Once on the hill, Harry did trim her comments.
Rae then nudged her. “What sorrows?”
“Right.” Harry spoke, her voice pleasant to hear, a soft alto. “Regardless of how vigilant you are, even if a viticulturist keeps dogs in the vineyard to chase away the deer, the birds will take some of your grapes and occasionally, especially if you don’t have dogs, the foxes will strip off the lower vines. Foxes love grapes. Aesop was right.”
Rae motioned for Bethel to shoot Tucker, who was on all fours, the picture of alertness and service. She then pointed to the dog, and Harry, a quick mind, understood.
“While I don’t keep a Great Pyrenees, I do have this loyal and tough corgi, and Tucker chases off the deer. Actually, she’d be happy to herd them.”
Tucker puffed out her chest. “I’m an all-purpose dog.”
“I chase rabbits. Oh, I am death to rabbits,” Pewter competitively boasted.
“Save me,” Mrs. Murphy uttered under her breath.
On the hill, Harry repeated herself more succinctly, mentioned foxes and Tucker’s good deeds.
“Cut. All right. How about we go back, shoot some exteriors, and we should have it?”
“Rae, how long will it take to edit?” Harry asked.
“We’ll have a rough cut by next week. You can see it and then we can tweak it. If we need more footage or you think of something else to add, we can come back. We should have this ready for you no later than mid-August, on budget.”
Walking back to the barn, grasshoppers flying and making that tic-tic sound as they hit things, Pewter ran ahead. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker moved at a more dignified pace as they walked ahead.
Upon reaching the pastures, both cats climbed to the top of the fence, each sitting on a post. Bethel captured this. The cats meowed.
In the paddock with Tomahawk, Shortro lifted his head; the grass tasted so sweet.
“Let’s go see what she wants.”
Tomahawk, older, grass blades sticking out of his mouth, replied, “Pewter is showing off.”
“Hey, we can, too.” Shortro snorted, bucked, twisted, then thundered up to Pewter, skidding to a stop.
Tomahawk followed suit, kicking his hind legs higher than his head, which nearly touched the grass. “I may be old, but I can still keep up with you.”
“Good footage,” Rae remarked as Bethel kept the camera rolling.
“We don’t lack for drama here.” Harry laughed. “It’s just different than all the cop shows.”
“The horses come when I call.” Pewter sang out, then touched noses with Shortro, who was sorely tempted to push the cat off the fencepost.
Bethel swung the camera upward for a long shot of the sparkling white stable, a glittering copper weather vane, a galloping horse on top. Peering out from the cupola, which the humans couldn’t see, was the large owl, Flatface, nesting up there as she had for years. Damn noisy humans and animals. She ruffled her feathers, moved from side to side, then closed her eyes.
“You must have shined your weather vane,” Rae remarked as they walked closer to the barn.
“Lost it in the storm. That’s a new one and I about died when I paid for it. Found it on the Internet. Exactly what I wanted. One thousand dollars. I balked, but my husband said the stable wouldn’t look right without it. Does look pretty good, doesn’t it? It will be verdigris by next year.”
“That’s a good look, too.” Rae nodded, then glanced around. “How about one last shot? You driving the John Deere down the farm road. We’ll probably start the video with that. Maybe.” She looked at Bethel. No response. “Okay, we’ll have to see the footage.”
Harry led them to the equipment shed. “Deon, how about I take out the old 1953 John Deere, the one we call Johnny-Pop? The cap on the exhaust stays open when you’re going, but it claps up and down when you start or slow down. It’s a distinctive sound known to most old farmers or farmers who don’t have the money for a big John Deere with all the add-ons. About two hundred thousand dollars if you buy, say, a new 90HP, a hay baler, a drill seeder, a bushog, and that’s for starters. Oh, they’ve got computers in them, closed air-conditioned cabs, radios. Unbelievable. I go out on Johnny-Pop, wear my straw hat, and hope I don’t hit digger bees.”
Deon liked that she was thinking about the soundtrack. “What about the big tractor?”
“That’s an 80HP John Deere, 1987. Real steel. Today, lots of plastic. A great workhorse, but it doesn’t make the same sound as Johnny. Course, it’s a lot more horsepower than the old boy.”
Harry climbed up into the driver’s seat. She’d painted a turtle on the side of the tractor. If it’s possible to love a machine, she did. She could always picture her mother on Johnny-Pop.
Tucker whined. Harry stepped down, a big step, picked up the dog, lifted her up into her special seat attached to Harry’s seat. The cats observed this with disdain.
“I wouldn’t go up there. Think of the pollution from the exhaust.” Pewter sniffed.
“Bullroar,” Tucker, big smile, called down.
“Come on.” Mrs. Murphy gleefully grabbed a heavy beam. She climbed up with grace and speed and then walked over everyone on the crossbeam. Pewter followed suit. Bethel shot it.
“A dog can’t do that,” Pewter crowed.
Harry backed out. Super-alert, Tucker headed down toward the fields. And Johnny did pop. A backfire added to the excitement.
—
The crew left by one in the afternoon. Harry fed everyone lunch before they left, which they happily accepted. Sitting around the kitchen table, she heard their stories, how each wound up in this field. After eating their food, Mrs. Murphy and Pewter listened, as did Tucker. Harry gave them some chicken slices, which made everyone quite happy.
The remainder of the day, Harry weeded her small food garden behind the house. Took longer than she wanted it to; the heat slowed her down. Stopping for water breaks, she’d peer down an aisle of tomato plants or squash rows. She just knew the weeds popped up as she looked down the rows. The cats slept in the house, and even Tucker, her shadow, fell asleep under the tree where Matilda, the blacksnake, hung out, literally.
By five o’clock, Harry had had it. Took a shower, made a huge salad with fresh lettuce, cranberries, sunflower seeds, other nuts, shredded cheese. She peeled and sliced hard-boiled eggs.
Wiping off the counters, Tucker awakened, ran to the back door. “Cooper!”
The dog and two cats could recognize cars and trucks by the sound of the tire treads. Each vehicle, thanks to model, age and use, wore out their tires in a distinctive fashion. If Tucker hadn’t recognized the sound, she would have signaled that an intruder was coming.
Looking out the window over the sink, Harry wiped her hands on the dish towel, hurried out to the screened-in porch, opened the door as Cooper emerged from her car. “Perfect timing. Come test my cranberry salad.”
Cooper walked over as Harry held the door open. “Harry, give me a minute. Thanks for the offer, but I’m still on duty. Friday is my late-night day.”
“Sure.” Harry closed the door behind her. “You can sip some iced tea, can’t you?”
Sitting in a kitchen chair, as a friend and neighbor, Cooper need not have been invited to do so, but now she nodded. “Sweet tea. I need the sugar.”
A new person or acquaintance would have been invited by Harry to pull out a chair. Cooper was considered family, just as she could walk in the back door unannounced. By such subtleties, southerners know one another and know their place.
“A sprig of fresh mint?”
“Uh-huh.”