After lunch with the girls, Shaker returned to his house for a hot shower. He needed to get the kinks out. Meanwhile, Sister, Betty, and Tootie, still in boots and britches, lingered at Sister’s kitchen table, which Tootie had cleared, putting the dishes in the dishwasher. The dogs gathered below, and Golly watched from her gel pad, now a permanent fixture on the kitchen counter.
Sister was drawing on a notebook page as Betty looked on. “Good thing you didn’t major in art,” Betty cracked.
“Good thing you never went into politics.”
Tootie smiled, wondering if she and Val would wind up like those two: teasing, prodding, bedeviling each other while offering total support. Right now Val wasn’t offering much support. She texted every day ordering Tootie to return to Princeton, filling her in on all the details of everything she was missing.
“That’s the best I can do,” Sister said, giving up. “Tootie, you try.”
Tootie sat back down, took the proffered pencil and the notebook pushed in front of her. She stared at Sister’s sketch.
“You’ve got it,” said Tootie. “It’s just out of proportion.”
Sister poked Betty. “See.”
A minute or two later, Tootie gave the notebook back to Sister. Betty studied her simple drawing.
Pencil now in hand, Sister pointed to the drawing: a square, inside of which was a solid blue soaring bald eagle, head and neck white outlined in blue. It was a strong graphic. Underneath the eagle was a straight thick blue line to indicate water. Curved over the top of this was “American” and underneath was “Smokes” in red.
“Red, white, and blue.” Betty shrugged. “Basic, but we get the message.”
“Okay, can you print this up, Betty? Tootie has the proportions correct, yes?”
“Sure.” Betty was intrigued. “Tell me why I’m printing this up and how many?”
“A pack of American Smokes was placed on the chest of each victim. What Tootie and I saw was a cellophane soft pack, white with this picture on front. I don’t really remember if the pack itself was printed, or if this brand name was a square piece of paper slipped into the front of the cellophane covering the pack.” Sister looked at Tootie, who nodded in affirmation.
“Tell me exactly what you want me to print up.” Betty knew she’d have to clean up the graphic, but that would be easy with her equipment.
“Make me a sheet of squares,” said Sister. “Only need, say, eight. We can cut the squares and slip them into packs of cigarettes. From far away, well, not too far, say three feet or so, the pack will look like American Smokes.”
“Why in the devil do you want to do that?” asked Betty.
“We’re dealing with contraband cigarettes, right?”
“It appears so.” Betty again studied the drawing.
“So, I will carry a pack, and I’ll see if Gray will, too, as he’s always offering cigarettes to others. We just might bolt our fox out of his den.”
“That is flat-out lunacy,” said Betty. “For one thing, you don’t know that the criminals operate out of our county.”
Sister held up her hand. “I expect this covers Virginia and North Carolina. Don’t know about Kentucky, but this has got to be a fairly big operation. No, we don’t grow the stuff in our county, but after standing in Walter’s shed I’ve got a hunch our county is a storage center. Look on a map. Virginia is smack in the middle of the original thirteen colonies. And just north of the Mason–Dixon line are those states with the highest cigarette taxes. Head west, you reach Illinois, another heavily taxed state.”
The two other women thought a bit about this.
Tootie then said, “We are at the edge of what was once great tobacco country and we’re what, two hours from North Carolina? So it’s grown, cured, aged, right?” The two women nodded. “Then shredded and rolled.”
“You can do it by hand or who is to say these crooks haven’t got an old machine,” said Sister. “So much equipment was abandoned by companies gone broke when the crisis hit. The big companies still have the very latest, but the little companies had to bail. It is possible our smugglers have equipment.”
Betty was slowly getting on board. “How do the growers hide their secret stash of tobacco?”
“They don’t. Who is going to go out in the field after harvest or into the shed and weigh the take against what they think it should be? Though I suppose it would be easy to shield some leaf, and it would also be easy to grow more tobacco on a place not near a road. Helicopters don’t fly over to find tobacco, they fly to find marijuana. You can also grow tobacco in the center of a corn field, where no one can see it.”
Betty whistled. “Pure profit for everyone on the pipeline.”
“You got it. I really am willing to bet our county—in the center of Virginia, in the center of the East Coast—is the perfect way station, once the tobacco has been made into cigarettes.” Sister repeated her plan to show off her American Smokes.
“I don’t know,” said Betty. “Are you going to tell Ben Sidell?” She raised a blond eyebrow.
“No!”
“See, you know he’ll tell you not to do it because it’s too dangerous. Let him do your little charade.”
“Betty, if a law enforcement officer pulls out a bogus pack of American Smokes, don’t you think anyone in on the game will know it’s a trap?”
“Ben could give the pack to someone else.”
“Won’t work. And here’s why this is a good plan.” She omitted the danger part. “The cigarettes aren’t sold here. No point. What am I doing with a pack of contraband? That’s the hook.”
“Oh, honey, I don’t know. I don’t like this.”
Sister touched her dear friend’s hand. “I know you don’t like it, but will you do the printing for me?”
Exhaling deeply, looking down, then up, Betty finally said, “Yes, but only if I carry a pack of American Smokes, too.”
“You don’t smoke.”
“Neither do you!”
“Yeah, but I’ll say I’m carrying an extra pack for Gray.”
“Do you want those cards printed up? This is an easy job. Take me maybe three hours. But I won’t do it unless I’m all in.”
Now it was Sister’s turn to breathe deeply, stall. “Damn you, Betty.”
Betty laughed. “Not the first time you’ve blessed me.”
“All right. All right.”
“Don’t tell Bobby,” said Betty. “He’s out of the shop this afternoon trying to drum up business. I’ll bring the graphics back around six.” She quickly made a copy of the drawings.
“You know, if I really had a sick sense of humor I’d slip a pack of our American Smokes into the front seat of Crawford’s fancy car or better yet, his hunt jacket.”
Betty laughed. “Pretty perverse.”
“I shouldn’t waste time thinking about how to get even with him but occasionally, I do.” Sister stood up and stretched. “Let’s do it. Come on, Tootie.” The three women left. Upon hearing everything, Golly left her gel pad to look at the two drawings.
For good measure, she sniffed them, too. “Be much better if this were a cat.”
Down on the floor, Raleigh—irritated that he wasn’t going with Sister—snapped, “No one is going to smoke a cigarette or buy anything with a picture of a mangy cat on it.”
She spit at him, then turned her back.
Rooster, too, listened to everything. “I know you love Sister but, Raleigh, this is a stupid plan.”
Golly turned back around. Although she hated to agree with Rooster, she said, “Nothing will come of it.”
CHAPTER 31
The Norfolk and Southern route ran through Tattenhall Station, a wooden Victorian train station much like others built during the heyday of rail travel. Now only freight trains rumbled through, their schedules irregular, unlike the old passenger trains.
Over time, this station and many others like it fell into disuse, then disrepair. When Kasmir Barbhaiya bought the property a little ove
r a year ago, he stabilized the structure, repaired the plumbing, cleaned it, and repainted it. He couldn’t bear to see the destruction of such tiny bright pieces in the mosaic of a grand past. This Saturday, the large parking lot, with its potholes all filled, gave promise to a huge hunt field.
Kasmir’s vast holdings were well foxed with reds and grays.
Coyotes stuck closer to the Blue Ridge Mountains and, as this was a year when game was plentiful, they posed little problem at Tattenhall Station. For now.
It was always in Sister’s mind, and Shaker’s, that this omnivorous adaptable species was as lazy as a human. If coyotes could eat without working for it, they would. Any farmer with fowl not secured at night found themselves the next morning without their geese, ducks, and chickens. Then, too, coyotes were happy to pick up puppies, kittens, and small house dogs. Best of all for the rangy canines was the humans’ garbage, easily torn up. No working at all for that. Unwittingly, people brought the coyote closer.
However, even like a fundamentally lazy human such as Carter Weems had been, coyotes will work when pressed.
Hunting at Orchard Hill three weeks ago, Sister had seen coyote tracks. She had known they belonged to a coyote because, although the size of a domestic dog, they are in a straight line, the hind feet often stepping into the prints left by the forefeet. She wasn’t too worried about it because it was their breeding season, too. Males travel long distances to find a mate. All the female has to do in most mammal species is throw on a little lipstick and wait.
Directly across from Tattenhall Station was the red brick utilitarian volunteer fire department building on the east side of the tracks.
Sister lifted up on Matador as Shaker mounted Kilowatt, Kasmir’s gift to the club last year on February 19. This was February 18, and unknown to Kasmir, the nonhunting members of the club—usually married to hunting members—had decorated the inside of the station with a banner thanking him and declaring it St. Kasmir’s Day. The hunt breakfast would be the usual fare, but today High Vajay and his wife, Mandy, had also brought special Indian dishes beloved by Kasmir.
The focus of all this gratitude was utterly unaware of it since the hunting ladies of the club, directed to divert his attention before taking off, easily did so. In his mid-forties and widowed, Kasmir was ever mindful of the ladies.
Shaker looked straight up at the lowering gray clouds. “The Weather Channel was right.”
“I give it an hour,” said Sister. “What about you?”
“Think you’re right.” The huntsman agreed with his master that the snows were due soon.
Betty and Sybil were already mounted and waiting to move off. Betty had Tootie with her. Sister wanted Tootie to ride with each whipper-in a number of times and once or twice up with Shaker, so she would know how the huntsman operates. Tootie had to work up to Shaker though.
“Well, let’s do it,” Sister said to Shaker and then in a louder voice for the field, “Hounds, please.”
They walked behind the station, a huge expanse of pasture before them, wire fence interspersed with coops. Kasmir would eventually fence the property, which would cost a fortune but look terrific. Right now his energies were focused on bringing the pastures back and fixing up the modest Virginia farmhouse he lived in. Someday he might build a larger home, but that would be something he would do with a wife, if someday he found another woman to love, who would love him for more than his money.
Sister, as always, counted heads. Thirty-two in First Flight. Bobby shepherded fifty. Many people had come out because they hoped it would be a good day, and others because the word had passed about the celebration for Kasmir.
The group walked along, hounds fanning out in front, searching for scent. On the nearby road heading to Old Paradise, Sister spotted Crawford, his hound van, Sam driving the horse van, and three stock vans driving by—also, Tariq in his Saab, looking longingly at the huge field.
“Doesn’t miss a chance, does he?” Sister heard Edward Bancroft say to his wife and Gray as they rode up behind her.
“He had to see us, too,” Sister remarked knowing Jefferson Hunt’s large field would inflame Crawford.
The banter ended. Strictly speaking, it was out of line, as hounds were drawing in at the end. They all saw Tootie and Betty, horses’ heads pointing south, hats off.
Softly calling to his hounds, Shaker turned them south. Asa, out today, surged forward with Diana. Right behind them were two young entry, Parker and Pickens. The youngsters stopped, turned slightly right toward the west, noses down, and opened.
The older hounds rushed toward them, noses down. They opened, too. The fox zigzagged a bit, then straightened out. He was a large red fellow with a magnificent brush.
This section of Tattenhall Station—all pasture—afforded everyone a fabulous view of a fox running well ahead of hounds, all of the dogs singing and running as one.
The snowflakes began to fall. The fox disappeared in a slight swale, then reappeared farther down, heading back toward the tracks. Gaining a little more time on the pack, he really opened up. Diddy, Diana, all the young entry and second-year entry moved as fast as they could. The older hounds comprised the middle of the pack. This early in the hunt, no one lagged behind. On those long days toward the end, a few hounds would be perhaps ten or twenty yards behind the pack, a sign that they should be retired at the end of the year.
No one popped off. The tight footing wasn’t slick yet. The mostly flat pasture had a soft roll here and there, such as the little swale the fox had used.
The big red fellow crossed the north–south road. Sister cleared a stiff coop in the fence. She had three strides before she was out on the road, then over that. Three more strides and over the stone fence at Beveridge Hundred. Out of sight now, the fox dodged into the Christmas tree rows at Beveridge Hundred, a little sideline for the farm. The bushy Douglas firs, already over Sister’s head, blocked any sight of the clever critter. She could see some of the hounds in the row in which she ran, but the hounds were all forward, in many rows.
Silence.
She came to a halt. Shaker and the pack stood at a culvert under the farm road, a forest on the other side. Hounds cast, furious to relocate the scent, which had been hot, hot, hot. Nothing.
“I know it’s here,” Pickens cried in frustration. “He has to be here.”
Shaker moved them along into the woods. Nothing. He came back out, walked down the farm road toward the house, which was a mile distant. Nothing. Then he returned to the spot where the hounds lost the scent. Zilch. After moving in all four directions, he sat for a moment, collected his thoughts, then collected the hounds.
How a fox can vanish has mystified people since Aesop’s time. Shaker sure didn’t have an answer.
Shaker walked down to the state road, turned left, dropped over the slight bank onto flat ground. Walking along the fence line, he kept the pack off the road and the field was now behind in a single line. A coop appeared in a thick forest on Tattenhall Station land. Cleanly set, one had only to face it squarely and leap over into a nice path in the woods. Rarely used, the black coop was only two and a half feet high. But a horse had to jump from open land—a wide view—into a dark woods and a narrow lane.
Sister, legs of iron, gave Matador a firm squeeze. Over they went. The horse appreciated a clear signal and was a bold fellow anyway, a source of argument back in the barn: Who was the bravest? Matador knew that he was. The Bancrofts got over the coop nicely, as did Kasmir, High Vajay, Mandy, and Xavier, who had lost a lot of weight, which his horse greatly appreciated. For whatever reason, Ronnie Haslip crashed the jump. Ronnie was a good rider, too. Even moving off, Sister heard the crack behind.
When a horse refuses or you part company, you must return to the rear so as not to impede anyone else’s progress. Ronnie walked his horse back and mounted up. But when horses see another horse refuse a jump they are certain a horrid goblin lives under the coop. Today’s riders that were behind Ronnie had a devil of a time getti
ng over that small obstacle. It quickly became clear who had a solid horse and who was a solid rider. The worst was when one horse rode right up to the jump, then slammed on the brakes. His rider took the jump. He didn’t.
Sister couldn’t wait for those who had fallen. To do so meant losing the hounds. Maybe the field master can find hounds and maybe she can’t, but if she winds up blowing the covert because she’s in the wrong place, there goes the hunt, or at least the hunt on that fox. The people in the rear of the field, now upset, strained to hear if the hounds had picked up the scent of a fox.
The person assigned to ride tail today was Ben Sidell, a fairly new rider but on a bombproof horse, Nonni. Ben had had his hands full at the coop. Fortunately, everyone was fine, as were their horses, but Ben couldn’t get into the woods until everyone was safely over.
When one lady’s horse refused three times, Ben said nicely, “Best you go back to Bobby Franklin.” Down the road at a gate, Bobby was in the pasture bordering the woods.
Without a word, the lady did as she was told. All very proper, but disappointing to the rider.
Snow fell heavier now, caps turned white, shoulders also. However, it didn’t feel as cold as a freezing rain or sleet, and the beauty of it, as well as the sound of snowflakes hitting tree limbs and pine needles, delighted most everyone.
Hounds moved along, a bit of scent here, a bit there, but not enough to open. They stuck to it. These are the situations that demonstrate the ability of a pack. Any group of hounds looks great when scent is burning. And there’s nothing a pack or the huntsman can do on those dead days, when nothing sticks. It’s the in-between times like today that are the test, and Jefferson Hounds were all business.
No one even grumbled.
Parker lifted his head once to see what everyone else was doing, then quickly put his nose to ground. The line, so light and teasing, would break. They’d have to widen their cast, pick up the faint reward, and push on.
The walk turned into a trot, but still no music. The woods opened up onto a rough pasture, broom straw sticking up through the cut hay stubble. It would take a good long time for Kasmir to focus his renovation labors back here—best to concentrate on the really good pastures near the roads. Also, the soil varied at Tattenhall Station. As Kasmir rode on his gorgeous Thoroughbred over the field being dusted with snow, he made a note to take soil samples back here.
Fox Tracks: A Novel Page 22