They threaded through the woods, the low limbs of spruces, bearing the snow's weight, touching the ground. As hounds moved through they'd brush under the spruces; snow would cascade down in a shower of tiny sparkles.
Sister stayed on the farm road. No point plunging into the woods as long as she could keep near hounds. They were moving west. The folds in the land grew tighter. As she burst out of the woods the sun touched the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains, turning the snow crimson.
Scattered clouds began to glow underneath.
She turned to look behind. Tedi, Edward, Walter, Val, Tootie, Felicity, and Bunny Taliaferro constituted the field. The cold weather and last layer of snow had kept others at home. Then, too, the holiday season had ended, so folks redoubled their efforts at work. There were all those Christmas bills to pay.
The hounds suddenly shut up. Sister stopped on the meadow's rise, the mild wind stinging in the cold, to behold them casting themselves.
Asa, wise, walked into the wind. Thirty yards later he picked up the scent, faint though it was, for the wind had blown it off the actual fox's line and the scent dissipated as it lifted.
"Hop on it. Fading fast, " he commanded.
Not one hound would ever question Asa. They collapsed on the line and opened again, pushing ever westward.
Ahead, Sister saw Betty with Outlaw, her favorite mount, a tough little quarter horse, battling snowdrifts like a destroyer in heavy seas. To her left, Sybil was jumping a stout stone fence, some center stones having tumbled down over the years. Sybil kept alongside the hounds but far enough away not to bring their heads up or cause them to question her presence. The whole pack turned as one and cut sharply left, heading southwest now, to disappear into second growth forest.
Sister squeezed Keepsake, her thoroughbred/quarter horse cross, the perfect mount for this terrain and these conditions. He found his spot, soared over the stone fence, and then stretched out as they flew along the deer path in the forest only to burst out onto another meadow, broomsage spiking up through the snow.
They galloped down to a swift-running creek, where hounds threw up, meaning they lost the line, throwing up their heads. Unfortunately, so did Felicity. As hounds cast for the line she dismounted, ran behind a bush, and tossed her breakfast.
She came back, bright as a penny, and hopped up on Parson.
Tootie reached over to feel her forehead. "No fever," she whispered.
"I ate too many doughnuts on the way over," Felicity whispered back.
"Me too." Val put her gloved hand on her stomach, the white string glove contrasting sharply with the black melton coat.
'You going to heave?" Tootie whispered.
"No." Val shook her head as Bunny turned to glare at them for whispering during a check.
Cora moved further away from the pack, but she could find nothing.
Dasher stared down the steep bank of the creek, then launched himself. Airborne for a moment, he hit the water with a splash, swam with the current, and reached the far bank fifty yards downstream. He clambered out, put his nose to ground and worked back. He passed the pack on the other side and kept working. After five minutes, he had found nothing.
"Come on, Dasher. Good work, boy." Shaker called the hound back.
The big fellow hurtled off the opposite bank and swam again, the current carrying him downstream. He emerged, shook himself, and trotted back to the others, working in vain.
"Helicopter." Dasher laughed.
"Yeah." Trident agreed that the fox must have stepped into a helicopter to be lifted right up.
Nothing remained. Not the tiniest scrap of scent.
"I hate this!" Cora, filled with drive, kept searching.
"Come along." Shaker called them together. "Good work. I'm proud of you. We'll hunt back."
As they turned to hunt on the south side of the fixture, moving in an arc toward the trailers two miles distant, Sister heard a siren.
As the crow flies, they were little more than three miles southwest of Chapel Cross. By road it would take fifteen minutes, but the sound carried.
Sister wondered if one of the DuCharmes had finally met his Maker.
No, but one of the DuCharmes was deeply troubled.
Ben Sidell stepped out of his squad car. Margaret, in shearling coat, came out of the small dependency in which she lived.
"I'm so glad to see you. You made good time."
"I was going against morning traffic." He noted the rich seal-brown color of her hair falling over the shoulders of her coat.
"Look at this." She walked to her Subaru Forester and opened the door.
Ben touched nothing but carefully noted Iffy's wheelchair on its side, blood spattered over the backrest.
CHAPTER 20
Although his partner accused him of clutter, Uncle Yancy hotly denied this. Target collected possessions just sitting under a rosebush. Uncle Yancy believed his treasures had been carefully selected, not just picked up in collector's mania.
True, he built little caches into which he stored the odd mouse part, chicken wing, or rabbit. He used to push corn, even fat millet heads, into his cache piles. Lately, though, he kept the grains in his den. For one thing, he couldn't always find his caches under snow. He could hear mice two feet under snow. They'd burrow through if snows hadn't packed down hard. There was plenty of oxygen for them. He'd hear those tiny claws, and he could pounce. But caches made no noise, so he'd learned to keep a grain bank account.
Since he had taken over the pattypan forge, storage space was ample. He'd lined his main sleeping quarters with grasses.
He'd bedded down his storage chambers, although not as deep. Some foxes didn't mind sleeping with frost in their dens. He did. That's why he insulated his sleeping quarters.
The quiet pleased him. The only thing that didn't please him was returning to find a glob of blood near his den. Human footprints clearly stood out in the snow. The blood carried an odd odor, so he didn't touch it.
He'd returned from desultory hunting that morning. The two-mile trot down to the main house at After All had invigorated him. He'd intended to hunt, but Tedi had left out corn oil-soaked kibble behind her stable. He'd stuffed himself.
Sister would refill the special feed buckets Thursday night. One was tied to a tree perhaps a quarter of a mile from pattypan.
At eleven, his restorative sleep was interrupted by Aunt Netty.
"Wake up, you lazy ass. "She pushed him with her dainty paw. "Filthy, as always. Frozen blood by the den entrance. You are disgusting."
He opened one eye. "My precious. "
"Don't precious me. I’d heard you took over pattypan. Knew you wouldn't stay over there at the old Lorillard place. Boring over there. Besides"—she paused, half closing her eyes to savor her imagined triumph—"too far from me. "
Uncle Yancy, no fool, smiled. " You 're right. "
"It 5 beautiful here. I always wanted to live at pattypan, but the minks—well..." She shook her head disapprovingly.
Minks, little weasels, possessed ferocity in inverse proportion to their size. They had run out the foxes who'd lived at pattypan years ago and then had bred more minks. Squabbles increased with the population. The younger minks left, heading west. Many now lived on Hangman's Ridge, but they usually kept out of view. Others pushed on to Mill Ruins, where vigorous mouth battles with other animals, especially squirrels, were daily dramas. The older minks at pattypan flourished until they challenged Athena. Like most arguments, silly though it was, it illustrated the incompatibility of both parties. Furious, Athena systematically killed them until there wasn't one old mink left.
Their celebrated courage couldn't help them when death came from the skies. Fearing the younger minks might return, other burrowing animals still did not take over pattypan.
Uncle Yancy had hit it at the perfect time. Everyone else had settled in a den, young foxes usually establishing themselves in early November in central Virginia.
"I'm not far from a feed bucket,
which is nice in bad weather. "He hoped she wasn't going to get pushy.
"See that you don't get fat. "
"I've never been fat."
"You've never been old. We 're getting on, Yancy. Which brings me to my point. I'm not breeding this year. Not just because of my age, but something tells me it will be a hard spring and summer. We must be wise about these things."
Uncle Yancy, like most males, deferred to the female. They just knew. He asked, "What about the younger girls'? Charlene, Grace, Inky, Georgia?"
"Georgia will wait another year. For one thing, she's not far from her mother, so if Inky should produce a litter, Georgia will help. I haven't spoken to Inky. Charlene, in her prime, will chance it. As for Grace, haven't talked to her either. "
"What about the deer and the squirrels ? Have you talked to them ? "
"Some will, some won't; most are cutting back. Bitsy isn't." She grimaced.
Uncle Yancy's jaw dropped. "Bitsy 's never laid an egg in her life."
"That's just it. She says she wants to do it, and furthermore she's ensconced in Sister's barn, so there's plenty to eat. Can you stand it, husband? More screech owls. As it is she wakes the dead." She sniffed. "Athena can't even talk her out of it."
"Earplugs," he laughed.
"Not me. I want to hear the huntsman's horn. " She settled into the sweet grass. "This really is beautiful. I could make this even better. Why don't you go out and clean up that blood if you aren't going to eat it?"
Uncle Yancy's heart skipped a beat. How was he going to get out of this? "When it comes to decorating, I lack your talent, but"—he heaved a huge mock sigh— "I'd bring in a shiny can and you 'd be upset. Or I'd snore. "
"U-m-m, " she hummed. "Before I get comfortable I brought you a housewarming present."
He stewed while she scooted out of the main entrance, returning with a lacquered mechanical pencil. "Here."
He pushed the deep burnt-orange pencil. "It's gorgeous. "
"Long hunt last night. Restless. Anyway, I wound up at the old Lorillard place. The graveyard enticed me. Lot of Lorillards there from way back, centuries back—and, you know, there was afresh grave, covered in snow. I could smell the fresh earth underneath. We had that bit of a thaw. God knows, you can't dig up frozen ground, so whoever dug the grave knew that much. Well, I started digging because I thought it might be a cache. Something we could use. But no, too deep. I did find this. Under the snow, on top of the packed earth. "
"Expensive."
"Yes."
"How deep do you think the cache is?"
"Three feet perhaps. The frost came back hard, so I could just get a whiff of meat."
"Could have been the mountain lion. They 're around. They leave a big mound, and they mark boundaries with their caches. "
"I told you, the earth was packed. Not like a cache. Humans pack down that way." Aunt Netty, seated, was cross that he didn't instantly agree with her.
"No Lorillards died. " Uncle Yancy, like all the foxes, knew the events of humans in their hunting territory.
"Hadn't thought of that."
"Netty, this isn't a good thing. It's clever, too. "
"Well, it's none of our affair. "Drowsy, she closed her eyes.
He viewed his partner, instantly asleep. "Damn. Double damn, " he said under his breath.
Another fox of sorts considered the facts before her. Sister now knew Iffy was missing. The radio and television newscasters had asked anyone who had seen her to report it. The newscasters didn't speculate on why she might be missing. That would come in the ensuing days.
She sat at Big Ray's partner's desk in the warm den and speculated plenty.
Finally, she called Ben Sidell. A yellow legal pad filled with scribbled notes testified to her attempts to put the pieces together.
"Sister, how are you?"
"Fine. Ben, here I am again coming out of left field. Allow me to make a suggestion. Exhume Angel Crump."
"Who's Angel Crump?"
"She was Garvey's assistant since the earth began. She died last year, age eighty-four, of a heart attack. Garvey walked into her office and found her slumped over her desk."
"Why do you want her exhumed?"
"She hated Iffy. In the best of circumstances they would have clashed—personality differences—but I have to wonder if Angel harbored suspicions. Maybe the animosity was based in fact."
"Garvey hasn't mentioned this."
"Ask him if Angel ever accused Iffy of wrongdoing. And mind you, I don't know what's going on down there. Gray can't tell me, but I hear the strain in his voice. Iffy's missing. I'm not a genius, but I can put two and two together."
"I appreciate your idea. Let me talk to Garvey first. If Angel did come to him with suspicions, then I'll put the machinery in motion. As you know, if relatives oppose an exhumation it can take some time for the legal process to sort it out."
"I know. And it's just a hunch but perhaps Angel's death proved quite convenient."
She hung up the phone, cupped her chin in her hand, fiddled on the legal pad.
Golly batted at the pencil. She liked commandeering the desk because the dogs couldn't get on it and because she could see everything Sister was doing.
Raleigh and Rooster stretched out on the leather couch. Rooster's head rested on Raleigh's flank. They were dead to the world.
"January 11. You know, Golly, no saint today? That's particularly interesting. Odd." She'd checked her Oxford Dictionary of Saints.
"I'll take the day, then. " Golly stopped the pencil with both paws, held it to bite the eraser.
"Golly," Sister laughed.
"There are cat saints. " Golly managed an indignant stare as Sister wiggled the pencil from her grasp. "Who do you think kept the mice out of Little Lord Jesus' crib? A cat."
Sister listened to these determined meows, then burst out laughing.
CHAPTER 21
Riding down from their stable, Tedi and Edward heard the mighty rumble of the Chevy Duramax 6600 before they reached their covered bridge.
Sister and Shaker, double-checking the hound list by the trailer, also heard it.
"He wouldn't." Sister held the clipboard to her chest as large snowflakes began to fall. Even though Jason had apologized profusely, she thought he'd allow some time to pass for emotions to cool.
"Only one engine sounds like that." Shaker was as surprised as Sister.
The small field assembled this Thursday morning turned their heads. The girls from Custis Hall, Bunny Taliaferro, Henry Xavier, Ronnie Haslip, Lorraine Rasmussen, and Bobby Franklin glanced at one another.
Betty Franklin walked around the trailer as her husband tightened his horse's girth. "Do you hear what I hear?"
"I do." Bobby frowned, a snowflake falling on his nose.
"The man must be out of his mind."
"Arrogant." Bobby clipped down his words. "But he did express his regrets. Sister made sure we all knew that."
Sybil, who had ridden down ahead of her parents in order to help with hounds, leaned down to Sister. "Would you like Dad to throw him off?"
"No. Landowners can't refuse a hunt member the right to hunt their land with the hunt. A landowner can refuse the hunt but not an individual. This isn't to say it doesn't happen, but it's counter to proper practice. It's the master's responsibility to send a member home. The problem really gets ugly if you have a weak master."
"Why can't a landowner refuse permission?" Sybil, intent on being a good whipper-in, didn't pay too much attention to MFHA policies not related to actual hunting.
"Because that member's dues built jumps on the landowner's land. And because every time someone gets into a spat it would affect who hunts where. Eventually you'd see fields of two people until one of them pissed off the other." Sister pulled off her old gloves, cut off at the fingertips, to put on white string riding gloves. "Let's say you and I had a fight. A big one. One would assume you wouldn't come on my farm to hunt. You'd steer clear of that fixture because it mak
es life easier for everyone. But some people like being the center of attention. That kind of person would show up." She shrugged as Jason's rig came into view.
Sister mounted Aztec, ready to go and eager to prove to Rickyroo how good he was. He would tell all back at the barn. As the youngest hunter in the barn Aztec endured a lot of ribbing.
All the horses were keen to see how Matador would pan out. He was in work but had yet to hunt, since Sister didn't want to hunt a new horse on bad ground. This pleased Lafayette, Keepsake, Rickyroo, and Aztec because it showed how much she trusted them.
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