Sister knelt down. “The rest are here.”
Alice couldn’t kneel down. “How many?”
“One, two, three, uh, some are hiding behind the others but I’d say you have eight. No roosters, though.” Sister stood up, brushing off her knees and her hands. “Let me take this big Rooster home.”
“Good. He can kill Peter’s chickens!”
Sister accepted Alice Ramy’s choleric nature. She was a woman only happy when airing a complaint, some terrible thing that had happened to her. Her narcissism was such that she even shied away from the disasters of others, their shortcomings. She concentrated solely on her own dramas. Sister patted the harrier on the head, then walked around the inside of the pen. “Here you go, Alice.” She pointed to a shallow tunnel dug under the wire.
Alice thumped over. “That’s how he did it.”
“Look at the size of this hound. Look at the size of the tunnel. And look at these tracks.” Sister pointed to clear fox prints.
“Dog. I told you.”
Sister knelt down again. “Hey, sweetie, give me your paw.”
“Give it to you. Wouldn’t give it to that bitch. I was on the trail of that fox. Aunt Netty. I’d know Aunt Netty anywhere. By the time I got here, Aunt Netty had had her jubilation.”
Sister pushed the paw into the dirt right next to the fox print. “See the difference?”
“Yes.” Alice shut her mouth like a carp.
“This hound couldn’t have shimmied under the wire. My guess is he was on the fox but far behind. It’s a good day for scent.”
“What am I going to do with all these dead chickens?” Alice chose not to apologize, since she could never be wrong. She simply accepted that the fox had killed the chickens but that didn’t mean she was wrong.
“Give you fifty cents apiece.”
“Two dollars apiece.”
“Fine.” Sister reached in her jeans pocket, counted out eighteen dollars, handed them to Alice. Then she picked up the chickens, tossing them in the back of the truck. Alice threw in the two dead roosters.
“I’ll shoot that fox if I see him.”
“Put a thin strip of concrete on the outside of your chicken coop or even a hot-wire. Might work. But don’t shoot a fox, Alice. It’s unsporting. If the fox comes back, I’ll replace your chickens. Just don’t kill him.”
“Maybe.”
“When the scared chickens come out, I’m willing to bet you another ten dollars that you’re missing a chicken. Fox carted it off.”
“What I want to know is why was this hound sitting in the middle of the chicken yard?”
“I just got here!”
“My hunch is, like I said, scent was good so he could have been a half a mile or even a mile behind the fox. Be easy to keep on the line today. By the time Rooster got here the fox was gone and as luck would have it, you walked out just then.”
“You can’t trust people. You’d say anything to cover a precious hound of yours or Peter Wheeler’s. All you foxhunters stick together.”
Sister whistled softly to Rooster, who followed her. “Can’t trust some people, Alice. Let me know if the fox comes back.”
“I could pee on her leg,” the harrier offered, but Sister trotted him out of there, putting him next to her in the truck. She wanted to get to Hangman’s Ridge before anyone saw the dead chickens in the back of the truck. No point in wasting good chickens. She’d strategically place them throughout that fixture after filling them full of ivermectin, a wormer.
By the time she reached Peter’s, she and Rooster were good friends. She honked the horn. Peter opened the back door. “Hey, Pete. Rooster was in the middle of Alice Ramy’s chicken pen. It’s confusing calling him Rooster in the middle of roosters.”
He slowly walked out, saw the dead chickens. “Guess these chickens won’t be crossing the road. Alice Ramy’s a good five miles from here. Rooster, what are you doing?”
“Fox killed her chickens. She blamed your hound, who doesn’t have a drop of blood on him. God, she’s a miserable bitch.”
“Yeah,” the dog agreed.
“Guess I’d better keep an eye on you, buddy.” Peter clapped his hands and Rooster jumped out of the truck when Sister opened the door. “Come on in for a drink.”
“Thanks. I’ll take a rain check. I want to put out these chickens.”
“Good idea.” He turned for the house. “I forgot to ask you the other day. . . . When I go, will you take care of Rooster and my chickens?”
“Yes. I wish you’d stop talking about dying.”
“Well, I feel just fine but I need to put my house in order. I’ve lived a long time. I’m damned grateful but it may be worth dying to get away from Crawford Howard.” He then related how Crawford had dropped by, giving him the hard sell. Sister didn’t get the chickens out until sundown.
CHAPTER 25
Aunt Netty ducked into Target’s den, as hers was a half mile farther on. She’d carried her booty long enough.
“A feast!” Charlene sank her fangs into a limp wing.
“You should have seen Alice Ramy, the sow,” Aunt Netty crowed in triumph. “If I were bigger I’d break her neck, too.”
Reynard, Charlie, Grace, and Patsy ate in respectful silence as the adults discussed corn, oats, and mice.
“The gleanings are especially good down by Whiskey Ridge,” Target said.
“It’s good everywhere. A perfect year. Oats, rye, corn, barley, fat mice, fatter rabbits.” Aunt Netty lived to eat. “Even my useless husband mentioned it the other day.”
“I haven’t seen Uncle Yancy since July,” Charlene noted.
“I hardly see him myself, which I consider a benefit,” his wife remarked. “He’s spent most of the summer down at Wheeler Mill studying the wheels and the raceway. He likes to talk to the foxes down there, reds, you know. Yancy feels that he can prove all mammals descend from a great prehistoric fox. He says birds come from flying reptiles, so we have nothing in common with them, but all mammals come from the original fox.”
“Even humans?” Reynard wondered.
“Yes. They’re more closely related to us than we’d like, but better to be close to a human than an armadillo, I suppose.”
Grace, the image of her mother, put her paw on a piece of flesh because Charlie was inching toward her. “Does that mean we’ll build machines?”
“I don’t follow, dear.” Aunt Netty, full, stretched out on her side.
“If we’re related to humans will we build machines like they do?” Grace slapped her brother, who put his nose too close to her portion of chicken.
“Gracious, no. Machines dull your senses. We’d never be so foolish.” Netty laughed. “That’s what’s wrong with them. They get further and further away from nature. Yancy says there was a time when they had better eyes and ears than they do now. He said once humans could even smell game. If they keep on the way they’re going, they’ll even lose their sense of direction. Yancy says millions of them live in cubicles stacked on top of one another. Seems impossible but he says he’s seen it on television.”
“Where does he watch television?” The patriarch of this family joined the conversation.
“Doug Kinser. Yancy sits on the window ledge and watches the eleven o’clock news.”
“Why bother? It’s only about them.” Charlene shrugged.
“Yancy says you never know when they’re going to do something stupid like build a dam. Affect all of us. Even St. Just.”
“I’ll snap his neck yet.” Target’s eyes lit up. “He’s worthless.”
“Worthless but smart. He won’t be satisfied until he sees you dead.” Aunt Netty lifted her head. “Children, take the chicken outside. Help your mother clean up this den.”
Patsy, the quiet one, whispered, “Dad, how can a blackbird kill a fox?”
“Can’t.” Target swished his tail around.
“He can lead the hounds to you, Target. Pride goeth before a fall,” Netty warned.
�
�I’ll get him before he gets me.”
As the young foxes gathered up the debris of their meal, Aunt Netty scolded: “What are you all doing here, anyway? You should be in your own dens.” Her speech was clipped. “Charlene, you spoil these children. Why, the grays are already in their new homes, even that little black thing. She has a pretty face. She’ll need it with that black coat.”
“Who cares what the grays do?” Reynard, parroting his father, said.
“I do. They aren’t stupid, you know.” Netty, who’d seen a lot in her day, couldn’t help but sound superior. “They’ve taken the good new dens near the cornfields. Makes it that much harder for you. You should have found a place last week.”
“I’ll chase one out and take his den,” Reynard bragged.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Aunt Netty had no time for youthful folly. “Opening hunt is not but ten days away. You’d better get yourself situated.”
“We can dust those guys.” Charlie, the good-natured son, laughed.
“And so you can but what if you duck in a den and find Comet there? He’s a young gray but he’s tough, very tough, just like his father. You’ll have a fight on your paws and hounds at your heels. Prepare now.” Having imparted enough wisdom for one day, Netty closed her eyes, curling her tail around her nose.
Charlie picked up a drumstick; Reynard, some feathers. Grace batted the neck around and Patsy picked up the backbone. They walked outside, scattering the bones. The sun filtered through the trees.
“Why do they start formal hunting in early November?” Grace asked.
“Because we’re looking for dens. They’ll get better runs. That’s what Mom says,” Charlie answered.
“It’s because there’s frost on the ground. Usually. The first frost comes around the middle of October but some years not until later. By November the frost is here until April. Scent holds,” Patsy said.
“Maybe it’s both things.” Grace walked toward the creek. She liked to watch the fish. She’d seen bear catch them and she thought if a dumb bear could do it, she could do it.
Reynard dashed by her. Charlie ran after him. Patsy bumped into Grace just to hear her squeal. A perfect October day was meant for play. They could worry about hunting later.
CHAPTER 26
The last label peeled off the sheet of paper was smacked onto the envelopes. Formal invitations to opening hunt had already been mailed the first of October. This mailing was the fixture cards.
Fixture cards listed the time and place of each hunt. Often at the top of a fixture card was printed the phrase “Hounds will meet.”
Scheduling fixtures drove many a master to drink. Even with the fixtures scheduled, last-minute changes wreaked havoc. A hard rain might prompt a farmer to request no one ride over his fields and with good reason. A crop of winter wheat could get cut up or the slipping and sliding of trailers could turn a pasture into brown waves, which, when frozen, were hell to negotiate.
The ladies of a hunting club usually did the mailings. Gentlemen built fences. Both genders cleared trails. However, as those lines blurred, the new order was whoever could do the job, did it.
The ladies, gathered in Sister’s living room, laughed, gossiped, teased one another.
Golly sorted the mail. Raleigh slept by the fireplace.
A knock on the front door brought Sister to her feet.
Crawford asked to come in. The ladies said hello.
“Perfect timing.” He smiled. “I’ll take the fixture cards and run them through my postage meter.”
“Why thank you, Crawford,” Sister said.
“Martha wasn’t here, was she?”
“No,” Betty Franklin, sitting cross-legged on the floor, remarked. “She got tied up at work. Called about an hour ago.”
“Oh.” He wanted to say something but whatever it was it stuck in his throat.
“A libation?” Sister reached for his jacket.
“No. I’ll do this right now and drop them at the main post office. Oh, I forgot to tell you, thirty coop flats with top boards will be dropped over at Rumble Bars tomorrow. Had the lumber yard knock them together.”
There were many ways to build coops but if the sides were built, then carried to the site, they could be leaned against one another, braced, a top board put on, and then painted. It saved time building the flats off-site.
“Crawford, that’s wonderful.” Sister was pleased. He allowed himself a smile. “When we know how the fox runs we can put up more. This is a good beginning. What a wonderful surprise. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a drink?”
“No. No. I really need to go.” He picked up the cards all in their envelopes in cartons according to zip codes. Out he went.
“H-m-m,” was all Betty Franklin said.
Before that subject could warm up, Sister deftly said, “Did I tell you girls the caterer called this morning and said I’d better switch from spoon bread to corn bread? I mean how can you have a hunt breakfast without spoon bread, ham biscuits, gravy—well, I’ll make us hungry. Anyway, he said there are now so many Yankees in Virginia that every time he makes spoon bread there’s a dreadful mess.”
“What does he mean, a dreadful mess?” Georgia Vann asked.
“Yankees pick it up with their fingers. They think it’s undercooked corn bread.” Sister emitted tinkling laughter.
“No!” Betty howled.
“I can’t believe that. How can you not know how to eat spoon bread? I mean, it’s called spoon bread.” Lottie Fisher shook her head, then laughed.
“That’s what he said.” Sister laughed more.
“The hell with the Yankees.” Lottie waved the rebel flag figuratively.
“You know, we give foxhunting clinics in the beginning of cubbing. Maybe we should run a hunt breakfast clinic or a southern cooking demonstration,” Betty merrily suggested.
“As long as you organize it,” Sister said.
“Spoken like a true master.” Betty giggled some more.
“Isn’t it glorious to be superior to Federals?” Georgia teased.
“Like Crawford.” Lottie had to get back to that. “I wonder what he’s about? I mean, I heard he’s trying to win back Martha. If I were her, I’d slap him right in the face.”
“She did that already,” Betty dryly said.
“Shotgun,” Georgia laconically said as she reached for a piece of pound cake with fresh vanilla icing dribbled over it.
“He’s not worth going to jail over.” Betty thought the pound cake looked pretty good, too. This was her third piece.
“Maybe he’s learned something,” Sister said. “More coffee? Drinks?”
“You sit. You threw this together after hound walk. You must be tired by now.” Georgia got up, walked over to the gleaming silver coffeepot, and poured into the cups handed her.
“If I had a nickel for every time I wanted to shoot Bobby Franklin, I’d be rich.” Betty laughed at herself. “Who knows what Crawford and Martha have to work out together. It’s hard for a middle-aged woman to make it alone. Let’s not forget that, girls.”
A quiet murmur rippled across the gathering.
“Sister, you know I can’t keep my mouth shut. Are you really going to make Crawford a joint-master? You must know the club’s abuzz with speculation.” Georgia blushed.
“I don’t know. Crawford and Fontaine have a lot to offer.”
“And a lot to sidestep.” Lottie hated Crawford. She thought he was a rich oaf who tried to buy his way into everything. He didn’t belong here.
As they batted pros and cons back and forth, as well as Martha Howard’s future, Sister listened. She thought to herself, if only Raymond Junior had lived. He’d be old enough now to assume the responsibilities of a joint-master. She’d always dreamed of that. She snapped out of her reverie. “Don’t question the will of God,” she said to herself, then said to the ladies, “I really do appreciate your concern for the hunt.”
“Not just the hunt, Sister Jane, we appreciate you
. Can’t you go along for one more year as sole master? Surely something will turn up or resolve itself,” Lottie inquired earnestly, her soft brown hair framing her square face.
“I’ve said that for the last five years.”
“You’re stronger than we are. Wait five more.” Betty echoed what the others were thinking.
“I don’t know. There’s a black young vixen on the farm. You know everything happens in the black fox years.”
The ladies knew the black fox legend. “That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to you,” each said in her own way.
“Well—I hope not.” She was tempted to tell them about the lone figure on Hangman’s Ridge but decided that would be between her and Doug Kinser. “But let’s change the subject to something more cheerful or challenging. Can you imagine Crawford Howard without his clothes on?”
CHAPTER 27
The old office in the center of town exuded a sepulchral air. The sturdy white Doric columns, the large iron doors boasted of public wealth, solidness, and civic duty. Built in 1926 on a flood tide of government spending and public speculation, the post office, like the country that spawned it, witnessed the subsequent depression, another world war and three smaller ones, more economic booms and busts.
When the post office was being built, slabs of granite lying along Main Street, men came to the post office wearing coats and hats. If it was summer, they wore jaunty straw boaters. In the winter, fedoras and borsalinos predominated. Ladies festooned in hat, gloves, purse, and shoes dyed to match sashayed onto the black marble floors. The very colors the ladies wore announced their feelings about the day and about themselves. Farmers, some still driving teams, would tie up at the gray iron balustrade designed for that purpose. Wearing overalls and straw hats in the warm weather, they’d stride into the halls cheerfully greeting everyone, stopping to talk about that riveting subject: the weather.
As Crawford Howard pushed open the heavy doors with his back he harbored none of these memories. A post office was simply a post office to him, not a community statement. But it remained a federal building and therefore a citizen trust. An American can enter a post office at any time of night or day to deposit mail in the shining brass slots, to open their own large or small mailbox with their key.
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