Bunny, riding with Mrs. Norton, her boss and dear friend, pulled off to the side, then fell in with Crawford, Marty, and the three girls, whom she called “The Three Amuses.”
“Where were you?” She stared accusingly at Tootie, wet from the knees down. Her eyes passed to a very silent Valentina and Felicity.
Crawford quickly answered. “I fell behind and the girls stayed with me and then I had the bad luck to slip in Broad Creek. If it weren’t for Tootie, Czpaka would have run off. You’ve trained your girls well, Bunny. I’m certainly grateful.”
She beamed at the praise. Bunny’s ego rested close to the surface. “I’m so glad they could be of service to you, Crawford.”
“Yes, thank you, girls.” Marty smiled broadly at the three kids, each pretty in her own way, although Tootie’s green eyes just jumped out at one.
As Bunny turned to ride up to Charlotte Norton, Crawford winked.
“Mr. Howard, she would have torn us a new one,” Valentina sighed. “Thank you.”
“Yes, I owe you one, sir. It’s our fault Czpaka spooked.” Tootie truly was contrite.
“This is foxhunting,” he said and winked again. “All for one and one for all.”
Each Custis Hall student made note that she’d heard that earlier. They would find out soon enough how critical and testing that philosophy was: simple, true, and to the bone.
C H A P T E R 2
After the tailgate, the rigs pulled out and Sister returned to the kennels. Her house dogs—Raleigh, a Doberman, and Rooster, a harrier—bounded along as the mercury climbed to the low sixties, the mists dissipated, and the dew sparkled on the still-green grass.
Golliwog, the calico, long-hair cat, sauntered behind, not wishing to appear to be part of the group.
Sister opened the kennel door as Shaker was walking toward the office.
“Good day, really,” he beamed.
“Indeed. The fog gets disorienting but—” Sister didn’t finish her sentence as Betty, wearing her ancient Wellies, trooped toward her.
“New den.”
“Old one, new fox.” Sister smiled.
“Spooky out there for a little bit, wasn’t it?” Betty, having lost twenty pounds, now back to her schoolgirl weight, burst with energy.
“Clammy damp.” Shaker heard a yelp. He walked back down the wide aisle. “All right now.”
“He started it,”Dreamboat, a hound, tattled.
“I did not. All I did was step on his tail,”Doughboy defended himself.
Shaker sternly peered into the young boys’ run, as they called it. “You all did very well today. Don’t spoil it.”
The youngsters wagged their tails, eyes bright. They’d put their fox to ground, working right along with the “big kids.”
Shaker returned to his master and whipper-in. “Sybil said her ears played tricks on her at the base of Hangman’s Ridge. She thought she heard a truck motor up there.”
“Sound bounced like a ball.” Sister liked Sybil. Her mother, Tedi, was a friend of fifty years.
“Where is Sybil?”
“Had to hurry home. Board meeting in town. Marty Howard convinced her to serve on her literacy campaign group. Say, before I forget, Shaker, Halloween night, the boys from the Miller School will be doing something up on Hangman’s Ridge. I said I didn’t care as long as they cleaned up their mess. They’re going to the big dance at Custis Hall and then Charlotte has allowed the girls to go to the ridge, chaperoned, of course, for an hour of fright after the dance. Guess it will be big beans.”
Betty grimaced. “Too many hanged ghosts. Aren’t there eighteen or something like that?”
“Think so.” Shaker rubbed his chin. He’d missed a spot, fingered the stubble.
Sister thought of the souls wandering on the ridge as well as the souls of all those they harmed in life. “Well, the world’s full of anguish. Let’s keep it at bay.”
“I’ll go start on the tack.” Betty wiped her hands on the coveralls she’d slipped over her britches. “That’s my contribution to keeping anguish at bay.”
“The Custis Hall girls already did it.”
“They did?” Betty smiled.
“Their own idea. Neither Charlotte nor Bunny pushed them to it.” Sister, a board member of Custis Hall, was pleased at the young women’s thoughtfulness. “Good job, too.”
“Bunny Taliaferro makes them break down the tack and clean it with toothbrushes,” Betty laughed. “Not every day, of course.”
“She’s a hard nut, that one.” Among these two friends, Shaker could freely express himself.
“Yes, she is. A good-looking woman, but stern,” Sister agreed.
“Sure knows how to turn riders into horsemen. Got to give her that.” Betty folded her arms over her chest, then noticed a cobweb up in the corner of the office that she had to attack immediately with the crop Shaker had placed on the desk. “Gotcha.”
“Spider will haunt you,” Sister laughed.
“I didn’t kill her. I’ve only invited her to spin her web elsewhere.”
“I sure miss Jennifer and Sari,” Sister changed the subject. “Not just because they cleaned tack. Those two were a tonic.”
Jennifer was Betty’s youngest daughter. Her oldest, Cody, languished in jail, having fallen by the wayside thanks to drugs. Sari Rusmussen was Jennifer’s best friend and the daughter of Shaker’s girlfriend of one year.
“Well, she loves, loves, loves Colby College. I tell her, you keep loving it, honey, wait until that Maine winter settles in for eight months. She and Sari talk to each other every day via e-mail even though they’re roommates.”
“Why in the world do they do that?” Sister, although a fan of her iMac G5, still considered using it drudgery.
“They have one other roommate,” Betty said and burst out laughing. “And they can’t stand her, of course.”
“What do you hear?” Sister asked Shaker.
“Thriving.” He paused. “Lorraine’s not. In the last month she’s sent four care packages, one a week.” He smiled a warm, engaging smile.
A knock on the door turned their heads in that direction.
“Come on in,” Sister called out.
Marty opened it and stuck her head inside. “You didn’t forget our meeting, did you?”
Betty and Sister looked at each other, because they had.
“Oh, Marty, I’m so sorry. I saw Sam drive away with Crawford in the passenger seat and I blanked out. Betty, come on.”
“Let me get out of my coveralls and Wellies.”
“You make a fashion statement,” Marty teased her.
“The aroma of horse manure is a bonus. Be right up.”
As Sister left with Marty, the two dogs fell in behind and Golly brought up the rear.
“Black bottom, you got ’em.”Golly sang a few notes from the old 1926 song.
“She’s referring to you.”Rooster’s pink tongue stuck out between his teeth.
“I’m not paying any attention to her.”Raleigh lifted his noble head higher.
“How much is that doggy in the window?”Golly moved forward in time to Patti Page’s 1953 hit song.
“Golly, what’s the matter with you, going mental on us again?”Rooster loved to torment the cat. It was mutual.
“Death to all dogs!”she screamed, shot forward, jumped off the ground, and hit Rooster on the side with all four paws. She bounded off like a swimmer making a turn in a pool, then she scorched ahead of the dogs, blasted past the humans, and climbed up the old pawpaw tree, where she immediately struck a pose on a large branch.
“You’re very impressive,” Sister drily commented as she and Marty passed under the pawpaw tree.
“I am who I am! I am the mightiest cat in all Christendom. Dogs shudder at the mention of my name, Killer Kitty!”
“I’m going to throw up,”Rooster coughed.
“Roundworms,”Golly taunted.
Raleigh, on his hind legs, tried to reach the branch.
Be
tty, hurrying to catch up, called out to the sleek animal. “Your mother will give you such a smack.”
Sister turned and beheld Raleigh, Rooster waiting at the bottom of the tree. “Boys, leave her alone.”
“You’re lucky she protects you or I’d be throwing up a big hairball: you,”Rooster barked with mock menace.
Sister called over her shoulder, “Boys, she’s not worth it.”
“Ha!”Raleigh dropped to all fours and pranced toward the three women as Betty caught up.
Rooster followed.
“She doesn’t protect me. I can blind you with a single blow. I can tear out your whiskers one by one. I can bite your tail in two.”
“Ignore her,” Sister said in a singsong voice.
“You’re afraid of me. Admit it!”Golly ratcheted up the volume. She huffed, she thrashed her tail. No response. The two dogs didn’t even turn to watch her. Disgruntled, she backed down the tree, grumbling loudly, so loudly that Cora, the head bitch, could hear it in the big girls’ run.
“Golly, pipe down, I need my beauty rest,”Cora said as she stretched out.
“Face it, girl, you need plastic surgery,”Golly fired back again at high volume. She then dug her claws in the grass, wiggled her behind, and tore off, flying past the dogs and humans. She soared over the chrysanthemums filling richly glazed pots by the mudroom door. She then sat down to lick her front paws as the people approached.
“Golly certainly has a high opinion of herself,” Betty laughed.
“Don’t they all?” Sister laughed in turn.
C H A P T E R 3
As Sister, Betty, and Marty walked toward the house, Comet was enlarging the den in the stone ruins. His den across Soldier Road on Cindy Chandler’s farm appeared shabby to him compared to this. The other motivation for switching dens involved his housekeeping skills. He had none. His old den was filling up with bones, feathers, and fur. Some foxes are good organizers, others aren’t.
He cheerfully lined the main section with grass, made note of good places for extra entrances and exits, and was particularly pleased that the creek gurgled one hundred yards below him. He was close to water but in no danger of flooding. To make the site even better, the pricker bushes and rambling old tea roses would keep out the nosy.
The hands that cut and placed the stone vanished from the earth in 1787. The small house was eventually abandoned as the next generation prospered to build the first section of Roughneck Farm, the simple but large, graceful house that Sister and her husband, Raymond, bought when young marrieds. It had a roof and walls but the staircases had collapsed. It was a ruin. Together they restored the place, doing much of the work themselves. In good time, Raymond began to make a lot of money. By the time they reached their mid-thirties they could pay for any repairs or improvements.
While Sister knew of this old, well-built foundation, she never cleared it. She recognized a splendid site for a den as well as Comet. She wanted Roughneck Farm to appeal to foxes the way Murray Hill appeals to a certain kind of Manhattan resident.
Comet carried in more sweetgrass and suddenly dropped to his belly, hearing a light flutter of mighty wings. These wings were silent until it was too late.
A pair of huge balled-up talons raked his back.
He snarled, then bolted for the main entrance. He heard a large bird walking around the opening to his den and cursed that he hadn’t time to dig out more exits.
“Oh, come on out, you big chicken,”a deep voice chortled.
“Athena.”He popped his head out as the two-foot great horned owl turned her head nearly upside down to stare at him.
“Scared you,”she laughed again.
“Nah, I wanted to make you feel good,”he lied.
She blinked, her large golden eyes both beautiful and hypnotizing.“You are too clever by half. Take care, Comet, that you don’t come to a bad end. You put me in mind of Dragon, that arrogant hound. He’s another one who pays no heed to good sense.”
Comet emerged from his den. Arguing with Athena could bring reprisals. She wasn’t just the queen of the night, she was the queen, period, but her authority irritated him. On the other hand, foxes and owls were allies and it was best not to disturb the equilibrium.
“Isn’t death always a bad end?”
“No.”She unruffled her feathers, the sunlight warming her.
“H-m-m. I don’t want to go anytime soon.”
“Who does unless they’re suffering?”She paused, turned her head around almost backward to behold Bitsy, the screech owl, flying toward them.“God, I hope she isn’t going to sing to us.”
Bitsy lived in Sister’s barn. A little thing, but her voice could wake the dead. She so wanted to be like the great horned owl whose voice, sonorous and low, filled the forests and meadows with melancholy beauty.
As hunting had been good for all the prey animals, they lingered in the soft early-morning light before retiring to their nests and dens. The foxes, on such a warming autumn day, would find flat rocks on which to sunbathe.
“Guess what?”Bitsy also lived for gossip.
“What?”Comet humored her.
“You scared the bejabbers out of those Custis Hall girls. I heard them talking at the tailgate.”
“This pipsqueak scared them?”Athena asked, which thrilled the screech owl, who felt she had important information.
“They were separated from the others, wandering about in the mist. Comet popped out right in front of them, uttered a few unkind words, and took off. It’s a pity humans have such poor senses. Those girls, when they first took the wrong turn, couldn’t have been more than a hundred yards from the other humans, yet they couldn’t smell horse or human. They rode left, everyone else rode right. It’s a wonder humans have survived.”
“Herd animals. They can’t survive without one another,”Comet astutely noted.
“That doesn’t explain their inability to smell. What’s the difference if there’s one human or one thousand? They still don’t know what’s under their nose, literally.”Bitsy puffed out her plump breast.
“Now, Bitsy, every creature on earth has figured out what it must do to live. Humans are day hunters, we’re night hunters. Their eyes aren’t too bad in the light. Nothing like ours, naturally, but they’re perfectly serviceable. They can climb trees, build things. They are so successful now that most of them don’t realize how weak they are. Ah, well, it will all come to a bad end,”Athena said and sighed.
“That’s what you said about me and that snot, Dragon.”
“Really!”Bitsy’s huge eyes grew even larger as she listened to Comet. She then turned to her heroine.“Did you say that?”
“I did. And now, of course, you want to know why.”Athena raised her right eyebrow.“Because both of them are too clever by half. Sooner or later, they’ll reach too far.”
Comet smiled.“Is that an observation or a prophecy?”
“Both,”Athena succinctly replied.
“Any other prophecies?”He unfurled his long pink tongue.
“Here’s an observation before a prophecy. You’re in Inky’s territory. You’d better reach an accord.”
Inky, a gray fox whose coat was so dark she shone glistening black, was a beloved friend of most of the other animals as well as Sister and the hounds. Everyone knew Inky. She visited the kennels nightly as she made her rounds. The only animal who didn’t like Inky was Golly.
“There’s so much game this season. I don’t think Inky will mind.”He considered Athena’s advice, though.“But you’re right. No point getting on her bad side. And I can’t take her for granted even though we are littermates.”
“Her cubs are leaving the den. They’re making their way in the world. What if one of them wanted this den?”Bitsy kept tabs on the neighborhoods.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”Comet had no intention of surrendering his new apartment.“Athena, your prophecy?”
“We’re a week from All Hallow’s Eve. Propitiate the dead.”
>
“Some dead can’t be satisfied.”Bitsy believed in ghosts. She’d seen them.
Comet, like most animals, was sensitive to what humans especially couldn’t explain. They often felt spirits around them, but the species was hag-ridden by logic. Few would admit to the experience.“Not a good time to go to Hangman’s Ridge.”
Athena’s voice lowered.“And it will be black as pitch on All Hallow’s Eve, beware.”
RMBrown - The Hunt Ball Page 3