“You’d forgotten how funny I could be—” He sipped more champagne. “—I’d forgotten how you cut right to the bone, right to the core of an issue. Most people don’t have the guts.”
She smiled. “Thank you, but I don’t know as it’s guts. I live on a farm. I work with animals every day of my life, as well as working in the soil. I believe all these ideas, overblown ideologies—religious or political—serve to drive a wedge between us and nature, between us and what we really are, which is a higher vertebrae, but an animal just the same.”
“Might I conclude that you are not enamored of democracy?”
“Democracy is running the zoo from the monkey cage.”
“What’s the alternative?” he asked.
“An enlightened despot, whether by birth as a king or queen or someone strong enough to accrue power to themselves. That’s the most efficient system, but we live in times that make that impossible. Democracy has become the Holy Grail of the West, of industrialization, and you know why. Because the real worship is not one man, one vote, it’s one man, one dollar. Commerce drives democracy, not vice versa.”
“I’ll have to think about that.” The firelight accentuated his high cheekbones.
“To change the subject, how long have you been divorced? The women in our club are dying to know.”
A boyish grin made him attractive. “Three years. My two children are grown. Mandy, whom we named for Nelson Mandela, back when he was incarcerated, is thirty-one. She’s a tax lawyer in my firm. I never thought she’d follow in her father’s footsteps. Mandy was the cheerleader/prom queen type, but she is a brilliant tax lawyer.” He stopped himself for a second. “I’m bragging.”
“Please do.”
“Brian, now, he is a maverick if ever there was one. He graduated from the University of Missouri, majored in animal husbandry; his specialty is cattle. He went on and got his doctor of veterinary medicine and now has a practice in Grand Junction, Nebraska. I swear he’s the only black cattle vet in the U.S.” Gray laughed. “Thriving practice. He loves his work.”
“Did you love yours?”
He reached for his coffee and took a sip. “This is delicious. Yes, I did, still do. The tax code will never be simplified in our lifetime because it’s not about taxes; it’s about congressmen distributing the pork. If a congressman from Florida can slip a provision into the code that gives some stone crab producers a big break, he will, and he’ll get reelected. The hypocrisy of our taxes is outrageous. People focus on the IRS, the symptom of their pain, instead of focusing on Congress, the source of the sickness. There will never be a good tax lawyer out of work. I like it: it’s war without the guns. I go in to win.”
“I never thought of that.”
“I could tell you stories until sunup.”
“I wouldn’t mind.” She smiled.
He smiled back. “When did Raymond pass?”
“In 1991.”
“That long ago? I remember Sam calling to tell me in a sober moment.”
“You wrote a lovely condolence.”
“I liked Ray.”
“Everyone did. He was a big outgoing man who made everyone feel important. And he wasn’t acting. He loved people.”
“He was good to us. I never felt an ounce of racism from Big Ray.”
She stroked her chin for a second. “Not consciously, but by virtue of when we were born and where we were raised, which is to say the United States, damaging concepts crept into our minds. One has to root them out, stay vigilant. Still, Ray trusted people. What I find among most people concerning race is terrible mistrust. It’s a poison. He never had that poison.” She thought for a flash of Mitch and Tony.
“Yes, it is, but how do you wipe out three hundred years of it?”
“You don’t. At least not in a generation or two. But don’t you think if one dwells on it, then one is trapped?” She hesitated. “Hope I haven’t offended you. I know none of us can escape our gender, our age, our race, and those things affect one. The whole world can be against you, but if you view yourself as your enemies view you, you’ve lost. Grab mane and kick on!”
He leaned forward, the warm cup of coffee in his hands. “You know that’s why I admire you. You tell the truth. Even if it’s painful, you call it as you see it. You said people liked Ray. People like you, Sister, because you’re honest and strong. And you’re not hard to look at either.”
She laughed again. “Gray!”
He laughed, too. “I know what you mean. The question for me as a political animal has always been: How do I address my oppression without being obsessed by it? I made the right decision for me. I became proficient at my profession, and I supported those leaders and causes that I thought would help our people. I also supported causes that have nothing to do with race. I love the symphony and never minded writing a check each year to the Opera Guild. In fact, how lucky am I to be able to give?”
“I feel the same way, although most of my giving is directed toward the hunt club and the No Kill Animal Shelter. Those are my passions. Well, if there’s a woman candidate who looks good, I’ll support her, but so many of them are more liberal than I am. You know, antiguns and all that.” She threw up her hands. “How can you live out in the country without guns?”
“You can’t.” He leaned back in his chair just as Golliwog sauntered through the kitchen.
“Time for treats.” She hopped on the counter to lick the plates.
“Golly, you get off of there,” Sister commanded.
“Make me.” Golly didn’t jump down until Sister came after her.
“All cats are anarchists.” Gray watched the imposing feline give Sister a baleful glance, as though she were the wronged party and not the other way around.
“Maybe I’d better start flying the black flag over the house.”
“Ever read that stuff? Bakunin?”
“No. I read Das Kapital in 1968, hoping it would help me understand the riots here and in Paris. Torture. Anyone who is a communist has a far greater capacity for tedium and repression than I do, tedium being the worst of the two.” She freshened his coffee. “Would you like more Cramant?”
“No, thank you. I have to drive Vagabond and myself back to the barn.”
“Good-looking horse.”
“Jumps the moon. I enjoyed hunting with him in Middleburg.”
“Troy Taylor is a fine huntsman, and Jeff Blue and Penny Denege are good masters. And they’ve got Fred Duncan, former huntsman at Warrenton there, too.”
“We’d hunt with Orange Hunt and Piedmont on occasion, and the last year I was there, I capped the limit at Old Dominion. You know, I had fallen into northern Virginia myopia, thinking that hunting stops south with Casanova Hunt and Warrenton. I’d forgotten just how much fun and how challenging hunting with Jefferson Hunt can be.”
“You couldn’t have said anything that would make me happier! We don’t have as much good galloping territory, obviously. We’re sinking down into ravines and clambering up foothills or mountain sides, especially at our westernmost fixtures, but if you can sit tight, there’s good sport.”
“May I ask you a personal question?”
“You can try.”
“Why didn’t you remarry?”
She took a long sip of coffee. “The truth?” When he nodded, she said, “For the first year after Big Ray’s death, I was numb. The second year I could feel, but it was a dull ache. When Ray died, I was fifty-nine. By the time I started to feel that I could be happy again, I was sixty-two. I thought, I’m too old and no one will want me.” ‘
“Not true, of course.”
“You’re very kind, Gray, and then, then Peter Wheeler began to slow down. Peter and I had had an affair stretching throughout my forties. I stuck close to him. No affair. I mean, that was over, but I suppose I wasn’t emotionally available, even if someone had wanted me.”
“Actually, I think you scare the hell out of most men.”
“I do?”
“Y
ou’re six feet tall, probably taller when you were young, as I recall. You ride like a bat out of hell. You go through snow, rain, hail, sun, bogs, over stonewalls and big-ass coops. You come back smiling. You don’t have an ounce of fat on you, at least not that I can see. And you’re the master.”
Her eyes opened wide. “That’s fine with me. I wouldn’t want a man who wanted a weak woman.”
He laughed. “Touchdown.”
“Now may I ask you a personal question?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What do you think Sam’s chances are of staying clean?”
“Good. No, better than good. The deaths of Tony and Mitch have scared him. That could have been him. He was that out of control.”
“The thieving?”
“He stole to feed his habit. I believe he’ll stay straight. If he doesn’t—” Gray threw up his hands. “—I have done all I can do. No more.”
“I see.”
“What do you think Sam’s chances are?” he asked her.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been close to him for years. I hope he pulls it together. He’s a good horseman, and those are hard to find. And, before he fell by the wayside, he was a good man as well.”
As Gray rose to go, being a Virginian, he knew not to ask if he could help do the dishes. Although that is considered helpful outside the South, especially among those who are not wealthy, in the South, you don’t ask unless you’re at a Yankee’s house. What you do, knowing hardly anyone has the money for servants anymore, while preserving the fiction, is to later send to your hostess flowers or something else she likes. Or you can ask her to dinner.
“Your cat has returned to her evil ways.” He laughed at Golly.
Sister clapped her hands. “You get down from there.”
“Ha, ha.” Golly laughed, giving up her post just as Raleigh and Rooster hurried in, hearing Sister clap her hands.
“What’s up! We’re ready.” The Doberman’s ears lifted up.
“Yeah, I’d like a ride in the truck.” Rooster lived for rides, and he knew the county better than most humans who drove it.
“All right, boys. Just a bad cat.”
Disappointed, they sat down as Golly, bursting with pride, rubbed right up on Raleigh’s chest. The Doberman looked the other way.
When Gray drove out of the stableyard, Sister sat down for a moment before doing the dishes.
“Whooee.” Golly added her two cents.
The two dogs stared at their human. She looked into their beautiful eyes. “Boys, he makes me feel—” She shrugged. “—can’t explain it.”
“Yahoo!” Golly sat and purred. “Time for the beauty parlor, a facial, and hey, maybe a boob lift.”
“Golly, you are insufferable,” Rooster moaned.
“Yeah, just think if you had a boob lift, the doctor would have to hoist up eight of them,” Raleigh teased.
The calico swatted Raleigh, rubbed against Sister’s leg as she stood up, then sauntered off.
Sister watched her. “What gets into her?”
“You don’t want to know,” the dogs replied.
CHAPTER 11
Picking her way through the sodden earth, Inky had ample time to consider the fabled January thaw. Without fail, this warm-up occurred soon after the New Year, unlocking ice on the ponds and at the edges of creek beds. Frozen pipes and hoses suddenly spouted leaks, which meant plumbers raked in the bucks.
Shrubs bent low under snow would pop up, releasing dried berries still on the bough. And, of course, the footing was awful.
Inky had den fever, so she crossed Soldier Road to visit Grace, a small red fox living at Foxglove Farm.
Cindy Chandler, owner of this lovely place, had created two ponds, each at a different level, with a water wheel turning water from the upper pond to the lower. Underneath, buried below the frost line, was a pipe that carried the water back to the upper pond. The small insulated pump house served as a winter nest for one groundhog and many field mice, so both Grace and Inky found it most enticing. The field mice screamed bloody murder the second they smelled Inky and Grace. The groundhog, slovenly creature that he was and dreadfully fat, just rolled over and snored more loudly.
The two friends wearied of terrorizing the mice, so they trotted up the low long hill to the stable, a tidy affair with a prominent weathervane in the shape of a running fox.
The girls cleaned out the gleanings, some with molasses coating. Then they visited the Holstein cow and her calf, now as big as she was. These two, Clytemnestra and Orestes, wreaked havoc on Cindy’s fences and occasionally the gardens, too. Cly, as she was called, bored easily. As she had a pea brain, she craved excitement as well as clover. She’d lower her head, smashing through any fence in her path. Orestes, a tiny bell around his neck, would follow.
Finally, Cindy gave up, opened gates, and let her roam. The gardens, off limits, were patrolled by Cindy herself, with a cattle prod or her German shepherd.
Winter curtailed the naughty cow’s depredations. She and Orestes elected to remain close to their shed since it was filled with fresh hay and some special flakes of alfalfa, too. Cly was spoiled rotten. Humans chastised Cindy for babying the huge animal, but Cindy justified this by saying Cly behaved better if she had alfalfa and sweets.
Even the other animals told Cly she was so bad she ought to be hamburger. She’d lower her head, toss it about, let out a “Moo,” and then go about her business.
The foxes slipped under the shed overhang. The cow had bedded down in the straw, Orestes next to her.
“How are you, Cly ? I haven’t seen you in some time,” Inky politely inquired.
“Good. What about you?”
“Pretty good, thank you. There’s been so much snow, I don’t imagine too much has been going on around here.”
“Cindy’s planning a potting shed. That’s the news.” She flicked her long tail, which happened to hit her son in the nose.
“Mother” he grumbled.
“Well, don’t sleep so close to me.”
After more desultory conversation, the two foxes left for Sister’s stable. Sister left out fruit candies, which Inky craved. Moving in a straight line, as the crow flies, Sister’s stable was only three and a half miles from Cindy’s stable.
“Little shapes like the fruit. Grape is a tiny bunch of grapes, and it’s purple. Cherry is a little red cherry. They fit exactly right in your mouth.” Inky anticipated her treats.
“Wish I could get Cindy to put out candy. She puts out corn, and I do like it, but I have a sweet tooth.” Grace also liked to fish. She would sit motionless at the edge of one of the ponds for hours. Quick as a flash, she’d nab one.
The two foxes ducked under fences, finally coming into the large floodplain along Broad Creek. Built up along this floodplain was Soldier Road. The road, used since before the Revolutionary War, had originally been an Indian footpath leading to the Tidewater. Back during the Depression, when the federal government created work, the state built up the road through the floodplain. Even being twenty feet above, with culverts underneath, the road would flood at least once a decade. Modern-day people had to wait for floodwaters to recede, just as their ancestors had.
The two foxes moved four feet in from the creek itself.
“That’s strange.” Grace stopped at a spot that had been dug: small holes, not more than seven inches deep.
Inky peered into the shallow holes. “Cowbane. Wasn’t this where the cowbane was?”
“Still is. There’re roots all over here. Smells like parsnip” Grace could only smell the odor of thawing earth as the scent from the tubers had vanished. “This is where Agamemnon died”
Agamemnon, Clytemnestra’s mate, had died two and a half years ago.
“Bet that was a mess” Inky wasn’t out and about yet at that time since it had been spring and she had still been a cub.
“Yes, had to get the tractor, the big eighty-horsepower one, put the chains on him and drag him out. Couldn’t bury him
here because of the flooding. What I don’t understand is how could he miss it? I mean, the stems were up, the little umbrella clusters ready to open. We all know what cowbane looks and smells like.”
“Cows just pull up hunks by the roots. Maybe he didn’t know until it was too late,” Inky said thoughtfully.
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