Crazy Like a Fox

by Rita Mae Brown

  Horses, eager to move forward, gave their riders fits as people had to pull up while Sam tried to get Keith over the second jump.

  According to rules, Keith should have ridden down the fence line, allowed everyone else to take the in-and-out, then come back and try again. But he was undone by the task, so Sam took the first jump.

  “Keith, slide behind me. Your mare will pop right over. Look up!”

  Keith managed it. Freddie cleared the jumps, followed by everyone else. Freddie, too much of a lady to cuss Keith like a dog, simply blew by him once in the open without a backward glance.

  Walter Lungrun, riding tail this Saturday, swept up the leavings as he put it. Everyone did get over, but this left Bobby Franklin with a hell of a run alongside the fence, out onto the road, and finally onto Beveridge Hundred. The entire field thundered past Yvonne’s tidy rental house as she watched in amazement and decided she’d follow by herself in the car. She thought she’d learned enough to do so. Within minutes she was creeping along the road in the Continental.

  Tootie, on the left, waved to her mother as she moved ahead.

  The fox knew Beveridge Hundred well. He ducked into a culvert and ran under the road, appearing on the north side. As Old Paradise comprised seven thousand acres, the smart fellow was now on Crawford’s land. If he headed farther away from Chapel Cross, the crossroads now four miles behind him along with Tattenhall Station, they would land in Kingswood.

  Sister, up ahead, thought like a Master. New people had bought Kingswood. She’d only met them once, and she didn’t want to meet them again with the Jefferson pack streaming across their land.

  They had seemed nice enough, but why test it?

  Fortunately, the red fellow cut hard right, bounced through a fallen-down hay shed, left scent everywhere, and then—poof!

  Hounds roared into the old shed, one Crawford would eventually tear down or rebuild, then stopped.

  “Where did he go?” Trooper moved to the end of the big shed, half the roof sagging.

  “Keep your noses down,” Cora commanded.

  They did but to no avail.

  The field, happy for a break, passed around flasks, tightened girths, felt grateful that the wind slowed a bit. It wasn’t truly a cold day—mid 40s is a wonderful hunting temperature—but when the wind hit, it just cut. The gusts had diminished to a hard puff every now and then. A breeze, maybe five miles an hour, kept steady, so one still had to compensate for that when a fox was seen or a line found.

  Tootie waited away from the shed, her back to the wind, which came from the northwest per usual. Betty, however, felt the breeze right in her face. Wasn’t bad, but she somewhat envied Tootie’s position.

  Shaker let the hounds try, then he picked them up, walking slowly toward Chapel Cross. Surely, somewhere within those four miles they would hit another fox.

  While hounds walked away from the hay shed, Binky DuCharme, at his Gulf station, heard a rap on the garage door. He opened it.

  “Binky, get in the truck.” Weevil held a .38 in his face. “Now!”

  Arthur, underneath a car, heard a voice but not much more. “Dad?”

  Weevil shoved the barrel in Binky’s ribs. “Tell him you’ll be back.”

  “Arthur, be right back.”

  “Where is your cell?”

  Binky patted a pocket of his grease-streaked overalls. Crestfallen, he opened the old truck door and slid in the bench seat.

  “Are you going to shoot me?”

  “That depends on how cooperative you are. Now call your brother.”

  “I don’t speak to my brother.”

  “You will now.” Weevil pointed the barrel right in Binky’s face as with his left hand he turned the steering wheel to leave the station.

  Although Binky never spoke to his brother, he knew the number. It had been the same phone number for forty years.

  “Alfred.”

  “What the goddamned hell is this?”

  Weevil grabbed the phone. “Alfred, meet us at the stables at Old Paradise. If you aren’t there in twenty minutes I will kill your brother and then I’ll come for you.”

  “I hate my brother.”

  “I know, but if you don’t come you’re a dead man. If you come, you just might live.”

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “Alfred, you don’t recognize my voice?”

  “No.”

  Weevil handed the phone back to Binky.

  “It’s Weevil Carruthers.”

  “He’s dead!”

  “He’s sitting here next to me, Alfred. Do as he says.”

  Weevil drove past Old Paradise, where the very expensive huge timbered beams were being offloaded with a massive logging grappling machine. The claws could grip the beams without harming them just as it could lift stripped heavy logs. Crawford and the crew looked up at Weevil’s truck, then back at the job. So many workmen drove up and down that road, this appeared to be one more.

  Parking behind the stone stable, Weevil, gun trained on Binky, said, “We will open our doors at the same time. If you run, I’ll shoot you. We’re going inside to wait for Alfred.”

  Binky opened the door, and waited. Weevil walked around the truck, dropped the tailgate, pulled out a spade, handed it to Binky.

  Then he pulled out another one.

  “It’s tempting to think about swinging that spade at my head, but I can fire this gun before you can hit me, so let us calmly, carefully walk into the stable. You first.”

  As the two men walked into the sumptuous stable, three and a half miles away, Earl, the big red who lived in the stable, became careless. He’d been chasing grouse. He wasn’t hungry. He just wanted to hear them tweet and run away, then lift up.

  Hounds picked up Sarge’s scent, ran to the boulders, tried again as they kept heading toward Old Paradise, then picked up Earl. So he had to move along a bit faster than he intended.

  “It’s Earl, I know it.” Dragon sped, nose down.

  “He’s got a head start.” Zandy kept up.

  “Doesn’t mean we can’t try. There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip,” Diana counseled, and she couldn’t have known how prophetic she was.

  —

  Alfred, driving a new Range Rover, which he didn’t need, parked next to the truck. He walked into the stable.

  Weevil and Binky waited for him in the center aisle.

  Alfred stopped; his jaw dropped. “Weevil.”

  Binky’s lip quivered. He looked at Weevil. “He made me do it. You know he made me do it.”

  “Shut up!” Alfred stepped toward his sniveling brother.

  “Ah, yes, brotherly love. Alfred, here’s a shovel. You and Binky are going to dig up Wesley Carruthers’s body. If you don’t, I will start by shooting your kneecaps and move up your body from there. Well, first maybe I’ll shoot your feet. Get to it.”

  “I don’t remember,” Alfred lied, and that fast Weevil smashed the gun in his face.

  “Do it now!”

  Blood running from his eyebrow, Alfred stepped into the next-to-the-last stall, Binky behind him. Weevil stood in the stall door as the first spade bit into the good earth.

  Earl sped toward the stable and shot into his home way ahead of any danger, but there were three men in the stable digging next to his stall. From time to time, Earl would loll about in the tack room, but when he needed to disappear, his den was it. Here were humans digging. Rude. Very rude, but his curiosity got the better of him. He tiptoed to the other side of the center aisle and watched through the open stall door. Weevil could smell him, but he’d smelled fox when he entered the stable. He kept his eyes on the two brothers.

  “Dig faster.”

  In the distance, hounds spoke, Shaker blew “Gone Away.”

  Earl realized the pack was going to charge into the stable very shortly. He hurried to his den, jumped in in the nick of time. The entire pack of Jefferson Hounds roared into the stable and stood in the stall next to the one with the brothers in
it.

  “He’s in here!” Audrey, terribly excited, as this was her first time at a den, hollered.

  “Earl, I know it’s you!” Parker stared into the opening.

  “Oh, Parker, you’re a genius,” Earl sassed.

  Shaker, now outside, dismounted and ran inside. He realized there was commotion, but he blew “Gone to Ground.” Then he looked into the next stall.

  “Shaker, this man’s crazy. He’s going to kill us.” Alfred spoke as reasonably as he could.

  “Shaker, if Ben Sidell is out there, would you bring him inside?” Weevil quietly commanded.

  Shaker walked outside, looked up at Sister, and walked by her to Ben Sidell with Second Flight. “Sheriff, please come with me.” Ben dismounted, handing Nonni’s reins to Bobby Franklin.

  The hounds, still in Earl’s stall, started digging themselves. Shaker led Ben to Weevil, then returned to Earl’s stall.

  “Leave it.”

  “He always gets away with this,” Dragon complained.

  “Come along.” Shaker walked outside, hounds with him. “Sister, Tootie, Betty, come here.”

  As they did, Sister dismounted. She knew something was up. Tootie and Betty dismounted, too.

  “Can you hold the hounds? It might be easier if you’re down here with them.” Then he called, “Ronnie.”

  “Yo.”

  “Will you go get the party wagon?”

  “Of course.”

  Sister turned to the field. “Folks, go on back with Ronnie. We’ll meet you at the station.”

  Everyone wanted to know what was going on, but everyone also knew not to ask. They turned and rode with Ronnie as hounds sat down, lay down, at Sister’s, Tootie’s, and Betty’s feet.

  Shaker walked back in.

  Alfred pleaded, “Sheriff, he’s got a gun on us. He’s crazy.”

  Ben assessed the situation. He didn’t know the young man but he did know the brothers, and he knew they never spoke, but they were digging together. Best not to act in haste.

  Weevil, without turning his head, said, “Sheriff, if you will be patient, an old murder is about to be solved. Alfred and Binky killed Wesley Carruthers. I wasn’t sure what they did with his body. I guessed they’d dig where it would be easy, and then the horse in this stall would pack the earth. I knew if I pulled a gun on them they’d dig to save their sorry skins. And so they are.”

  Ben stood next to Weevil now while Shaker, wide-eyed, watched through the stall bars.

  The two men were knee-deep, mounds of soft stall earth around them. A soft thunk was heard.

  Ben walked over as a thighbone appeared. He looked at the sweating men, in their seventies. “Keep digging.”

  They dug enough for part of a skeleton to be clearly seen. Binky fell to his knees sobbing.

  Alfred ignored him, disgusted.

  “I didn’t want to do it. He made me do it.”

  Alfred backhanded Binky, who fell on his side, on the part of Wesley that was exposed.

  Ben walked to the makeshift grave, Binky now in it. “Binky, how did you kill him?”

  “Shot him. Alfred shot him first but he said I had to do it, too. I didn’t want to do it,” he blubbered.

  Alfred just glared.

  “I arrest you two for the murder of—”

  Weevil filled that in. “Wesley Carruthers.”

  “Do you have a cellphone, sir?” Ben asked Weevil.

  “No.”

  “I do.” Shaker stepped up.

  “Call the department. Get someone out here immediately and—well, just give me the phone.”

  Ben punched in the department’s number. “Hey, Patty, send the forensics team out to Old Paradise, the stables, and also a squad car. We need to take two men to the jail.” He listened a minute. “Okay. No, I don’t think they’re dangerous anymore, but who is to say. Thanks.” He handed the phone back to Shaker.

  Sister, Tootie, and Betty talked to the hounds, petted them, and told them to pay no attention to Earl, who was glorying in this situation.

  As the field reached Tattenhall Station, they heard two sirens screaming right for them. Horses stood at their trailers as two sheriff’s vehicles sped by, one a van, the other a squad car.

  Ronnie, now in the party wagon truck, followed them, not knowing what he would find.

  As the two county vehicles roared down Old Paradise’s drive, Crawford stepped away from the timber and headed for the stables.

  Crawford walked into the stables just as the two officers from the squad car did. The forensics team came behind them, needing to see the situation to know what to carry in.

  “What’s going on here?” Crawford demanded.

  Ben turned to him. “Look here.”

  Crawford slid past Weevil and stood next to Ben as Alfred and Binky were walked out, handcuffed.

  “My God!” Crawford’s voice rose.

  “Murdered in 1954,” Weevil quietly stated.

  Crawford looked at the handsome man. “Who are you?”

  “Wesley Blackford. This was my grandfather.”

  The three women outside tried to hear what was being said, but to no avail. Ronnie pulled up, so hounds were quietly loaded onto the party wagon. Then the Master and two whippers-in walked into the stables.

  Sister came to the open stall door, saw Weevil. “Weevil.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “I’m glad you’re not a ghost.” She smiled.

  Tootie now stood next to her, as did Betty.

  He smiled. “So am I.”

  “This is Weevil?” Sister pointed to the opened grave.

  “Yes, ma’am. Alfred and Binky killed him.” Weevil took a deep breath. “My grandmother was Margaret DuCharme. She bore my mother in Toronto, where the baby was given to her college roommate, who had protected Margaret during her pregnancy. And she raised my mother as her own.”

  “How did you figure this out?” Ben asked as he held out his hand for the gun, which Weevil placed in his palm, handle first.

  “Mother, who is still alive, in her sixties, had letters from Margaret. They never met, but Margaret loved her, I believe, and sent money. My grandmother suspected either her husband or the boys killed Weevil. Over the years she came to believe it was her sons. Her sons hated Weevil, hated each other. I don’t know much more than that, except Margaret told my mother she had given Weevil her mother’s and grandmother’s jewels. If she could find them, all would be well. I studied those letters, studied maps once Mother allowed me to read it all, which was last year. I devised a plan.”

  Ben asked, “Were the jewels ever found?”

  “No, and that was part of the problem, because Alfred and Binky accused my grandfather of trifling with Margaret, then stealing her jewelry.”

  Tootie started to say something but Sister quickly held her hand, squeezing it.

  “Weevil was clever. He left a trail somewhere,” Sister simply said.

  “I think his horn is a kind of map, but I haven’t really figured it out. In one of her letters, Margaret mentioned the scrimshaw. What matters to me is that he be laid to rest, properly buried. I know Mother would want that. She never met him, of course, but Margaret’s letters to Beverly, my mom, are filled with love. I know you all must test his bones, do all manner of things, but when all is done, please release him to me.”

  Sister spoke clearly with warmth. “Weevil, if you would like, you may bury your grandfather at the farm. There is a lovely hound graveyard, and I think he would be pleased to be with old friends. Some of those hounds go back to the late-nineteenth century. The hounds he hunted rest there.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much. If Mother likes the idea, I think it would be wonderful. He was an Episcopalian.”

  “We can take care of that,” Betty chimed in.

  Tootie looked at this handsome fellow and he looked back. “I am so sorry,” she said.

  “Tootie, I can lay him to rest. It’s done. He died before his time, but he knew love and loved in re
turn and his hounds loved him, too. In the main, I think he lived a good life.”

  Crawford, rarely speechless, was.

  Weevil turned to him. “Mr. Howard, I got the blueprints for all this off your computer. I apologize, but I had a hunch he was here somewhere. And then I became interested in what you are doing. It’s fabulous. Forgive this uproar.”

  “Don’t give it a second thought,” Crawford generously replied.

  “Well, Ben, if it’s all right with you, let’s all go to Tattenhall Station. Kasmir will spoil us as always, and this will be a hunt no one will ever forget. Crawford, please come. It won’t be a breakfast without you—and you, too, Weevil. Forgive me, I only know you as Weevil.”

  “Mother calls me that.” He grinned, then left the stall, and peeked into Earl’s stall. “I’ll be along. Let me repair this damage. Won’t take a minute.”

  Sister laughed. “That stinker runs Crawford’s stables!”

  Crawford peered into the stall and got a strong whiff of Earl. “You know, I’ve wondered if there was a fox in here.”

  Weevil quickly patted down the extra earth dug up, and fished in his pocket for a treat. He had an old peppermint there and he unwrapped it, dropping it into the den.

  “Candy. I love candy.” Earl grabbed the peppermint.

  “Well, let’s mount up and get there.” Sister happily allowed Shaker to give her a leg up. “Weevil, catch a ride with Crawford. We’ll meet you at Tattenhall Station.”

  “Yes, Master.” He smiled that dazzling smile.

  Within fifteen minutes the riders reached the station. All dismounted, stripped off their tack, wiped down the horses. Weevil quite properly took care of the Master’s horse as Crawford did drive him to the Station. Sister was impressed. Then he helped Betty and Tootie.

  When they finally walked into the packed breakfast, everyone looked up. Silence.

  Kasmir, as the host, walked up to his beloved Master. “If you would like to make an announcement I will fetch you a drink.”

  That fast, Gray handed her a restorative libation. He’d come back with Sam to help with the hounds, since they would arrive before the rest of the staff.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. Your Master has a few words.” Kasmir turned to Sister.