They sat in silence.
“I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Want one? I’m parched.” Grace stood up. “I’ll be right back.”
Returning in ten minutes with two cups of coffee, Grace handed one to Cig.
“Thanks.”
“I called Will. I asked him to forgive me. He said he did. He said he was in this marriage, too, and he needed to get out of his bubble, as he put it. Said Bill helped him see his part in this.”
“That’s good news.”
“Bill’s still there with him.”
“That’s what friends are for.”
“Boy, you sure don’t know it until you need them. You’d be my friend even if you weren’t my sister.”
“Yeah, I think so, too. You’re the expressive one. I’m the quiet one. We’ve got a good balance. When we were kids I let you do the talking.”
“Well, I let you do the thinking.” Grace stirred in the cream. “I love that color.” She indicated the rich tan of coffee with cream. “Do you think you could feed yourself and get the kids through college if you had your hunter barn?”
“No way. The mortgage is taking me down. You know that.”
“Cig, there are different kinds of responsibility. I asked Will. He agrees with me for all the right reasons. I can never pay up emotionally… but I can pay up. We’re going to pay off your mortgage.”
“What!” Cig had to put down her coffee cup or she would have spilled it.
“My reparations.”
“I can’t let you do that. I can’t let will do that.”
“It’s my money, too, remember? Sure, he’s the doctor but who runs the house, writes the checks, organizes the social calendar, the wife stuff—ever think about what a man would have to pay if he hired for that labor?”
“No.”
“Plenty. We’re married. The money is our money. We’re paying off your mortgage.”
“No.”
“Cig, wasn’t it you who just said to me that loving someone is easier than letting them love you?” When Cig nodded Grace saluted her with her coffee cup. “Prepare to be loved.”
“Love isn’t money.”
“Sometimes it is.”
“I need to think about this.”
“No, you don’t. Abandon yourself to it. Just let it go and kick up your heels and—” She stopped. “Oh, Cig.” She put down her cup, wrapping her arms around Cig’s broad, heaving shoulders. She hadn’t seen her sister cry like that since Blackie died.
49
At seven thirty, the contestants had assembled at the huge 358-year-old white oak tree for which Oak Ridge was named. The temperature hovered at a crisp forty-five degrees, although by nine it would climb to the mid-fifties for sure.
The high-pressure system created startling blue skies and air so clean it was a pleasure to breathe. The fall colors radiated at their peak.
Grace, Harleyetta, and Binky were not speaking to one another. Laura seethed at the sight of her aunt. Grace attempted to speak to her, but Laura made a big show of turning her back and walking away. Everyone noticed, but they were too polite to act as though they had. Cig grabbed Laura by the scruff of the neck, marched her to the trailer tackroom and read her the riot act. Laura was smart enough to wring a concession from her, which was that Parry could spend the night. Cig promised to really get to know Parry, and Laura promised obedience.
The low buzz at the trailers when everyone was tacking up was proof enough that everyone was sharing the scoop, commenting on the scene.
Contestants lined up at a pine picnic table where they received their square white numbers, which they tied around their waists. David Wheeler returned with Jefferson Hunt contestants’ numbers. The organizers were frantic. There were so many people. Contestants would arrive throughout the morning, since teams would go out at five-minute intervals as they were ready. Cig liked to ride a pace before the course was torn up. It meant she couldn’t follow other hoofprints if she got lost, but she felt it was worth the risk.
Harleyetta and Binky shared a trailer and the truck. Unless one shot the other with a .38, they would have to continue to share until settlement, which would take six months if they were lucky. In the state of Virginia one could get a divorce in six months if no children were involved. There were no provisions about adults acting like children.
Binky, nervous about the situation and the competition, backed Whiskey off the trailer. Harleyetta watched.
“You could help me, Binky. You know Gypsy gets hyper if she’s left alone on the trailer.”
“Hey, you want to live without me, you can figure out your own goddamned way to get Gypsy off. I’m changing the locks in the barn and house, you bitch. You can live somewhere else if I’m not good enough for you.”
“According to the law, that’s my place, too, and I can do whatever I like.”
“You sure can, and you can fuck yourself, too.” He flashed his standard, stay-pressed smile as Gypsy pitched a fit in the trailer.
“You impotent toad!” she screamed.
“Impotent! How the hell would you know, Harleyetta? You never gave me a hard-on in your life.” He pushed her onto the ground. Gypsy thought this was an excellent opportunity to dash off, which she did after realizing Harleyetta had unsnapped her tie in the trailer.
“Hunter!” Cig called to her son who immediately mounted up, taking off after Gypsy. His first task was to head her away from the road, Route 653. He’d try to grab the reins later.
Grace peeled off to help her nephew, which irritated Laura, who started to go as well.
“Laura, you stay right here with me.”
“Mom!”
This lament instantly changed to gratitude as Laura and the rest of the early contestants witnessed Harleyetta rising to her feet and with one powerful kick of her booted foot laying into Binky’s parts. He doubled over with a moan.
“I’d kick you in the balls if you had any.” Harley dusted off her hands, turned her back on him and walked away.
That was her second mistake because once he had staggered to his feet he ran after her, laid both his hands on her shoulders and threw her hard to the ground, tumbling on top of her.
“I’ll fix you right now, you walleyed—” He wrapped his hands around her throat, choking her.
Harleyetta, no wimp, couldn’t get a knee up, couldn’t roll him over. She was losing oxygen fast.
Cig unfurled her hunting whip, cracking it over Binky’s head. It sounded like gunfire. He was so obsessed he paid no mind. She twirled the long thong with the green cracker end behind her then flicked it out, catching Binky hard on the side of the face. A big red welt appeared with a twinge of blood. He released his grip, and that fast Harleyetta rolled away, gasping, fighting for breath.
From the other side of his horse van David Wheeler emerged to tackle Binky, scrambling after Harley again. Slight though Binky was, his adrenaline level shot over the sun. Bill Dominquez gave David an assist tackle.
Roberta, appalled, hurried over to Harleyetta, whose throat showed a nifty set of fingerprints.
Hunter and Grace returned with Gypsy, stopping at the havoc. Neither one knew what to do with the horse or the humans.
“Binky, you are invited to leave,” Cig commanded him.
“You goddamned women stick together. You even stick by your slut of a sister.” He sniggered. “You know the Lusitania went down in eighteen minutes. Grace can do it in five.”
“How would you know, Binky?” Grace coolly remarked.
“Because Blackie bragged you could suck the taillights off a Chevy. Said you had more suction than a jet engine.”
No one said a word, but everyone looked at Cig then to Grace and back to Cig again.
Hunter dismounted, handing his reins to Grace, calmly walked up to Binky and then pasted him away with one right cross. Binky crumpled like a used Dixie cup. Then, just as calmly, Hunter returned to Tabasco, taking the reins from an amazed Grace.
David Wheeler, disgusted wit
h Binky, took his hunting flask out of his pocket and poured the booze onto Binky’s face. “Always said this whiskey wasn’t fit to pour on a dog.”
Binky blinked, licked his lips, opened his eyes. “Am I dead?”
“Only from the neck up,” Grace told him.
He propped up on his elbows. “You know what’s wrong with all of you? You take everything too seriously.” He licked as much whiskey off his face as his tongue could reach. He was in his element. “So I give my soon-to-be-ex-wife-but-not-soon-enough a little push. Big deal. So I lose my temper. She loses hers. Big fucking deal. You all pretend like no one has any emotions, it’s wrong to have them.”
Harleyetta, voice hoarse, throat hurting, said, “It’s not the having them, it’s the showing them.”
“Same difference,” he grumbled, and unsteadily swayed to his feet. “I gave you some good times, Harley, gave you some rocks for your fingers, too.”
“Binky, go home and get a grip on yourself. This is neither the time nor the place for this kind of thing.” Cig kept her whip unfurled.
He squinted up at her. “You’ll just take Harley’s part.”
“No, I won’t just take Harley’s part”—Cig’s voice was even—“but we’ve got a hunter pace to ride. You’re not helping our club.”
He wiped his hands on his jacket flaps. “Jesus, Cig, there’s more fornication, drinking, and carrying on in this hunt club than anywhere else in the country.”
“Must be why we like it so much,” David flatly said.
Binky reached inside his own coat pocket, pulled out a flask and took a long pull. “Hunter, you were right to hit me. No hard feelings.”
“No hard feelings,” Hunter said. The glances of the group subtly shifted to the boy, who became a man in their eyes.
“What about you, Grace?” He offered her his flask.
Grace waved it off. “I’m not overfond of being called a slut.” She looked at the group. The pit dropped out of her stomach. She knew she had to do this. “But since you brought it up, I’ll answer the charge. I was wrong, dead wrong. I publicly apologize. I hope you all will forgive me and help Cig, Hunter, Laura, Will, and me through this rough time.”
“Takes two to tango.” Cig defended her sister, which further astonished the club members who thought they’d seen and heard everything. Nothing like this had ever happened at a hunter pace.
Tears sprang to Grace’s eyes. No one knew what to do until Cig spoke again. “God only knows what the rest of today will bring.” That made people laugh. “Come on, teams, let’s get ready.”
50
By now the spectators spilled down the country lane onto the cut hay fields. Every hillock was dotted with clumps of people, many with binoculars. One hundred or more were inside the oval of the Oak Ridge racetrack, which was part of the course.
The hunter pace was divided into two divisions, optimum time, which was the time it would take to complete the course if hunting, and fastest time. Teams ran over obstacles such as one might encounter in the hunt field. Teams of riders selected which division in which to compete. Fastest time meant riders would go flat-out, usually over a shortened course. Most teams picked optimum time because members had to think a bit more while on the course, it was more challenging than running hard. Horses must negotiate stone walls, coops, post and rails, drop fences, water, and in-and-outs; usually one obstacle forced a team member to dismount, open a gate, let the others pass, then close the gate and mount up again. The bigger hunts might even put jump judges at the various obstacles.
The Oak Ridge hunter pace, held at the Oak Ridge Estate near the town of Shipman, had been steadily growing in popularity. Hundreds of people turned out. The weather was perfection and this contest was a preliminary to the granddaddy of hunter paces, the Orange County hunter pace near the Plains, Virginia. Teams from Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and of course, Virginia, waited patiently for the starter to set them off, at five-minute intervals.
Grace, Agnes, and Carol were the first team to leave in the optimum time division. Cig, Hunter, and Laura followed at eight. Harleyetta, Bill, and David soon followed.
Cig figured the optimum time ought to be somewhere between one hour and one hour two minutes for the eight-mile course. She always gave her team time for mistakes.
People did pitch headfirst over jumps, the turf in front of the jumps could get mucky, and more than one horse refused to go through the swift running stream. A horse could throw a fit when threading through a herd of cattle. Sometimes the tension of competition unraveled even seasoned hunters. Like humans, some could take it and some couldn’t.
Halfway through the course, as the Blackwood family trotted up a hill, they stopped for a moment to enjoy the panoramic view. The Blue Ridge Mountains lay west of them, rolling hills of golden oats lay to the east.
“My God, have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Cig exclaimed.
“Remember what Dad used to say?” Hunter smiled as he sniffed the odor of rich earth and turning leaves. “All foxhunters go to hell because we’ve had our heaven on earth.”
“Hey, there’s the flag over there.” Laura, the navigator of the group, had been checking her map. “Come on, gang.”
They headed toward the red flag. Cig led, setting the pace, a brisk trot, and keeping time. Laura, in the middle position, kept charge of the maps and direction—she had a terrific sense of direction—and Hunter brought up the rear. He also kept a lookout to see if anyone was gaining on them. He was the anchor.
A triple combination lay dead ahead. The first jump was a tiger trap, one stride to a coop in a fence line, and then a solid railroad tie jump in yet another fence line. If you hit the first jump right the other two were a snap. Get your distance wrong and you could wind up stuck between jumps, trying to figure out how to get your horse up and over.
One, two, three, Full Throttle arched over with ease. He could pick his distances better than Cig, and she had the sense to stay out of his way. As soon as they were on the other side of the triple they moved into dense woods, single file.
“I reckon about a mile of this. How are we doing for time, Mom?”
“So far so good, but all these offshoot trails are confusing.”
“I’ll tell you when to turn,” Laura confidently said.
Cig fought back her nervousness when a patch of ground fog rising off the fast-running Rucker’s Run floated over the path. Once through that they were at the end of the woods and burst out into a big hay field.
“Okay, let’s gallop to the top,” she called back.
The three let their horses go, thundered up the hill where a copse of hardwoods burst into flames of orange, yellow, and red.
In the far distance they could see another team, too far away to identify their hunt colors, struggling with an in-and-out. Beyond that a crowd waited at the finish line.
Cig checked her watch. “I think we’d better keep up a trot here just in case there’s a screw-up ahead. I mean, those guys could be at that in-and-out for days, you know what I mean?”
They turned hard right at the bottom of the field onto a rutted wagon lane, cleared a ditch and a bank jump, not often seen in these parts.
Heading for home, they easily threaded the in-and-out as the team that had been struggling far ahead of them crossed the finish line.
The finish involved circling the beautiful race track, jumping a small run-off ditch, then thundering along oat fields into hay meadows over the final obstacle, which was a thirty-six-foot-long coop in an old fence line. This was one of the reasons such a big crowd was gathered at the spot. It always provided moments some competitors would like to forget and no spectator ever would as the teams paced their horses to hit that long jump at exactly the same time. The finish line was fifty yards beyond the jump.
Cig checked her watch. If they stayed on pace they’d finish in one hour, one minute, and fifteen seconds.
They cantered across the hay fields checking
their horses to keep them abreast. Laura adjusted her horse’s stride about six strides from the coop. In a horizontal line they cleared the obstacle as one. The crowd hurrahed. As they crossed the finish line, Cig checked her watch. One hour, one minute, and sixteen seconds.
They patted one another on the back and accepted the cheers and calls from the crowd, many of whom they knew. Life may be chaos but this is perfect, Cig thought to herself.
Back at the trailer they checked the horses’ legs, took off the tack and threw sweat sheets over their horses.
“How’d you do?” Cig asked as Grace came to the trailer.
“One hour two minutes flat.”
Roaring around the race track was a team from Rose Tree Hunt in York County, Pennsylvania. The lead rider caught Cig’s eye. There was something oddly familiar about him even at that distance. He plunged across the run-off ditch, his big gray snorting then shooting off. He called, laughing to his teammates, all men, as they synched up for the long coop. When they cleared the coop they doffed their silk toppers to the crowd, which applauded the elegant gesture.
“Fitz,” Cig whispered.
“What, Mom?” Hunter watched the Rose Tree team.
“Nothing.” Her face paled.
“Are you all right?” Grace noticed.
“Yes.” Cig felt dizzy.
The handsome fellow, about forty, his red-golden curls shining in the October light, walked his gray over to his trailer, a green-and-gold rig. The lapels of his scarlet tailcoat bore the seal brown collar with gold piping of Rose Tree. He was laughing and joking with his teammates.
“Who is that?” Cig nodded in the direction of the man who looked like Fitz.
“I don’t know,” Grace replied.
“Carol,” Cig called to Grace’s teammate, “you know everyone. Who is that fellow with the blond curly hair?”
“Alex Maher. Widowed two years ago. Really a tragic thing. His wife and daughter were killed in a car wreck. A drunken driver ran a stoplight. Poor man, he nearly died himself of grief.”
Riding Shotgun Page 33