Crazy Like a Fox

by Rita Mae Brown

  Yvonne, thrilled to have seen the fox, twisted around to follow his progress. “He doesn’t look frightened.”

  “He knows he’s got us beat. They usually do. Ah, here come the lead hounds.”

  Dragon, Dasher, Twist, and Thimble shot by, immediately followed by the rest of the pack, Asa bringing up the rear. Being the oldest, Asa wisely would stop from time to time to check and make sure the fox hadn’t followed them and cut across the road or, worse, doubled back. Convinced the line was still true, he picked up speed, joining the rear of the pack.

  Sister came out, reaching the road. She moved by Walter and Yvonne, for Walter had parked to the side to give everyone room. Within about five minutes all of First Flight had gathered by the storage building. Then Second Flight joined them.

  Shaker, already on foot, blew “Gone to Ground.”

  “I was first.” Dragon pushed forward.

  Shaker patted the braggart’s head, reached to each hound, praising, patting. “Good hounds. Well done.”

  Parker and Pickens, still young, about wiggled themselves to death, they were so excited.

  Easily swinging back up in the saddle, Shaker tooted a few notes, then moved down the road toward where the creek in the woods poured into a deeper, rougher creek. His idea was to draw back to the mill.

  Walter followed. “We’re on a part of the land called Shootrough, because Peter Wheeler, who formerly owned all this, would bring out his cronies and they’d bird hunt. It’s pretty good bird hunting, which I’m sure our fox knows.”

  “Tootie told me foxes are omnivorous.”

  “It’s a good survival mechanism. We have it as well. Foxes are good hunters; they hunt much like cats do. But any animal will take the easy way out if you give it to them, and game gets scarce in winter, which is when we fill up all the feeder boxes. We have so much land, so many big fixtures that the kibble bill just for foxes can run about a thousand dollars a month, which is why we wait until winter. Clubs with smaller fixtures—which is to say most clubs north of the Mason-Dixon line, or even the Northern Virginia hunts these days—they might be able to feed year-round.” He turned to her. “Development. It’s a hunter’s curse, any hunter.”

  “I read in one of the papers that the English are creating new villages. They have a housing shortage and they’re trying to make the new places look like old places, I guess. But it sounds environmentally forward.”

  “Does. I expect some very smart young developers here will figure that out, but right now it’s just divide up the land into squares and slap up houses, even if they’re five-hundred-thousand-dollar houses. Not much thought goes into it.”

  She nodded. “We’re so spoiled. We have so much land we forget to take care of it. I can’t say as I thought of that until we sent Tootie to Custis Hall. Visiting there, walking the grounds, actually going to some of the teachers’ lectures during parents’ weekend. I began reading.” She looked back at him. “There are greens in Chicago and people who want to protect the environment, but it’s not the same as here. Here you live it.”

  “We try.”

  A deep boom rang out. Then a higher squeak.

  Walter beamed. “Asa. The squeak was a young entry honoring Big Daddy, so to speak. What a joy it is to watch a hound learn its trade. Well, kind of like being a parent, I guess.”

  “I’m seeing Tootie in a new light.”

  “She’s good, Yvonne, very good. Has the instinct for it as well as the physical ability. In truth, a whipper-in must ride better than anyone, better than the huntsman. However, most huntsmen started out as whippers-in so they can ride, and ride well, but you’re riding behind the hounds. It’s a different skill.”

  “I had no idea foxhunting was so complicated. When did you learn?” She grabbed the strap again as they reached the deep creek.

  She also prayed they would not be crossing it. She had not brought water wings.

  “In 1984. I was twelve. We hadn’t much money but Sister and her husband, Ray, allowed me to ride their horses. Sister gave me lessons. I loved it from the first, and I loved her, too.”

  “I can see why.” And she could.

  Hounds would speak, then fall silent. Speak again as Shaker hunted them back toward the mill, which was anywhere from two to five miles depending on which way one rode.

  Hunt and peck, hunt and peck. Hounds cut up turning toward the higher woods. Walter backed out, got on the road, turned left this time when he hit the intersection, then sat at the edge of the woods. Hounds moved through it. Opened again, and this time it stuck.

  Walter crept along. They reached the edge of the fenced pastures. Betty jumped in from the woods while Tootie leapt first over a coop forty-five degrees away from Betty. The two whippers-in waited for the hounds to appear, then Betty took two o’clock and Tootie took ten o’clock. Hounds came out working slowly, noses to the ground, but speaking.

  Walter informed Yvonne, “It’s a fading line. They’re working steadily. If it heats up we’ll have a good run. If not, the field will stay at a trot or walk, but this is good hound work.”

  She watched attentively.

  The line never heated up but it did hold, and the pack returned to the mill, going behind it to the den of the red fox.

  “Buzz off, blowhard. I could hear you for the last forty-five minutes.” A voice wafted up from one of the den openings.

  This so startled Pickens, Parker’s littermate, that he stepped back.

  Cora stepped forward. “Rude.”

  “You’re disturbing the peace. Go to the party wagon and leave me alone.”

  The mill fox knew the drill inside and out, calling the hound trailer by the name the hounds and humans called it, “party wagon.”

  “Come along. Good hounds. Good work.” Shaker sang out, they turned and followed.

  “He didn’t have to be so rude,” Pickens complained.

  “He’s a red fox,” Dasher said. “They think they’re the center of the universe.”

  —

  The breakfast, held in the old house that Walter, renting it for a ninety-nine-year lease, had rehabilitated, kept everyone eating, drinking, talking.

  Walter introduced Yvonne to Margaret DuCharme as a colleague. She was a sports doctor, he was a cardiologist. He left the two women to talk while he made the rounds as host and Joint Master.

  “DuCharme.” Yvonne thought. “Old Paradise. Tootie has told me about it. Very romantic.”

  Margaret shook her head. “Yes and no. Crawford Howard has finally bought it from my father and uncle, who don’t speak, by the way, just so you know. At any rate, Crawford played a waiting game.” She took a deep breath. “It’s for the best. Since Tootie told you a bit about it, why don’t I give you the tour when you’re available?”

  “I’d love that.”

  They moved on to others. Sister came up to Margaret, who had taken up hunting only two years ago. As she was a natural athlete, it came easily. “Looking well.”

  “As are you, Master.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “It’s really interesting. Of course, neither Dad nor I live in any of the dependencies anymore, but I can’t stay away. The old foundation of the big house, as you know, withstood everything because it’s cut stone, heavy thick stone, fitted together. Crawford has had it wrapped in heavy plastic, that awful blue stuff, and he’s dug around the outside.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s pouring in goo, for lack of a better word, to seal it. No water will ever seep through.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “He’ll be glad to do it.” Margaret teased her.

  “Crawford thinks of everything.”

  “I bet they’ve found stuff in the walls.”

  Margaret nodded. “Pack rats.”

  “Binky,” she mentioned her uncle, “now that he has money again, is being impossible. Bragging about how much the DuCharmes have done for the county since 1812.”

  “Well, snobbery hasn’t done either
your uncle or your father much good, has it?” Sister got right to the point.

  Margaret laughed, then looked serious for a minute. “I’m tired of being the go-between. Now that they’ve sold Old Paradise, have gobs of money, the hell with it. I love Daddy but he’s set in his ways. Hates change.”

  “A lot of old people do,” Sister said.

  Margaret smiled. “If I ever get like that, Sister, shoot me.”

  “Ditto.” Sister changed the subject. “Think the lost treasure of Old Paradise will be found with all this digging, rebuilding? Is there any old estate in Virginia that doesn’t have a story of lost treasure, murder, woe, perfidious Yankees? Ever notice it’s rarely perfidious Southerners?”

  “We do no wrong.” Margaret clinked glasses with Sister, as she’d picked up her drink.

  As Sister walked over to chat with Kasmir and Alida, visiting for a long weekend, she thought about wrongdoing. Yes, there were old murders, thefts, family feuds of which the DuCharmes were a leading example, but what Virginians excelled at, reveled in, were sexual peccadilloes. Wrongdoing. Yes, but so very fascinating.

  Daniella Laprade, a fountain of old war stories, of scandal and sin, knew more than she was telling. Sister thought she’d wait a bit, then revisit the intrepid lady.

  CHAPTER 11

  “How do you like it?” Yvonne asked Tootie as they walked through her rental.

  “I really like the stone fireplace. You’ll be glad you have it when the cold comes.”

  “Why? This place has central heat.” Yvonne smiled, pleased with herself. “I inspected the heat pump and it’s five years old so it ought to be good.”

  “I’m sure it is, but, Mom, these old places don’t have insulation. They might have horsehair in the walls, hair from the tails, but not what you’re used to, plus the windows will get ice cold.” Tootie walked to a window putting her hand on the single pane. “Wavy, see?”

  “Yes.”

  “That means it’s original. Beveridge Hundred was built in the 1790s. Least that’s what Sister says. She likes historical research, especially old buildings.”

  “You live in a new old building.” Yvonne put her hand on the wavy glass, which, even though the temperature that Friday was 64°F, felt cool.

  “The foundation was dug in 1787, the stone foundation under the front part of my cabin. It was one of the first settlements that far west.”

  “Really?”

  “Most people didn’t come out this far until after the Revolutionary War. Anyway, so many of those homes still stand. Like this one.”

  “I love the old names. Sister gave me one of last year’s fixture cards and I never heard of such names: Mousehold Heath, Close Shave, Mud Fence. They’re fanciful.”

  Tootie smiled. “Usually the name involves some feature, like Mud Fence. They didn’t have enough money in the beginning for fences so they made them out of mud. Mill Ruins you saw. Was the first big mill this far west. Tattenhall Station used to be a stop for Norfolk and Southern railroad. Uh—” She thought a minute. “After All Farm was named by Edward Bancroft’s grandfather after 1865. They came down from New York City, made a fortune during the war. After All. Sister teases the Bancrofts and says it’s just beginning, no after all at all.”

  “People know one another well here, don’t they?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “When you finish vet school I assume you’ll return here.”

  Tootie looked out the window. “I have to get into vet school first. Mom, there’s a UPS truck coming down the drive.”

  Yvonne walked to the front door, opened it, and stepped outside to greet the driver, who introduced herself and handed over a UPS envelope. Tootie, outside now, too, waved at the driver.

  “You know the UPS driver?” Yvonne was surprised.

  “Karen Allison. She covers our territory.”

  “I see.”

  What Yvonne was beginning to see was that people did know one another. It wasn’t like Chicago, too huge for that to be possible, but a city, like most American cities, where one could stay in one’s glitter ghetto. You need not see or speak to anyone terribly different from yourself, especially different economically. You might know some people in your city block or blocks.

  Yvonne opened the large cardboard UPS envelope and pulled out papers, a legal firm’s address at the top center.

  Scanning the papers, she laughed. “According to your father’s legal firm, I’m not entitled to half. If I press this, I will be attacked by killer zombies.” She threw the papers on the little table by the front door, laughing as she did. “If he pushes this into court, he will regret it for every day that he lives thereafter. You’d think he’d know by now that my IQ is above a good golf score.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I guess there is no such thing as a good divorce.”

  Well, she thought, out of the mouths of babes. Then she answered, “No, but some are better than others. I haven’t provided much maternal advice but I can tell you when you marry get your name on everything. Absolutely everything. That way when you divorce, your husband’s lawyers can’t play Starve the Wife.” Tootie remained silent so Yvonne continued. “You aren’t seeing anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Ah. Someone will come along.”

  “Mother, I am never getting married.”

  Yvonne laughed. “Every young woman says that, I swear. Granted, your father and I haven’t left you with much of an example.”

  Tootie shrugged, then offered, “I’ll stack wood for you. Sister has a lot of downed trees. Gray and I can cut them up. You’ll need wood. It will really help, plus a fire in the fireplace is, I don’t know, kind of perfect.”

  “All right. I will pay you and I’ll pay Sister.”

  “She wouldn’t take anything and neither will he.” Tootie paused. “How did UPS know how to find you?”

  “I hopped online, gave them my address the minute I signed the rental contract. Otherwise, you would have been inundated by things like that.” She pointed to the papers on the table.

  Tootie nodded, then smiled. “I like your place. It’s cozy, and better yet, it’s in the middle of our hunt country. We call all this out here the Chapel Cross fixtures ’cause where the roads cross is the old chapel. Still in use.”

  “I’m beginning to understand that everything is still in use. I expect to see Robert E. Lee walk around the corner.”

  Tootie considered this, then countered, “Mr. Jefferson.”

  “But of course,” Yvonne agreed.

  —

  Sister, over at After All, showed Edward the video. As Daniella had mentioned Edward’s late sister, she thought it worth a try.

  He looked at it. “Mother and Father were upset with Evie but I didn’t really know the scope of it. I was in my junior year at Dartmouth. Evangeline was not a student by any means. My sister was a party girl. She was intelligent but like most girls at that time, her job was to marry well, produce children.”

  “She never said anything?”

  He shook his head. “Not really. Again, I was in college. We weren’t that close. All I knew was that she infuriated our parents and they packed her off to London for the season. And there she stayed because she met Nigel.”

  “Ah.” Sister took the phone back. “I don’t know why I’m determined to find that cowhorn. Find out what this is really about. It can’t be that much, really, and it was a long time ago.”

  Tedi poured Sister more tea. “People are still fascinated by the bizarre affair and that was what, the beginning of the nineteenth century?” Tedi named a scandal of illicit love, the possibility of infanticide. Still no one knew what happened but, despite the accused man—a Randolph, no less—being cleared in the court, the scandal greatly reduced the power of the Randolph family. The name still held cachet but the political and economic power had faded over the ensuing two centuries.

  “Who can resist a good mystery?” Sister smiled at her old friend.

  “Did Louis the Fourtee
nth have a twin?” Edward added. “And for decades people believed the Czar, the Empress, and the children still lived. The bones weren’t found until fairly recently. God, what an awful story.”

  “That it is.” It flashed in Sister’s mind that perhaps old bones would be found again. She kept this to herself.

  “The pack’s doing so well.” Tedi beamed. “You know the day we elected you Master of the Hunt was a good day and what, over forty years ago?”

  Sister groaned. “I’ve lost count but thank you.”

  “Foxglove.” Edward named the place they would hunt tomorrow. “Aren’t you glad you don’t need to print up a fixture card for cubbing?”

  “Am.” She put down her cup. “Just gives me fits. You never know what’s going to happen with weather, with a landowner. Well, there isn’t a Master in the United States or Canada that doesn’t deal with this.”

  “England, Australia, New Zealand, and are they still hunting in Scotland?” Tedi inquired.

  “I should know and I don’t. What’s so funny is that banning hunting in England now means more people are hunting than ever before. Can you imagine Congress in the middle of the Iraq War spending so much time on foxhunting? It just makes one wonder, especially as I have always looked up to England.”

  “Let’s not congratulate ourselves.” Tedi laughed. “I’m sure we can descend into irresponsibility and silliness as easily as Parliament. We pick different issues, or better yet, we make them up to cover the real issues.”

  “Tedi, you cynic.” Sister laughed.

  “Old age.” Tedi laughed back.

  The Bancrofts had about ten years on Sister, Edward being a bit older than his wife. Perhaps there’s a point at which one has seen it all.

  Driving home, Sister called Ben Sidell from her cellphone.

  “Master.”

  “Sheriff. Are you going to hunt tomorrow?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Good. Give me a few minutes after the hunt. I have a favor to ask.”

  “Anything.”

  When Sister got home she parked, walked to the kennels, and opened the door to the office where Shaker was pouring over pedigree papers.