“It’s wonderful to see you all. I will be mercifully brief. Allow me to introduce Wesley Blackford, Wesley Carruthers’s grandson.” A murmur went up, especially from those old enough to recall Weevil. “He has solved the mystery of his grandfather’s disappearance which I regret to say was because he was murdered, then buried in a stall at Old Paradise.” A rumble followed this. “The mournful cowhorn echo you heard was our new Weevil. Beautiful though it was, I think it unnerved our killers who I am dreadfully sorry to report are Alfred and Binky DuCharme.” This really set them off. She held up her hands. “Binky has confessed. Alfred, no. This will all come out in time, but I ask you to welcome a very alive Weevil, and I thank Crawford, first for allowing us to follow the fox onto his land and then for his calm under the current circumstances.” She turned to extend her hand to Crawford.
It wasn’t that he did but so much, but then again, masters are political creatures, wise, hopefully, and she had done the exact right thing because now Crawford could be praised, questioned, lend his voice to the situation.
Sister raised a glass. “To Wesley Carruthers, Huntsman of The Jefferson Hunt from 1947 to 1954 and member of the Huntsman Hall of Fame. Three cheers.”
A riot followed.
People rushed up to Sister, Crawford, Shaker, Weevil, Betty, and Tootie.
Weevil put his hand under Tootie’s elbow. “May I get you a drink?”
They were now surrounded.
Tootie laughed. “We’ll have to fight our way to the bar.”
Weevil declared, “I hope to meet each one of you, but this beautiful whipper-in needs a drink. Allow me to get her one.”
The crowd trailed the two to the bar.
“My God, he is a carbon copy!” Tedi exclaimed while those around them listened intently, as the Bancrofts were much older and had hunted behind Weevil.
Edward Bancroft, next to Tedi, with Ronnie Haslip on one side and Alida Dalzell on the other, said, “I know some of you know about my late sister and Weevil. That was a long time ago, and things were different then. Let’s give this young man a chance.”
Tedi looked at her husband. “Edward, you are the most open-minded man, the biggest heart. Yes, let’s give him a chance.” She kissed him with feeling.
Red-faced but quite pleased, he mumbled, “Now, now.”
The breakfast went on for four hours.
Yvonne, who had followed in the car, was there. She and Sam just raked over everything. People couldn’t stop talking, eating, drinking. Foxhunting is convivial as it is. This was over the top.
Sister finally made her way to Weevil, who wasn’t going to let Tootie slip away, a fact registered by many. “I need to ask you. How do you know our fixtures so well? And have you a place to stay?”
“I’m staying at the Days Inn in Waynesboro. As for the territory, Mother gave me my grandfather’s diaries when I graduated from college. I memorized everything.”
“Yes, you did.” She smiled. “Pack up. You can stay at Roughneck Farm. There’s lots of room, and Gray and I will help you sort things out if you need help. And please, your mother is welcome, too.”
“Thank you. I don’t want to put you out. I think Mother will come down once the body is released to me or her. I guess there are a lot of decisions to be made.”
“You won’t put me out. Gray’s there and the house is big. I’ll put you to work.”
He smiled. “All right.”
“You can walk hounds with us and work horses.”
“Oh, madam, that isn’t work. That’s paradise.”
CHAPTER 32
“In the midst of life we are in death. Of whom may we seek for succor, but of Thee, O Lord, who for our sins are justly displeased.
“Yet O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Savior: Suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from Thee.”
The Reverend Judy Parrish’s vestments swayed slightly in the November 12 breeze as she stood over Wesley Carruthers’s grave. A small, highly polished walnut casket rested on the side of the grave. When his body was found only bones remained. They were gathered up to be laid in this small casket.
Sister and Gray had helped Weevil with the paperwork and the legal hoops.
Beverly Blackford sat next to her son as the service unfolded. Reverend Parrish, a true shepherd to her flock even if someone wasn’t an Episcopalian, avoided bromides. She said she didn’t know what was on the other side, but she did trust God’s love and Wesley was infolded in that love.
Most of Jefferson Hunt crowded into the calm, lovely hound cemetery with its statue of the great hound Archie in the middle. Few there remembered Weevil, but all were there to honor a Jefferson member and huntsman.
Weevil was not alone, surrounded by hounds he had loved and that had loved him.
Standing behind Beverly and Weevil II, seated under a canopy, holding hands, Sister thought, hoped, the murdered man was now hunting his hounds with George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, the young Winston Churchill, the Empress of Austria, and the Virginia Astor sisters behind him, thrilled with the chase, with viewing an eternal fox. A fancy perhaps, but since no one does know what comes next, or if there is a next, Sister’s dream of heaven was as good as someone else’s.
The service concluded, Weevil walked his mother to the house, where Kasmir had taken care of everything, given all Sister needed to do.
Sister walked with Marion Maggiolo and Monica Greenberg, who had driven down together for the service. Betty walked with Bobbie, and Tootie escorted her mother. Everyone had attended, except for Margaret DuCharme, M.D., and Arthur DuCharme. They felt it might be inappropriate, since their fathers were the killers, but they trusted that in time they could offer their condolences and respects to Weevil and his mother.
Kasmir had outdone himself. The table carried American, Indian, and English food considered necessary for after a funeral. His Oxford days served him well. The big bar was in the kitchen, a smaller one in the library where it truly resided, one in the mudroom, given all the kitchen traffic, and another in the hall by the front door.
The shockingly beautiful floral arrangements impressed as much as food and drink. Large calla lilies along with dwarf calla lilies, with a red rose in the middle of each arrangement, made those who loved flowers gasp. Kasmir, being Indian, possessed a sense of color not native to Americans and Europeans. He also understood the absence of color, and he paid for everything no matter how much Sister fought with him.
The creature who most appreciated the lilies was Golly, lurking behind one on the Sheraton side table in the dining room. She knew she couldn’t launch onto the table, but she could hide. This unnerved a few guests who, oogling the arrangements, found themselves staring into brilliant green eyes.
“I accept tribute.” Golly purred.
She actually received some treats.
The dogs were in the upstairs bedroom, which they hated, especially since Golly had the run of the house and could not have cared less that someone had been buried. They, at least, were sensitive to the occasion.
Seated close to the library door, Aunt Daniella chatted with everyone as people moved through the house.
Weevil came to her, kissed her hand. “Do you forgive me?”
“You were very convincing and yes, I do forgive you. You brought back vivid memories.” She beckoned him closer. “How did you know I was close to your grandfather?”
“There were hints in my grandmother’s letters to my step-grandmother, but when I saw you, I knew. You are beautiful.”
To be ninety-four, more or less, and be told you are beautiful…Aunt Daniella glowed and gave him a kiss.
Hours later, the guests began to leave, most on their own steam, a few with assistance.
Marion and Monica, facing a two-and-a-half-hour drive home if there was traffic, walked over to Weevil.
Monica said, “I must have walked right by you when I was working on my project at the museum.”
; “I was behind the door to the Huntsman’s room,” he admitted, then turned to Marion.
“I apologize for breaking into the case.” Weevil had had no chance to really talk with her until now. “I knew the scrimshaw meant something, but I didn’t know what. I hoped it might help me flush out the killers.”
She nodded. “Well, you were right.”
“I assume you want the horn back?”
“Yes,” she simply answered.
“Hold on.” He ran upstairs, grabbed it, came down—acknowledging people as he moved along—and handed her the treasure.
She ran her fingers over it. “Weevil, you were a cheeky devil to make the video for my iPhone.”
He smiled his grandfather’s smile. “Miss Maggiolo, my mother didn’t show me the letters until I was thirty. She felt I needed to know something about my people, as she put it, but I would have been too hotheaded before. So I read the letters, where the horn’s design was mentioned. It took me a year to come up with a plan I hoped would work.”
“You come up and see me at the store anytime. I’ll drive you up to Morven Park if you like, although I know you’ve seen the exhibit.”
“I would like that.”
The last guest left. Kasmir’s team cleaned up everything, except a few missed tidbits behind Golly’s lilies.
Exhausted from the day, and the emotions it stirred, Sister, Gray, Beverly, and Weevil had collapsed in the library. Raleigh and Rooster, finally free, plopped on the floor.
“Weevil, be sensible,” Beverly chided him.
“Mother, take the jewelry.”
One of the first things Sister did when Beverly arrived from Canada was to give her the silver box, which she had polished. When Beverly read the letter she wept. Weevil, mist in his eyes, comforted his mother. Now he felt, people gone, this should be resolved.
“I don’t want the jewelry, and when I die that will be one more complicated thing to figure out and bring here.”
He had told his mother he wanted to stay in Virginia.
Gray echoed Beverly. “She’s right.”
“I feel that the jewelry belongs to Mother. She is Weevil’s daughter. I’m the next generation.”
Sister spoke. “Margaret left that jewelry for future generations. She was clear about that, and prophesied that it would keep generations of Carruthers. She was right.”
“What am I going to do with it?”
Gray, quietly but with authority, for who knew money better than he, said, “You are a rich man and you, Beverly, a rich woman. Divide up as you wish; keep some in a safety deposit box, or purchase a huge vault for your home. Sell a piece—all you each need is one—invest a portion of it and use the rest for living. Neither one of you seems like the spendthrift type. This jewelry is worth a fortune. Beverly, you could also make a claim against the DuCharme estate.”
Weevil looked at his mother. She looked back.
With a deep sigh Beverly firmly stated, “They can keep their damned money.” She then turned to Weevil. “Son, your future is ahead of you. Mine is past. Keep those jewels here. If I need more than the one piece I will choose, I’ll let you know.”
“Oh, Mother, I don’t know.”
“Listen to your mother,” Sister ordered nicely.
A long silence followed this.
Finally, Weevil agreed. “All right.” He turned to Gray. “Am I really rich?”
“Indeed you are.” Gray smiled broadly.
“I told Mom I want to stay here, hunt with Jefferson Hunt. I guess I need a green card, because I’m a Canadian citizen.”
“I can help there,” Gray offered, and given his connections, he truly could.
A lot of people in Washington owed him favors.
“Madam,”—Weevil addressed Sister now as his Master—“I whipped-in at Toronto and North York. I would like to whip-in here. Since I am rich, I don’t need a salary. I don’t want to take money that can go to the hounds. Will you have me?”
“That is exceedingly generous and I would be thrilled as will be my other whippers-in.”
Weevil smiled at his mother. “Mother, I know I’m not going to change the world. I belong with horses and hounds. I belong outside, and now I can do what I love without working a full-time job. I am so grateful to the grandfather and grandmother I never knew. I’m not even sure I belong in this century, but I belong here.”
True mother that she was, a teary Beverly responded, “Son, as long as you’re happy.”
Sister couldn’t resist, she leaned toward Weevil. “If you’re going to whip-in for Jefferson Hunt, remember silence is golden.”
He replied, “And duct tape is silver.”
They all laughed. Sister felt, heard, an echo of her son RayRay, who could shoot from the lip. For the first time in her life, she knew the future of The Jefferson Hunt was secure.
AFTERWORD
Randolph D. Rouse, MFH, mentioned in this book, passed away after it was finished. He knocked out his last win as a horse trainer after his 100th birthday. Obviously, Randy was highly intelligent, fair-minded, physically tough, and great fun. How lucky we were to have had this incandescent presence for so long.
J. Harris Anderson, another writer and hunter, wrote in a remembrance in In and Around Horse Country, the official publication of the Virginia Steeplechase Association, Volume XXIX/Number 3 Summer 2017, that it was always a special moment at a hunt ball when Randy would sing “Young at Heart.”
Indeed.
He is survived by his energetic wife, Michele. Everyone notes that Michele was thirty-eight years younger than Randy. She had to be. Who else could keep up with him?
THE MATERNAL GRANDSIRE EFFECT
For centuries this generational hop has been noted by Thoroughbred breeders and hound breeders. The study of this is relatively new. It is not within the scope of this novel to explain what is happening genetically. I can produce this in my kennel with many of my hounds and I have produced it with a horse or two. That doesn’t mean I understand it, even though I can often effect it.
Please research The Maternal Grandsire effect if you are curious. I think of it as train signals being switched on and off but gender produces the flip.
You see this in humans, as well, but I have assiduously avoided breeding same.
Ever and Always,
Dr. Rita Mae Brown, MFH
DEDICATED TO MY FAST LADIES
Maria Johnston, jt Huntsman
Whippers-in
Rebecca Birnbaum
Kristin Ford
Dee Phillips
Mary Shriver
Candace Waycaster
The Sister Jane series
Outfoxed
Hotspur
Full Cry
The Hunt Ball
The Hounds and the Fury
The Tell-Tale Horse
Hounded to Death
Fox Tracks
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
Crazy Like a Fox
Books by Rita Mae Brown with Sneaky Pie Brown
Wish You Were Here
Rest in Pieces
Murder at Monticello
Pay Dirt
Murder, She Meowed
Murder on the Prowl
Cat on the Scent
Sneaky Pie’s Cookbook for Mystery Lovers
Pawing Through the Past
Claws and Effect
Catch as Cat Can
The Tail of the Tip-Off
Whisker of Evil
Cat’s Eyewitness
Sour Puss
Puss ’n Cahoots
The Purrfect Murder
Santa Clawed
Cat of the Century
Hiss of Death
The Big Cat Nap
Sneaky Pie for President
The Litter of the Law
Nine Lives to Die
Tail Gate
Tall Tail
A Hiss Before Dying
The Nevada series
A Nose for Justice
Murder Unle
ashed
The Runnymede novels
Six of One
Bingo
Loose Lips
Cakewalk
Books by Rita Mae Brown
Animal Magnetism: My Life with Creatures Great and Small
The Hand That Cradles the Rock
Songs to a Handsome Woman
The Plain Brown Rapper
Rubyfruit Jungle
In Her Day
Southern Discomfort
Sudden Death
High Hearts
Started from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writer’s Manual
Venus Envy
Dolley: A Novel of Dolley Madison in Love and War
Riding Shotgun
Rita Will: Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser
Alma Mater
The Sand Castle
PHOTO: © MARY MOTLEY KALERGIS
RITA MAE BROWN is the bestselling author of the Sneaky Pie Brown series; the Sister Jane series; the Runnymede novels, including Six of One and Cakewalk; A Nose for Justice and Murder Unleashed; Rubyfruit Jungle; In Her Day; and many other books. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and poet, Brown lives in Afton, Virginia, and is a Master of Foxhounds.
ritamaebrownbooks.com
To inquire about booking Rita Mae Brown for a speaking engagement, please contact the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at [email protected].
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Crazy Like a Fox Page 26