Hounded to Death

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Where?” Taz was the literal type.

  “Up the ridge. We’ve never been there. The others say it’s haunted.” Twist’s ears pricked up slightly.

  “Ha.” Taz dismissed it.

  “Don’t break from the pack,” Diane, overhearing, advised the two girls. “There are all kind of ghosts in the world—humans, hounds, horses—as you’ll see in good time.”

  But the thrill of rebellion was rising in Twist’s chest. She nudged Taz and then charged toward the ridge. Taz followed.

  Tootie started to run after the two bad girls but remembered what Sister had drilled into her: Keep the bulk of the pack together. She dropped her lash and stood still on her side, as did Betty.

  Shaker, voice soothing because the other youngsters wanted to follow, crooned, “Relax. Relax. Come on now. Come along.” He turned and the pack followed.

  Tattoo and Tootsie hesitated a moment, but Sister pointed the knob end of her whip toward the two young entry—“Don’t even think about it”—and they ducked their heads, trying to look inconspicuous.

  When the pack returned to the kennel in good order in a half hour, Diane said sternly to the second litter of Ts who remained, “When those girls come back I will tear them a new one.”

  “Can’t do it,” Cora remarked. “They’re in the wimpy girls’ run.”

  “I can think about it. And we can all give them a piece of our minds when they come back.”

  Shaker, on his way out of the kennels, called over his shoulder, “I’m going out on Soldier Road, just in case.”

  “All right then, we’ll go up the ridge,” Sister agreed.

  “Shaker, I’ll go with you, just in case. Might be easier, what with two of them to cajole or catch,” Betty said.

  “Good idea.” He sprinted toward the old 454 Chevy half-ton.

  “Tootie, let’s go.” Sister swept out the door as Tootie opened it for her.

  Raleigh and Rooster were waiting patiently outside the kennels, ready to go.

  “Boys, you stay here.”

  “But we’ll know where the hounds are before you do,” Raleigh protested, to no avail.

  “Ass kissers,” called Golly, lounging on a large tree limb in one of the huge pin oaks by the kennels.

  “Regurgitator,” Rooster called up, his lovely harrier voice resonating. “My, my, what a big word for a dumb dog.” Golly lorded it over both of them.

  “You have to come down out of that tree sometime, Golly, and when you do I’ll get you.” Rooster raised the fur on his neck for effect.

  “You’ll have forgotten by then,” Golly sassed.

  “I will not,” Rooster called up.

  “Ignore her. All she wants is attention,” Raleigh counseled.

  “He’ll forget. Rooster’s older than dirt. His mind is going.” The calico thoroughly enjoyed the torment.

  “I will not.” Rooster was sixteen and there was a smidgen of truth to Golly’s accusation.

  “Doggy Alzheimer’s.”

  Raleigh, hoping to make light of the situation, replied, “Halfheimer’s. He’s not that old.”

  “Oh, yes he is.”

  “You’re nine yourself.” Raleigh could count as well as anyone else.

  “The prime of life!” She dropped her luxurious tail over the branch, allowing it to hang for effect, much as a lady might trail one end of a feather boa.

  As the house pets indulged in their war of the words, Sister marveled at the clouds of dust. “Thank the Lord for air-conditioning.No more open windows.”

  “The Weather Channel said our water level is twelve inches down for this time of year.”

  “Tootie, I really believe Al Gore is right. I’ve seen too much change in the weather in too short a time. Damn those puppies.”

  “I guess it’s better they run off now, rather than when we start cubbing.”

  “Wise words. No wonder you’re going to Princeton.” She smiled.

  “I’m pretending I’m excited. Dad keeps asking why I’m not declaring a major in business right away.”

  “He’ll let up,” Sister predicted, as the red GMC climbed the twisting road to the top of Hangman’s Ridge.

  The two women got out of the truck. Even in the morning heat, a chill pervaded the air.

  Sure enough, the youngsters had seen ghosts at the tree, which had so scared the bejesus out of them they’d scampered down the side of the ridge toward the farm. However, the underbrush was so thick, Sister and Tootie couldn’t see them.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Taz crawled over to a big fox den.

  Originally, this had been Georgia’s den when she left her mother, but she had relocated closer to the kennels. The new living quarters were more pleasant, plus she could visit the hounds at night. There was never a shortage of treats lying about the barns either. And her mother, Inky, was usually there. Inky and Diana were special friends.

  “Fox den.” Twist knew that much.

  “Wow.” Taz inhaled the heady scent of eau de Vulpes, plus something else equally tantalizing.

  “Is someone in there?” Twist called down.

  “Yes, you silly ass, and I’ll thank you to leave!” a voice boomed out, making both hounds step back.

  “Who are you?” Taz worked up her nerve.

  “Who are you?” came the saucy reply.

  “I’m Taz and this is my sister Twist. We’re foxhounds, and we live at Roughneck Farm.”

  “Good. I’ll run you two until you drop from heat exhaustion. I’m Thales, and I’m the fastest fox in the whole world.” Thales certainly did not suffer from an inferiority complex.

  “What’s that other smell?” Twist edged up to the mouth of the den.

  “An old toy. You can have it.” The fox chuckled to himself because he figured his toy would bring them trouble.

  Thales, named for a Greek philosopher, was far more sly than the original Thales ever was, a man so entranced by higher thought that he fell right into a well as he contemplated the sky.

  “I hear them.” Tootie pointed toward the steep incline.

  “So do I.” Sister walked to the edge of the ridge; a light breeze swept over her, for there was always some wind up there. “Come on, Twist, come on, Taz. Let’s go.”

  Twist, boot in mouth—that was Thales’s toy—said nothing. Taz, beginning to understand that she had seriously discomfited her master, said, “We’d better go.”

  “I’m taking the toy.” Twist dropped it for a moment. “We’ll see ghosts again.”

  “If Sister’s there, I won’t be scared.” Taz had confidence in the master.

  “Tootie’s there, too.” Twist lifted her head, inhaling deeply. “All right.” She picked up the boot.

  “Stupid pups.” Thales laughed as they pushed up through the undergrowth.

  “There you are. Come along.” Sister knelt down.

  Taz ran right up but Twist wanted to show off her trophy. She circled.

  “Twist, come on.” Tootie knelt down, too.

  Although the humans lacked the superior olfactory equipment of the hounds, the work boot, tongue chewed off, emitted the unmistakable odor of old rot.

  Twist walked right up and dropped the boot at Tootie’s feet. Involuntarily, she took a step back.

  Sister blinked. “Let’s get these two in the truck first.”

  Happily the two leaped into the front seat, where they would ride. Sister closed the door and she and Tootie returned to the grisly toy.

  “There’s a foot in there.” Tootie held her nose. “Mostly bones but still some flesh down in the toe.”

  “The worms have given up on it.” Sister walked back to the truck and put on her gloves. Then she carefully picked the trophy up and placed it in the bed of the truck.

  Tootie squeezed in next to the hounds, and Sister, worried, started down the ridge.

  “Sister, there has to be more than a foot,” Tootie said, a slight wave of nausea rising up.

  “That’s what worries me. Violence is comi
ng closer and closer to home.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The blue-gray smoke from a true Montecristo—Cuban, not Dominican—curled overhead. Ben Sidell, not much of a smoker, treated himself to a special cigar every time he came back from the morgue. Viewing bodies in various conditions of decay or freshly ripped apart by violence was part of his job, but not a part he relished. How the coroner and his assistants adjusted to the stench amazed him. Even the odor of old death that had lingered in the work boot offended him, made his eyes water. So once back outside he lit up, inhaled, closed his eyes, and considered the problem.

  One problem, not immediately apparent, was smoking a contraband cigar. He slipped the paper cigar ring off the dark-golden-leaf wrapper, dropping it in his pocket. Ever since he was a kid he had saved cigar bands.

  When Sister called him that morning, he’d immediately driven out, taking a rookie with him. Along with Sister, Shaker, and Tootie, they scoured Hangman’s Ridge. The chiggers feasted on the poor rookie, a suburban boy who didn’t know that one had to smear oneself with insect repellant to thwart the tiny little irritants. Once the chigger burrowed in your flesh, no amount of digging, applying alcohol to the tiny pinprick site, or cursing removed the insect. And the scars from scratching—for there was no way to stop scratching—stayed for months.

  After fighting through undergrowth and sweating like pigs, they found nothing—apart from the chiggers dropping off cedars—not even an eyelet from the chewed-off part of the boot.

  After that exercise in futility, Ben returned to his desk at headquarters, blissfully air-conditioned, to pore over the file of missing persons reports from the last six months that his staff had assembled while he was on Hangman’s Ridge. Most of those gone missing had been found, including a few older people who had wandered off from home, minds gone and families not able to afford full-time care; Ben studied these reports to see if, of those who had perished, the bodies were all intact. Yes.

  After two hours of examining every detail, he slapped the folder shut. The coroner had estimated the age of the remains at three months. Decay accelerated in heat and humidity; even though pieces of foot remained in the toe box of the boot, the death and apparent dismemberment weren’t recent.

  That ruled out Grant Fuller. Although the businessman disappeared in Loudoun County, at Sister’s request, Ben bore that in mind. Both knew the foot was older than Grant’s disappearance but this was Sister’s way of saying, “One thing can lead to another.” When the coroner called him he was happy to leave his desk. Now sitting in the squad car, air conditioner humming along with the motor, his curiosity grew stronger. Sure, it was possible that an animal dug up a shallow grave, breaking up the body. But how far would a marauder carry the gains?

  He punched in the familiar number.

  “Hello?” Sister Jane replied.

  “Sister, dogs eat carrion. Do foxes, raccoons, or possums?”

  “I don’t think foxes prefer carrion, but if times are hard they’ll eat it. They’re omnivorous, as we are. Raccoons and possums aren’t much interested. Any of the flesh-eating birds will gobble carrion. It’s like candy to them.”

  “Such as.”

  “Crows are the most obvious. A cardinal wants seeds.”

  “Bigger game.”

  “Bobcat and bear?”

  “Right. I’m wondering how far this foot walked, so to speak. Obviously an animal drug it.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A human could have dropped it.” She couldn’t help herself. “Sheer carelessness.”

  He laughed. “Maybe he was putting his best foot forward.”

  “That’s really bad.”

  “Hey, you need gallows humor in this job.”

  “You sure need it on Hangman’s Ridge.” She stopped and thought. “Bears prefer sweets and berries. A bear tearing a human apart and carrying it around is pretty far-fetched. A mountain lion would hide meat in a cache. You’ve seen the caches foxes build? Well, the mountain lion’s is bigger.”

  “Would a mountain lion eat carrion?”

  “Cats don’t like it.”

  “But you said that mountain lions, foxes, and bobcats build caches. The meat rots.”

  “Yes, it does decay, but it’s different because it’s covered. Kind of like a primitive crock pot. These animals return to their caches only if they can’t get a fresh kill. It’s not their preferred food, like it is for vultures, say.”

  “You don’t think any of those animals would carry a foot a long distance from the rest of the body?”

  “No. I don’t think a coyote would either, and we know we’ve got them in this area. If a fox, coyote, bobcat, or mountain lion had torn apart a body, the farthest from Hangman’s Ridge it could happen would be two miles.”

  “Lot of territory to cover.”

  “Yes, but I live here. I’d have seen the spiral of buzzards. And if I didn’t, Cindy Chandler would, because Foxglove Farm is on the other side of Soldier Road.” Sister took a breath. “Wait a minute. There is an animal with a huge foraging range that will gladly eat carrion and anything else.”

  “What?”

  “A feral pig. Their usual hunting territory is ten square miles, but fifty is not uncommon if times are hard, and this is a drought summer.”

  “If anyone would know about feral pigs, it’s you.”

  Sister had nearly been killed by a boar during a hunt. “That boar, the sow, and her piglets are probably still around over by Paradise. It’s remote, much of it wild, so they’re undisturbed. That doesn’t mean there’s a body over there. It only means that’s where we encountered the boar. Could a boar or a sow have traveled here? Sure, but if the animal came by the kennels, we’d know it.”

  “Doesn’t mean it didn’t come through After All.” Ben named the Bancroft farm. “There are three other ways up Hangman’s Ridge apart from your farm.”

  “Then I think the thing to do is to call the Bancrofts and Cindy. As for the fourth way up Hangman’s Ridge, the south face, it’s mostly sheer rock with a narrow deer path. I’ll check for tracks. That’s all anyone can do at this point; given the drought and the dust, we’ll be damned lucky to get one print. There weren’t any on the ridge, because I looked.”

  He stubbed out his cigar. “Just for the hell of it, after I call around I’m going out to Paradise.”

  “Wait until dawn.”

  “Why?”

  “Two reasons. First, dawn is feeding time for the day animals, and the night animals are coming home; they can tell you a great deal. The second reason is dew on the grass. If there’s any hint of a depression, on a track or dirt road, we might see it then. Also, on the meadows, you’ll see the slick spots where animals have walked. It’s not as good as a clear track, but it gives you a sense of the size of the animal and the direction it’s traveling. That’s something.”

  “Do you have a shotgun?” Ben asked.

  “I do.” She anticipated his next remark. “Better to bring a long-barreled forty-five, though. I don’t have one but if you do, wear it. We’ll be traveling through heavy brush in some spots and a shotgun, which is heavy anyway, will just slow us down. I’ll bring my thirty-eight. Do you mind if Tootie comes?”

  “No.”

  “She’s got sharp eyes.”

  “I’ll meet you at the gate of Paradise at five in the morning.”

  “I look forward to greeting the dawn with you.”

  “God knows what else we’ll greet.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “What do you suppose they’re doing? You think they’d have the sense to stay home,” the large father of an otter brood said to his mate.

  “Checking trails, I suppose. Now that Sister hunts Franklin Foster’s land, she keeps up with it,” his mate replied. “They’ll be hunting in a month.”

  “Ah, well, none of my business. Let’s play.” He raced to the creek bank, flopped on his belly, and slid into the deep creek with a splash.
>
  “What’s that?” Tootie asked, her hands light on the reins, for which Aztec was grateful.

  “Otters. Very jolly creatures.” Sister smiled.

  The creek crossing, ragged and rocky, allowed them to feel the cool air from the water. Ben, accustomed to riding Nonni, a sensible older horse, felt a little trepidation riding Lafayette, Sister’s elegant Thoroughbred.

  Lafayette could feel Ben’s thigh muscles tightening constantly, but he bore it with good grace.

  Sister rode Matador, glad she’d persuaded Ben to get on Lafayette. If they had driven ATVs back into the huge expanse of Paradise and Franklin Foster’s adjoining property, they’d have scared game. This way they would see more, which could be helpful. Walking was out of the question, for it would take them days to cover what amounted to almost ten thousand acres, some of which touched on federal lands.

  Sister’s territory, granted to her by the Master of Foxhounds Association of America, stopped on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Skyline Drive was roughly the dividing line. Glenmore Hunt had the west side of the Blue Ridge for Augusta County, with Rockbridge Hunt enjoying the west slopes farther south. The MFHA had settled many territory disputes since its founding in 1907. Fortunately, none of these clubs had fussed at one another in over a century.

  “A lot of water here.” Ben noted the depth of the creek.

  “Runoff from the mountains. Always water back here, and it’s crystal clear,” Sister replied.

  Overhead, a red-shouldered hawk sounded its cry, high-pitched,doubled but not offensive.

  Tootie leaned over, once they were on the other side of the creek. “Deer tracks.”

  “The great thing about all these streams and creeks is you know the animals will come to drink. It’s a fast way to find out what’s in your territory, assuming the ground’s not loamy sand or baked as hard as clay.” Sister loved tracking, loved anything to do with being outside.

  They followed the creek bed, its sides becoming steeper. There was no indication of wild boar, although signs of everything else were in abundance, especially wild turkeys.

  The trail picked up five hundred yards north of the crossing. They threaded their way through trails already overgrown in just one season. Virginia, drought or no drought, could sprout pricker bushes with ease.