“Oh, you scare me.”
Raleigh rolled his brown eyes.
“I've got your catnip mousie, the one covered with rabbit
fur. Thought I'd swallow it.”
Raleigh put the little mousie in his mouth, fake tail dangling out.
“Thief!”
Golly vaulted off the bed.
Raleigh just turned his head from side to side as Golly tried to get her mousie. Her stream of abuse reached such a pitch that Sister put down the more calming book she was reading, a reexamination of the Punic Wars.
“All right, Raleigh, give her the toy. Don't be ugly.” She turned on her side, opened the drawer in the nightstand, and took out two greenies: little green bones made in Missouri. “Here.” She tossed one to Raleigh and one to Rooster.
Raleigh dropped the mousie to grab the greenie. Golly snatched up the soggy toy, leapt back up on the bed, and batted it around for good measure.
“You know, Golly, today is Mozart's birthday in Salzburg, 1756.” Sister could remember dates. “Hmm, also the day of the cease-fire in Vietnam, 1972. A good day, I would suppose, January twenty-seventh.” She noticed the cat taking the toy, pulling back a corner of the pillow, and shoving it underneath.
“He won't find it there, the big creep.”
Sister laughed, watching the cat. She abruptly stopped. “A cache. I didn't notice the caches today. Like you, Golly, the big cat kept a kind of pantry. Don't see too many of the mountain lions. I wasn't looking for the signs, but foxes do the same thing, smaller scale.” She picked up the book, then let it fall in her lap. “My God, I'm a dolt.”
“Now what?”
Rooster's voice was garbled as he was chewing.
“A cache. The storage unit is a cache. Storage houses like that don't just burn down. People don't set fires to them to see the flames.” She looked at the animals, who were now looking at her. “But I don't get it. What's being hidden in that cache? What could be worth that kind of violence? And to whom? Clay? Xavier? Both? Who was found burned? I don't get it.”
“Well, you'd better keep your mouth shut until you do,”
Golly rudely but wisely said.
CHAPTER 26
In small towns, people notice one another. Tedi Bancroft would have lunch with Marty Howard. Someone would notice. Word would spread. Not that this is a bad thing, but it can lead to that great Olympic sport: people jumping to conclusions.
Then, too, there is a certain type of personality who lives by the motto “There is no problem that can't be blown out of proportion.” The media is filled with just such personalities, but they thrive even among other segments of the population.
Knowing that, Sister asked Ben Sidell to swing by the farm sometime Wednesday. If seen together in town, any number of scenarios would have been bandied about.
The two sat chatting in the library.
“That was my first thought,” Ben confessed, after hearing Sister's conjecture. “Berry Storage would be the obvious place.” He reached for a sandwich. “Fortunately, most people who own good silver and jewelry keep an inventory. Many now mark the items themselves in some unobtrusive spot, a number, a series of letters. If they haven't catalogued their goods, they have photographs with duplicates to the insurance agency. It's fairly easy to rip off a car and sell it. With something as unique as George II silver, it's not easy to fence. Something like that usually is going out of the country.”
“What about a ritzy shop on Madison Avenue, a high-class fence?”
“We'd track it down, most likely. Now if the goods are presold, if you will, the items go directly to, say, a buyer in Seattle, we probably wouldn't find them. Sometimes you get lucky, though.”
“After reading the papers about the silver thefts in Richmond, I thought . . . well, you know what I thought.”
“Logical.” Ben appreciated her concern. “Quite logical that antique furniture and silver could be crated and hidden at Berry Storage, shipped out, and it would all look like business as usual. Worth millions of pure profit, no taxes.”
“I see.” She crossed her legs. “And everything in the burned building is accounted for?”
“No. The insurance investigator from Worldwide Security is still working through what she can. What we did when we could get in there without melting the bottom of our shoes was to open the crates. The ones in the back were intact. Nothing was burned, although everything smells like smoke. We checked to see if anything was on the list of items stolen from Richmond. Nothing. Naturally, we'll work with the insurance investigatorâher examination will be detailedâbut I don't think Berry Storage has been a way station for this high-class theft ring.”
“For the sake of argument,” she uncrossed her legs, leaning forward, “if remnants of stolen silver or Chippendale chairs are found, is it possible that something like this could be done without Clay knowing about it?”
“Unlikely, but yes, it is possible.”
“Or they could both be in on it . . . Clay and X. Selling stolen goods, collecting insurance on the fire.”
He shrugged. “That's possible, too.”
“I've wasted your time with my ideas. I was so sure I was onto something with the theft ring,” she paused, “because of yesterday's hunt.”
“Heard it was wild.” He smiled.
“That it was, but what set my mind in motion was how my attention was so focused on the chase that I missed the danger signals, the signs of the mountain lion. I rather thought this might be the same sort of thing.” She blushed.
“It might. When I get an I.D. on the body, that should help.”
“I would think it would. And no one locally has been reported missing?”
He looked at her intently. “No. Think how many people live alone. If our victim was a loner, I might not get a missing-person call until his coworkers report it. If the victim doesn't have a regular job . . .” He threw up his hands. “But I'm confident we'll get a dental match soon.”
“Baffling.”
“Yes, it is,” he agreed.
“Do you think this has anything to do with the deaths of Mitch and Tony?”
“I don't know. At this point, I don't see a connection.”
“Nor do I.” She put her forefingers on the sides of her temples for a second. “And yet, the warehouses aren't far from where those men lived the last part of their lives. They were throwaway labor, for lack of a better term. Perhaps they were literally thrown away.”
“It's a stretch.”
“I know. And I'm just running on. I don't have an ounce of evidence, but I do feel something, something disquieting, and I'm probably making too much of missing the signs after yesterday's lion hunt.” She smiled slightly.
“I like having you on my team,” he reassured her.
CHAPTER 27
Cold though it was, Crawford kept up with his riding. He'd go out with Fairy Thatcher, though he was beginning to prefer riding with Sam. Fairy demurred giving him advice. Sam offered guidance to him as they rode, paying special attention to Crawford's hands over a jump.
Ambition burned in the Indiana native. He desperately wanted to be a good rider. He was surrounded by people who had been riding while still in their mother's bellies. It made him all the more determined.
He and Sam entered the stables after a cold ride. They'd been going over Crawford's farm, digressing into personalities in the hunt field.
“Sam, Virginia's full of damned snobs.”
“Sure it is. You can see them coming a mile away. You don't have to buy into it.”
“How'd you get so smart?” Crawford had a hint of humor in his voice.
“By nearly drinking myself to death. I had to be that stupid to get smart.”
Crawford's eyes narrowed. He picked up the riding crop. “Why'd you do it, if you don't mind my asking?”
“I don't. I suppose there are a lot of reasons for drinking, but no excuses. I thought I'd fill up the hollows in my life with bourbon. I wasn't a prince among men.”
“Who is?”
“Peter Wheeler came pretty close. And there's my brother.”
“I underestimated you, Sam. There's more to you than I thought.”
“Maybe that makes two of us.”
Crawford grunted. He slapped the smaller, slighter man on the back, and left for the big house. He had a lot to think about as he strode through the brisk air.
The phone rang in the tack room.
“Sam.”
“Rory, how are you doing?”
“I'm doing.” His voice thickened. “It's hard, man. How'd you do it?”
“One day at a time.”
“But how do you live with all the shit you've done?”
“That's a bitch. Rory, you ask the people you've hurt to forgive you. If they don't, there's not much you can do about it. The hard part is forgiving yourself. And no matter what you do, there are people who will never trust you. You just go on.”
“Yeah.” A long pause followed. “I called to thank you for dragging my sorry ass down here.”
“I was glad to do it. Hey, Rory, you hear about Berry Storage burning?”
“Don't hear nothing from home in here.”
“One of the smaller buildings caught fire. Arson. Found a body inside.”
“Jesus.”
“I thought one of our guys might have figured out how to get in.”
“Well, that's another reason I called. About Mitch and Tony. I don't know where they got what they drank, but funny you should mention Berry Storage. Sometimes Clay or Donnie Sweigert would come down and get us to help make deliveries. You did some of that?”
“Yeah, a little. We'd tote chairs to a house. About broke my back.”
Well, we'd go to Lynchburg or Roanoke, even Newport News. Cities all over. I remember once we delivered an expensive desk down to Bristol.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, here's what I remembered. All of those odd jobs where they needed an extra pair of hands were deliveries to coaches. You know, like sports.”
“I don't remember that.”
“Christ, all you cared about was horses. Yeah, we'd deliver a chair to a football coach at this high school or a sofa to a college basketball coach or maybe the trainer.”
“Odd.”
“I might have been drunk as a skunk, but, hey, the Orioles are the world, and Tech football, bro, awesome. I pay attention to those things.”
“What do you make of it?”
“I don't. Just crossed my mind.”
“What about other deliveries?”
“None. Just coaches and trainers. And here's one other thing, on those runs, the ones where us scumbags were used, always the same driver: Donnie Sweigert.”
“Donnie works for Berry Storage. Nothing unusual in that.”
“Maybe not, but you'd think sometimes we'd pull another driver. Always Donnie.”
“Huh.” Sam couldn't make heads nor tails of this.
“I gotta go. They keep us pretty structured.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
Rory's voice, heavy with emotion, simply said, “I guess I gotta grow up.”
“Grow or die.”
CHAPTER 28
A thin cloud cover, like a white fishnet, covered the sky on Thursday morning. The mercury stalled out at thirty-eight degrees.
Hounds checked down by a man-made lake at Orchard Hill, the day's fixture.
As Sister waited on a rise above the lake, a froth rising off the still waters, she reflected on the past. In 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh founded the Lost Colony of Roanoke. What would Raleigh make of Virginia now?
She also wondered what those first Native Americans thought when they saw ships with billowing white sails. They must have felt curiosity and terror.
What would this lush rolling land be like four hundred years hence, could she return? Would the huntsman's horse still echo, rising up as the mist now rose at Rickyroo's hooves?
At least if Raleigh returned, he would recognize the hunt. Back then, though, they hunted in far more colorful clothing, knee-high boots turned down, revealing a soft champagne color inside. Over time, these evolved into the tan-topped formal hunt boots worn by men and some lady staff members, if the master allows the ladies to wear scarletâstill a topic of dispute among foxhunters. The flowing lace at the neck became the stock tie by the early eighteenth century. But apart from the clothing, those seventeenth-century men would know hound work, good hounds, good horses and, from all accounts, good women, as well as a surfeit of existing bad ones.
Tedi, Edward, Xavier, Ron, Gray, Jennifer, and Sari made up First Flight, the two girls allowed to ride on Thursdays. Sister had petitioned their science teacher at the high school, citing environmental studies. The teacher, an old friend, Greg Windom, agreed. After each hunt, the two students had to write up what they had observed.
This morning they observed a huge blue heron lift off from the lake when he heard the hounds, cawing raucously as he ascended.
A slow-moving creek lurched into the lake on high ground; an overflow pipe at the other end of the built-up lake flowed into that same creek some four feet below. In warmer weather, the creek was filled with five-inch stink-pot turtles: little devils, aggressive and long-necked. They'd snap at you, steal your bait if you were fishing for rockfish or even crawdaddies. Catch one and the odor made your eyes water.
Sister had taught geology at Mary Baldwin College before marrying, although her major had been what was then called the natural sciences. But Mary Baldwin had needed a geology teacher, so she voraciously read anything she could and was smart enough to go out with the guys from the U.S. Geological Survey in the area. They taught her more than anything she found in the books.
She passed on what she could to Jennifer and Sari when they asked questions, but she didn't push them. As years rolled on, Sister had ample opportunity to be thankful for her study of rock strata, soil, erosion, and such. It helped her foxhunt. People would remark that Sister had uncanny game sense. Yes and no. She had never stopped studying soils, plants, and other animals. While she realized she would never know what the fox knew, she was determined to get as close as she could.
She'd hunted most of her seven decades, starting at six on an unruly pony. She still didn't know how a fox could turn scent on and off, even though she had seen it with her own eyes. She'd seen hounds go right over a fox. Days later that same fox might put down a scorching trail for hounds.
In her wildest dreams, she prayed to Artemis to allow her to be a fox for one day and then return to her human form. Since this prayer went unanswered, she continued to read, learn from other notable foxhunters, and study her quarry. She knew her hounds, but she knew she would never truly know her foxes.
They knew her. The fox possessed a deep understanding of the human species as well as other species. The quickness of the animal's mind, its powers of judgment, and its ability continually to adapt were phenomenal. The two times a fox would lose its good judgment were when it heard the distress call of a cub, any cub, and during mating season, when the boys were lashed on by their hormones. This is not uncharacteristic of higher mammals.
One such fellow, maddened by desire, now found himself eight miles from home, smack in the middle of Orchard Hill. The hounds picked him up, then lost him at the lake.
He'd dashed around the lake, leapt straight down from the overflow pipe into the creek, and swam straight downstream until he rolled up against a newly built beaver dam. He thought about ducking under the water, coming up into the lodge, but beavers are notoriously inhospitable, even to a fox in distress. He climbed up on the dam, gathered his haunches and, soaring over to the first lodge, alighted on top. He heard the commotion inside. He hopped from lodge to lodge, finally jumping from the last one onto the land. He had outwitted everyone. Catching his breath, he enjoyed a leisurely trot home.
While the hounds cast themselves at the lake bed, Trident, an excellent nose, found a middling scent: a gray dog fox. He kept his nose down and as it warmed, he spoke very softly. Trinity, bolder than her brother and littermate, walked over.
“Line!”
Trinity called out.
Cora trotted over and checked it out.
“Let's give it a
try.”
The rest of the pack, eighteen couple today, joined them, although the pace was relatively slow. The American hound doesn't run with its nose stuck to the ground like glue. The animal inhales, lifts its head slightly, moves along, then perhaps thirty yards later, puts its nose to the ground. As each hound is doing this, the line is well researched. And the whole point of a pack is that hounds must trust one another as well as their huntsman.
Shaker knew the line was so-so. He also knew it couldn't be the first fox they had run; the line would have been hotter, the music louder. As it was, hounds opened but never in full-throated chorus. They were more like geese, calling out flight coordinates at this moment.
But as hounds moved away from the lake, climbing to higher ground, frosty pastures still in shadows, the pace quickened. The music grew louder.
A tiger trap squatted in the three-board fence line. Shaker and Gunpowder easily popped over, the ground falling away on the landing side. They slipped a little, then the lovely thoroughbred stretched out as the hounds picked up speed. They covered the pasture, jumped a log jump into a woods filled with ancient hollies, twenty feet high, the tiny red berries enlivening the woods with endless dots of color. Called possumhaw by country people, swamp holly by newer folks, Shaker knew he'd be in a swamp soon enough. Possumhaws loved the muck.
Sister knew it, too. She also knew raccoon scent would be heavy as the coons love the berries in winter.
Hounds ran on despite the heavy odor of raccoons. The gray fox, a young one, thought the swamp would slow down his pursuers. He was right, but it also held scent. He needed to get up, get out, and fly across a meadow still untouched by the sun.
He figured this out at the end of the swamp, climbed over the slippery low banks, darted through an old pine woods, many of the Virginia pines having fallen from age, then hit the cold western meadow, revving his engine.
Gunpowder kept right up, but stumbled when he ran over flat rock in the piney woods. His right hoof skidded on the slick rock. He pitched forward, pitching Shaker with him. If a horse loses his balance or drops a shoulder, a human can rarely stay on. A cat couldn't stay perched on even with claws. Shaker shot over Gunpowder's shoulder, hitting the rock hard.
Gunpowder stopped, put his nose down on Shaker's face.
“You okay?”
Shaker didn't move as Gunpowder stood by him.
Sister arrived within a minute. She hadn't seen the fall. Quickly she dismounted and felt for a pulse. There was one, thank God.
She lifted one eyelid. His pupil was dilated. Fearing a concussion, she hoped it wasn't worse. As for broken bones, no way to tell until he regained consciousness.
The other riders halted, watching with apprehension. “Ron, give me your flask.”
Ronnie quickly dismounted, handing his reins to Gray, and brought her his flask. He knelt beside her. She poured out a little alcohol in her hand and touched Shaker's lips with it, then rubbed it on his cheeks. Blood rushed to his face, and he flushed.
His eyes fluttered. He started to sit up, but she held him down.
“Not yet.”
Ronnie moved behind his head, holding it.
“Shaker, can you feel your feet?”
“Uh.”
“What day is it?”
“Uh, hunting . . .”
“Can you feel your toes?”
His mind cleared a bit. He wriggled his toes in their scratched boots, polished many times. “Uh-huh.”
“Can you feel your fingers?”
He wiggled his fingers in his white string gloves. “Yeah.” He took a deep breath. “Ronnie, don't kiss me.”
“You asshole.” Ronnie laughed.
“What day is it?”
“Hunting day.”
“No. What day of the week?”
“Uh . . . what happened?” He started to sit up. Ronnie and Sister let him, since nothing seemed to be broken. He winced when he took a deep breath. “Ahhh.”
“Lucky it's not worse.” Sister continued to kneel next to him.
“Cracked a few.” His breath was a little ragged when he inhaled. “I'll tape them up.”
“It will only hurt when you breathe.” Ronnie stood up.
“You're a big help.” Shaker wrapped his arms around his chest.
“And if you were the last man on earth, I wouldn't kiss you.” Ronnie figured the best way to help him was to torment him. He was right.
“Jerk.”
“Asshole.”
“Gentlemen.” Sister shook her head.
“Sorry,” Ronnie said.
“Look, honey, you've cracked some ribs, maybe broken them. If you'd punctured a lung, we'd know; you can hear that plain as a tire hissing. But I think you've suffered a mild concussion.”
“Got no brains anyway.” He smiled his crooked grin, all the more appealing, given the circumstances.
“At least you admit it.” Ronnie leaned over, putting his hands under Shaker's right armpit.
Sister did the same for his left. “One, two, upsy daisy.”
Shaker stood up unsteadily. Both friends kept hold. He rubbed his head, the horn still in his right hand. “Jesus.”
“Sister, I can call an ambulance.” Xavier carried a tiny cell phone inside his frock coat.
“I'm not riding in any goddamn ambulance. I fell off. Big deal.” Shaker's head throbbed. He reached for Gunpowder's reins.
“Don't even think of it.” Sister took the reins instead.
“Well, someone's got to stay up with the hounds.”
“Betty is there and so is Sybil. You are going to stay right here. Sari, I want you to stick with Shaker. Jennifer, ride back to the trailer, tie up your horse, drive my truck here, and then drive Shaker to Walter.”
“I'm fine.”
“Yes, and I'm the boss.” Her words had bite. “If you don't go to Walter, as a precaution, and your damned bullheadedness costs us the season, you'll have a lot more pain from me than what this fall has caused.”
“Hard boot,” he grumbled.
“You'll call me worse than that.” She looked up. “Jennifer, move.”
“Yes, ma'am.” Jennifer turned her horse, galloping back toward the trailers, which fortunately weren't but a mile away.
Xavier said, “Sister, let me go back with her, and I'll tie my horse next to hers. Just in case the horse gets silly by himself.”
“That's a good idea, and X, go with her to Walter, will you? She's only a kid, and I should have thought of that. John Wayne here might feel compelled to give her orders, such as to forget it. I've put her in a bad spot. I know he can't do a thing with you.”
Xavier touched his crop to his derby and cantered off.
Shaker wanted to say something back, but he was foggier than he realized. Ronnie continued to hold him up. He blinked, then handed the horn to Sister. “Better kick on.”
She took the horn. “Jesus H. Christ on a raft,” is what she wanted to say. She'd hunted all her life, but she'd never carried the horn. She was the master. Her field, small though it was today, looked to her. It was her responsibility to provide sport. “Okay, I'll give you a full report later.”
Ronnie stayed back with Sari and Shaker.
Sister walked away, not wishing to make Gunpowder or their horses fret. Once away from the three, she turned. “Edward, take the field, will you?”
“Delighted.” He nodded in assent.
The field now consisted of Tedi and Gray.
Sister moved out; she could hear hounds way in the distance. Rickyroo had speed to burn. Unless footing got trappy, she could get up with them in five or ten minutes. She trusted her two whippers-in and knew they'd be on either side.
Luck was with her. She had no heavy covert to negotiate, just open meadows, thin dividers of woods and trees on either side. She caught sight of her tail hounds climbing up a rolling meadow. Rickyroo opened his stride even more, and within minutes she was right behind Delia, Nellie, Asa, and Ardent, who were fifteen yards behind the rest of the pack.
She put the horn to her lips. A strangled sound slid out of the short horn.
“Oh, God,” she said.
“Just talk to us,”
Asa advised.
She stuck the horn between her first and second coat buttons. “Whoop, whoop, whoop.”
Cora heard this, slightly turned her head.
“Sister's hunting us.”
“No joke.”
Dasher smiled.
“Guess we'd better be right.”
Diana, moving fast, literally leapt, turning in midair.
“To
the right!”
As anchor, and in her second season at this demanding position, she had to keep everyone on the line, correct line at that. The fox executed a 90-degree cut, smack in the middle of the pastures.