The Hounds and the Fury

by Rita Mae Brown

  "Hello, Sister, Shaker." He closed the heavy door behind him. "I called but no one answered, so I thought I'd take a chance and run by." He paused. "Long night at the hospital."

  'You must be able to sleep on your feet." Sister motioned for him to follow her and Shaker into the kennel.

  They filed into the office. Sister sat behind the desk.

  "Boss, I'll see to Dragon."

  "Fine. Sit down, Jason. It's basic but comfortable."

  "Feels good. If I can get fifteen minutes of sleep here or there, I can power through. It's my feet that hurt. I've caused you trouble, and I'm sorry for it."

  'You've already apologized." She wondered what he wanted.

  "As you know, I have a friendship with Crawford."

  'Yes."

  "If I walk out hounds with you, learn your routine, it will imperil that relationship. As it is, he's trying to make me resign from the hunt. I won't do it. I'm hoping over time I can lower the hostility threshold." He smiled, pleased with his choice of words.

  "Thank you for coming to tell me."

  "If you have any weakness, any crack in your armor, he'll find it."

  "I expect he will." She did have one, which she sidestepped.

  Peter Wheeler's will, which had bequeathed the Chevy 454, his estate, and fifty thousand dollars a year to the club, had been made in 1976. She had been forty-three, and Peter, having a bout of illness, thought he might be leaving the earth. He recovered. But he put in his will that she couldn't take a joint-master. He'd realized his mistake in the last year of his life, but with so many other concerns, he hadn't revised his will in time. She saw no reason to speak of this.

  "Hopefully, Crawford will find a positive outlet for his energies," she evenly replied.

  He noticed the chewed-up ashes box, whose remnants were in the large wastebasket at the side of the big teacher's desk built in the 1950s. He'd seen enough of such boxes. Peering down, he made out part of Iffy's name on a typed label. "Iffy?"

  She said without being asked, "It is. Was."

  "What happened?"

  "No one would take her. We said a prayer for her at Hangman's Ridge."

  "What happened to the box?"

  "A hound grabbed it." She declined to give the full story, which was funny to her but perhaps not to Iffy's physician.

  As he walked to the door, Sister threw this out. "Do you think Iffy wanted to live?"

  "She did," he replied, and left.

  Felicity walked across the quad from the infirmary. Talking with animation to Howard on her cell phone, she planned their weekend date. This wasn't easy, since neither had a car.

  She ended the conversation as she went up the stairs to her dorm floor.

  Tootie came into the hall when she heard Felicity's footfall. "Are you contagious?"

  "No." Felicity smiled.

  "So?" Tootie held her palms upward, flaring out her fingers.

  "Food allergy. Mrs. Norton called in an allergist, and they scratched my back with all kinds of stuff. Dog dander, grass, things you don't even want to know about." She rolled her eyes.

  "And?" Tootie leaned against her doorway.

  "Bleached flour." Felicity leaned against the other side of the door, crossing her arms over her chest.

  "Wouldn't you have gotten sick before now?"

  "That's what I asked, and the doctor said sometimes these things don't show up until a person is older. So she gave me this." Felicity pulled stapled sheets from her voluminous handbag. "If I follow the plan, I won't be nauseated."

  "Well, that's good. I was worried."

  "I was, too. It's an awful feeling. And when I listed what I ate those mornings, what I could remember, I mean I don't think about what I eat, but I ate white bread or rolls, stuff like that."

  "Can you eat any bread?"

  "Dark. Pumpernickel. It's weird."

  'You're weird." Tootie punched her.

  CHAPTER 27

  The party wagon swayed slightly as Shaker turned from the Roughneck Farm road right onto the state road.

  "Wrong direction," Cora wondered.

  Ardent, who along with Asa and senior members of Sister's "A" line was resting on the top tier, said, "Changed the fixture. "

  "How do you know?" Delight asked, not impudently.

  "Heard Shaker when he called me out of the Big Boys' run. Trouble at Little Dalby."

  "What kind of trouble?"' Diana, curious, lifted her head off her paws.

  "Human trouble, "Ardent responded.

  "That's better than rabies. "Dasher, eager to hunt, paced in the medium-sized trailer.

  "True enough," Cora said, "but human trouble has a way of rolling back on us. "

  Sister, with Betty in the cab, pulled the horse trailer to Foxglove Farm.

  Straight as the crow flies, the distance was two and a half miles, a booming run on a straight-necked fox. Going around the land by available roads, it took fifteen minutes to arrive at the lovely farm, where nothing was done to excess, all in proportion.

  "I hate to overhunt my foxes." Sister slowly cruised round the big circle in front of Cindy Chandler's barn. She parked, truck nose out, so other trailers could park alongside.

  This crisp January 19 morning, Thursday, more people came than Sister expected. She had a very respectable midweek field of twenty-five.

  Pleasing as that was, being forced to shift the fixture at the last minute plucked her last nerve. Anselma Wideman had called at nine last night to inform her that Crawford Howard had chosen to hunt Little Dalby on her, Sister's, day. Crawford knew full well this would inconvenience Jefferson Hunt.

  She changed the information on the huntline, simple enough. She sent out e-mails, also simple enough, and she called her staff to make certain they knew. Hunt clubs have phone lines that members call two or three hours before the appointed time in case a fixture needs to be changed because of weather or other events.

  Needing all her wits to chase foxes, Sister held her emotions in check. She was wondering whether she could get away with murder. Crawford would be such a juicy, satisfying target. However, one murder was enough.

  Walter juggled last-minute questions from visitors. He lent one an extra stock tie. The Custis Hall quartet along with Bunny, their coach, and Charlotte, the headmistress, were there.

  Sister led Rickyroo off the trailer. Betty followed with Outlaw.

  Sybil helped Shaker so Betty could assist Sister if she needed help.

  Folding back her deep green blanket with dark orange piping, Betty, to lighten the mood, asked, "Perhaps we'll have an epiphany, late as usual."

  "January 19 is a big day. Feast days of Branwalader, Canute, and Henry of Finland."

  "Think we might have to call on them?" Betty folded the blanket over, then stepped into the tack room to place it over an empty saddle rack.

  "We might need to do that, but none of them are called upon by hunters."

  "I don't have your head for dates, but I am a Virginian. Birthday of Robert E. Lee, 1807."

  'Yes, it is. And Edgar Allan Poe, 1809, and Cezanne in 1839. A lucky day."

  "Think there was an epiphany?"

  "I do." Then Sister laughed, her gloom lifting from the fixture problem. "But the Wise Men didn't find Jesus. Their camels did."

  "Ha. Imagine hunting from a camel."

  "Think I'd throw up. Couldn't take the motion." Sister checked her horse's girth and gathered the reins in her left hand, holding the left rein shorter than the right so if Rickyroo should take a notion he'd turn inside toward her instead of outside, which would throw her out like a centrifuge.

  Betty did the same, and both women mounted up without a grunt.

  Sister rode over to Cindy Chandler, who was on her tough little mare, Caneel. "Thank you so much for allowing us here on short notice."

  Cindy, a true foxhunter, smiled. "I love having you here." She stepped closer to Sister, which pleased Rickyroo, as he was fond of Caneel. "Would you like me to speak to Anselma and Harvey? If y
ou do it's official, and you scare people sometimes." Cindy could say this, being a trusted friend. "The Widemans don't know hunting. They might finally understand territory conflict, but they won't grasp overhunting foxes."

  "Do talk to them. Use all that deadly charm." Sister joked gratefully. "I'm not upset with them."

  "I know that. It's Mr. Ego."

  "We seem to have a few of those." Sister cut her eyes toward Jason, resplendent in a hacking jacket made expressly for him by Le Cheval in Kentucky so it fit perfectly.

  "Peacock."

  "M-m-m," Sister touched Cindy's arm. "Thank you many times over for everything. I always feel better when I see you or talk to you."

  "Go on." Cindy smiled at her.

  Sister saw that hounds were ready and everyone was mounted except for Ronnie Haslip, usually one of the first up. He'd dropped his crop and dismounted, and was swinging up again.

  To give Ronnie one extra second, Sister quietly said to Walter, facing her, 'You ride tail today. Do you mind?"

  "Not at all."

  "Take Jason with you. If he wants to learn, then he can learn service first."

  "Ah." Walter sighed, but he didn't argue.

  How could he? She was right. The look on Jason's face was not one of a man being honored by a position of responsibility. It was that of a spoiled person who wants to ride right up in the master's pocket.

  Millions he might have, but Sister was damned if she'd be bought. She had kept Crawford in line for ten years, succeeding in getting him elected president—a good place for him in many ways. The boob ball, which is how she thought of the hunt ball, had put an end to all. Bobby Franklin, who had resigned his presidency, submitted to an emergency general election. Bobby, a good leader, had accepted with grace, tabling his ideas of a long vacation this coming summer. Betty was thrilled. Vacations bored her to tears.

  There they were. Frost heavy on the ground. The sun kissing the horizon. Puffs curling from horses' nostrils, hounds eager.

  The horrid cow, Clytemnestra, and her equally enormous offspring, Orestes, had been bribed and barricaded in two stout stalls in the small cattle barn. Sweet mash liberally laced with decent bourbon contented the holy horror, who had gleefully smashed fences and chased people in times past.

  Given the heavy frost, the mercury still below freezing, Shaker walked hounds up the slow rise to the two ponds, one at a lower level than the other, a long pipe and small waterwheel between them. Cindy had added the waterwheel in the early fall. Formerly the water had cascaded from the pipe in the upper pond to the lower pond. Now the pipe fed directly onto the wheel, whose sound as it turned was one our ancestors had heard for centuries untold, one lost now to the roar of turbines and internal combustion engines.

  Those who had never before heard the mating of gears, the slap of the paddles, the sound of the water rising and falling off the paddles discovered the peacefulness of it. Those who had ridden at Mill Ruins had heard it before in deeper register.

  The cascade produced a spray of droplets, arching out over the pond and turning to thousands of rainbows as the sun rose high enough to send a long, slanting ray to the wheel.

  The moving water crystallized at pond's edge here and there, but until frosts stayed hard and deep for many days the ponds wouldn't freeze.

  Grace, the beautiful resident red fox, returned before sunrise to her den behind the stable. Given the wealth of treats, especially the hard candies that Cindy put out for her, Grace had lost her motivation to hunt afar. Occasionally she provided a bracing run. Today wasn't the day.

  Grace glanced up and back. A blanket of thick clouds massed on the mountaintops. In front of her, the east, the sky was crystal clear. Very interesting. Very tricky.

  Hounds picked up Grace's scent at the waterwheel. The beautiful red liked fishing, a hobby she'd taught to Inky. The two girlfriends would sit at pond's edge for hours watching the goldfish, big suckers. Every now and then, Grace would grab one or Inky would. The squirming fish sometimes gained its life by flopping right out of their paws and back into the pond. Occasionally they were successful and enjoyed sushi.

  Today, a tall male heron, motionless, stood on the far side of the upper pond. With a jaundiced eye he watched the hounds. He wasn't going to budge unless someone approached him. He was here first. Furthermore, he was hungry. He tilted his head, and an orange flash caught his eye. Fast as lightning he uncoiled his snakey neck and plunged his long, narrow, terrifying beak through the thin ice at pond's edge into the water, pulling out an extremely healthy fish.

  "Wow." Diddy's soft brown eyes widened.

  "He's an old crank, "Ardent jibbed.

  "Sure can fish, though," Asa whispered, since Shaker was within earshot.

  Grace's scent lingered enough for hounds to feather, the rhythm of their tails seemingly connected to the intensity of the scent.

  Moving upward away from the ponds, hounds reached a higher meadow, where for fifteen minutes the sun warmed the remains of the snow, bare patches of slicked-down pasture also visible.

  About a half mile away rested an old schoolhouse by the farm road. Aunt Netty had once lived there until Uncle Yancy filled the den up. Their former addresses littered three fixtures.

  Cindy hadn't noticed, since she hadn't been riding her property in the cold, but a huge, leggy, red dog fox, Iggy, had recently taken up residence. The lure was not only the abundant supply of mice, moles, rabbits, and grain tidbits but Grace. He meant to have her. At this point, she was coy. Another week, and she might be in season. He was patient. She wouldn't be so coy then. As it was, she maintained warm conversations with him.

  Hounds walked up the pasture and jumped over the fence line, trotting down into the woods where an old springhouse still stood.

  Most of the old farms kept their springhouses because they remained useful.

  Human reasoning would predict that a fox moving down into the woods, coursing through a narrow creek, and going through the springhouse would produce no scent because the springhouse water would be that much colder, which it was.

  However, foxhunting rarely follows the book. Expect the unexpected. Perhaps this is why foxhunting prepares people for life.

  Dana, second year, gaining confidence, flanked the pack. She lifted her head, and a tantalizing odor wafted into her nostrils. She moved in that direction, going away from the main body of the pack. As Sybil was on the other side of the creek, deep covert between her and Dana, the whipper-in didn't notice.

  "I have something, "she spoke once but clearly.

  "77/ check, "Cora told the others as Dasher pushed up to take the place of strike hound. "She might be right. "

  "Gets too far from the rest of us, "Asa noted.

  "Shaker will think she's a skirter. "Ardent seconded Asa's concern, for both dog hounds thought Dana showed promise.

  Skirters don't stay in good packs for long.

  Cora reached Dana and put her own educated nose to the ground. "Bobcat."

  "Can we chase him?” Dana wanted to be right.

  "Sure can. Bobcat and mountain lions count. But here's the thing, Dana. If we pick up good fox scent, we have to leave off and go to the fox."

  "Over here, " Cora called, and the others honored her.

  The pack roared alongside the creek.

  Sybil couldn't keep up through the underbrush. Wisely, she pulled farther west to a cleared path so she could run parallel. Familiar with the country, she knew the places where she could cut back to get closer to hounds.

  Sister at first thought hounds were on a gray running in tight circles. She, too, couldn't follow closely, given the rough terrain.

  Hounds sounded fabulous, the echo of voices ricocheting from the steep terrain.

  Tootie, Val, Felicity, and Pamela rode at the back of first flight. Out of the corner of her eye, Val perceived movement. She turned her head just as the bobcat shot out from under the thick mountain laurel.

  "Oh, m'God," she gasped.

  Tootie followe
d Val's eyes, and she, too, caught sight of that unique bobtail, a forty-pound cat, booking along. He then slid into more heavy cover on the other side of the trail. Had the hill-toppers been closer, they would have viewed him.

  "Say something," Pamela ordered. She'd caught a brief sight of the bobcat.