Homeward Hound

by Rita Mae Brown

  Crawford pointed to where the house ruins stood. “I think there has to be burial grounds near the house.”

  “There’s the traditional family plot.” Margaret pointed to the place. “Sophie is buried there along with everyone in our family except those who fell in foreign wars. An uncle lost at sea during the Spanish-American War, well, a great-great-uncle, but you know what I mean. But everyone who died here is buried here.”

  Crawford rubbed his chin. “The proposed route sweeps this way.”

  He ran his finger behind the house, the stable, and outbuildings.

  “Given the size of this farm, the number of people working here including the enslaved, the indentured servants, there have to be cemeteries all over.” Ronnie held a magnifying glass over the stable area.

  “No doubt, but we don’t know where they are.” Charlotte agreed. “Even if some of the workers were buried at their church, many have to be here. What I don’t understand is why aren’t those graves marked?”

  “I think they were. I remember my grandmother alluding to overgrown sites. My grandfather, whom I really didn’t know, didn’t care. And you all know how lush Virginia can be. I expect those graveyards are overgrown, deep in the woods. How can you find out?”

  “Ground-penetrating radar,” Crawford said.

  “For five thousand acres?” Ronnie was incredulous.

  “If I have to, yes, but I think the chances are the dead will be closer to the house or at least the more inhabited areas. And we have some maps back to World War One.” He laid an old map, pulled from under the topo maps, on top of the government maps. “See. Outbuildings are on this map that don’t appear elsewhere. Some things are easy to identify. The old draft horse barns, the cattle barns.”

  “Are you going to restore those?” Ronnie asked.

  “No. I will rebuild the carriage barns as they were beautiful. I have photographs of them. Maybe I’ll build cattle barns later if I get cattle.”

  Charlotte swept her hand over those maps on the table. “There have to be Monacan bones. They lived here. Not only will the tribes here fight it. So will a lot of other people.”

  “An ace in the hole.” Ronnie nodded. “I want you all to know, I have to say it out loud, I work for Soliden. They are our client. But you know where my heart is. If you can furnish me with proof of buried slaves, buried Monacans, anything of a historical nature, I can convince them to swerve away from the Chapel Cross area. I think Gregory was leaning that way, but with proof I can convince the new leadership.”

  “The entire area?” Charlotte was intrigued.

  “Surely the Monacans covered much of the land out here. Clear, hard, running water off the mountains, tons of game. It’s a perfect environment, so my argument will be, go along or over the Skyline Drive until you find a less precipitous way down and one that doesn’t drop right into former Indian territory, into a historic site being architecturally restored.”

  “The Skyline Drive will set everyone else off.” Margaret sighed.

  “Yes, it will. Digging along that road right-of-way will delay traffic for years and that park is the most visited park in the country.” Ronnie knew his stuff. “But that uproar will shift away from this uproar and Soliden’s engineers will busy themselves finding one way up the west side of the Blue Ridge, crossing over the Skyline Drive at only one place that would be perfect and then dropping down on the east side, hence through the Piedmont and to the sea. One way or the other, this pipeline has to reach a major port and it can’t be Virginia Beach because of the naval base.”

  “I thought the end point is to be in North Carolina,” Margaret said.

  “It is, but that, too, can be changed. If Virginia offered enough incentives, like deepening an existing port, that base would mean permanent jobs. Construction work isn’t permanent, so we’ll see a spike for the years the pipeline is being dug and then that’s it. There will be more company maintenance people but not all that many.” Ronnie paused. “However, some jobs are better than no jobs. There are people who need work.”

  “But are the workers coming from our state?” Charlotte asked the obvious question and one loaded for politicians.

  “Some. Whatever state is impacted will have a number hired to sweeten the deal,” Ronnie informed them. “It’s how Soliden or any megacompany buys off the state legislators. And the governor.”

  “Ah.” Margaret, a doctor, hadn’t considered this.

  “So anything you can remember—walks with your grandmother, your father, anything—let me know.” Ronnie was sincere.

  “I’ve walked a great deal around the ruins as well as the old outbuilding sites. I was looking for raised ground or depressed grounds, burial size, casket size. I’ve uncovered nothing.” Crawford frowned. “They have to be out there.”

  “Will you have to unearth some graves for proof?” Margaret hoped not.

  “That’s the point of the radar. If the remains can be seen, nobody should be disturbed, although if someone wants accurate proof of age, they might want to carbon-date the bones. I’m for a rough estimate, no digging.” Crawford folded his arms across his chest. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if a legislator wanted physical proof to cover his ass if this comes to a vote. Soliden will lobby endlessly to see that it doesn’t.”

  “This is a lot of effort.” Margaret sat down. “You’re being forced into this. We can all thank the Supreme Court for this. Remember when they made that decision that private land could be seized for private profit? Goodbye eminent domain if the corporation is big enough. They can take anyone’s land, which is the point of this, isn’t it?”

  “Margaret, money talks.” Said a man who knew how loudly it did. “Gregory Luckham has to or had to answer to a board and the board has to answer to shareholders. So if moving the pipeline costs, say, two percent of the profits for, say, ten years, it will cost billions. The profit loss per annum may be as much as two to three billion per year. That’s the real issue. Everything is shareholder value, not public value. You and I and everyone else along this route were not consulted. Nor were our elected representatives. Of course, now it’s an issue, but until citizens protested, essentially this was done by executive fiat.”

  “Payoffs?” Charlotte asked Crawford.

  “Too obvious.” He smiled for he knew the game well. “A crude way to agree is for the company, any company, to put sums of money in Aunt Minnie’s bank account. Not yours, not your wife’s or your parents’. Hard cash wakes up most people. Another way to pay off is making sure a legislator’s child is accepted at a high-level university or gets a high-paying job once out of that university which will cost about $80,000 per year figuring in tuition, books, clothing. Tuition alone at an Ivy League school now runs about $68,000 per year.”

  “What about kickbacks?” Ronnie’s eyebrows were raised.

  Crawford cleared his throat. “Effective if you’re careful.”

  “What do you mean?” Margaret, in many ways innocent to corruption, asked.

  “Let’s say you manufacture a type of pipe that can withstand the pressure needed to force the gas or oil through the pipeline over hundreds of miles. You have competitors and one might be a Chinese factory that can undercut you. But you work out an arrangement with the union over their wages, you will surely be unionized, you win the contract. You shave off a half a million, more or less, and give it back to the union president as well as the president of the company or the vice president or whoever is in charge of materials. You need to be careful how you do it. Again, Aunt Minnie is critical here.” He laughed.

  “My God, I had no idea.” Margaret was shocked.

  “Margaret, have you ever known anyone who served in the House of Delegates or Congress who left office poorer than they went in? Setting aside the Founding Fathers? A vastly different time.” Crawford considered all this the cost of doing business.

&
nbsp; “They were vastly different kinds of men than we have today,” Ronnie added. “Oh, there was a venal one here or there but in the main they truly believed in public service, they cared about the public good. A few such souls are left to us but it’s the politics of smash and grab.”

  “Oh, I hope not. I do hope not.” Margaret was ashen faced.

  “He’s right. These are the times in which we live,” Charlotte added. “That’s why I get hired to unearth, forgive the expression, histories. It’s exciting, in its way, going up against a corporation or the state houses. Everyone pleads that they’re doing what they have to do.”

  “Did you offer Gregory Luckham incentives?” Ronnie directly asked Crawford.

  “I did.” He said this without shame for as far as he was concerned Soliden was wrong. “I didn’t ask him if he had an Aunt Minnie but I alluded to the fact that I could and would be helpful. He was noncommittal. Certainly it wasn’t the first time he’s encountered such an offer.”

  “Did you get the feeling he was corrupt?” Margaret looked up at Crawford.

  “I got the feeling everyone has a price, including Gregory Luckham.” He now sat down next to her.

  “I hope I don’t.”

  “Margaret, of course you don’t, but the hospital with which you are associated does.” Ronnie’s voice was low.

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “No one’s trying to buy me off.” Charlotte smiled. “I am determined to find those underneath us. Once the snow is all melted we’ll begin. I know there are bodies, many bodies, under Old Paradise.”

  She was right, of course.

  CHAPTER 20

  Hoofbeats reverberated through the covered bridge as the field crossed over to the other side of Broad Creek. After All, manicured, every building in perfect condition including the covered bridge, loose board repaired, was a beloved fixture. Today, Saturday, sixty-five people, happy to be out, showed up, parked on the western side of the bridge.

  The house, painted brick, Georgian, perched atop a low rise on the eastern side. Broad Creek, which flowed throughout the entire county, swept along below the house, hence the covered bridge. Fields, fenced, three-board painted white, extra maintenance that white, had been prepared for spring. Granted spring lay in the future but at the end of fall, the Bancrofts cut down most of the fields, turning over topsoil, be it hay, oats, or even a field of soybeans. When the weather warmed up all they had to do was plow and plant. However, the fields, a good two miles away that abutted Sister’s place, were always left in standing corn. The upper ears had been plucked but the lower remained for forage for wildlife but especially the foxes.

  Jefferson Hunt Club foxes lived well. Apart from corn consideration they were wormed once a month with wormer sprinkled on the kibble in special boxes. This stopped in March as the wormer would kill the unborn foxes. Those luxurious coats, bracing runs proved the effectiveness of Sister’s health and feeding program. If possible, a young fox would be trapped, given a rabies shot, a seven-in-one shot. You never trapped them twice, they were too smart, but there hadn’t been a case of vulpine rabies in Sister’s territory for twelve years, a wonderful feat. The odd meds put out from time to time, fought off ticks and fleas as well as skin problems.

  Sister operated on the assumption that a healthy fox will give you a healthy run. She also operated on the assumption that you were only as old as the horse you were riding, well, she cheated a little but she did convert horse years into human years. Her rule of thumb was five years per human one, absolutely accurate, she didn’t know but it worked for her. She was riding Keepsake, a twelve-year-old bay appendix, so he was sixty in human years. Horses, hounds, and people if they stayed fit could just go and go. The Bancrofts, now in their middle eighties, always started out right behind Sister. If the hunt proved long and hard, they fell back to the middle of the pack.

  Foxhunters all believe when you stop you die. Keep riding whether it’s First Flight or behind but throw your leg over a horse. Face the wind, snow, sleet, rain, or sun. They were all certain one of the reasons they so rarely came down with the flu or colds was they hunted in all weather.

  Aunt Netty, a fox edging toward senior citizenship, actually she was there, did not share this philosophy. When the rain slashed sideways or the snow covered everything, she lounged at Pattypan Forge. Huge, abandoned since right after World War I, the forge, operating since the 1700s, evidenced many comforts. For one thing, Sister always filled a big feeder box with kibble, usually once every two weeks. Scraps might be tossed in the kibble.

  In her prime, Aunt Netty gave many a merry chase. She was still dazzling for a half an hour, but then she needed to duck in somewhere. Truthfully, Aunt Netty was slowing down. Also she endured a separation from her mate, Uncle Yancy, as they agreed. The owl, Athena, living at Pattypan, called it a divorce, which infuriated Aunt Netty. It was a separation provoked by Uncle Yancy’s terrible housekeeping habits. That was Aunt Netty’s version.

  She’d meandered down to the main house as the morning, brisk, was a great improvement over the last two weeks of weather including the January thaw, which the fox never trusted. The Bancrofts had the best garbage in Albemarle County. Aunt Netty wanted to pry off a garbage can lid. The raccoons got there before she did. Harsh words were spoken. As there were three of the bandits, Aunt Netty retreated. She heard the horse trailers drive in so she headed back toward Pattypan Forge. About halfway there she could hear the hoofbeats in the covered bridge.

  Once everyone passed through the bridge, Shaker waited a moment so Sister could count heads. Right behind the Bancrofts, Kasmir and Alida rode, Freddie behind them. Then a large gaggle of people, Walter, Ben, Sam, even Gray was in the mix, Dewey, Bobby, Margaret, Cindy, Skiff, allowed off work today, anyone who could go out did. Guests from Keswick, Farmington, Stonewall, even Bull Run showed up along with a few dear friends from Deep Run. People felt like hunting around today but then again, After All was one of those prime fixtures, plus the breakfasts never failed to impress.

  Sister nodded to Shaker. He spoke a few soft words to the pack, then trotted up Broad Creek, the water rushing down thanks to snowmelt. Aunt Netty’s scent, strong, set hounds moving in two minutes, if that.

  The day, low forties, dark clouds overhead, not much wind, promised good sport. Aunt Daniella and Yvonne slowly followed at a distance. No other car crept along. Most everybody who could was riding.

  Aunt Netty heard the hounds. Pattypan, deep in rough woods, gave her the luxury of not having to fly at top speed. However, given the youngsters in the pack, the older red fox didn’t underestimate them. She picked up speed, zigged and zagged. Once on a narrow deer trail she paused a moment to listen. Hounds sounded all on so she’d better just get home.

  Hounds remained on the “house” side of the creek. Aunt Netty had crossed up ahead by cleverly walking across a fallen tree that had come down in the high winds and snowstorm. She could readily walk across but the hounds couldn’t. They had to launch into the swollen creek. Shaker walked up, looking for his usual crossing. It, too, was submerged. He squeezed Gunpowder. The Thoroughbred readily jumped down, water splashing upward, but it did stay out of Shaker’s boots. Hell riding with sloshing boots, cold wet feet.

  Tootie moved farther up creek; she wanted to make sure if hounds turned left she’d be there, and Betty made the same decision on the right. Both Tootie and Betty rode on decent paths, decent for this mess of woods, but Weevil, like Shaker, battled vines, low-hanging branches, a muddy pothole here and there.

  Finally Pattypan Forge appeared. Hounds leapt through the story-high broken windows, the glass long gone as those windows had been broken for nearly a century. However, the forge stood as did huge iron pots, the odds and ends of a once thriving forge.

  Aunt Netty’s den started at the one side of the forge with openings all over. No need. Hounds couldn’t reach her no matter what.


  Ardent complained at one of the openings. “That wasn’t much of a run.”

  “Maybe you aren’t much of a hound,” she fired back.

  He started digging, dirt flying behind him.

  The field, waiting outside, as was Shaker, blowing the hounds back to him, listened to a yip and a yap inside. Hounds stayed put.

  Shaker dismounted, stepped over a windowsill as the windows were almost ceiling to ground. “All right.”

  “She’s terrible!” Thimble complained.

  He blew “Gone to Ground,” which is what they wanted to hear, including Aunt Netty, because then they’d leave.

  “Come along. We’ll pick up another fox.”

  “Come on.” Dragon followed the huntsman.

  As they all filed outside, Athena, the great horned owl who also had apartments all over the place, swooped down from a rafter, out the window, and right over the field, spooking some horses.

  Alida, caught off guard, slipped sideways, but Dewey rode right up alongside her, held her up with one arm.

  “Thanks.” Alida righted herself. Her feet did not touch the ground so no one could say she came off. She didn’t, but she sure looked unstable.

  Hounds wanted to get on terms with their quarry as soon as possible, as did Shaker. If he returned the way he came, hounds risked running heel. He could correct them—they were good hounds—but why fool with it? The only reason to retrace one’s steps is the other ways out of Pattypan Forge, filled with overgrowth, fallen trees, took time as well as cut a few faces. Still, if there was fresh scent, it would be either north, east, or west, so he plunged west. No going south.

  Betty, hearing, drifted farther east until she emerged on the gravel road between After All and the Old Lorillard place. Creeping behind her at a distance came Yvonne and Aunt Daniella.

  Tootie, remembering a decent deer path, stepped on it. While this took her out of the way she would emerge below the Old Lorillard place, being in good position for whatever might happen next unless a fox struck out due west.