Рита Браун - Scarlet Fever

“Vaguely, I know you’re right. I dimly remember seeing the amount on the plastic wrap of the paper I buy for the printing machine.”

“And you go through it fast. Anyone running a business or a club like we have goes through paper. So five hundred sheets isn’t really that much.”

“Wedding invitations and Taylor Insurance, that’s a set number.”

“Right. No point in buying extra, but for the hunt club a large order would create more profit for the club. Are you thinking about it?”

“I am now.” Sister smiled. “I’m not the fundraising person, and Walter, well, he doesn’t have as much time as either of us would like, but he tries. His hours can be brutal sometimes.”

“God bless anyone who goes into medicine.” Betty turned on the road parallel to Crawford’s, the one where Beasley Hall was located, with the ridge between Beasley and the Ticknor Farm and lastly Pitchfork. Betty drove slowly so they could study the terrain.

“Stop a minute, Betty.”

She did and both women cast their eyes upward, for the ridge loomed behind the Ticknor outbuildings.

“They’ve kept the place up. We should be able to at least move along the bottom of the ridge if we have to. Oh wait, don’t start yet. What about over there for parking?”

“Given yesterday’s rain, it’s somewhat drained. You’ll call them, of course.”

“I will and I figure Phipps Ticknor will put out an orange cone or a bucket so we’ll get it right. We’re the first people there. Usually.” Sister hit the window button, sticking her head out.

“Can I go now?”

“Oh yes, sorry.”

They trolled along, the ridge on their right, open fields on their left, with reasonably secure fences in need of painting.

“If we hit a fox and he heads across their fields, no telling where we’ll wind up.”

“Given the roll of the land…well, we can pull out a topo map when we get to my house, but I don’t think we’ll be all that far from Mousehold Heath,” Sister guessed.

“You might be right. Love those topo maps. You can see so much territory in one glance.” Betty, too, put down her window, throwing her scarf back around her neck, for it was fifty degrees at best and the wind cut that down.

Reaching the corner of the black fencing, a three-board slip fence took over. They were now on Pitchfork property.

“If the fox goes right, we’re going to be at Beasley Hall. The climb, mmm, maybe about as steep as Hangman’s Ridge,” Betty conjectured.

“Right. I’ll call Crawford tonight and prep him for Thursday. And I’ll invite him, of course.”

“What’s that?” Betty stopped in time to see a large coyote cross the road up ahead.

“Damn,” Sister cursed.

“If we get that line we will be at Mousehold Heath.”

“No joke.” Sister peered at the disappearing marauder.

Betty drove toward the house, tidy barn to the left three hundred yards away.

“Morris,” Betty noted, seeing a figure run from the barn to the house.

“Too far away but it must be Morris, he doesn’t want to see us.”

They reached the barn, got out, did not go inside but did walk around to the back to see if any of the old trails were visible back there.

“Doesn’t look too bad.” Betty reached the end of the barn. “I think our coyote was here.”

Sister came up next to her. Betty pointed down at a small pool of blood on the barn floor.

“Did you notice anything in his jaws?”

Betty shook her head. “He wasn’t that far away but I can’t say as I looked.”

“Well,” Sister paused, “whatever he killed wasn’t small.”

“Could have gobbled it on the spot.” Betty knew of a coyote’s voraciousness.

“You’d think there’d be fur or feathers. This is only a pool of blood.”

As they rode back they discussed casting possibilities. Then they decided to show Weevil and Tootie the topo maps and go over same. Those two had never hunted back there and neither had many of the members. Sister focused on the task at hand, but the blood bothered her.

CHAPTER 27

March 26, 2019 Tuesday

A finger of wind kept punching down the side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Not a sweeping, moaning wind but one steady puff riding a ravine, which bottomed out a mile west of Old Paradise’s carriage stable being refurbished.

Given the weather and the odd run they’d had last week, Sister had changed to Tattenhall Station for Tuesday.

Cindy Chandler breathed a sigh of relief, since a pine tree had fallen over Clytemnestra’s paddock fencing. A crew had worked on it Monday and how Cindy got that stubborn giant and her equally huge son to follow her to the adjoining paddock was a miracle. She’d considered walking them into the barn, food shaken in a bucket being the enticement, but if Big Momma grew restive in Cindy’s beautiful stable, the damned cow could take out a wall. Cindy was always helpful about using her place for a last-minute fixture change. She was, however, glad they were at Tattenhall Station.

Also Sister didn’t want to overhunt Foxglove Farm. It was tempting because it was close and if the unpredictable weather socked them again, it was easy to drive in and out of the place. Not always the case with other fixtures.

As Cindy unloaded Booper from her two-horse trailer, she and the girls laughed about her tribulations. Sister asked her dear friend to ride up with her, which Cindy accepted. So she’d be up front with Kasmir and Alida. The Bancrofts, still wary of the footing, chose to remain at After All.

For a Tuesday there was a crowd. Only two hunts left, the sun was shining, people found a way to wiggle out of work.

Weevil, hat under his arm, waited for Sister to nod. He clapped his cap on his head, walked behind the train station.

The large pasture rolled down on the east side toward the railroad track, on the south toward woods. Norfolk Southern had abandoned the station decades ago, as well as much of the land they owned. Trains did run from time to time, though, and Weevil kept clear of the tracks.

However, he wanted to slip over the lip of the rise to be out of the wind. His plan was to hunt forward, which is to say south.

Riding with him on her day off was Jean Roberts, former huntsman at what was then New Market Hounds. Retired some years back before the merger with Middletown Valley, like most huntsman she may not have been carrying the horn but her mind never left the hounds.

Weevil, knowing Jean’s history, felt a trifle nervous but she smiled at him, encouraged him, and he relaxed a bit.

That odd wind wouldn’t abate. Weevil stopped, allowed the hounds to think a bit. Instead of staying out of the wind, over the lip of the land, they moved right up onto the pasture, now moving crosswind.

Seeing Weevil hesitate for a moment, Jean observed, “It’s a tricky wind but my experience is if hounds draw crosswind, sooner or later they will turn into the wind. Scent will carry depending on wind speed, of course.”

He nodded, grateful for her experience.

Still adjusting to Virginia’s conditions by the Blue Ridge Mountains he could be baffled sometimes by how quickly conditions shifted. At Toronto and North York Hunt he didn’t need to factor in mountains or how ravines could create wind tunnels and funnels. Also the soils were rich in Canada. Here, one could run through Davis loam, some lovely alluvial deposits, and then clatter on clay, awful for holding scent. One needed versatile hounds, hounds with glorious noses. Given the thick forests, one also needed hounds with cry. How else would you find them?

Marty Howard had kindly loaned Jean her hunter, a good match. The two huntsmen walked along, the wind now perhaps twelve miles an hour. Jean, like most Mid-Atlantic huntsmen, could peg windspeed. One had to, as you’d be riding across a pasture, calm, mountains to your right, and in a blink, whoosh. And equally as fast one would go from bending trees to silence, nothing.