“Sister, why don't we walk back to the farm?” Shaker found his voice at last.
She replied in a loud whisper, “I can ride. Walter can fix me up later, right?”
“I'll ride with her. Looks worse than it is, Shaker.” Walter cupped his hands for Sister's left boot. Tedi held Lafayette, who nickered happily when he felt her familiar weight on his back.
Tedi turned to the field, her voice strong. “We're calling it a day. Your master is determined to ride back, so we'll ride with her.” She paused, searching out each concerned face, then broke into a smile even as the tears ran down her face again. “She's bullheaded, but I love her.”
Everyone started talking at once as sirens could be heard roaring down Soldier Road.
By the time they reached the kennels, four squad cars had Dalton and Isabelle penned in by the trailers.
Walter insisted that Sister sit down in her kitchen. The girls took the horses even as Sister complained in a hoarse voice that she needed to count her hounds.
“You can do that later.” Walter took charge.
Betty kissed Sister on the cheek. “Shaker, Sybil, and I can handle it. I'll be up when we're done.
You
take care of
you,
Sister. There's only one Sister.”
Tedi, Edward, and Gray followed Walter up as Sister grumbled that she didn't need an escort, she was fine, et cetera, et cetera.
Once Sister was seated on the kitchen chair, Raleigh and Rooster, smelling her blood, whimpered and came over, sticking to her like glue.
“Go lie down,” she croaked.
“If I lick you, you'll heal faster,”
Raleigh promised.
“Ugh.”
Golly jumped on Sister's lap.
“Dog licks, yuck. I
can do better.”
She put her paws on either side of Sister's neck as Walter unwound the stock tie.
“Golly, you need to get down,” Sister told her.
When Golly wouldn't budge, Tedi reached over, picked up the cat, and placed her on the floor.
“I'll get even,”
Golly threatened as she joined Raleigh in his bed.
Edward, holding Sister's black frock, realized the front was sopping with blood. He put the coat in the mudroom, making a mental note to take it to the dry cleaner's.
Walter unbuttoned the front of her white shirt, also covered with blood. “Sister, you need to take this off. I want to make sure you don't have other injuries. When your adrenaline gets high like that, sometimes you won't feel a broken bone for hours.”
Sister looked at Edward and Gray. “I'm not really all that modest, but I do ask you men to remember that Britney Spears doesn't have anything that I don't have; I've just had it longer.”
They laughed at that, then Edward said, “Gray, why don't we go to the library? Walter, if you need us, you know where we are.”
“I do.” Walter waited for her to remove her blouse, then gingerly pulled off the long-sleeved silk undershirt.
Tedi watched as Walter felt her ribs, the bones in her neck and arms. “Clay landed a couple of good ones.”
“Yeah, but the frock is heavy.”
“Mmm, you'll have some bruises.” He pointed to red marks on her chest, a large one on her back where she hit the ground.
Tedi drew closer. “They'll turn a fetching shade of black, then purple, then burgundy.”
“Peachy.” Sister felt her neck sting where it was cut.
“I'm going to wash this. You'll feel it,” Walter warned her.
Tedi brought over a bowl of warm water, went into the downstairs bathroom and brought out a washrag and a towel. Sister closed her eyes when Walter washed it, the wound bleeding anew as the caked blood was rinsed off.
“Stitches?” Tedi inquired.
“No.” Walter checked to see how deep the cut was. “She was lucky. Keep it clean. It's going to continue to seep blood. Wrap a soft gauze around your neck. You clot up quickly enough, but every time you take the gauze off it will seep a little. I'll bring over some antiseptic.”
“What about Neosporin?” Tedi asked. “She's got that upstairs.”
“It will help.”
“Oh, just slap Betadine on me,” Sister suggested.
“If you want to walk around with an orange neck, that's okay by me.” Walter squeezed her shoulder. “Take a long hot bath once we're all out of here. The sooner you get in the bathtub, the better. It will help the thumps and bumps,” Walter ordered. “And when you're finished put some ice on that chest bruise.”
“I'll stay with her,” Tedi offered.
“I'm not crippled.”
“Not yet,” Tedi replied slyly. “And while I'm here, we can indulge in girl talk. You can tell me why Clay attacked you. I'm assuming you knew more about that fire than the rest of us.”
“Couldn't prove a thing. Clay just flipped his switch.”
“With your help, I'm sure,” Tedi replied. “I'm going upstairs to draw your bath.”
CHAPTER 42
She hurt in places she didn't even know she had. Moving stiffly, Sister walked through the boys' run at the kennels. They had been turned back out after eating in the feed room.
“Boys, thank you.” Sister touched each head, knelt down with a pang to rub their broad chests.
“I was ready to kill him.”
Dragon pushed his head under her hand, moving his brother out of the way.
“You're a bold fellow, Dragon.” She reached over the handsome tricolor to smooth the pate of Dasher. “Boys,” she addressed all her dog hounds, “you're the loves of my life.”
She then returned to the feed room, where the girls were. She told them they were wonderful, but didn't bother them as they were eating. Diana kept leaving the long orange metal feeder to touch Sister with her nose.
“Good girl, now go eat or Delia and Nellie will eat your share.”
“Delia's the porker, not me,”
Nellie replied.
“Thanks for washing my kennel coat. Must have done that last night,” Shaker said.
“Tedi stayed over, so we banged out a few chores. She tried to keep me in the tub, but I was turning into a white prune. Anyway, I can't sit around.”
“I wish I'd seen you jump on Clay's horse. I was up with hounds and didn't know what was going on until the pack turned. Damnedest thing, the pack turning like that. Just left off the scent and came to you.”
“Thank God, they did. Lafayette whinnied, the tail hounds turned.” She leaned against the wall; her back hurt. “They communicate with one another. Once we could, too. Once we were part of nature's grand conversation, but we got about our raisins. We lord it over all, but we're alone, desperately alone.”
He folded his arms over his broad chest. “One way to put it. Mostly, I think we're sick.”
“Sick and savage or sick and cowardly. Not much in between.” She ruefully nodded. “Tedi thinks more deeply than I do. Always has. We were talking last night, and she said people's emotions were stronger in the Middle Ages. People expressed them. We're muted. The farther we move away from nature, from our animal selves and from other animals, the more we vitiate our emotions. Actually, she was more eloquent than that; I'm recalling it as best I can.”
Shaker smiled. “Bet Gray would have gladly taken care of you last night.”
She quickly returned the smile. “Lucky me, but it was a night to be with my oldest friend, a night of two souls, if you know what I mean. I think that comes with deep friendship. Once sex gets into the picture, there's a blast of lust, desire, magic. But that quiet, eternal love between best friends,” she said, looking into his eyes, “there is nothing like it in the world.”
“My brother,” Shaker replied. “Have that with my brother. Don't get to see him much, though.”
“We're lucky. We both have a strong circle of dear friends, and now it looks like we might have a bit of the other.” He blushed, and she continued. “The people who don't have that love become bitter, or they dry out. Hateful. I think that's what happened to Clay.”
“He had friends. Had a wife.”
“He was never honest. He lied since the time he was a kid. Always wanting to be something he wasn't. Married for show, not for a deep emotional connection.”
“There's no excuse for him.”
“No. But it's funny some folks aren't satisfied. More, always want more.”
“Ben call?”
“Briefly. Clay won't confess to anything. Declaring mental anguish, breakdown.” She drew in her breath. “Some truth to it. Izzy's clammed up, too, but Ben said the good Dr. Hill is singing like a canary.”
“And?”
“Drugs. Performance drugs. Like I suspected.”
“Too bad we didn't get any.” Shaker stifled a guffaw.
“I know.” She laughed with him. “Course it's one thing if someone my age takes HGH. Quite another if a fifteenyear-old high school kid shoots up, you know? And Dalton said their network covered the entire mid-South.”
“What did Mitch and Anthony have to do with it?”
“Delivered the drugs in the furniture. They never made the long runs out of state because Clay figured they'd go on a bender somewhere between here and Tennessee. Mitch figured it out and told Anthony. They decided to blackmail Clay. Remember, Shaker, those two might have had moments of lucidity, but they'd killed a lot of brain cells. Like dopes, they threatened Clay directly. He paid them, and they'd immediately drink it up. It was easy after a few months of this to put hemlock in two bottles of whiskey. Clay was a Pony Clubber, took the nature courses with me as a kid; he knew cowbane as well as I did. He could dig it up and not get sick. And there's cowbane all over. We can't get rid of it. That part wasn't too hard for Clay. Jesus, it's so bloody stupid.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“And Izzy sat down in the lap of luxury and didn't want to get up again.”
“She was sleeping with Dalton, too. No surprise. She was perfectly ready to ditch Clay when the going got rough. Made me think of the hunt at Foxglove when Bitsy shadowed Uncle Yancy. Izzy and Dalton were sure looking out for each other. Poor Clay loved being rich. He loved it so much, he set aside right from wrong.”
“What happened to Donnie?”
“Made a dumb move. He saw Anthony and Mitch get extra money here and there. Anthony told him what they were doing, getting money out of Clay. Donnie wouldn't have figured it out for himself. So Donnie got in the act, demanding a lot more once Anthony and Mitch were out of the way.”
“You'd think he'd know he was next.”
“You would, wouldn't you? The human mind has a fabulous capacity for denial. Clay lured him to the warehouse; they had a brief struggle. Donnie lost consciousness, although not by a blow to the head. Gaston Marshall thinks Clay shut off Donnie's air, hence the bruised windpipe.”
“He's a good coroner. Had to be to figure anything out from that charred corpse.”
“And it was Clay who set the fire. The tip-off was the gas can being so close to Donnie. He wasn't that woefully stupid, at least not about physical things.”
Yeah. Makes sense.” Shaker wiped his hand on his kennel coat. “Three people dead. For what? Three more will go to jail.”
“They lived high on the hog for a while.”
“Trinity.” Shaker walked over to the young hound.
“Over here.” He moved her to a less-crowded feeder. “Always wants to be next to her sisters, and they eat faster than she does.”
“She's a lady about her table manners.”
“She's the only one.” Shaker laughed.
“Well, I'm glad we switched to the higher-fat-content feed when we did, high protein, too. With this cold and the incredible runs we've been having, the children would have gotten down in weight quickly. I hate to see a weedy pack.”
“Once it goes off, it's hard to get it back on until season's over. They're like people; some incline to weight and some do not. Most of our pack inclines to being lean.”
“Yes, they do. And I never praise you enough for your kennel practices and your attention to nutrition. Look at the shine on those coats.”
“That's my job,” he modestly replied.
“Hey, there's people out there doing the same job, 'cept they don't know what they're doing. Boy, if you get a master who doesn't know hounds and the huntsman's not worth squat, the poor pack suffers. Another reason why we need the MFHA and district reps.” She mentioned the Master of the Foxhounds Association of America, which divided Canada and the United States into districts, each one with a chosen representative.
One of the duties of that representative was to make sure every hound pack in his or her jurisdiction was properly kept.
“They're getting like the government, sending paperwork.”
“To me.”
“Then you give it to me!”
“Some of it.” She poked him with her forefinger.
“Think Clay could have gotten away with it?” asked Shaker, returning to the dramatic events.
“He snapped. But he was sloppy, too. Wouldn't it have been smarter to keep paying off Mitch and Anthony and then dispose of them later, somewhere far away? Makes me believe the pressure was already getting to him. Maybe Izzy was greedier than we know, or maybe Dalton got cold feet. Sounds like Dalton's the type.”
Shaker's eyes twinkled. “Committing perfect murders now, are you?”
“Me?”
“You said Clay could have handled this better than he did.”
Her face reddened. “You're right.”
“Maybe it's easy,” he said.
“What?”
“Murder. Stealing, other stuff. Maybe you think about what's right for you, and you don't think about what's right for the rest of us. What's the difference between Clay Berry and Kenneth Lay? Sure, boss, Kenneth Lay didn't kill anyone, but is the impulse different?”
“It's tricky, Shaker. I break rules. I go over the speed limit if I think I can get away with it. Maybe that's the same impulse you're talking about: a self-centeredness.”
“Not the same,” he replied.
“Okay, take another kind of rule: sexual behavior. I broke the rules when I was younger. Maybe I'm breaking them now. What's the difference between that, and, say, thinking you'll sell OxyContin because people want it? Is it a fixed set of morals? Are they written in stone? Is sexual behavior on a different plane than financial behavior? If you start to think about it, you'll run yourself crazy.”
“No, you won't.” His voice was firm. “Sex is about our animal self. That's nature. Money, that's man-made. Animals defend their turf, but we've created elaborate owner-ships that pass from generation to generation. In nature, each animal has to be strong enough to defend his or her territory, like the mountain lion we ran up or the badger. We've bent the natural rules and we keep bending them. It's one thing to have an affair, it's another to kill three people.”
“You're right, but when I think about this stuff, I get dizzy. And when I started to figure out this really was Clay's doing, it made me sick. It was under my nose, but I didn't want to see it. I finally did, though.”
“Hard to look at an old friend in a new way.”
They chattered until all hounds were fed, yards picked up, runs cleaned and washed down.
Then they left the kennels, passing the paddocks, including the mare paddocks.
Secretary's Shorthand stood in the snow, nuzzling a light bay foal who was wobbly, but nursing.
“Boss, what's that foal doing in there?”
Sister, despite her bruises, climbed over the fence, Shaker right behind her. They walked up to the contented mare.
“She didn't show!” Sister was amazed and thrilled.
“Hardly bagged up either.” He reached over and squeezed one of Secretary's nipples; a stream of rich milk oozed out. “She's producing okay.”
“Delivered the baby herself!”
Shaker laughed, face radiant. “They do it in the wild all the time, but I didn't think she was in foal either. Sometimes they fool you.”
Sister nodded, slipping her arm around his waist. “Life. New life!”