“I don’t know, Harry. How many ways can you frighten or outrage people so they will kill you?”
“Maybe more than I’d like to consider,” Harry somberly replied as the rain splattered the windshield.
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Harry, animals in tow, turned left into a big development, Old Trail. The first row of commercial buildings matched the homes not in size but in style. Nice balconies jutted out on top of the two-story buildings. She parked in front of a mint-green clapboard-frame building. The rain intensified.
They sat.
“I can’t leave you until the rain slows a little,” Harry announced to her friends, not that they cared. They were happy to be on a ride with her.
Pewter settled down in the leather seat. “She could leave us. Just keep the air-conditioning on.”
“If she keeps the engine running, someone can steal the Volvo,” Tucker said.
“Who would steal a car or wagon? When is the last time a car was stolen in our county?” Pewter huffed for a moment.
“True, but if someone did steal this, we’d be in the wagon,” Mrs. Murphy explained.
“There is that,” the gray cat agreed. “But tell me this, all these new cars have every screen, knob, push-button whatever. So why can’t they build a car that you can turn off the motor, leave, but keep the air-conditioning running?”
“Too expensive to figure out,” Mrs. Murphy replied.
“It seems like everyone everywhere is mired in debt. Aren’t you glad we don’t have to worry about money?” Tucker breathed relief.
“We don’t have bank accounts.” Mrs. Murphy said the obvious.
“I would never go into debt.” Pewter puffed out her gray chest.
Neither Mrs. Murphy nor Tucker would touch that one. A long silence followed.
“You all were chatty,” Harry remarked. “Now cat got your tongue?”
“Ha.” Pewter stuck out her tongue.
For a split second, it occurred to Harry that her cat had understood her. Then she discounted it.
The rain continued, softly now. Harry cracked the windows a bit.
“Not one drop.” Pewter gave her the evil eye. “Not one drop on my fur.”
“I won’t be long, but if it starts to rain harder, I’ll come out and we’ll go home. I can always come back here later.”
Pewter disbelieved the promise, knowing how Harry could become embroiled in conversation. “That’s what she says now.”
Pushing open the clapboard-frame building’s white-painted wooden door, Harry stepped into a pleasant waiting room, framed posters on the wall: Toulouse-Lautrec, World War I recruiting posters, shipping posters, airline posters from the forties, color stills of the company’s video work, all dramatic, colorful.
An attractive woman, early forties at the most, came out of her office.
“Hello, I’m Mary Minor Haristeen, Harry. I called earlier about revamping my farm website.”
“Yes, of course. Rae Tait. Sit down here. I’ll show you some of our work on the big screen.” She wasted no time pointing to a chair, upholstered in dark beige.
“When I called, I didn’t think you’d work this fast.”
“Well, Mrs. Haristeen, your project intrigued me. Sunflowers. Hay. Organic farming is becoming good business. You need to look at a few sites first. I hope we’re the firm for you, but, well, see for yourself.”
Rae sat down by a long keyboard, much like a director’s board in television, pushed switches, popped in a DVD. “This was for women’s crew at UVA. You see a bit of a practice, the boathouse, then you see everyone traveling to the nationals. Action. Action is always preferable to talking heads.”
“It is, and please call me Harry.”
“If you call me Rae. Okay, this one is for Harkaway Stud. I needed help because I don’t know much about horses. I looked at the websites for the big studs in Lexington, gorgeous work, but they have big bucks to spend. Harkaway, just getting off the ground, did not.”
The DVD played out, horses seen on the tracks are then viewed walking in the paddock once at stud and finally standing still so the viewer can closely examine conformation.
“That’s Justin doing the narration. Good voice,” Harry remarked.
“All you horse people know one another.” Rae smiled. “I learned that. And I learned a person needs to know a great deal to be successful in the equine industry. Huge in our state.”
“And even then, Rae, something like a rise in gasoline prices can really hurt you. Remember, the mares have to be vanned to the stallion, which usually stands in Kentucky, New York, Maryland, West Virginia, even Florida.”
“Never thought of that. Okay, here’s one that called for a lot of thought.”
The DVD opened with Edward Holloway Cunningham talking to an African American couple in front of their tidy brick house. The voice-over filled viewers in on rising taxes yet lowered services. There was a shot of Cunningham walking on UVA’s lawn, the Rotunda in the background. Other images showed a dynamic young man shaking hands, talking to all kinds of people, mothers pushing strollers, a garage mechanic, a farmer. Cut to his grandfather sitting at his library at a large desk, poring over law books. The voice tells how he often asks the old man for advice. Finally, there’s a picture of all the Holloways: the ex-governor; his wife, Penny; his two daughters: Eddie’s mother standing to his right, Millicent Grimstead, Sam’s other daughter; Eddie’s wife, Chris, is next to him. In front of the candidate stand two children, a boy of about six and a little girl, maybe four. Adorable, of course. The images, the flow, were good. The script was what one would expect. Eddie wanted an easy-to-access website, the old one now outdated. He attacked his rival as a spendthrift while concentrating on his tightfisted monetary policies. He vowed to shrink government, fight for workforce, not welfare, and to combat the delusional left, as he called them, every step of the way. The website would be constantly updated, too. This was a plum assignment for Crozet Media.
“He certainly has the advantage of name recognition,” said Harry.
“Yes, he does, but with his grandfather’s illness, Edward felt it was imperative to get good footage of the two of them together.” Rae put in another DVD. “Some of these images will fold into Edward’s website. We’re still sifting through them. We don’t want to overdo the family connection.”
A terrific shot of Governor Holloway in his World War II Navy uniform, followed by a photo of him taking the oath of office to be governor, followed by a final picture of the old man walking upright, hair gleaming silver, looking up over the horizon.
“Very dignified.” Harry admired it.
“Good. I’m glad you like it. Crozet Media, us, had access to the old photos when we shot Edward’s footage. I’m being blunt, but Edward—indeed, most men running for office these days—have no military service record. He’s leaning on his grandfather’s heroics pretty hard.” She then changed subject. “As you have seen, we’ve created websites for a variety of clients.”
Harry smiled. “I liked what I saw. Each website is individual, tailored to the task or the company. I guess for me you want shots of the crops. The sunflowers are dramatic.”
“Raindrops on plump grapes,” Rae continued. “I assume you have horses, a shot of them in the field.”
“But I’m not selling them.”
“Harry, this is Virginia. Anything with a horse in it gets attention. We’ll do a storyboard. Easier to make changes. We are very efficient. How does that sound?”
“And when this website is done, you can cross-reference to other sites where there might be an interest? I’m not conversant with all the new technologies.”
“I can. Each of those videos you watched has a presence or an ad on other Web formats. You reach an amazing amount of customers. It’s an inexpensive form of advertising, compared to traditional advertising, which is through the roof.”
“Can I stop anywhere in the process?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Who
writes the copy?”
“Usually I do, but you can do it or help me. You know your farm better than anyone. There’s a lot of information and territory to cover.”
“How much will this cost?”
“Tell you what, I’ll ballpark it at two thousand dollars, but I can be much more accurate once we shoot. I’ll break it down by hour. If we go over the time limit, we’ll stop or keep going. Up to you.”
“Want to come by next Wednesday?”
Rae walked into her office, brought out her diary as well as her cellphone containing her schedule on it. “Wednesday I’m shooting at Keswick Club. What about Thursday?”
“That day doesn’t work for me. What about Friday?”
Rae nodded. “Perfect.” She looked up into Harry’s eyes. “Don’t you wonder when you schedule what happens to your time?”
Harry laughed. “We’re all overcommitted.”
“I don’t know how people with children do it.” As Harry stood up, Rae extended her hand. “I look forward to this.”
“I do, too. Before I go, where did you go to college?”
“Savannah School of Art and Design.”
“Ah.” Harry grinned, opened the door to heavier rain. “The best.”
She slid in the driver’s seat, wet on the left side, but it wasn’t terrible.
“I could have drowned.” Pewter wailed, quite dry sprawled out in the back.
“A raindrop fell on the tip of her tail. It’s too terrible for words,” Tucker solemnly intoned.
Whap!
“Ouch.”
“Pewter, let’s go back up front.” Mrs. Murphy hustled the fatty forward before a real fight broke out.
Once in the passenger seat, the tiger next to her, Pewter squinted at Harry, who started the motor, shut the windows. “Nobody has any idea how much I suffer.”
Tuesday, September 14, 1784
Bent over his drafting table, Charles West squinted, moving the T square farther up the page. Karl Ix had built him a table to his exact specifications. It raised and lowered, plus the flat surface would tilt.
Piglet snored under the table.
A rumble of not-too-distant thunder awakened the dog. Charles walked over to the handblown glass window, four rows of panes horizontally, six vertically. He needed lots of light. Having seen Mr. Jefferson’s windows, which doubled as doors when slid upward, he had copied the design, somehow managing to pay for the considerable expense.
“Those are boiling black clouds,” Charles said out loud.
Thunder cracked again, closer.
“Staying inside is a good idea,” the corgi advised.
Although the sun had not yet set, a pitch-black sky had blotted out the late-afternoon light.
Peering out the window of his and Rachel’s tidy house, he looked south toward the main house built on a soft rise and saw candles moving from room to room in Ewing’s house.
“Piglet, storms do pass over England, but here in the summer it’s almost every day, or so it seems to me. This one”—he paused, whistled low, which made Piglet bark—“is flying, just flying, toward us.” No sooner had he said that than the west wind picked up, trees bent toward the east, their leaves fluttering like supplicants.
Although she had been working with her father, Charles worried about Rachel. He lit a candle, carrying it in a curving brass candleholder to each downstairs room facing west.
“Dammit.” The house was a simple four-over-four with a wide center hall. He put the candle on the hall table, placing a hurricane glass over it. He opened the front door and rushed outside from window to window, flicking the shutter holders, wrought-iron S’s resting on their sides, to an upright position. Closing the shutters, he dropped each small wrought-iron S.
“Come on, Piglet.” He hurried back in the house, bounding up the stairs two at a time. This proved more difficult as the wind now smacked the house. He lifted up a window, leaned out to pull a shutter closed. Fortunately, the wind pressed the shutter against the house so he could pull the other one shut, fastening them together from the inside with a wrought-iron bar that was longer than the S’s downstairs and inside the shutters.
There were only two rooms upstairs on the west side, but by the time he reached the second one and opened the window, the wind had blown the coverlet off the bed. Reaching out as far as he dared, he flipped one dark green shutter shut. The other one began banging against the house. He leaned out farther while Piglet grabbed his breeches, bracing himself.
The shutter flapped back with a bang. Got it.
Soaked in the front, Charles reached down to pat his friend. “What would I do without you?”
“True,” replied the sturdy but small dog.
Their bedroom, on the east side, seemed safe. The west side of the house felt as though a giant was slapping it with his open hand.
Charles peeled off his sopping shirt, hung it over the banister. Both man and dog thumped down the stairs.
Once in the kitchen, which ran the length of half the house, he opened drawers and found a dish towel. Wiping his chest made the soft red-gold hair stand up.
Back to the hallway, he picked up the candle, retreating to the main room where they would entertain visitors. Slumping in a chair, he listened to the wind.
“Come on.” He patted his thigh and Piglet without too much effort leapt up as Charles grabbed the fellow under the armpits.
The house shook.
—
While those two huddled together, Catherine, Jeddie, and John stayed in the main barn. Jeddie and the young boys he was training brought all the horses in when they perceived the temperature dropping, the black clouds rolling up behind the mountains. All the broodmares were safe and sound, in their special barn, nickered. They didn’t like the storm, but they were safe.
Catherine visited each horse in the main barn, offering a handful of oats. Some took them, some didn’t, but not one thrashed around in his stall or made a fuss.
A gust of wind shot down the center aisle. Cleaning rags blew around. In their hurry to bring in the horses, the boys threw rags over the stall doors, all of which had Dutch doors inside and out. The outside doors were shut.
John slid down the ladder from the hayloft, his hands and feet on the outside. He’d closed the hayloft doors, open to ventilate the hay and the barn.
“Black as the Devil’s eyebrows,” he remarked to his wife and Jeddie, standing with Reynaldo.
“I didn’t know anything was coming until I heard that horrible thunder.” Catherine felt another mighty gust of wind. She headed for the doors facing northwest. John sprinted ahead of her, as did Jeddie. The men pulled the massive doors shut, leaving the ones on the other end open.
“No point standing here in the aisle,” she said. “We can sit in the tack room.” A moan of wind overhead caused her to look upward.
Jeddie shook his head. “An evil spirit.”
Catherine walked into the room and little Tulli, one of the small stable boys who was learning to identify the different kind of bits, was shaking.
“I don’t want to see no dead people,” he stuttered.
Jeddie tried to reassure him. “Oh, I was just talking ’bout spirits.”
Catherine sat next to little Tulli, kicking her legs straight out to stabilize the old stool. She put an arm around him, rocked him.
John Schuyler smiled at his wife, realizing what a good mother she would be, how she loved children and animals.
“Tulli, don’t worry yourself about spirits. You are surrounded by good spirits. You can’t see them, but they’ll protect you.”
Jeddie picked up a bridle, a simple snaffle bit. “I always like what you say, Miss Catherine, about how any bit is cruel in the wrong hands. I’m trying to teach Tulli soft hands. He rides Sweet Potato.”
“I’ve seen him.”
Sweet Potato was a pony, and like most ponies, highly opinionated and smart.
Another blast of wind, branches creaking, quieted them.
&n
bsp; Tulli started shaking again. Catherine pulled him closer.
“Do you remember your poppa?” she asked.
“A little. I remember he could juggle horseshoes,” the child said.
His father had died when Tulli was five. The man was cutting firewood for his family. When he didn’t come in the cabin, Georgia, his wife, walked out to see why he was taking so long. He laid on the ground, on his side. No one knew what took him away, but Georgia comforted herself and her two boys by telling them he didn’t suffer and God needed a strong man to fix things in heaven.
Tulli thought there was plenty to fix at the cabin, but even then he had sense enough to keep his mouth shut.
—
At the big house, Ewing and Rachel put away his papers when the storm started. It was too dark to read, anyway. Rachel liked helping her father. She listened closely to him when he spoke of buying land. Catherine did, too, but she was more interested in her father’s multiplying business holdings: tobacco, hemp, corn, buildings by a landing on the James River in Scottsville, properties on the Atlantic down in North Carolina. Rachel liked the land itself. Watching her husband, Charles, create plans for building interested her. She couldn’t pass by places now without imagining a house or barn on a special site with good drainage.
Ewing enjoyed his daughters’ company. He liked teaching them. Both were prudent and never bleated about what they knew. Both sisters learned very early to listen. That way, you learn a lot more than you do if you talk.
Father and youngest daughter retreated to the kitchen.
“Knew it would be bad,” Bettina announced. “Knew it would be bad when the chickens ran under the henhouse. Chickens always know. Uh-huh. Always.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the sky so black.” Rachel observed the fury outside the kitchen door, opened it, as it was on the north side of the house. Wind blew small limbs, odds and ends not tied down in front of them, but didn’t blow into the kitchen, as the wind came from due west.
Ewing sat down at the kitchen table. “I remember a storm like this when Isabelle and I were first married. Just about blew us to bits. The river rose suddenly. No one understood why, ’cause there wasn’t that much rain. Must have been 1759, 1760.” He shook his head. “Where does the time go? Seems like yesterday.”
Tall Tail Page 8