Рита Браун - Out Of Hounds

“If you want an exercise in logic, be a doctor. People do the damndest things to their body or ignore their body. Then again, there must be comfort in denial.”

“To kind of change the subject. Do you think most criminals get caught in the end?”

He shook his head. “No. The smartest criminals are white collar. Every day they steal from the companies they work for, or if elected steal from the people or suck up whatever lobbyists give them.

“Actually, I’m not against lobbyists presenting their case. But I am against money under the table or other vices perhaps far more interesting than money. While I’m at it, any progress from Crawford’s private detective?”

“No.” Then Sister said, “I’ll make you a bet. Fifty dollars. I bet whoever the thieves and the killers are, they are part of the show world or the racing world.”

Walter smiled. “I’ll take that bet and double it. I bet whoever this is in some way is involved in the art market or a museum.”

They shook hands. “You’re on,” both said.

CHAPTER 25

March 5, 2020 Thursday

Two fixtures, abutting each other, filled five hundred acres on the opposite side of the ridge from Crawford Howard’s Beasley Hall. As Crawford maintained his own pack of Dumfriesshire hounds, Jefferson Hunt feared rolling up over the ridge and then down into Beasley Hall. Although Sister and Crawford had made amends over the years, no one ever wants to wind up on land not granted to them to hunt. It would set his hounds crazy. The master doesn’t live who hasn’t had some offended, red-faced landowner screaming at them, or worse, passing a shotgun over the master’s head. Crawford would forgo the shotgun, which he considered redneck. Lawyers were his shotgun. He could make your life miserable. He might not flame out these days, but why take the chance?

To this end he allowed Sam Lorillard and Skiff Kane to hunt with Jefferson Hunt today. Sam rode Sugar in Second Flight. The horse, trained, had not been trained as a foxhunter, and much as Sam wanted to go slow, Crawford, not a horseman, wanted to know if he had made a good purchase. Sam’s idea was to keep the gleaming animal in the rear, keep calm, and if she became overfaced turn back to the trailers. Skiff rode with him on Czapka, Crawford’s made hunter, a warmblood who mostly tolerated his master’s squeeze-and-jerk method of equitation.

The group parked at Fairies Bottom, the day held promise, the mercury remained in the low forties and a heavy cloud cover pressed down chimney smoke as well as scent.

Fairies Bottom, so called because when the temperature lifted, that first night of late May or early June, the fireflies appeared in massive squadrons of light. Back in the mid-nineteenth century one of the children thought they were fairies and the name stuck. Next to this simple, well-maintained farm nudged, in a northwesterly fashion, Pitchfork Farm. Built in the 1920s, the buildings appeared modern compared to Fairies Bottom. And as is often the case in the country, the owners of Fairies Bottom had to sell the land when times grew hard. Soon after they did, the crash of ’29 plummeted everyone down with it. The owners of Fairies Bottom seemed prescient. As for Pitchfork Farm, drama swirled about it. The next owners, having bought it in the last six months, seemed easy enough. They gave Jefferson Hunt permission to hunt, but as yet they had not availed themselves of the social life of the club.

A few trees, buds swelling red, offered hope against the denuded trees. Spring would come.

Weevil, Betty, and Tootie surrounded the hounds, eager to go. Weevil couldn’t sleep last night because he wasn’t sure which way to cast. The last thing he wanted to do was create an uproar with Crawford Howard.

“I’ll cast in the first meadow. If we don’t find, I’ll swing toward Pitchfork Farm,” Weevil informed his whippers-in.

If hounds hit a hotline and kept running northwest, they would eventually land in Mousehold Heath, fifteen miles away. Healthy, that distance on a hard run will push close to an hour. As they had just hunted Mousehold Heath, Weevil hoped he could find something on these two fixtures without going too far afield. Weevil cleared a simple coop in the middle of the fence line directly across from the house.

Noses down, the pack moved forward. Pookah slowed under a hickory, branches reaching to the sky.

“Old.”

Cora, out today, checked the younger hound’s line. “Doesn’t mean it won’t heat up. Let’s see.”

Sterns swaying, all the hounds shifted over to the tree line at the edge of the pasture, still brown but a hint of green peeking underneath. On and on they worked, steady. This was not a sight to thrill those people who hunt to ride but it did excite those who ride to hunt. The younger “B” hounds quietly worked alongside the older hounds. Indeed the line did heat up. Hounds trotted, as did the field behind them.

Sugar, in Second Flight, followed the other horses. Her ears swiveled, her nostrils opened wide. She didn’t know what this was but everyone moved off so she did, too.

Czapka, next to the Thoroughbred, reassured her. “We might run, we might not. We have to do what hounds do.”

“What about the horn noise?” Sugar thought it brassy.

“I’ll teach you the calls. Right now it’s one long note and three short ones, kind of in ascending order. The huntsman is telling the hounds to draw the covert. If they find anything, he might scream. He’s not hurt.”

Sam possessed hands that transmitted confidence to a horse. Sugar relaxed because his rider was relaxed, plus Czapka knew everything. Not two minutes later Tinsel opened. They were off.

“Stick with me. You’re gonna love it.” The big warmblood broke into an easy canter, the sounds, the smells, the pace lifting all spirits.

—

As Sister and Jefferson Hunt broke into a run, O. J. Winegardner and Catherine Clay-Neal admired Andre Pater’s paintings in the gallery of Headley-Whitney Museum.

“Nobody paints jockey silks or jockeys like Andre Pater.” O.J. admired Fox Hill Farm Silks with Ramon Dominguez. The jockey, a handsome man who radiated thought, glowed resplendently in silks, the body divided into four red and white squares in front, the sleeves white with three red hoops, the cap red-billed with pie wedges of white and red silk. His wedding ring shone on his left hand. All the paintings of silks provoked amazement, but this one showed you something of the man’s character.

“You see fabric handled this way in paintings from the sixteenth and seventeenth century, but after that, with the exception of John Singer Sargent, we seem to have lost it.” Catherine stood before the work. “Or maybe we no longer value that kind of beauty or seem to realize that clothes really do make the man. Think of the representations of Henry VIII or Elizabeth I. Their clothing was a statement.”

“I fear we’ve become slothful, mmm, or we’re distracted by obvious things. We no longer look at jewelry, fabrics, colors, you name it, as tiny trails into a personality. Then again, so many of those who now have fame wear so little.” O.J. burst into peals of laughter.

“If you’ve got it, flaunt it.” Catherine crossed to the other side of the gallery.

“If I spent as much on my body as those women have, I suppose I’d flaunt it, too.” O.J. stopped before a painting of a German shorthaired pointer with a pheasant. “Gorgeous.”

The two longtime hunt friends strolled through the exhibit, each painting drawing them in.

“I like that he paints African American jockeys.” O.J. stood before a painting of a turn-of-the-century jockey in green and pink silks, an unusual combination that was stunning; then again, the jockey wore the colors with nonchalance.