Santa Clawed

flurries are already swirling.”
    “Even if it snows harder, we’ll make it,”
Tucker replied optimistically.
    “As long as we can see. A whiteout scares me.”
The cat felt the barometric pressure slide a bit more.
    “If only she could move faster.”
Tucker looked back at Harry striding purposefully along.
    “She can run, but with all those clothes on she can’t run for long.”
Mrs. Murphy fluffed out her fur, for it now felt even colder.
    Even with the weight of her coat and the sweater underneath, Harry could keep up, as long as the two kept it at a trot. She reached the walnut stand in a half hour, snow falling thicker now.
    “Over here.”
Tucker bounded to the outcropping.
    “Someone’s coming.”
Mrs. Murphy heard a motor cut off perhaps a quarter of a mile away.
    Tucker heard it, too.
“We’d better hurry.”
    Harry reached the box protected by the low rock overhang. Just then a gust of wind sent snow flying everywhere. The denuded walnut tree bent slightly, and the pines beyond bowed as if to a queen.
    She knelt down, opened the box. The crisp bills, neatly stacked, promised some ease in her life. However, Harry, raised strictly by her parents, would never take money that wasn’t hers. She’d turn this over to Cooper, as she realized immediately that something was terribly wrong. This had to be blood money, more or less.
    She didn’t realize how wrong things were, even though Tucker barked loudly and Mrs. Murphy leapt up on the overhang. The wind, whistling now, obscured sound to human ears. Harry never saw what was coming. One swift crack over the head and she dropped.
    Tucker started to attack, but Mrs. Murphy screamed,
“Leave him. He wants the money, not Mom.”
    She was right. Brother George hurried back up to the old fire road before the snow engulfed him.
    Tucker licked Harry’s face. Mrs. Murphy jumped down. A trickle of blood oozed down the side of Harry’s head. Her lad’s cap had fallen off.
    “I can’t wake her.”
Tucker frantically licked.
    “She’s alive. I hope her skull isn’t cracked.”
The cat sniffed Harry’s temples.
“Tucker, Fair should be home. You have to get him. I’ll stay here. This storm is only going to get worse. Help me push her cap back on. At least she won’t lose so much heat from her head.”
    “I can’t leave you all.”
    “Tucker, you must. She’ll suffer frostbite if she’s here too long. She might even freeze to death. And if she wakes, what if she’s disoriented? I don’t know if I can get her home. You have to go NOW.”
    The dog touched noses with her dearest friend, licked Harry one more time.
    “I’ll see you.”
The mighty little dog left them.
    Tucker ran for all she was worth, goaded by both fear and love.
    Mrs. Murphy curled around Harry’s head. The low overhang offered some protection. It wasn’t so bad, the tiger told herself. She desperately wanted to believe that as the world turned white.

T hanks, Coop. Call me on my cell, okay?” Fair punched the off button.
    He’d arrived home an hour ago. Harry’s beloved truck sat in the driveway. He assumed she was in the barn. But when Tucker failed to rush out and greet him, he poked his head inside. No Harry. Not a sign of her in the house. Pewter meowed incessantly, even though Fair had no idea what the cat was telling him.
    He wasn’t a worrier by nature, but what set him off was ten thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills, bound by a cardboard sleeve, sitting on the kitchen table, big as you please.
    Where did Harry get the money? Why would she just leave it on the kitchen table? This was so out of character for his wife that he had called Cooper to find out if she was over there. Cooper’s farm was the old Jones family place, which the young detective rented from Reverend Herb Jones.
    Cooper, also at a loss over the money, was now worried herself.
    Fair called her back. “Hey, I’m sorry to bother you again, but I just noticed the sleeve on this wad of bills has teeth marks.”
    “Human?” Cooper was more than intrigued.
    “No. Looks like a dog or a very big cat.” He looked in Pewter’s direction and she pointedly turned away.
    “Fair, I’ll be right over.”
    “Coop, I don’t want to trouble you.”
    “Too late.”
    Within seven minutes she rolled down the driveway. Snow was falling steadily now.
    “Jesus, you burned the wind getting here.” Fair laughed, trying to make light of his fear.
    “Show me the money.” She smiled, but she was as