Irish wolfhound, huge, over a year and a half now but still a giant puppy.

  “Stop running,” Tucker, the corgi, ordered the big fellow.

  Pirate did that. “I wasn’t near one tulip. I was not digging. I was stretching.”

  “Make her happy. Do what she asks.”

  “Weenies.” Pewter, the fat gray cat, sauntered by, tulip in her mouth.

  Mrs. Murphy, the tiger cat, now trotting alongside the three other animals, said, “Pewter, drop the tulip. She hasn’t noticed it. She’ll be one step ahead of a running fit if she does.”

  “Bother.” But Pewter dropped the yellow tulip.

  One lone grave with a modest engraved marker rested under the tall red oak, leaves murmuring in the breeze.

  On the headstone engraved in simple roman bold was the inscription UNKNOWN WOMAN, DIED 1786. REST IN PEACE.

  Underneath this an “α” and an “Ω” had been engraved, alpha and omega, beginning and end. Since this corpse, or really just her bones, had been discovered on top of the caskets for the Taylors, in November 2016 she could not be identified. Dating the bones revealed she had been a woman, but the absolute fortune in pearls—seemingly the size of pigeon’s eggs, diamonds between each pearl, long enough for three long strands that had been found with her—bespoke gender as well as enormous wealth, riches beyond imagining. A pair of earrings to match along with pieces of a silk dress in an expensive mustard yellow were all that remained.

  This was sent to the medical examiner’s office, the jewelry deposited in the large secure safe at St. Luke’s.

  Naturally, the pearls and diamonds provoked a discussion about whether or not there had been drag queens in America in the late eighteenth century. For some reason modern-day individuals contest the obvious. There were bones that could tell the tale. What if this had been a man?

  Unable to resist, Harry had said, “Of course. There were drag queens in fifth-century B.C. Athens.”

  To which Janice Childs, well educated, now walking to the grave, had replied, “Yes, but they were on the stage.”

  That conversation, begun over a year ago, remained unresurrected, unlike its cause. The real shock came from finding out that these bones belonged to an African American woman more than likely in her thirties. She had been healthy, murdered, her body hidden using what was then a fresh grave, the only grave. She was killed by a physically powerful person, most likely a man, and, given that men, rich or poor, usually worked hard, most men could have snapped her neck.

  The mystery of who she was and who had killed her remained a mystery. But the Very Reverend Herbert Jones felt that, whoever she was, she deserved a Christian burial. Not being a parishioner of St. Luke’s, she couldn’t be buried in the graveyard, so this lovely spot under the red oak became her final home. A small gathering assembled for the service for the Burial of the Dead on April 2, 2018. She’d been found in November 2016. The time lag reflected all the work at the medical examiner’s office, fascinated as they were, plus the legal details that needed to be settled before she could be laid in the ground again. Susan’s husband, Ned, and Fair, Harry’s husband, built a simple pine box, reflective of her time if not her position. Had she been a member of St. Luke’s, her passing would have been noted in the meticulous records. Nothing about her appeared in the county records either.

  Janice, Mags, Susan, and Harry looked down at her tidy grave, which Harry tended. The cats and dogs sat nearby but not on the grave.

  “I was thinking about adding something a bit more here. I don’t know. Shrubs are easiest.” Harry glanced up at the downy woodpecker in the red oak looking down.

  “Whatever it is, it needs to be of the time,” Mags announced.

  Susan replied, “Given all that’s around us, Mags, all those gardens in their original state from Monticello and Montpelier and Williamsburg, I think I have a good idea.”

  “Don’t you think the peonies are a bit showy? I mean, she doesn’t need a peony.” Mags, who spent money like water, feigned restraint, at least in plantings.

  Harry bit her tongue, for she had fought for those peonies. Lutherans shy away from too much show, and peonies are the trumpets of the floral world. Then again, weren’t the stained glass windows showy? She’d finally won her battle and didn’t feel like fighting it all over again.

  As it was, she placed the peonies in the back along the quads, not in the front of the church grounds. There she planted more boxwoods, to augment those originally planted, and thousands of white lilies between the buildings, behind the arcades, as a backdrop for the stunning magenta peonies edging those small grass swaths between the buildings.

  “Actually, peonies became a big deal in English gardens, in Europe, in the early 1800s but we had them here,” Harry said, quietly.

  Susan, having lived through the peony palavers, mentioned, “They are native to the Northern Hemisphere. We had them here as well as in Canada.”

  Janice, not to be outdone, had studied peonies when all this came before the Dorcas Guild. Being a staunch Lutheran, she, too, felt uneasy with too much splash. This did not prevent her from driving an expensive Audi A6. However, this was her only concession to the booming success of her brewery business with Mags, her partner.

  “Of course, but this peony was introduced to Britain from the Mediterranean in 1548. Something more discrete perhaps.”

  “Woody peonies?” Harry posited.

  Susan, seeing the exchanged glances between Janice and Mags, quickly said, “We can’t go wrong with white azaleas. A shrub is not as much work as flowers. What if we plant three white azaleas behind her headstone?”

  Harry jumped on the suggestion. “Lovely. Discrete.”

  “I agree.” Mags smiled, feeling she’d gotten her way, as Janice nodded.

  “I’ll take care of it. Thank you two for coming today and getting the early weeds.” Harry was grateful.

  “St. Luke’s must be perfect for homecoming on June second. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea—sorry, Harry—but now I see so many people have responded and truly are coming home. You were right,” Janice confessed, then added, “And it is Reverend Jones’s eightieth birthday. Aren’t you amazed that no one has spilled the beans about the party?”

  “Yes.” Harry hoped the secret would hold. Then she looked down, realizing she was looking at a secret that had held for 243 years.

  Pewter wandered off a bit, then leapt in the air, a grasshopper between her paws. “I have a dangerous grasshopper.”

  “Are grasshoppers dangerous?” the sweet Irish wolfhound wondered.

  “Only if they darken the sky,” Tucker answered.

  “He spit on me!” Pewter complained.

  “Spit, spit, tobacco juice and then I’ll let you go.” Mrs. Murphy chanted the old promise to the bug.

  Pewter opened her paws, and the grasshopper flew to freedom.

  “Well, off to pick up Kevin,” Mags said. “Car’s in the shop.”

  “That new Range Rover?” Harry asked.

  “Don’t get me started.” Mags grimaced.

  The four stood there a moment looking at the grave, the red oak behind it, big denuded gum tree to the left, which at some point would need to come down.

  “I think of h
er as a lost soul,” Janice said, staring at the modest tombstone.

  “And I think there will be the Devil to pay,” Mags replied.

  “You know, given that broken neck, I think the Devil already has been paid,” Harry thought out loud.

  “Let’s hope so. It’s a centuries-old murder but it’s still murder.” Janice turned but continued. “Somewhere, someone knows.”

  The two friends walked toward the parking lot up by the church. Harry and Susan stood a moment.

  Harry looked up at the red oak and then to the gum tree. “Mother used to say that even a dead tree casts a shadow.”

  The slight breeze, sun behind the gum tree, and a shadow was cast over the grave.

  Mother was right.

  2

  May 23, 2019

  Thursday

  Fair Haristeen, DVM, drove his Ford dually vet truck down the winding farm road, parking it next to Harry’s beloved 1978 Ford half-ton. The blue on the old truck shone now, iridescent, while the silver siding surrounded by a thin bit of chrome had translucent spots that reflected the light.

  Fair was worn out as this was foal delivery season for all non-Thoroughbreds and his specialty was equine reproduction. He sighed and eased his six-foot, five-inch frame down from the comfortable leather seats. As he did so, he glanced in the back of the old Ford.

  “Honey,” Fair called out as he opened the kitchen door.

  “Hey. I know you’re tired. Your drink is on the table and I’m making Mother’s famous potpie. Will snap you right back.”

  Smiling, he dropped into a chair. “Your mother was a good cook. I often wish she could have lived to see us marry. Dad, too.”

  “Fate,” Harry, not one to show emotion, responded.

  Her parents were killed in a car accident her last year at Smith College. There wasn’t a day since then, and she would be forty-three in August, or was it forty-four? Funny how one fudges the years and then forgets. Wasn’t a day she didn’t think about them.

  Both Harry and Fair had been raised by upright people. Fair’s parents had passed away in these last years. His father had been a radiologist and his mother ran a nonprofit organization for the hospital to raise money for those who couldn’t pay the bills. Medical costs have never been cheap, no matter the century. But both husband and wife had been raised with discipline, high expectations, and love.

  “How was your day?”

  He sipped his restorative scotch, three ice cubes. “Good. Two deliveries. Easy. Healthy foals. Then one of Mim’s youngsters bowed a tendon racing around the field. Low bow.”

  He cited the location as a low bow, a tendon injury, proved less troublesome than a high bow, but one could always see the scar tissue.

  “How is the Queen of Crozet?” Harry asked.

  “Good. She’s worried about her aunt Tally, who is becoming quite frail.”

  “Given that she is, what, a hundred and five, or close to it, she will eventually leave us.”

  “I don’t know.” He laughed. “Aunt Tally is tough. Years ago I treated an old mare, a Thoroughbred, and she made it to thirty-nine.”

  “Wow. I know some ponies make it into their forties.”

  “Funny. Old age.”

  “Mine starts next Tuesday.”

  “Honey, you will never be old, no matter what the calendar says. How are the arrangements for Reverend Jones’s birthday going?”

  “Food’s ordered. We’ve rounded up enough tables and chairs. The Dorcas Guild bought table covers, multicolored napkins, plastic cups with the date on it. And what has the St. Peter’s Guild done?”

  “Prizes. A raffle. Games for the kids, plus we’re paying for the food.” He paused, took another sip. “Your truck is blossoming.”

  “The small peonies I bought for us. The azaleas are for the unknown’s grave. I am determined that the homecoming will be a horticultural display”—she paused—“as much as it can be.”

  “You’ll succeed.” He rose and turned on the TV, a large flat-screen on one wall of the kitchen.

  Fair’s excuse for the prominent placement was that he needed to see the weather every morning. Easier to see the radar on a big screen.

  Harry, who paid little attention to any media, knew better than to protest. Whenever a man buys a piece of equipment, whether a backhoe or a large TV, his reason is always how useful it will be, how much money will be saved in the long run. No man will ever admit to frivolity. To Fair’s credit, if Harry wanted to re-cover an old chair, he didn’t complain, even when she doubted he thought it necessary.

  The large farm shed housed one huge John Deere tractor, a smaller 50 HP tractor, implements everywhere, more stuff hanging on the walls, everything clean. Granted she used it more than he did, but he bought every single thing in that shed that she had not inherited. And his purchases were useful, although initially expensive.

  “Hey, honey, look.”

  Harry did as instructed. “That’s Mags and Janice’s brewery and restaurant. Turn it up a bit.”

  Fair clicked up the volume. A brewery delivery truck had been pilfered at Bottoms Up, the brewery. All cartons were missing. The theft was assumed to have happened in the night. The brewery itself had not been broken into.

  “Beer must be worth more than the money in the cash register,” Fair mused.

  “Having someone want your beer that badly is a good advertisement.” Harry took the remote from him, turning down the sound. “Bet the girls are upset. It’s funny—their husbands thought the whole idea a middle-aged-crisis thing when they got started but they gave in, ponied up the start-up money. What was it, three years ago? And look how successful they’ve been.” She thought a moment. “I’ll call them tomorrow. Too much chaos now.”

  “They’re intelligent people. Kevin has made a success of his nursery business. Mother Nature is a tough business partner.” Harry spoke from deep experience as a farmer. “And Janice’s husband certainly is successful as a stockbroker. I don’t know how anyone can call the market trends, but he does.”

  “Why is it that so many women want to start a business in their middle years?” Fair’s eyebrows rose.

  “It’s the first time they’re free. His business is established. The kids are out of the house. The mom’s no longer a taxi service, and by middle age you’ve lost a few friends. You wake up.”

  “I never thought of it like that,” Fair honestly replied.

  “Men don’t.” Harry playfully pretended to slap his cheek. “You can count your lucky stars that I’ve always had a job.”

  “You mean besides me?” he teased.

  “You’re not a job. You’re an angel.”

  He looked up at her, leaning over the table, stood up to give her a big kiss. “You always surprise me.”

  “I try.” She kissed him back as he sank into his seat again.

  “Potpie will be ready in a minute. You’re really tired. People don’t realize how physical a vet’s job can be.”

  “Some days. Other days it’s easy.” He glanced at the TV. “Now there’s a wreck. Box truck carrying beer turned over and look at the cartons and broken bottles. I’m surprised people aren’t out there with straws.” He turned up the sound. “Booze is big business. Look at that mess.”

  “Booze, prostitution, drugs. Big money. Look at the cars backed up on 64 because of the accident.”

  A pileup on I-64, the main east-west corridor through the middle of the country, filled the screen. As 64 started in the southeast corner of Virginia, the traffic flowed heavily and fast. Someone was always smashing another vehicle or going off the road. Perhaps the interstates were a mixed blessing, although no one who lived before President Eisenhower had them built thought that—nothing mixed about it.

  “Why would anyone steal specially brewed beer?” Harry wondered. “Or illegally brewed liquor
?”

  “Harry, I’m sure they can sell the stuff for three times as much in New York City.” He smiled slightly. “Probably only Bottoms Up’s truck was pilfered.”

  “How about the craze for hard cider?” he then added. “Ten years ago there was only one distillery. You couldn’t give it away.”

  “Fads. But I give all these brewers credit, legal or illegal. Nothing like the water running off the Blue Ridge Mountains.” She changed the subject. “Before I forget, is your tuxedo clean?”

  “It is.”

  “Remember we have to go to that big fundraiser Saturday night for AHIP. I expect the whole county will be there, including the sick, the lame, and the halt.” She used the old expression her grandfather used to use, a pipe, full of fragrant tobacco, jutting out from his jaw.

  AHIP built houses for the needy, and renewed others. The “A” stood for Albemarle, the county. Albemarle Housing Improvement Program. In truth, the state needed to fund, really fund, such organizations in each county. Virginia, like all other states, had poverty, much of it hidden.

  “If you see Bottoms Up beer, be suspicious.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “With the explosion of breweries in Albemarle and Nelson Counties, if the organizers had picked one, war. Death.” He laughed.

  3

  November 14, 1787

  Wednesday

  “God put that woman on earth to punish me!” Ewing Garth held his arms back while his butler, Roger, removed his elegant, tightly woven wool coat.

  Ewing then unwound his scarf, his gloves already in the pockets. The coat from London demonstrated why London was the center of male fashion. If any American brought up Paris, the listener sniffed. Paris did not impress English-speaking people as being worth imitating for men’s furnishings. Even if we did go to war against them, Ewing had rejoiced when all was over and he could once again order gentlemen’s haberdashery and much else.

  Roger, twinkle in his eye, replied, “To punish us all.”

  Ewing slapped Roger on the back. The two, children together on Cloverfields Estate, knew each other inside and out. One owned the place after his father passed, the other, enslaved, had become the butler. Roger possessed a rare understanding of power, place, and intelligence, and had even at eight years old. He proved invaluable to Ewing, who recognized his virtues. It never occurred to Ewing that Roger, whom he owned, might prefer another life. Roger kept his thoughts to himself.