The Hounds and the Fury

by Rita Mae Brown

  She drove slowly. The road looked smooth enough, but black ice could flip you on your side in a skinny minute.

  Fortunately, no traffic gummed up the works. No motorist impatiently hung on her butt in an effort to speed her along. A large portion of the county would be nursing hangovers. They wouldn't be out and about.

  Iffy owned a small piece of land, thirty acres, give or take, south of Beasley Hall, Crawford's large, pretentious estate. Iffy's place rested twelve miles from Sister's farm, but twelve miles on treacherous roads could take a half hour or longer.

  When Sister finally pulled down the plowed drive, the sun had fully cleared the horizon. Snows glistened blood red.

  Black and tan hounds aimlessly ran about.

  She stopped the truck, put the hunting horn to her lips, and blew three even long blasts. Hounds lifted their heads to stare at her. She blew the "come in" call again.

  They trotted over the crusted snow toward her. A few heavier hounds broke through, leaping forward and up as snow sprayed in front of them.

  "Good hounds," she called to them in a cheerful voice.

  She opened the door to the party wagon. They hopped in.

  "That's a blessing," she thought to herself.

  If they'd been shy, she'd now be on a wild-goose chase. She put up three couple of hounds, then continued down the drive. No more appeared. She stopped and knocked at Iffy's back door. She could hear her thumping tread, then the door flew open.

  "Happy New Year again, Iffy."

  "Bullshit! Did you get those damned hounds?"

  "I picked up six. How many did you see?"

  "I don't know. Step in a minute. I'll catch my death of cold." Iffy motioned for Sister to step into the kitchen.

  Sister noticed the .22 revolver on the kitchen table. She also noted that Iffy was moving along without her cane.

  "I have never seen these hounds. They don't have tattoo marks in their ears, and they don't have collars either." Sister forced a smile. "Our pack is tricolor, Iffy. These are black and tans, but they're in good flesh. Someone has cared for them."

  Iffy did not thank her for picking up someone else's hounds. 'You're the hound queen. You'll find out who owns them before I do. I was ready to shoot them if one of them so much as bared a fang at me."

  "Did it sound as though they were hunting?"

  "I don't know. All I heard was my garbage cans knocked over."

  "I'll pick up the mess," Sister volunteered. "No point in you going out in the snow."

  "Some days are better than others. Most people stiffen up in the cold, but I have more trouble in the heat. Maybe it's the medicine. I don't know." Her features, a little puffy, brightened. "Jason's putting me on a new program for the New Year. He said my resolution is to build the strength back in my legs and"—she sucked in her breath—"lose the weight."

  "He takes good care of you."

  Iffy's lower lip quivered. "I'm not even forty. I want my old self back. Jason's lining up a physical therapist and a nutritionist." She brightened again.

  Sister put her hand over the old brown porcelain doorknob. "If I find out who these hounds belong to, I'll let you know in case they come this way again."

  "Do that." Iffy's voice was friendlier.

  Sister walked outside, careful on the steps. She walked to the side of the house. One can, lid off, had garbage strewn about. The others, on their sides, had the lids on tight. She scooped up the debris: orange rinds, coffee filters and grinds within, soup cans, and one large bottle—no label, but a whiff informed her it contained something potent. She gave thanks for the freeze. Made the task easier, and easier on the nose, too.

  Given that the road to the barn hadn't been plowed out, she trudged back there. No hounds.

  As she drove out she pondered where to put these hounds. Since she had no idea as to their vaccinations or health records, she didn't want them near her hounds. She reviewed hunt club members who might have a vacant stall in their barns or a secure outbuilding. She saw, coming in the opposite direction, Sam Lorillard.

  She flashed her headlights. He flashed. They both stopped.

  The shoulders had snow piled up. They couldn't get off the road. Fortunately, there wasn't traffic on this back road.

  One of the hounds yowled.

  "Sister, where did you find them?"

  "Iffy's. Three couple. Crawford's new pack?"

  "A pack of escape artists. Got most back. Only one couple out now that you picked these up."

  'You might suggest that the boss appease Iffy as well as anyone else."

  'Yeah." Sam looked from her party wagon to his small trailer. "Think we could get them in the trailer?"

  "Better not take the chance, Sam. They might piss off again. How about if I take them to Beasley Hall? You follow me. Where do I put them?"

  "The old unused barn in the back. Rory's there patching up where they chewed through the rotted wood. Crawford has no sense."

  "Well, no hound sense. We'd know not to put them in there."

  Within twenty minutes the three had unloaded the hounds at Crawford Howard's barn.

  Struggling with ready-mix concrete, Rory tried to get it to the right consistency to slap over the chewed place. "Pretty hopeless in this cold."

  'Yeah. Got any riprap?" She named a large type of stone most quarries carried.

  Sam piped up. "We do. Leftover from when Crawford put in the culverts."

  "My suggestion," said Sister, "and it's only a suggestion— you gentlemen do as you like—would be to take heavy-duty page wire, run it along the sides, curve in the bottom of the page wire, and put down riprap at the edges until you can properly pour concrete or sucrete."

  "It's going to be a bitch to dig through this frost to get the wire down in the ground." Sam did not relish this task.

  'Yeah, it is; and bending it forward is no picnic either. Crawford might not want to spend the money on page wire and concrete. He's going to build a new kennel, right?" Sister inquired.

  "Right," Rory answered.

  'You can't have these hounds running all over the country. Apart from the bad will it creates, some will get killed. They don't know where they are yet. This is going to be hard as hell to patch up until the temperature is in the high forties at least. I think you're going to have to spend the money on cinder blocks against the wall and some kind of grid like Equistall for the floor. You've got to secure these hounds."

  Crawford had walked in behind them.

  Sister turned when she heard the bootsteps. "Happy New Year, Crawford."

  "She brought back three couple of hounds that were at Iffy Demetrios's," Sam quickly apprised his boss.

  "Iffy is, well, Iffy." Sister shrugged. "I'll be getting on home. If I see any more, I'll pick them up."

  It pained him, but Crawford was man enough to utter "Thank you." He then puffed out his chest. "They won't get out again."

  "Dumfreishire blood?" Sister asked sharply, knowing from their looks that the hounds had that type of Scottish blood. Although originally hunted in Scotland, the Dumfreishire was classified as an English hound.

  "Right." Crawford nodded.

  "Handsome." She left them to their labors and thought how foolish Crawford was thinking he could handle this type of hound.

  The Dumfreishire, a large handsome hound, would be less high-strung than an American hound, but the good-looking black and tans would rapidly discover that Crawford knew nothing. They'd hunt on their own, discounting him. Also, their nose, not quite as good as that of the American hound, would frustrate him.

  The English hound developed in a land of abundant moisture and rich soils. The red clay of central Virginia, occasionally enlivened by Davis loam, put the picturesque English hound at a disadvantage. Crawford would blame the hound, not himself.

  On those perfect scenting days, this pack would hunt with brio. The other little thing Crawford would discover the hard way is that English hounds, as a rule, don't have the cry that American, crossbred, or Penn
-Marydels do. Again, given where they were developed, they didn't need it to the degree that the New World needs a big booming sound, for much of the English countryside is open. One can see the hounds working.

  They were big, they were beautiful. That part would swell his ego. Maybe he should just mount up and parade them around until he could find a real huntsman.

  As she passed the beginnings of the stone St. Swithun's Chapel she had ample time to consider the unholy mess Crawford was creating for himself—and for her, too.

  "Happy New Year." She sighed.

  As she drove through the imposing gates, two huge bronze boars guarding the entrance had icicles dangling from their snouts. Their bristly chests glistened with ice rivulets. She turned west.

  A quarter mile down the road she noted Donny Sweigart's treads from last night's supposed deer hunt.

  Curious, she pulled as far off the road as she could given the conditions, hit her flashers, and got out. She wanted to see if there was a carcass or deer offal in the snow. She looked down the slight embankment, then over the expanse of snowy meadow. A copse of trees and shrubs stood out against the white. Something bright caught her eye.

  She slid down the embankment. Tracks were partly covered with snow, but she could make out boot marks. She followed them toward the copse. Once there she saw a glob of congealed blood, fist sized, bright red.

  There were no signs of struggle, no feathers either. If Donny had set out a trap she'd see it. No trap.

  It was eerie, a hunk of frozen blood. She returned to her truck wondering what the hell was going on.

  CHAPTER 10

  Ben Sidell slouched in the passenger seat of Sister's red GMC early Monday morning, January 2, St. Basil's Day. "Take me to Paradise."

  "If I were young, I would," she sassed back.

  He laughed as he unrolled the map on the dash.

  These expensive, lovely maps had been donated to the Jefferson Hunt by Francis McGovern, a buoyant member more on the road than home to hunt.

  "Apart from the home fixtures, how old are the fixtures adjacent to Paradise?"

  "Mill Ruins, Mud Fence, Orchard Hill, Chapel Cross are original fixtures going back to the beginning of the hunt. Course they're older than 1887, but once the hunt was founded their landowners were part of the fun. What's happened in certain parts of the county, especially the east because it's closer to town, is large estates, over time, have been broken up. Newcomers don't understand foxhunting or they plain don't like it, and we lose, say, fifty acres, which make the one thousand acres we use to hunt unhuntable for practical purposes because we can't get around the fifty acres. Even if we do figure out a way around, hounds can't read. They go through the No Trespassing area and you get an enraged phone call, Sheriff."

  "In time some of the comeheres change their minds."

  "Some." She nodded. "But there are other people who just don't get it and never will. They want to live in the country, but they aren't of the country. Pretty much they look down their noses at us."

  "Do they look down at people like Tedi and Edward Bancroft?"

  The Bancrofts had been wealthy since the Industrial Revolution, the family wise in nurturing that wealth.

  "The comeheres don't even know they're not in the loop. If they see Tedi and Edward at a big party they think they've made it. Know what I mean?"

  "I think so," said Ben. Originally from Ohio, he had been hired three years earlier to be sheriff of the county.

  "It boils down to this: the arrogant ones only talk to other arrogant ones. They're ignorant of their social status. They think because they've built a McMansion on twenty acres, they're elite—if you can stand that word. They haven't a clue that they're close to the bottom of the barrel. A poor but warm person from an old family has much higher status than they do."

  He smiled wryly. 'You're at the top of the heap."

  "Not in wealth but in other respects, yes. No point in false modesty. And the reality is, if you're of it, you don't dwell on it. I mean by that, you take it for granted. Maybe the first lesson new people need to learn is to treat people with respect regardless of their bank balances."

  'Yep."

  She slowed. "Okay, here's Chapel Cross. Orchard Hill and the other fixtures all fan out from this crossroads, an old tertiary road in highway department terms. Everything you see, I'll drive slowly, is our territory right up to the Blue Ridge. The top of the mountains divides us from Glenmore Hunt in Augusta County."

  "Why don't you go up the mountains?"

  "Would you?" She laughed. "For one thing, it's hard going. For another thing, there's boar up there, and I fear them like death. Lastly, there are folks in those hollows who come to town maybe once a year. They are famous for the purity of their country waters."

  He knew about the distilleries in the hollows but not their location. Most moonshine busts were made when a trucker was pulled over and moonshine was discovered in the rig's closed bed.

  Also, no prudent sheriff in any county would send a lone deputy to seek out the stills.

  "Let me go back for a minute. Some of the new people really are good. They take to hunting, they value wildlife, they are good stewards of the land, and we're lucky to have them. We're lucky, too, because they're usually more liberal, politically, than we are and they challenge us, force us to question. I believe that's a good thing. If all you do is converse with people who think just like you do, you don't learn much." She slowed again, pointing to a lone brick fireplace. "Used to be the gatehouse to Paradise."

  The gatehouse pillars, brick with a shield of arms near the capped top, still stood.

  "Are you going to tell me the Yankees burned it?"

  "No." She laughed a deep appreciative laugh. "Not this one. Way back before you were born, electrical wire was wrapped in silk. Anyway, a short burnt it to a cinder. The big pile with towering Corinthian columns is at the end of this road. It was incredible. It survived 1865, but each year it fell further and further into disrepair." She paused. "Thanks to Margaret's efforts, we'll be back hunting here. You'll see it Saturday. Decayed as it is, there's magic to Paradise. God, what it must have been in its heyday."

  "Why did Margaret help?"

  "Walter and Jason asked her to do it, and she likes to see the hunt. She's just not a hunter. Golf is her game." Sister paused. "Just one of those things. Binky and Alfred had another major disagreement—not face-to-face, of course, but through their lawyers—so the lawyers suggested no hunting because of the liability. Alfred's always been warm to hunting, and, really, Margaret worked on her father. Once lawyers get in anything it's a mess."

  'Yeah," Ben agreed.

  "In a way this is still paradise. There's a forlorn majesty to the ruin." Sister felt the pull of the place.

  "Where are we, about four miles north from Chapel Cross?"

  "Right. Good judge of distance. If we turned around, passed through Chapel Cross, we'd reach Tattenhall Station. From Chapel Cross, Little Dalby and Beveridge Hundred are on the south and west side of the road. Orchard Hill and Mud Fence are on the south and east side. Tattenhall Station is straight south. Paradise is five thousand acres, and it covers both sides of the old road north of Chapel Cross. Beyond Paradise it's billy-goat land owned by Franklin Foster in northern Virginia. At long last, he's given us permission to hunt there. Walter and I drove up to Fairfax to see him last summer. With the leaves off the trees and snow on the ground, you get a good sense of how the land rolls. All crisscrossed by creeks. It's good soil. Some of the grades might scare you on a tractor, though." She laughed.

  "I just heard that Jason Woods made an offer on this land."

  "Good God." Sister's silver brows shot upward. "He'll have his work cut out for him. Binky and Alfred won't agree to sell." She added, "Offer must be less than a day old. I usually hear about those things. It's hard to keep a secret in this county."

  "I think it's a place of secrets."

  She considered this. "Maybe you're right. The little secrets leak
out. The big ones—well, some escape like evils from Pandora's box. And others we'll never know. I'm thinking about Nola Bancroft buried near the covered bridge for all those years."

  Tedi and Edward's oldest daughter had been murdered and buried at the site where the bridge was being built. Decades later her skeletal hand, huge sapphire still on the third finger, had broken through the surface, ultimately pointing to her killer.

  "That was one of my first big cases on the job." He glanced at the hunt club map again. "That's when I learned to listen to you."