“Yes,”
all responded.
Diana, her voice low, said to Asa,
“Thank God, Dragon's
still back in the kennel.”
Asa chuckled.
“Right.”
“Ruthie, you found, sing out.”
Cora encouraged the youngster.
“Rock and roll.”
Ruthie lifted her head a bit then all joined her.
Hounds went from zero to sixty in less than three seconds. Sister, eyes widened, at first didn't know they were on coyote. Could be fresh fox scent.
Hounds threaded through the woods, pads touching lightly down on the narrow cleared trail. They clambered over a fallen tree, kept on, then burst out of the woods, leaping over the hog's back jump in the fence line separating After All Farm from Roughneck Farm. They'd covered two miles in minutes.
The electrifying pace only increased as they charged through the meadows, blasted along the edges of the wide wildflower field, the stalks of the odd wisps of broom sage bent with winter's woes, the earth beginning to slightly soften, releasing ever more scent on this crisp day.
As Sister flew along behind her hounds, she noticed they headed straight for the bottom of Hangman's Ridge. A large dark gray cloud peeped over the uppermost edge of this long formidable ridge.
Hounds circled the bottom of the ridge. On the Soldier Road side, they abruptly cut up the ridge on an old deer trail.
Lafayette effortlessly followed, his long stride making the ride comfortable.
Sister blew a few strangled notes when hounds first took off. Now she relied on her voice. She whooped and hollered, shouting as she and Lafayette began to climb to the top of the ridge.
Halfway up, they were enshrouded in a thick veil of white mist. By the time they reached the top, she could barely see fifty yards ahead of her. The heavy moisture in the low cloud felt clammy.
Onward and upward hounds roared. As they passed the hanging tree, they ignored the mournful spirits there. The wind rustled that strange low howl, whistling at a varying pitch just as Sister rode by. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She thought she saw, out of the corner of her eye, the specter of a well-dressed eighteenth-century gentleman standing next to a Confederate veteran in full uniform.
“Balls,” she said out loud, and heard a ghostly snicker.
She loathed this place. Lafayette snorted. They galloped, clods of thawing turf flying up behind his hooves, to the end of the ridge, down the wide dirt road, the last road the convicted ever trod.
Then along the farm roadâfaster and faster, farther and fartherâpast the turn into her farm, hounds in the kennel making one hell of a racket, down the farm road, out to the tertiary road, the briefest of checks.
Sister dropped her head, then tipped it back, gulping air. She turned her head, looking back. Behind her, the clouds slid from the ridge, some fingering down the Blue Ridge Mountains as well. Weather was not just making its way in from the west, it was coming full throttle.
She saw Edward emerge at the bottom of the ridge, a dot in bright red.
“Cross the road,”
Ardent sounded.
The others picked up the line where he'd found it, and on they flew on a southeast line. They shot through the tiny graveyard, marked only by an upright stone. Legend was this was the last stop for suicides who could not be buried in consecrated ground. No one knew for certain. Hounds kept running again, coming out on another tertiary road, the gravel spitting up beneath their claws as they dug in for purchase. The top of the road darkened as dew sank into the bluestone. Lafayette thundered across it, plunging into the rows of cornstalks, leaves making an eerie rustle as the wind picked up.
They were at Alice Ramy's northernmost border. She left the corn up for wildlife every winter. Hounds reached the end of the cornfield, hooked left, and forded an old drainage ditch, snow filling the bottom.
Sister and Lafayette didn't even look down. They flew over the wide ditch as though at the Grand National. A soft thud on the other side as they landed, Lafayette reached out with his forelegs and on they ran, now turning northward, then northeast. Again, they crossed the dirt road, over the meadows, into another wooded area, land mines of rock everywhere, tough soil.
Hounds stopped. Searched.
Sister stopped, hearing the hooves behind her about a quarter of a mile. She figured the drainage ditch held some of them up. God knew, Edward would fly over it.
Hounds moved at a slow, deliberate pace, trying to pick up the scent. The coyote, pausing for a breather on the rim of a ravine a half mile away, heard them, judged the distance between himself and the pack, then trotted toward After All Farm.
He crossed the paved highway, a two-way road with a painted center line, walked down a steep embankment, and then loped toward his den at the southern edge of After All Farm, not a third of a mile away.
Hounds found his line. By the time they reached the den, he was safely inside.
Sister dismounted, blew “Gone to Ground” with what wind she had left. She studied the tracks. “Knew it, god-dammit.”
“Well, we knew they were here.” Betty, who had swung in, looked down.
“What a pity.” Sybil, also joining the pack, face cherry red, mourned.
“If we're very lucky, they won't run off our foxes. Still, I think we should shoot every damned one of them.” Sister bore no love for the coyote.
“Yeah,” Betty agreed.
Edward, top hat firmly in place, red hat cord ensuring it wouldn't be lost, relaxed his shoulders a moment.
“What a run,” Crawford enthused.
Coyote did give glorious runs, but the play by play was much simpler. It was the difference between high school football and the pros. The coyote didn't use the ruses the fox did, and most dyed-in-the-wool foxhunters wanted to pit themselves against the cleverest of creatures. The coyote might be wily, but he wasn't sporting like the fox.
Hounds, jubilant at putting their game to ground, sterns upright, eyes clear and happy, pranced as they packed in back to After All Farm.
“Girls won.”
Cora laughed.
Asa, generous, conceded, then said,
“After a go like that,
I'd say we all won.”
“Yes, well done, youngsters,”
Diana praised the firstyear entry, who beamed.
As the field walked back, clouds filling half the western sky, a little spit could be seen coming from them: more snow.
“Mercury's taking a nose dive,” Betty mentioned.
Sybil hunched up her shoulders. “What a winter we're having.”
“Was Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit who first put mercury in a thermometer. Born in Poland in 1686. Just think how every day we are enriched by someone who went before us,” Sister mused.
“It is pretty wonderful.” Betty smiled.
“Bet you by the time we get to the covered bridge, snow will be falling there.” Sybil furrowed her brow.
Sister studied the western sky. “Yep.”
Shaker and Lorraine waited at the turnoff to After All Farm. He rolled down the window of the truck, stuck his thumb up.
Sister stuck hers up, too.
He rolled up his window and drove down to the trailers, less than a mile away. He wanted to be at the party wagon when hounds arrived.
Sam, on Cloud Nine, chatted with Gray and Tommy Cullhain. His horse, the timber horse, has a long stride, but he wasn't paying attention.
The horse bumped Xavier's paint horse, Picasso.
Xavier turned around, beheld Sam, and snarled, “Drop dead.”
“You first,” Sam fired back.
CHAPTER 32
A towering bouquet, winter greens interspersed with rich red and creamy white roses, stood majestically on Sister's front hall table, a long narrow Louis XVI, its gold ormolu gleaming against the deep black lacquer.
Sister opened the note, which read, “Who says flowers don't bloom in winter? Beautiful. Gray.”
Her right hand touched her heart for a second.
Golly sat behind them, a feline part of the display.
“Patterson's delivered.”
“Spectacular!” Sister exclaimed.
She loved flowersâwhat woman doesn't? One of the small disappointments of age was that men did not seem to send them as regularly as they once did.
She took the stairs two at a time, stripped off her clothing. She always took off her boots in the stable, and the girls would clean them. She'd slip into her Wellies, cold in the winter, finish the chores, then come into the house.
She hopped in the shower, Raleigh and Rooster pressing their noses to the glass doors. Then she toweled off, fixed her hair, threw on makeup, opened the closet door, and uttered those immortal words, “I have nothing to wear.”
“How can she say that?”
Rooster, having lived with a man, was just learning that women were different in some respects. He was only in his second year with Sister.
Raleigh, nosing a soft pair of leather shoes, answered,
“Color, season, fabric, she has to worry about all of that
and then when she picks the right thing, the shoes.”
He rolled his eyes.
“The downfall of women!”
“Peter would shower, shave, put on a suit or a navy
blazer with some kind of pants, a tie, and off he'd go.
Twenty minutes, tops,”
Rooster informed Raleigh.
A red ball rolled into the large closet as Golly giggled.
“Look what I have.”
“That's not yours.”
Raleigh snatched the ball.
“Pig.”
Golly sat on a forest green pair of high-heel shoes, squashing them.
Finally Sister settled on a tailored suit, double-breasted, with a magenta pinstripe. She wore a pale pink blouse and a deep teal silk scarf. She was always putting together colors in odd ways, but they worked. After much deliberation, she wore shoes the color of the suit.
“Can you imagine wearing panty hose?”
Golly wanted to snag the nylons.
“No.”
Rooster wrinkled his nose.
“Where's she going,
anyway?”
“Special party for Reading for the Blind. Kind of a fund-raiser, but more low-key than the dance stuff.”
Raleigh knew his mother's charities and special interests.
Golly shot out of the closet, cut in front of the dogs, and walked into the bathroom where Sister performed a last-minute makeup check. Golly hit the wall with all fours, bounced off, and turned to face the dogs.
“King of the hill!”
The two canines stopped, then Rooster said,
“Golly,
you're mental.”
“I'm a killer. I can bring down bunnies twice my size. I
can face off a . . . a bobcat. I can terrify a cow. I am Kong!”
She spun on her paws, flew the entire length of the upper hallway, hit the wall there, bounced off, and flew back, running right under the dogs' bellies.
“She is mental,”
Rooster repeated.
“I think she has to go to the bathroom,”
Raleigh said.
“She gets that way if she has to do Number Two.”
“I do not!”
Golly was outraged.
“But if I have to go, I'll
go in your bed because you have mortally offended me.”
She turned in a huff, jumping onto the counter where the makeup sat.
“I don't know how you've stood it for all these years,”
Rooster consoled Raleigh.
“At least when I lived with
Peter, he didn't keep cats. They're horrible.”
“Oh, ignore her, Rooster. She just wants attention.
Think of her as a tiny woman in a fur coat.”
Golly, purring for all she was worth, watched as Sister put on lipstick, considered it, wiped it off, put on a more pinkish, subdued color, considered it, threw the tube in the trash in disgust. Finally Sister wiped her lips and rubbed in a little colored gloss.
“She's losing it,”
Golly grandly announced.
“No. She's finding it,”
Raleigh answered.
By the time Sister reached the gathering, darkness enveloped the town, the white church steeples contrasting against the darkness. A light snow fell.
Marty Howard, a force in the reading group, urged people also to get involved in the Committee to Promote Literacy.
Clay and Izzy Berry moved through the group. Izzy had a sister who was blind and was passionate about the work of this group. Xavier and Dee were there, as well as Dalton Hill and Ben Sidell.
“Ben, this is the first time I've seen you at one of our functions. Thank you for coming,” Sister warmly greeted him.
“Marty asked me to drop by. You gave us great sport today, Master.” He smiled at her.
“Thank you. Mostly I was trying to hang on and stay up with the hounds. Coyote, as I'm sure you know.”
“That word filtered back to us. Bobby Franklin galloped as fast as I've ever seen him go.” He nodded in the direction of the genial, plump Bobby.
The Franklins donated printing to this group.
“Big as he is, he can go.” Sister smiled. “He's trying the Atkins Diet now. Let's all encourage him. Betty sure looks fabulous. She put her mind to losing weight last summer, got it off, kept it off.”
“Well, you don't see too many fat whippers-in, do you?” Ben absentmindedly rattled the cubes in his glass. “Guess you heard about the brief exchange between Xavier and Sam?”
“I did,” Sister tartly responded.
“Gray intervened, and Clay moved Xavier up. Lends spice to the proceedings.”
“Maybe too much.” As Xavier and Dee came over, Sister pecked him on the cheek, then her. “Haven't I just left you?”
“What a day.” Xavier, face drawn, complimented her.
“X, thank you for your restraint.”
He shrugged. “I've got bigger things on my mind than that worm.”
“Honey,” Dee gently chided him.
“Well, I don't mind telling you all how I feel. It's not like we don't know one another. And Ben, you're out there riding, so I count you in.” Xavier inhaled. “The storage fire is turning into a nightmare.”
Sister sympathized. “I'm sorry. It's got to be a strain.”
“The investigator won't release the money until the situation, as she calls it, is clarified. How can I clarify Donnie Sweigert winding up as Melba toast? Melba toast that committed arson. It's crazy.”
“Honey.” Dee squeezed his arm.
“Sorry. I'm a little stressed.”
“These investigators are good, sugar. She'll figure it out,” Dee reassured her husband.
Ben glanced briefly to the floor, then looked up.
“Sorry, Ben. Dee didn't mean it that way. This is a tough situation. I know you're doing all that you can.” Xavier, for all his troubles, was sensitive to the feelings of others.
Clay and Izzy joined them. Politically wise, Clay didn't want the tension between Xavier and himself to become gossip fodder. Yes, he wanted the check, but he didn't know what more to do about it either.
After a few moments of social chat, the group broke up. Ben remained with Sister. She noticed Clay moving off to talk to one group of people while Izzy moved over to another, chatted briefly, and then left the room. She noted that Dalton also left the room by another door.
“Meant to ask you, you know the high school and college coaches around here, don't you?”
“Some better than others,” Sister answered.
“With the exception of the university men's basketball coach, most of these guys have been working a long time, great stability.”
“Winners don't get fired,” Sister replied, knowing the same applied in the hunt world.
Few people understood the pressures on a professional huntsman. He or she has to produce, just like the quarterback for a major league team. Huntsmen are professional athletes minus the endorsement, media hype, and titanic salaries. Many of these men and women could have had careers in the lucrative sports. They chose love instead of loot.
“What's the problem with men's basketball at the university?”
“Boy, it's a yo-yo, isn't it? Let's hope they've turned the corner.” She touched his arm. “Look at these kids playing basketball and football now. They're hulks.”
“That they are.” Ben lowered his voice. “Sam Lorillard mentioned something to me at the breakfast. Mitch and Anthony did some odd jobs for Berry Storage. We knew that. Donnie Sweigert was always the driver, never any other driver.”
“I don't see the significance.”
“I'm not sure I do, either. Sam's friend, Rory Ackerman, who's now in rehab in Greensboro, was the one who told him this. Anyway, Sam said Mitch and Anthony only delivered furniture to coaches or trainers.”
“Have you asked Clay?”
Ben nodded that he had. “Said he'd check his records. Said he couldn't trust Mitch and Anthony or any of the railroad denizens to stay sober long enough for a long haul. They only made the short runs, and Donnie drove those because he didn't like going cross-country. Also Clay said he felt Donnie could control the drunks. I think Donnie himself drank more than Clay knew.”
“What a pity.”
Ben shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You know these people. Can you think of anythingâno matter how far-fetchedâthat would tie in Mitch, Anthony, and Donnie to the delivery of expensive furniture to coaches?”
“Drugs,” she replied. “These days it always seems to come down to that. We have a countereconomy in America, not one tax dollar produced from it. Billions.”
“I know,” Ben said with feeling.
Sister replied, “I can't see that Clay or X would be involved in drugs. They don't appear to use them. But,” she inhaled, “an insurance scam fits the bill, doesn't it?”
“Yes.”
“Worried?”
Ben looked her right in the eyes. “Yes.”
“You don't think it's over?”
“No.”
She rubbed her forehead a moment. “They aren't afraid to kill.”
“Selling OxyContin can yield hundreds of thousands of dollars. Prozac, Percodan, anything like that. Even Viagra.” He smiled slightly. “Off market, the drugs can make one very rich very fast. As for cocaine and other party drugs, they can make you rich fast, but they're more dangerous because the other people dealing them are smart, tough, quick to kill.”
“Ben, have you ruled out the furniture and silver theft entirely?”
“No. No evidence so far for linking the fire to that,
but,
” he said, with emphasis, “these people are highly intelligent, very well organized. This may be a warning to someone else in the ring or to competition. They'd be stupid to burn down a warehouse full of stolen goods, wouldn't they?”
Sister agreed, then asked, “What can I do?”
“The Jefferson Hunt is one of the hubs of the county. Can you think of any one or any group who might be involved in a high-class theft organization or involved with drugs? For example, and I certainly don't mean she would do this, just as an example, can you imagine Betty Franklin buying illegal diet drugs in this country on the black market?”
“No.” Then Sister chuckled. “Bobby would be thinner.”
Ben smiled. “Keep your eyes open. Keep thinking. We're right next to it, Sister, but we can't see it.”
When Ben walked away, she thought about the ghosts on Hangman's Ridge. She shuddered. Those ghosts appeared when someone was going to die. She used to think it was a tall tale, but over the years she had learned to believe it.
She moved around the party. Marty Howard caught up with her for a moment. “Thank you for coming. If you ever have any time, Sister, we'd love for you to read. It's not just books we need, but magazines and newspapers. It's often hard for the blind to keep up with current things.”
“I never thought of that. I could read for an hour to two. Let's see how I do.”
“I'll call Monday and we can check calendars.”
As Marty moved away, Dalton Hill joined her. “The hunting has been very good. I'm glad I joined.”
“Me, too.” Sister noticed he wore an English school tie, quite expensive. “Beautiful tie.”
“Eton.” He blushed slightly. “Actually, I didn't attend Eton. I went to St. Andrews College, Aurora, but I liked the thin Eton blue diagonal stripe.”
“I can see why. I heard you purchased the Cleveland bay.”
“Yes. I'm going to have my two hunters brought down from Hamilton, too.” He named the town where his horses were boarding. “I want to hunt as much as I can. One of the great things about teaching is I can set my schedule, so I have arranged all my classes to be in the late afternoon.”
“Perfect.” She paused, then addressed him. “Dr. Hillâ”
“Do call me Dalton. I'm trying to downplay the doctor,” he interrupted, a conspiratorial note in his voice. “I really don't want to hear about someone's gallbladder.”
“I promise never to discuss mine.” She smiled. “In Canada certain drugs are available that aren't available here, am I right?”
“Not hard drugs, of course, but yes. Canada's laws are more patient-oriented. Forgive me a bit of national pride, but in the United States, Master, everything is driven by profit, by the huge pharmaceutical companies.”
“Call me Sister. But surely those mega companiesâand not all of them are American, I mean the Germans and the Swiss have giant pharmaceutical companies, all those companies do business in Canada.”