Walter came and brought as his date Sorrel Buruss. That would set tongues wagging, mostly because it happened under everyone’s nose. Ah, what an offense to those who had to know everything about everybody because their own lives were such a bloody bore.
Mandy, Gray’s daughter, drove down from Washington. She looked more like her mother than her father, but she had her father’s quiet sense of command as well as his wonderful way with color. Over the last year Sister and Mandy learned to value each other.
Marty and Crawford Howard came, and Sister told Shaker, who strongly disliked them, that he had to abide Crawford. The Howards would always be invited to the big parties or functions where Crawford’s checkbook was hotly desired. But no one invited them to the family dinners, the true gatherings of the clan. Once Sister discovered this she thought she’d set it to rights. Crawford wasn’t so bad. He needed to stop bragging about himself, a sign of weakness, but Sister wanted to give him a chance.
The dogs barked as another car pulled up.
Betty and her husband, Bobby, came in through the back door.
“Sorry we’re late.” Bobby hung up his coat on the peg by the door.
“That Magellan jumped out of the paddock so everyone else had to follow. And of course, we were all dressed up. Don’t you think the mud stains on my skirt add to my fashion statement?” Betty, too, was in fine spirits.
Gray, Bobby, and Crawford located extra chairs to accommodate all the guests since the dining room chairs only numbered twelve. They’d set up extra tables in the huge dining room. When the “new” part of Roughneck Farm was built in 1824, this room doubled as a small ballroom, so each end boasted a beautiful fireplace. The small orchestras used back then would play on a raised dais against the outside wall. If the weather was warm all the French doors would be thrown open and dancing would be outside as well as in.
When Big Ray lived he threw fabulous parties, this room overflowing. Once he died, Sister rarely used it. But today it seemed perfect.
Between the food, the stories, having all the young people around, it was one of the best Thanksgivings Sister could remember.
After the last dish was carried out and the table cleared, they all repaired to the living room, where Sorrel opened the grand piano and played song after song. The schoolgirls knew the words to Cole Porter’s songs because Custis Hall put on Anything Goes. They all got hooked on his witty lyrics and melodies.
By midnight, the last of the guests had left. They’d thrilled to a hard day’s riding, the joy of one another’s company. Lorraine protested that she should stay to clean up, as did Betty, but Sister pushed them out the door, saying she’d abuse the Custis Hall students.
With Golly, Raleigh, and Rooster cleaning plates the only thing to do was to load the dishwasher. Up to her elbows in soapy water, washing the crystal, Sister handed glasses to the girls, standing in a row. Gray filled up the fireplaces, then returned to the kitchen.
“What can I do?”
“Sit by the fire and look handsome.”
More tired than he cared to admit, he dropped into the old cane rocking chair, propped his feet up by the huge walk-in fireplace.
“What a day.” He smiled.
“Aunt Netty is still sleeping, I’ll bet.” Sister pulled the plug in the sink, the water swirling downward. Bubbles floated into the air. She reached up and balanced one on her finger. “Life is a soap opera and we’re the bubbles.”
“How’d you know it was Aunt Netty?” Valentina finished wiping out a wineglass.
“First that silly brush. Pathetic. Always has been. Then, no one runs like Aunt Netty, she burns the wind.”
“Did you get a look at the other fox?” Tootie asked.
“No, but Betty said it was Grace, who lives at Foxglove. Cindy spoils her with candies.”
“As I recall, someone in this room occasionally puts out treats.” Gray pushed off with his right foot, the rocker gently rolling.
“Well, it’s true. Of course, now that we’ve got the little gray back in the orchard I’ll put out some dog biscuits for her, too.”
Tootie hung the sopping-wet dish towel over the drying rack. “Anything else?”
“We’ve performed heroic labors. Done.” Sister wiped her hands.
Valentina walked to the mudroom. Her barn coat hung there. She’d put her iPod in the pocket. Returning to the kitchen, everyone sitting by the fireplace, she handed it to Sister. “I keep forgetting to play this for you.”
“Ah, I’ve wanted to see one of these,” Sister said, admiring the small electronic device.
“I recorded this music, uh, I forget the exact name. Something about Henry IV hunting. Henry of France. Anyway, it was written during the French Revolution.”
“Off with their heads.” Felicity giggled.
“You know, I didn’t think anyone wrote music during the Revolution.” Sister placed the tiny earpieces in her ears. She blinked and pulled them off.
“Too loud?” Valentina turned down the volume.
“No. No. That tinty sound.”
Valentina put the earphones in her ears. “Oh, that.” She handed them back to Sister. “Sorry. I didn’t erase all of that. The hunting horn will start in a minute.”
“Val, play that again.” Sister listened intently. “What is that sound?”
“Special effects.”
“From what?”
“From the Halloween dance. That’s a witch’s voice. Well, it’s my voice really. I recorded my voice and changed the speed until I got the right sound. We had all these little flying witches and each one had one of our voices. It was so cool.”
Putting her arm around Val’s waist, Sister walked her over to the wall phone. She dialed the sheriff.
“Ben, listen to this.”
It was also a perfect night for Target, the big red. He’d feasted on Thanksgiving leftovers from two different farms. There wasn’t a garbage can Target couldn’t open. Deer hunters would clean carcasses, leaving behind the offal. He didn’t like that but other little creatures did so Target could sometimes grab a quick bite there or even better, the rack hunters would saw off antlers, leaving the entire deer. All that deer meat was getting tedious. The turkey and stuffing leftovers tonight were wonderful.
He stopped, crouched. At the edge of the wildflower meadow lay a blackbird from St. Just’s flock. He crept toward it, prepared to pounce, then stopped. The bird was dead. He sniffed it. Nothing smelled unusual. No marks on the crow. It could have dropped from a heart attack, a common enough death among birds given their heart rate. He picked up another odor, human. Ten feet from the crow rested a human finger, relatively fresh, torn at the joint. The simple gold ring had an onyx oval stone, a crest carved into it. The ring was half on, half off the finger. Target pulled it off with one extended claw.
Toys delighted him. He’d steal balls that house dogs dropped outside. If it rolled or was shiny, he wanted it. He picked up the ring, taking it home.
He knew humans buried or cremated their dead. Their fastidious ways amused him because the body did the earth not a bit of good then. However, every creature has its habits so if humans wanted to render their dead useless to the soil, so be it.
It occurred to him that finding the finger was not a good sign for the humans. One more reason he was glad he was a fox.
C H A P T E R 2 1
Thanksgiving vacation offered quiet but no relief from paperwork. Charlotte and Carter lived on campus in a lovely home, but try as she might, Charlotte couldn’t work at home. She needed to leave the familiarity of her needlepoint pillows and her two cats.
As she walked across the main quad she was surprised to see Knute Nilsson, blue cashmere scarf wrapped around his neck, walking toward Old Main.
“Knute, walking off your turkey?”
He smiled wanly, “I’d have to walk to Seattle and back.”
“See, if you rode, you’d burn off those calories.”
“The horse burns them. I don’t know abo
ut the human.” He fell in alongside her. “But I burn plenty of calories sailing.”
“Bill tore his britches yesterday, revealing more of Bill than anyone wanted to see,” she said cheerfully.
“Actually, there’s a lot of Bill, isn’t there? He can’t even claim that it’s middle-aged spread now that he’s on the other side of sixty.”
“How was your Thanksgiving?”
“Good, but five children in the house under the age of ten! I thought I would lose my mind or go deaf or both.”
“Maybe when we’re younger we don’t mind it. I don’t know.”
“Sometimes I look at my children and grandchildren and wish I’d been celibate.”
At that they both laughed.
Charlotte chided him, “You wouldn’t make a good monk.”
“No.”
“So coming to the office for peace and quiet?”
“Yes, and to crunch numbers.” He opened the large main door, the paned glass on the top half frosted. “Amy wants four new centrifuges. She said what she has is ancient and two are broken. My God, Charlotte, do you know how much a centrifuge costs? I told her she’d better not break any of those microscopes because that’s it for this year’s budget.” He paused. “Really, the security patrol is wreaking havoc with the numbers.”
“I know,” she commiserated. “What can we do, Knute? We have to have that presence to create confidence.”
“I don’t think the students are in danger. Whatever happened had to do with Al, himself, not any of the girls.”
“Let’s hope so. The problem is, we don’t know.” Her loafer heels clicked on the polished floor as they walked by the artifact case.
“We could reduce the number of security people. Shave two people off the payroll. I’m not sure anyone would notice.”
“No.”
He frowned. “We’ve got to do something. And I guarantee you the bill Professor Kennedy submits with her report will be as fat as the report.” He stopped when they reached the door to her office. “She didn’t give any kind of hint, did she? Like when and how much?”
“She said she’d have the report to us right after New Year’s. But she gave no indication of the final cost. She probably doesn’t know until she sits down and adds it all up.”
“I dread it.”
“I do, too, but I dread unrest more. We can’t afford that kind of publicity. At least belt-tightening doesn’t have to make the news.”
“Be sure to tighten Bill’s first.”
C H A P T E R 2 2
The remnants of the moon, still full enough to cast light through the clouds, revealed low popcorn clouds, sailing in from the west. By eight-thirty they’d turned into low, fleecy gray clouds.
When hounds were cast at nine o’clock at Little Dalby, the temperature leveled off at forty-seven degrees. The moisture in the clouds gave the morning a raw feel. From a foxhunter’s point of view, this was good because scent would hold on the ground.
Eighty-four people in formal attire filled the pasture where the trailers had parked this Saturday after Thanksgiving. Holidays brought people out. Many were eager for a foxhunt to sweat off the calories. Then, too, the cold air cleared the head from all the family tension that holidays seem to bring out.
Postcard Thanksgiving dinners so rarely occur. The soup isn’t the only thing simmering. Many a person seated atop their sleek hunter inwardly groaned at the thought of Christmas. The expense of it was bad enough; worse, for some, was spending it with their families. Since southerners, especially, put a good face on it, many people thought they were alone in their misery.
People needed a good brisk day out to release their pent-up, silent resentment.
The hounds couldn’t wait, charging out of the party wagon. Sybil and Betty dropped the thongs on their whips, calling, “Hold up. Hold up.”
Shaker, voice calm, sat atop HoJo. “Settle down. Just relax.”
“We’re ready!” Delight said.
“And it’s a new fixture. I can’t wait.” Her littermate, Diddy, twirled in a circle.
“If you don’t quit babbling, Shaker will put you back on the trailer,” Ardent warned with the wisdom of full maturity.
That shut up the two giddy girls.
Once Sister thanked Mrs. Wideman and informed the field that a tailgate would follow they got right down to it. No point wasting a minute on a day as promising as this.
The staff didn’t know the foxes on this estate. Little Dalby backed up on Beveridge Hundred, which had been hunted by Jefferson Hunt for over a century. If a fox skedaddled that way, they’d have a better chance of knowing the fox since the animal’s home territory might be Beveridge Hundred.
But hounds no sooner put their noses down on the grass than Dasher found a strong line and called the others to him. Before people could tighten their girths they were off, in some cases literally.
No harm done as those who had parted ways from their mounts lurched back up, usually with the help of a friend holding on to their horse. It’s difficult for a horse to stand still when the rest of the herd thunders away. However, these pathetic humans couldn’t run a lick, so the good horses knew to wait and hope they could catch up without their passenger flying off again.
The fox headed straight south away from Beveridge Hundred, straight as an arrow, too. Within twenty minutes Sister and the first flight cleared six new coops and post-and-rail jumps they’d built. Then, as so often happens, the fox vanished.
Hounds cast themselves looking for the elusive scent. As no creek or river was near, no one knew how he or she did it, but it was as though that fox had never existed.
Sitting at the check, Sister felt the slight drop in the temperature and a cool air current curling out of the forest. The faint rustle of the dried leaves on the oaks filled the air as did the cry of an angry redtail hawk overhead. The hounds spoiled her hunting.
The low series of hills stretched out before them was covered with broomsage. These fields needed care. However, what’s bad for grazing may be good for game.
Out of the corner of her eye, Tootie saw a large red fox walking toward the forest. He’d circled them, arranging to ruin his scent where the hounds lost it. She resisted the urge to blurt out “Tally ho,” which would have sent the fox on faster as well as brought up the hounds’ heads. Every time a hound lifts its head a precious moment may be lost because the scent, nine times out of ten, is on the ground.
Sometimes if scent is breast high the hounds can carry it until it lifts over their heads.
Heart pounding, Tootie turned Iota in the direction the fox was moving. She took off her cap, stretched her right arm out straight, and said nothing.
Sister didn’t see her, as Tootie was behind her. A low murmur alerted her; she turned and saw with pride that the young woman did just as she was supposed to do. She also heard at that moment Crawford bellow, “Tally ho.”
Shaker, trotting and now close to the field, said in a voice that carried, “Mr. Howard, kindly shut up.” Crawford fumed, face cerise, but he did button his lip.
Shaker quietly called the hounds to him, walking them toward the sighting. At that moment, since there was no wind, he didn’t have to factor in how far scent would drift. He had to give the fox time to get away. Scent was good today. No reason to gallop about.
He glanced at Tootie, put the hounds on her vector but fifty yards behind. As the hounds passed her, then Shaker, he touched his cap with his crop.
Tootie grinned from ear to ear.
Before her grin faded, Cora, good as gold, called, “Let’s go.”
The fox, full of vigor, feeling loosened up from the first part of the chase, glided into the forest, darted over rotting logs, their pungent aroma detectable to the humans. The fox, inexperienced with hounds, had heard from the Beveridge Hundred foxes how the chase worked.
Confident that he could elude and outrun the pursuers, he merrily ran. He scrambled over huge orange fungus sprouting from the base of trees. His weig
ht broke off pieces, releasing their earthy scent. He skidded across pine needles, the fresher the needles, the stronger the scent.
St. John’s lay dead ahead and he shot right for it. He inhaled an enticing aroma from under the church but knew if he ducked in there so would the hounds. Better to allow the marvelous fragrance to throw them off. He’d be long gone by the time they gave that up.
He was right, too, for the hounds swarmed the church.
“Let’s dig in here,” Doughboy gleefully sang out.
“Yeah, this will be really good.” Delight supported her brother.
Cora, tempted by the aroma, ordered, “No. We’ve got to stay on our fox.”
“Won’t the humans want some of this?” Diddy inquired.
Tinsel, a year older than the “Ds,” hunting for the third year, sniffed. “Look how high they are on their horses. Do you know how long it will take scent to reach them even if the air warms? Diddy, we’ve got to leave this. And if an exceptionally well-nosed human gets a whiff they won’t like it.”
“It smells so good,” Delight said with a backward look, and followed Cora.
Shaker called out, “Hark to ’em.”
They moved on, catching up with Dragon, Dasher, and Cora.
Running hard, Tinsel said to Diddy, “Humans don’t like that kind of food.”
“No!” Diddy pitied their undeveloped palates.
Scent grew hotter as they moved forward, so conversation stopped.
Galloping past the charming church, Sister noticed that truck tracks indented the road. The Widemans must have come to inspect their little church. She hoped restoration would follow. A faint hint of an abandoned deer carcass or something assailed her nostrils, then disappeared as she hurried on.
A sprinkle hit her cheeks; the raindrops felt cold. She looked up at the sky. The clouds were so low she felt she could touch them as mist filtered down through the forest.
They burst out of the woods, over a stout new coop, still unpainted, which spooked some of the horses.
She felt sorry about that but there just hadn’t been time to paint, plus one had to wait for the temperatures to rise above the forties.
The Hunt Ball Page 15