She had finally slowed down enough to speak to Grandma even though she was across the table and Tansey needed a bullhorn to be heard over the din. She managed it, though, even without standing on her chair.
“We missed you the other night at the quilting circle.” Tansey was one of those rare people who could turn her hand to about anything in the physical world and make it come out right. She farmed her fields, tapped her trees, built her own barn, and was a quilt artist. Her work was a source of envy in the quilting circle, and she had been featured in more than one magazine with her original designs. I had been on her about selling her quilting patterns, so many of which featured maple trees, at the sugarhouse shop, but so far she had refused, saying anybody could make up their own and you’d have to be an idiot wasting good money on a thing like that.
“I was sorry to miss it but you know I always help set up for the pancake breakfast,” Grandma said.
“The turnout was pretty good for a holiday week. You and Felicia were the only ones absent.” Tansey slathered a pumpkin roll with enough butter to caulk a tub and bit into it with gusto.
“I’ll be there next time. I’ve got that Christmas table runner I am trying to finish up,” Grandma said. That’s when it hit me. Felicia told me she was at the quilting circle Friday night when the syrup was poisoned. Why would she lie about a thing like that?
• • •
I’d lost my appetite and I needed to think. As soon as I could slip away unnoticed in the after-dinner cleanup frenzy, I snuck out the door. I was about a mile up an old logging road when I heard rustling in the long grass at the side. I wished I were walking a dog. A dog would be a good way to know if I was imagining things. Dogs are amazing heifer dust detectors. And they seem to love their favorite people anyway. We never had a dog because Celadon was allergic. It was just one of the many things we didn’t see eye to eye on. Ever since the exotics had been let loose in town, I’d wanted a dog worse than any time since I was eleven and pretty sure no one in the world would ever understand me. A dog seemed the only solution at the time. Most days it still seemed the best.
The rustling continued and so did the gentle waggle at the tops of the timothy hay where an unknown was trampling it. I gathered my courage with as much enthusiasm as a child picking up sand toys after too little time spent on the beach. Stepping forward, I sent a silent shout out to the universe detailing how appreciative I would be if the creature involved would not turn out to be a snake. I must have gotten onto a good list with the upstairs management because snakes don’t have four legs and a shell. The leopard tortoise. That didn’t seem so bad. The background of its large shell was colored like maple sugar and the detailing of darker splotches on each knobby segment made it beautiful.
As I bent even closer, it slowly rotated its leathery neck and trained its dark eye on me. It let out a hissing, leaking sound like the air was squeezing out of its body, then it pulled its legs and head inside the handsome shell. Graham had mentioned it the morning of the pancake breakfast. I hadn’t seen any native amphibians or reptiles in weeks so I felt certain this big guy couldn’t be too comfortable. In fact, it was probably surprising he had survived this long.
I squatted behind the creature and tried to wrap my hands around its shell. I confidently gave a heave and felt nothing but the sting of defeat. I looked down in surprise. How much could the thing weigh? I stood and gave it a closer look. The shell looked to be somewhere in the neighborhood of two feet in length. I routinely lifted five-gallon buckets of maple sap as a part of the sugaring process and they weigh around forty pounds each. I hadn’t been able to budge the tortoise more than an inch off the ground so it had to be far heavier. I looked down at the shelled creature and thought about my options.
I could run all the way back, get help, and return, hoping to find this big guy again. I could keep watch over him until someone came looking for me even if it took all night. Or I could figure out some way to carry him back to the house. Since asking for help is even less appealing than sticking myself in the eye with a nut pick and the temperature with the sun still slanting above the horizon was dropping close to freezing, I decided finding a way to transport it was clearly the best option. All those childhood hours wiled away reading adventure and survival books came in handy. I slipped my arms out of my jacket and then put the orange vest back on just in case someone didn’t respect the fact our land was clearly posted. I positioned the bottom edge of the jacket near the tortoise and moved it inch by inch onto the jacket. I puffed and panted my way along until the whole creature sat entirely on the back of the garment. I took a moment to catch my breath then grabbed the end of each sleeve and started dragging the animal slowly out onto the logging road.