Puss 'N Cahoots

rafter as Pewter, on top of a stall beam below, hurled insult after insult.
    Booty repeated an offer he’d made to Harry when the animals were carrying on. “Because Shortro is Renata’s horse, I can get more money for him if you want to sell. He’s a good horse, personality plus. Fifty thousand for you.” And ten for him, which he kept to himself. His fee should have been five thousand.
    Harry and Fair knew how that worked, which was one of the reasons they put every sale or purchase in writing.
    “Thank you, Booty. I know a person should take the money and run, but Renata expressly stated she wanted to retire Shortro from showing, young though he is. She wants me to have him. I look forward to working with him, really.”
    “Well, if you change your mind…” Booty smiled, oblivious to the fact that Harry had given her word to Renata. He turned to Fair. “Miss Nasty isn’t being very nice, especially after you helped me with the cast mare. She suffers from temper tantrums.”
    “Pewter can provoke them in anyone,”
Tucker said.
    “Some friend you are.”
Pewter looked up again at the monkey licking its paws.
“I hope you get hemorrhoids. I hope they crack open. I hope you sit in turpentine!”
    “Next time I throw a cow pie.”
    Booty called Miss Nasty, to no avail. He shook his head. “Well, she’ll come down when she’s ready. I’ve got to get back to work. Thanks to the INS, we’re going around the clock. What do they expect us to do?”
    “I don’t know, but we’d better figure it out.” Fair felt great sympathy for people who needed physical labor performed by reliable individuals. And he understood the illegal worker’s desire to improve his or her life by working in America. “We’ve got about eleven and a half million illegal immigrants. Send them away and the economy will go down like a B-52 with its tail shot off.”
    Exasperated, Booty raised his voice. “Help them become citizens. They work, they buy stuff like milk and shoes. I know they use our social services and schools, so help them become citizens and they’ll pay taxes for those services.”
    “Good reason not to become a citizen,” Harry ruefully commented.
    “Ever think about how much money we throw away? What will those INS stooges do? Write reports. What does any public official do? Write reports.” Booty snarled, a real flash of anger.
    Fair, more balanced in his outlook: “Booty, depends on the public official. The closer someone is to their people, the better job they do most times. Sheriff Howlett knows everyone, the fire chief knows everyone, plus they know how important this show in particular and the fairgrounds in general are to Shelby County. To someone from the INS, Shelbyville is a place to raid, not a place to live. That’s the problem with large state agencies. Put it on the federal level and the disregard for local sentiment reaches gargantuan proportions.”
    Booty nodded. “What’s the expression, ‘You rise to your level of incompetence’?” He brightened a moment. “I’ve risen to mine.”
    They laughed.
    As Harry and Fair left the barn, Booty returned to checking harnesses. Tucker and Mrs. Murphy pondered a moment.
    “Don’t go,”
Pewter begged.
    “Why?”
Mrs. Murphy asked.
    “If I wait long enough, hunger and thirst will bring this little bitch down.”
    “Bring you down first, Tub.”
Miss Nasty felt bored up there, and she wanted Bag Balm on her paws. She knew right where Booty kept it. She liked a little pinch of the other substance, too, since Booty used his Bag Balm tin to store a bit of cocaine. Miss Nasty also enjoyed a sip of spirits occasionally.
    “Come on, Pewter. This solves nothing,”
Tucker reasonably said.
    A flash of indignation illuminated Mrs. Murphy’s countenance.
“Miss Nasty, you brag. You don’t have the pin. You can’t even describe it.”
    “Oh, yes, I can. It’s a sparkly diamond horseshoe with a ruby and sapphire riding crop through it.”
    Tucker, often in tune with her friend, called up,
“You probably noticed it when you were on the rail of the Kalarama box. You sat right in front of Joan.”
    “I have it!”
    Mrs. Murphy shrugged, turned to leave.
“You almost had us there, Miss Nasty.”
    “You’ll see,”
the monkey, stung, promised.
    Pewter, realizing she’d better join her pals, backed down the stall pole. The three reached the end of the aisle.
    Following them overhead on the high rafter, Miss Nasty shouted,
“You’ll