Catch As Cat Can

                "She enjoyed herself so much she asked when we could do it again." He slapped his thigh and laughed, the others laughing with him.

                "Ellie Mclntire." BoomBoom shook her head, remembering the spinster librarian who had struck terror in their hearts when they were children.

                "Thank you," Thomas said as he received the jug from Fair. After a long draft he handed it to BoomBoom.

                "Thomas, how do you like our country water?" Jack, who didn't drink, asked.

                "Potent and smooth," the older man replied.

                "Thomas, tell them how your grandfather brought the telephone to Montevideo." BoomBoom slipped her arm through his, leaning into him.

                "Oh . . ."

                "Tell," the others chimed in.

                "My grandfather saw the telephone in London. He was our ambassador there before World War One. He formed a company and started the first telephone service in our country. Then my father, not to be outdone, founded the first television station. I remember when I was a boy being very disappointed to find out that Jojo, the clown on the children's show, emitted the distinct aroma of gin." They all laughed.

                "Tell them what you did."

                "My dear," he demurred.

                "Thomas brought satellite technology to their communications company."

                "BoomBoom, it was the logical progression. That didn't take the intelligence or courage of Grandfather or Father. Or the determination of my mother, who took over the television business. She's lowed down a bit by heart trouble but really, she's smarter than am."

                "The Steinmetzes are quick to see the future and profit," Diego ;aid admiringly."The Aybars are running cattle instead of satellites." -le laughed.

                "Nothing wrong with running cattle," Jim said."You come on over and look at my Herefords."

                "Hunting down your way?" Jack politely asked.

                "Yes, and fishing. If you like deep-sea fishing, you must come down," Thomas said, a hint of pride in his voice.

                "Sounds like machine-gun fire." Joyce looked up at the tin roof .s the rain intensified.

                The four hounds thought so, too, as they edged closer to their humans.

                "You know, I'd like to come on down and go fishing." Jim smiled at Thomas."Mim and I have never been to Uruguay. Is there something we could bring . . . like jeans? When you visit Russia you bring jeans. At least we used to in the seventies. People would ay a lot of money for jeans from the United States."

                "Not a thing," Thomas replied."We'll take care of everything."

                "Some things cost three times as much and some things are extremely inexpensive," Diego added."Now, we don't have fox-hounds or coonhounds. Those would fetch a high price."

                "They're my babies." Joyce laughed.

                "Almost forgot." Harry pulled out the Mercedes star.

                "Where's the car?" BoomBoom laughed.

                "That's the only part I could afford." She laughed, too."Actually, I found this on the path back a ways. When Tracy brought Wesley Partlow back to the house at Mim's party, he wore a star like his around his neck."

                "Anyone report one missing?" Fair logically asked.

                "Not that I know of," Jim answered, "but many of our guests were feeling no pain."

                They all laughed.

                "It can cost two hundred and ninety dollars to replace that star," Thomas said."Hang on to it." He stopped a moment."Had to replace one once."

                Harry didn't get home until one in the morning. She headed straight for bed, missing the shredded needlepoint pillow in the living room, compliments of Mrs. Murphy.

                18

                A series of thunderstorms crackled across Crozet for twenty-hours. A few minutes of calm would ensue, and occasionally the skies lightened, but within a half hour clouds darkened again, the rains came down, and the roar of deep thunder reverberated throughout the mountains and valleys.

                Harry sorted mail amid peals of thunder. Tucker crouched under the small table in the back of the post office. Mrs. Murphy sat on the dividing counter between the public side of the room and the working side. The broad and smooth old wooden counter with a flip-up section so the postmistress could walk in and out had seen generations of Crozetians call for their mail.

                The advent of the railroad, built by the engineering genius of the New World, Claudius Crozet, brought the mail and news faster to the hamlet named for him. Residents no longer waited for the stage. They could stand at the station to watch the mail sacks being tossed off the train. The mail from Crozet would be picked up as it hung from a yardarm, the sack hooked so it could be grabbed from the moving train. Trains had cars outfitted as post stations and often money would be in the post station car, the postal employee taking the precaution of wearing a pistol.