Tall Tail

by Rita Mae Brown

  Maureen’s eyebrows raised. “Oh.”

  “It is a good price, but the mare has excellent conformation, an easy temperament, and she is with foal. She is worth more than that, even if you do not use her for a saddle horse. Yancy will run her, of course, then make a profit breeding her and selling the foals. Four thousand is too low.”

  “I see.” She put her fork down.

  “If you wish to breed the mare, I will help in any way. I do not want to see someone take advantage of you. But if you want to sell Serenissima, I don’t know your plans, I will pay you seven thousand dollars.”

  Rachel burst out, “Seven thousand!”

  This outburst was planned.

  Maureen countered with, “Ewing Garth would pay that for a mare in foal for the first time?” The woman wasn’t as dumb as some thought about horses.

  “No, this is my money,” said Catherine. “It is part of what Mother left to me. I don’t want to see such a fine animal run to the ground. She is beyond compare, Mrs. Selisse. She reflects in the flesh what you have accomplished here.” Catherine swept her arm away from her to indicate the whole farm.

  As though an afterthought, Rachel said, “Have you been swayed by Jeffrey Holloway?”

  Maureen, utterly focused now, looked at Rachel then Catherine. “Mr. Holloway?”

  As though with reluctance, Catherine looked directly into Maureen’s eyes. “When he came to inspect Serenissima, according to your request, he mentioned that Yancy Grant was trying to buy her and he, well, how shall I put this, he was not sure that Mr. Grant harbored your best interests but he, as a cabinetmaker, could not say much against Mr. Grant.”

  “Did he, now?” Maureen oozed fascination.

  “Oh, Catherine, you know he’s smitten with Mrs. Selisse,” Rachel said.

  As though appalled, Catherine said, “What is wrong with you, Rachel? After all Mrs. Selisse has endured, she doesn’t need to worry about a young man’s tender feelings.”

  “Now, now, Catherine, don’t be too hard on Rachel,” cooed Maureen. “Jeffrey Holloway has been helpful and he lightens a room. Of course, I had no idea.”

  What a fib.

  “Well, you certainly can’t miss the clumsy attempts of some of the other men,” Rachel said. “At least Mr. Holloway is sensitive to your feelings. He would never push himself. He may be a cabinetmaker, but he is a fine man.” Rachel glared at Catherine, who glared back.

  “Rachel, will you please desist and—”

  “Rachel, I am not offended,” said Maureen. “I am pleased to know that you two are solicitous of my well-being. Yes, I know why many of these men are continually calling with this and that. But like you, Rachel, I do think Mr. Holloway truly cares and has my best interests at heart.”

  “Might we get back to Serenissima?” asked Catherine.

  Thrilled with the turn of conversation, Maureen managed to think again about the mare. “I accept.”

  Catherine then surprised her by opening the small beaded bag that hung from her waist almost like a jewel. She took out a written check to be drawn from her account in the amount of seven thousand dollars.

  Isabelle Garth established separate accounts for each of her daughters with a bank in Richmond. Isabelle also believed that Alexander Hamilton would lead the new nation into solvency and subsequent profit. Never revealing her own financial acumen to anyone other than her husband or her daughters, she had an uncanny sense to know where profits would be made. Among many other abilities, this drew her close to Ewing, and he had rarely made a decision without discussing it with her first.

  “Catherine!” Rachel exploded.

  Catherine reached over, putting her hand on her sister’s forearm. “I am doing the right thing, and don’t go running to Father.”

  “All right,” Rachel agreed, quite thrilled at how their plan worked.

  No sooner had Maureen placed the paper folded next to her plate than a sheepish Sheba came into the room. “Missus, Lemuel says Hiram Meisner is at the door and should he allow him inside?”

  “Send him in.” Maureen lifted up her hands, palms inward. “Whatever it is, I want you to hear it.”

  A humble Hiram entered, standing. “Mrs. Selisse.”

  “Yes, Hiram.”

  “On Tuesday morning, Dennis McComb’s wife came to me with apologies saying that Dennis would be tracking Moses and would not be back until he captured him. He thought he knew where the killer was fleeing.”

  “Yes.” Maureen did not ask the constable to sit, but he didn’t expect it.

  “He has not returned and he was riding your gelding. Nor has he sent word.”

  “I see,” she coolly answered. “Did Dennis say where he thought Moses was running and where he heard such a thing?”

  Hiram sighed. “He did not tell his wife.”

  “And?”

  “I fear Moses has killed again.”

  “Oh, Mr. Meisner, I do hope you are wrong,” Catherine interjected, keeping the pretense that she thought Moses was the killer.

  “I do, too, Mrs. Schuyler, but Dennis would have sent word if he had captured the man. Since I don’t know where he went, I don’t know how long it would have taken to reach me, but a horse trotting and galloping can cover many miles a day, as you know. I should have heard something.”

  “Well, I am sorry to hear this,” Maureen simply replied.

  “The gelding—”

  “Don’t worry, Hiram.”

  “Thank you, madam.” He bowed and left.

  After they heard Lemuel’s voice and the door close, the three remained silent.

  Finally, Rachel spoke. “At least Moses is away from here.”

  “But what of the woman, that terrible woman?” Maureen’s voice rose.

  Catherine calmly said, “If he killed because of her or to steal her, he wouldn’t run away and leave her. She must be with him.”

  Maureen weighed the thought. “True.”

  Sighing inwardly, Rachel added, “It must be a relief to know they are fleeing.”

  “It’s certainly better than having them here,” Maureen agreed. “But I look forward to the day when they are caught and punished.”

  “It may take some time, but I’m sure they will be.” Catherine sounded truthful. “Forgive me for being forward, but, Mrs. Selisse, might you consider hiring a strong fellow or someone you can trust to manage the farm or to simply protect you until things become more clear? You’re here with your people, of course, but with no strong protector.”

  “Mr. Holloway would do it.” Rachel sounded all innocence.

  “Rachel, that really is enough!” Catherine scolded.

  Pretending such an idea was foreign to her, Maureen smiled indulgently at Rachel. “I am most grateful for your concern and most grateful, Catherine, that you will now own Serenissima. I am not a horseman. Well, you know that. I enjoy a ride, but you should have the mare.”

  “Who will tell Yancy Grant?” Catherine asked.

  A smile crossed Maureen’s slightly colored lips. “I will.”

  —

  Driving home, Catherine holding the reins, for she loved anything to do with horses and she was a good whip, the two sisters and Bettina giggled, exchanging stories. Then they considered what might have happened to Dennis McComb.

  “Something about him. I couldn’t abide him,” Rachel said.

  “He’s dead, I expect, or he’d be back by now,” said Catherine. “Either he was set upon by robbers or he met with an accident.” She felt the smooth leather in her fingers.

  Catherine, Rachel, and Bettina drove, dappling sunlight bouncing off the two horses’ hindquarters.

  “I think horses enjoy a good carriage ride as much as we do.” Rachel noticed King David’s pricked ears and alert expression, as well as Solomon’s happiness.

  “I like the rhythm.” Bettina smiled. “Miss Catherine, you got your Serenissima.”

  “So I did.” Catherine grinned, then changed the subject. “Wasn’t it odd to be wi
th two murderesses and act as we did?”

  “We have no choice,” Rachel replied.

  “I can bear Miss Selisse more than that two-faced bitch who destroyed Ailee’s face.” Bettina clipped her words.

  “Even if Maureen Selisse hadn’t killed Francisco, we wouldn’t warm to her. Vain. Arrogant. Possessive.” Catherine thought out loud. “Then again, she had endured his philandering under her nose probably for years. Ailee can hardly have been the first.”

  “I suppose,” Rachel agreed.

  “It’s not so much the loss of love, it’s the humiliation,” Catherine opined.

  “People don’t always need a reason to kill,” Bettina shrewdly noted, then smiled. “Miss Selisse and Sheba will be yoked together for the rest of their lives. That’s punishment enough.”

  Catherine and Rachel laughed.

  Then Catherine asked Bettina, “What did you find out?”

  “Mrs. Selisse has commissioned a statue for her husband’s tomb and it will take a year to be carved. Sheba says it will rival great statues in Europe. Mrs. Selisse is paying a fortune for it.” Bettina rocked sideways a little with the carriage motion. It was an open carriage, so the breeze felt wonderful on her cheeks.

  “A statue of what?” Rachel inquired.

  “The Avenging Angel, flaming sword in hand,” said Bettina, nodding. “You know there is a flaming sword which turns in all directions at the east of Eden to guard the tree of knowledge.” Bettina sure knew her Bible.

  “So Maureen’s put the sword in the hand of an angel,” Rachel said. “Or maybe there is such an angel and I don’t know much about it.”

  “Well, we know there is one east of Eden,” Catherine declared. “Genesis, chapter six, or is it five? Anyway, it’s Genesis,” Catherine declared.

  “Now, why did Adam eat that apple?” Bettina wondered. “And then we womenfolk get all the blame? Bearing children in pain and working our fingers to the bone. All because of one shiny apple. And we’ve got acres and acres of them at home. But why did Adam eat that one apple and make such a fuss?”

  “Because he was as dumb as a sack of hammers.” Catherine let out a peal of laughter.

  They laughed, gossiping all the way back home.

  Wednesday, August 10, 2016

  Sam Holloway lay back in his recliner. The ex-governor fell in and out of sleep. Although a lifelong Virginian, and one would think he’d root for the Orioles or the Nationals, but he’d always been a Phillies fan. But even Sam’s beloved Phillies couldn’t keep him alert, although a double play brightened his outlook, before he fell back asleep.

  Outside, the high humidity and a high temperature convinced even the insects to slow down or sleep. Maybe Sam was following suit.

  Penny peeked in. His wife knew better than to turn off the TV when a baseball game was on. She also knew better than to say too much about her favorite team, the Kansas City Royals.

  For their generation, baseball was the game; football followed second.

  Walking back to the air-conditioned sunroom where she’d been working on a needlepoint pillow, her daughter ducked in. Millicent Grimstead came to the house each day and stayed most of the day to help her mother and cheer her father.

  “You’ve made progress.” Millicent dropped in a chair. “Wendell, here.”

  The dog came over and Susan gave him a new Wubba.

  Penny thought the toy looked strange. “Where did you get that thing?”

  “PetSmart. It is strange. But it’s supposedly indestructible. PetSmart isn’t making that claim for the canvas streamers at the end of the Wubba, but they do say the ball itself is tough.”

  “I’m sure Wendell will give it a try.” Penny smiled as the handsome dog happily took his new toy politely from Millicent’s hand, then ran out of the room.

  “Where’s he going?”

  Her mother replied, “Oh, he has a stash. Well, he has a few. Under the bed. Behind the old tack trunk in the mud room. He’s good at hiding things.”

  “How’s Dad?”

  Penny hesitated. “That ruckus with Eddie took something out of him. He’s quieter, withdrawn. And withdrawn is not your father.”

  “No. Daddy wasn’t even that upset when I wrecked the truck when I was seventeen.”

  Penny dropped her hands in her lap, the needle with the red thread still in her right hand. “He was rather composed over that, but as I recall he stomped around quite a bit for days. I could hear him, thump, thump, thump. He’d talk to the insurance agent, thump, thump, thump.” She laughed.

  “Mother, what’s wrong with Eddie? He’s not right.”

  “Ask your sister, who is conveniently in Montana. I called her and reported the fray. She’s torn, which is natural. She defends her son, even if she thinks he was in the wrong. She says he’s under pressure.”

  “Who isn’t?” Millicent shot back.

  “There is that.” Penny sighed, picking up her pillow and carefully inserting the needle.

  “Mother, how do you have the patience to do needlepoint?”

  “I raised you.” Penny winked at her eldest daughter. “That’s where I learned patience.”

  Millicent said, “And I raised your granddaughter. Our Susan is one step ahead of a running fit over this country club golf championship, which is only a month away. I think it’s a month away, and I should know because Susan is obsessed with this. She’s been runner-up two times, finished in the top four for over a decade.”

  “She wants her name on that huge silver trophy,” said Penny. “Mary Pat Janss. Susan wants to be up there with her mentor.”

  “Another good person gone. Boy, you always knew where you stood with Mary Pat.”

  Penny laughed out louder than she’d planned. “That woman’s speech could rust a cannon. Oh, I do miss her. I miss so many of my old friends and new ones. It seems to me that so many young people are dying. Cancer. It’s always cancer.”

  “Mother, sixty is young to you.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Penny pointed a finger at her daughter. “You’re sixty-seven.”

  “Some days I feel it and some days I don’t.” Millicent heard Wendell throwing his new toy around. “Back to Eddie, I’m embarrassed.”

  “Ambition is outstripping good sense and good behavior. Your nephew doesn’t just want to be senator, he wants power, more power than he has now in the statehouse. Eddie wants to go to the Senate or be tapped for a vice presidential slot in the future. Virginia has become a pivotal state, far more critical than when Sam and I were in the governor’s mansion. Virginia was Democratic and that was that.” She looked up from her pillow. “Now they call it a purple state. Each party has to fight and fight hard not just every four years but for Senate elections, seats to the statehouse. It’s relentless, ruthless, and Eddie wants to be the big dog.”

  “Mother, he can’t hold a candle to Daddy.”

  “Who can?” Penny then softly added, “Truthfully, Millicent, if your father were young today I don’t think he would run for office.”

  “I’m surprised that that Ned Tucker did,” Millicent remarked.

  Penny laughed. “Not as surprised as his wife, but don’t you think that was a fluke? A seat became available in the House of Delegates and he ran for it almost on a whim.”

  “Now he’s got it, but I must say, he’s rather a good public servant and Susan almost flourishes. Within reason, Mother.” She smiled slightly at the thought of her daughter.

  “I will tell you one thing that disturbed me. Eddie visited Dr. Fishbein, the hematologist, as well as Sam’s oncology doctors. He wanted to know all about Sam’s condition, the effects of leukemia, and he wanted to know, can it affect the mind? I found that odd. Eddie wanted a prognosis. In other words, he wanted to know how long Sam has to live.”

  “I hope Dr. Fishbein and the others didn’t tell him.”

  “Of course not. Ethically, they can’t. Dr. Fishbein wouldn’t anyway. He and the team over there at Martha Jefferson have been wonderful
. We all know how this will end. We just don’t know when.”

  “Mother.” Millicent hesitated. “How long do you think?”

  Penny put down her pillow. “Honey, I don’t know. Some days I think we’ve got three months and other days much less. And until Sam was diagnosed with the final stages of leukemia, I had no idea how painful it can be. He bears it with great fortitude. He doesn’t speak of it and he tries hard not to show it. Sometimes I look at him and I see that young, oh so handsome man I married and I can’t believe he’s leaving us. Back then Sam seemed indestructible. Even during the whole awful segregation mess, the death threats from both directions, he never wavered. He might have been wrong, well, he was wrong, but he never wavered. It breaks my heart that that’s what he will be remembered for first. And it breaks my heart to see him weaken.”

  “Me, too. Daddy could handle anything. Mother, Harry mentioned something when I was over at Susan’s. She’s been caddying for Susan and they’d come back from the golf course. Anyway, Harry said, ‘Who has the most to gain by the governor living and who has the most to lose?’ ”

  “Hmm.”

  “Harry comes at things sideways and she sees things we don’t. I’ve been thinking about that and thinking about Eddie. Forgive me, but Eddie does stand to gain when Daddy dies. Then he can mourn front and center, if you will, and he can make emotional pledges about continuing Daddy’s legacy.”

  Coolly, Penny appraised this. “He also has a great deal to gain by Sam living. He can ride on his coattails, use the old political machine unless Sam pulls back their support. Oh, yes, Eddie will get a boost when Sam goes, but as long as his grandfather lives he can say he speaks with him daily, et cetera, et cetera. Harry, though, has hit the nail on the head. Eddie is out for himself and only himself. I haven’t wanted to face it. Now I must.”

  A knock on the doorjamb, then Mignon stepped in the room. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but Edward just called me. He asked to read what the governor and I have written so far. He says he wants to help. Maybe we can move it along faster, to finish before—”

  With no show of emotion, Penny pulled the thread tighter in the pillow. “Mignon, I’m sure you told him no.”