“Sounds good to me.” Aunt Daniella grinned, ever ready for adventure.
The door opened and a man, maybe in his early forties, walked in, holding some flyers in his hand. He looked at the gathering.
Kathleen stood up. “Can I help you? I’m Kathleen Dunbar, owner of 1780 House.”
“I’d like to leave you some flyers. I’m running for county commissioner.” He reached out to shake her hand, which she took. “Jordan Standish.”
No one said a word as Kathleen took the flyers. “You’re the one putting posters on telephone poles. You’re against foxhunting.”
“A cruel sport for rich people. Elitist. If you read my materials you’ll see I’m for free college, healthcare, representation, and mandatory birth control in insurance.”
Gray, looking at him, said, “You would prefer people play football?”
“Well, no, but foxhunting is wrong. If you look at my positions, you’ll see I am for income redistribution.”
Kathleen read his list. Some things she agreed with, some she didn’t.
Aunt Daniella read aloud, pausing when she reached…“Reparations. How interesting.”
“Well, I’ve got many places to visit but I invite you to any of my campaign meetings.” He turned and left.
When the door closed, Aunt Daniella purred, “I just love it when white boys talk about reparations.”
CHAPTER 24
March 4, 2020 Wednesday
“Look at the fixture card.” Walter sat with Sister at the Keswick Sports Club Grille.
“We usually end on the Saturday closest to St. Patrick’s Day. What’s the problem?”
“I’m not sure, but today at the hospital after surgery the head of the department called all of us into his office. As you know, there’s the virus that had appeared in Wuhan, China. Coronavirus-19 is devastating Italy, in Germany, moving globally.”
“I can’t say I’ve paid a lot of attention to it because I never know if what is reported from China is the truth.”
“The virus is the truth. The statements that it’s not serious are not. There is no First Amendment in China, as you know, so no one will admit anything until this thing is totally out of control.”
“Meaning it will arrive here?” she questioned.
“Thanks to air travel, Sister, it probably is already here. We just don’t know it. In a healthy person it seems like sniffles, a bit of fever, and being sluggish, but that passes after a day or two. There are people getting off planes at all our international airports who have traveled to China, to Italy, etc.”
“No one has said anything.”
“That’s why the department head called us in. He warned us that we are woefully unprepared. We don’t have enough of what we need, and that includes healthcare workers. The virus has to make its way across the Mideast and Europe before it erupts here full scale, but he advised us to prepare. He and the other department heads will meet tomorrow. We’ll need more beds and ventilators. Shortness of breath is a primary indicator.”
“Can hounds and horses get it?”
He smiled. “I knew you would ask that. So far no to horses, but if an infected person coughed and a hound inhaled the droplets, perhaps.”
“Do you think this will affect hunting? Our fixture card is operating for another eleven days.”
“It might. I don’t worry about you or staff. Nor the members. We are out in the open. Tailgates could be a problem if this hits before we think it will. But I don’t see how the virus can miss us.”
“Well, Walter, how fatal is it?”
“Depends on age and robustness. Older people, those over sixty, are vulnerable. You, probably not. Let’s say someone who has diabetes, any age, or someone who has suffered a stroke or has a chronic condition. Anyone who has had an organ transplant better be careful. The percent of death relative to age is beginning to become clear, but no one knows how long the virus can live, say, on a table. It’s what we don’t know right now that is the problem.”
“Let’s wait until things are more clear. All any communication to members can do at this point is frighten people. But if the time comes, I will send a letter out after you read and sign it.” Sister paused. “So you will be exposed no matter what, don’t you think?”
He nodded. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a doctor. I’m exposed to stuff every day.”
“Sister.” Carter Nicewonder came in wearing a bespoke sports coat with a silk lime green tie, which worked for him, Mrs. Redmayne at his side.
Sister smiled. “Mrs. Redmayne, how good to see you.”
“And you, Sister and Walter. I don’t get out much anymore. When I do I am happy to see everyone, and everyone looking so well.”
“Tomorrow’s hunt can’t be as good as Tuesday’s. What a barnburner.” He grinned.
“Isn’t it peculiar to partake of a sport where your star never tells you anything? For all I know, tomorrow might be another wild one. I hope so.”
“I do, too.”
“Good to see you, Mrs. Redmayne. Please come out with us anytime. We have our followers, and you know all of us.”
As they walked to their table near the fireplace Sister watched Mrs. Redmayne, a woman twenty years older than herself, an elegant woman. Age slowed her down but she still turned out like a star.
“Carter always knows who has the best jewelry.” She smiled. “It’s not me.”
“The engagement ring Ray gave you is stunning and I hardly know about jewelry, but that is one monster diamond. Plus you have those painted crystals, the hunt ones.”
“Every now and then my late husband did come through.” She waited for the waitress to place her salad in front of her. “Carter is a patient man. He keeps relationships fresh. He’s much like Harry Dunbar that way.”
“After that grand opening I think Kathleen will make it.”
“I do, too, plus Aunt Daniella will steer her in the right direction and to the right people. And possibly she and Buddy Cadwalder can share customers, special events.” She thought a long time. “Walter, you know I am not a conspiracy theorist.”
“I do.”
“But what if whatever you call this corona…”
“Coronavirus-19.”
“What if this was something being worked on, a kind of germ warfare and it got away from the Chinese or an unbalanced person let it loose? Is that possible?”
“It is,” he quietly replied.
“What a strange world. Strange to even think of that.” She grimaced.
“Any news on the stolen Munnings?” Walter switched gears.
“No. O.J. visited Fennell’s. The police had been there to look at sales of lead shanks. Well, Fennell’s sells hundreds of them each year to the stud farms, as well as foal halters then regular halters as they grow. No way to keep track of all the new lead shanks. The only murder victims that have been identified are Parker Bell and Delores Buckingham,” Sister answered. “The other drivers remain unknown.”
“If this virus really takes off, what a cover for the thieves! Everyone will be distracted.” Walter had just thought of that.
“Thieves are clever. There are a fair number of Munnings here in our country. You’d think they would have hit Great Britain first.”
“True. I expect this is the work of Americans.” Walter speared an artichoke. “As long as the thefts involved Munnings, I guess that is some form of clue.”
“There’s logic to it somewhere, along with the value of the work. The problem with logic is what’s logical to you may not be logical to me.” Sister sighed.
“If you want an exercise in logic, be a doctor. People do the damndest things to their body or ignore their body. Then again, there must be comfort in denial.”
“To kind of change the subject. Do you think most criminals get caught in the end?”
/> He shook his head. “No. The smartest criminals are white collar. Every day they steal from the companies they work for, or if elected steal from the people or suck up whatever lobbyists give them.
“Actually, I’m not against lobbyists presenting their case. But I am against money under the table or other vices perhaps far more interesting than money. While I’m at it, any progress from Crawford’s private detective?”
“No.” Then Sister said, “I’ll make you a bet. Fifty dollars. I bet whoever the thieves and the killers are, they are part of the show world or the racing world.”
Walter smiled. “I’ll take that bet and double it. I bet whoever this is in some way is involved in the art market or a museum.”
They shook hands. “You’re on,” both said.
CHAPTER 25
March 5, 2020 Thursday
Two fixtures, abutting each other, filled five hundred acres on the opposite side of the ridge from Crawford Howard’s Beasley Hall. As Crawford maintained his own pack of Dumfriesshire hounds, Jefferson Hunt feared rolling up over the ridge and then down into Beasley Hall. Although Sister and Crawford had made amends over the years, no one ever wants to wind up on land not granted to them to hunt. It would set his hounds crazy. The master doesn’t live who hasn’t had some offended, red-faced landowner screaming at them, or worse, passing a shotgun over the master’s head. Crawford would forgo the shotgun, which he considered redneck. Lawyers were his shotgun. He could make your life miserable. He might not flame out these days, but why take the chance?
To this end he allowed Sam Lorillard and Skiff Kane to hunt with Jefferson Hunt today. Sam rode Sugar in Second Flight. The horse, trained, had not been trained as a foxhunter, and much as Sam wanted to go slow, Crawford, not a horseman, wanted to know if he had made a good purchase. Sam’s idea was to keep the gleaming animal in the rear, keep calm, and if she became overfaced turn back to the trailers. Skiff rode with him on Czapka, Crawford’s made hunter, a warmblood who mostly tolerated his master’s squeeze-and-jerk method of equitation.
The group parked at Fairies Bottom, the day held promise, the mercury remained in the low forties and a heavy cloud cover pressed down chimney smoke as well as scent.
Fairies Bottom, so called because when the temperature lifted, that first night of late May or early June, the fireflies appeared in massive squadrons of light. Back in the mid-nineteenth century one of the children thought they were fairies and the name stuck. Next to this simple, well-maintained farm nudged, in a northwesterly fashion, Pitchfork Farm. Built in the 1920s, the buildings appeared modern compared to Fairies Bottom. And as is often the case in the country, the owners of Fairies Bottom had to sell the land when times grew hard. Soon after they did, the crash of ’29 plummeted everyone down with it. The owners of Fairies Bottom seemed prescient. As for Pitchfork Farm, drama swirled about it. The next owners, having bought it in the last six months, seemed easy enough. They gave Jefferson Hunt permission to hunt, but as yet they had not availed themselves of the social life of the club.
A few trees, buds swelling red, offered hope against the denuded trees. Spring would come.
Weevil, Betty, and Tootie surrounded the hounds, eager to go. Weevil couldn’t sleep last night because he wasn’t sure which way to cast. The last thing he wanted to do was create an uproar with Crawford Howard.
“I’ll cast in the first meadow. If we don’t find, I’ll swing toward Pitchfork Farm,” Weevil informed his whippers-in.
If hounds hit a hotline and kept running northwest, they would eventually land in Mousehold Heath, fifteen miles away. Healthy, that distance on a hard run will push close to an hour. As they had just hunted Mousehold Heath, Weevil hoped he could find something on these two fixtures without going too far afield. Weevil cleared a simple coop in the middle of the fence line directly across from the house.
Noses down, the pack moved forward. Pookah slowed under a hickory, branches reaching to the sky.
“Old.”
Cora, out today, checked the younger hound’s line. “Doesn’t mean it won’t heat up. Let’s see.”
Sterns swaying, all the hounds shifted over to the tree line at the edge of the pasture, still brown but a hint of green peeking underneath. On and on they worked, steady. This was not a sight to thrill those people who hunt to ride but it did excite those who ride to hunt. The younger “B” hounds quietly worked alongside the older hounds. Indeed the line did heat up. Hounds trotted, as did the field behind them.
Sugar, in Second Flight, followed the other horses. Her ears swiveled, her nostrils opened wide. She didn’t know what this was but everyone moved off so she did, too.
Czapka, next to the Thoroughbred, reassured her. “We might run, we might not. We have to do what hounds do.”
“What about the horn noise?” Sugar thought it brassy.
“I’ll teach you the calls. Right now it’s one long note and three short ones, kind of in ascending order. The huntsman is telling the hounds to draw the covert. If they find anything, he might scream. He’s not hurt.”
Sam possessed hands that transmitted confidence to a horse. Sugar relaxed because his rider was relaxed, plus Czapka knew everything. Not two minutes later Tinsel opened. They were off.
“Stick with me. You’re gonna love it.” The big warmblood broke into an easy canter, the sounds, the smells, the pace lifting all spirits.
* * *
—
As Sister and Jefferson Hunt broke into a run, O. J. Winegardner and Catherine Clay-Neal admired Andre Pater’s paintings in the gallery of Headley-Whitney Museum.
“Nobody paints jockey silks or jockeys like Andre Pater.” O.J. admired Fox Hill Farm Silks with Ramon Dominguez. The jockey, a handsome man who radiated thought, glowed resplendently in silks, the body divided into four red and white squares in front, the sleeves white with three red hoops, the cap red-billed with pie wedges of white and red silk. His wedding ring shone on his left hand. All the paintings of silks provoked amazement, but this one showed you something of the man’s character.
“You see fabric handled this way in paintings from the sixteenth and seventeenth century, but after that, with the exception of John Singer Sargent, we seem to have lost it.” Catherine stood before the work. “Or maybe we no longer value that kind of beauty or seem to realize that clothes really do make the man. Think of the representations of Henry VIII or Elizabeth I. Their clothing was a statement.”
“I fear we’ve become slothful, mmm, or we’re distracted by obvious things. We no longer look at jewelry, fabrics, colors, you name it, as tiny trails into a personality. Then again, so many of those who now have fame wear so little.” O.J. burst into peals of laughter.
“If you’ve got it, flaunt it.” Catherine crossed to the other side of the gallery.
“If I spent as much on my body as those women have, I suppose I’d flaunt it, too.” O.J. stopped before a painting of a German shorthaired pointer with a pheasant. “Gorgeous.”
The two longtime hunt friends strolled through the exhibit, each painting drawing them in.
“I like that he paints African American jockeys.” O.J. stood before a painting of a turn-of-the-century jockey in green and pink silks, an unusual combination that was stunning; then again, the jockey wore the colors with nonchalance.
“What was it, the first three Kentucky Derby winners were African American jockeys?” Catherine remarked. “So the men in charge passed a rule that black men couldn’t ride the big races. And you know, now we don’t have nearly enough African Americans in equine sports.”
“Well, the men go into baseball, football, or basketball. Big bucks. I can’t help but believe working with horses is a better life. Then again, I couldn’t imagine a life without horses.”
“Me, neither.” Catherine turned. “Do you think we could make this work?”
“One minute. I want
to stare at Andre’s painting of you and Dude.” O.J. walked to a thirty by thirty-four painting of Catherine, sidesaddle, on a large, well-made flea-bitten gray, the flecks tiny specks of chestnut. She faced the viewer, a soft smile on her face, her top hat with a thin veil, almost transparent, over her face. Her right hand, white glove, rested on her hip and her left gloved hand held her crop. Her vest peeking out a bit added a touch of mustard. Her tack, perfect, down to the sandwich case, would impress even people who knew nothing about tack.
Catherine stood next to her friend. “Dude is the perfect gentleman. Everyone needs at least one great horse in their life.”
“This really is one of his best paintings, and I’m not saying that because we hunt together.” O.J. smiled broadly.
“Thank you. Then again, Andre has a way of capturing you. This exhibit has been a smashing success. And the timing is right for the joint meet, or the movable feast, however you think of it.”
The two walked back to Catherine’s office, passing one marvelous painting after another, into the center hall, thence to a tidy office. The two sat near each other as O.J. pulled her chair closer to Catherine.
“My idea is to have a formal tea here after the Sunday hunt. Given the distances people are traveling, I do think we need back-to-back hunts.”
Catherine replied, “If we get on one of our marathon coyotes, I don’t see how someone can go out the next day on the same horse.”
A pause followed this. “Sister and probably Deep Run may well bring their own horses, so that leaves us, Big Sky, and Red Rock people. I called Bull Run, too. I expect some of them will come. But they can trailer their horses. I know we can find stalls for them.”
“I don’t doubt that, but we have enough trouble finding mounts for visitors and now we will need two per person. We’d better think this through.”
“Okay.” O.J. looked down at her hands a moment, mind whirring. “But what about a tea? We can’t really do a dinner in here but a tea in the center part of the museum, we might can do that.”
Out of Hounds Page 18