Рита Браун - Crazy Like A Fox

Tootie, on the left, waved to her mother as she moved ahead.

The fox knew Beveridge Hundred well. He ducked into a culvert and ran under the road, appearing on the north side. As Old Paradise comprised seven thousand acres, the smart fellow was now on Crawford’s land. If he headed farther away from Chapel Cross, the crossroads now four miles behind him along with Tattenhall Station, they would land in Kingswood.

Sister, up ahead, thought like a Master. New people had bought Kingswood. She’d only met them once, and she didn’t want to meet them again with the Jefferson pack streaming across their land.

They had seemed nice enough, but why test it?

Fortunately, the red fellow cut hard right, bounced through a fallen-down hay shed, left scent everywhere, and then— poof!

Hounds roared into the old shed, one Crawford would eventually tear down or rebuild, then stopped.

“Where did he go?” Trooper moved to the end of the big shed, half the roof sagging.

“Keep your noses down,” Cora commanded.

They did but to no avail.

The field, happy for a break, passed around flasks, tightened girths, felt grateful that the wind slowed a bit. It wasn’t truly a cold day—mid 40s is a wonderful hunting temperature—but when the wind hit, it just cut. The gusts had diminished to a hard puff every now and then. A breeze, maybe five miles an hour, kept steady, so one still had to compensate for that when a fox was seen or a line found.

Tootie waited away from the shed, her back to the wind, which came from the northwest per usual. Betty, however, felt the breeze right in her face. Wasn’t bad, but she somewhat envied Tootie’s position.

Shaker let the hounds try, then he picked them up, walking slowly toward Chapel Cross. Surely, somewhere within those four miles they would hit another fox.

While hounds walked away from the hay shed, Binky DuCharme, at his Gulf station, heard a rap on the garage door. He opened it.

“Binky, get in the truck.” Weevil held a .38 in his face. “Now!”

Arthur, underneath a car, heard a voice but not much more. “Dad?”

Weevil shoved the barrel in Binky’s ribs. “Tell him you’ll be back.”

“Arthur, be right back.”

“Where is your cell?”

Binky patted a pocket of his grease-streaked overalls. Crestfallen, he opened the old truck door and slid in the bench seat.

“Are you going to shoot me?”

“That depends on how cooperative you are. Now call your brother.”

“I don’t speak to my brother.”

“You will now.” Weevil pointed the barrel right in Binky’s face as with his left hand he turned the steering wheel to leave the station.

Although Binky never spoke to his brother, he knew the number. It had been the same phone number for forty years.

“Alfred.”

“What the goddamned hell is this?”

Weevil grabbed the phone. “Alfred, meet us at the stables at Old Paradise. If you aren’t there in twenty minutes I will kill your brother and then I’ll come for you.”

“I hate my brother.”

“I know, but if you don’t come you’re a dead man. If you come, you just might live.”

“Who the hell is this?”

“Alfred, you don’t recognize my voice?”

“No.”

Weevil handed the phone back to Binky.

“It’s Weevil Carruthers.”

“He’s dead!”

“He’s sitting here next to me, Alfred. Do as he says.”

Weevil drove past Old Paradise, where the very expensive huge timbered beams were being offloaded with a massive logging grappling machine. The claws could grip the beams without harming them just as it could lift stripped heavy logs. Crawford and the crew looked up at Weevil’s truck, then back at the job. So many workmen drove up and down that road, this appeared to be one more.

Parking behind the stone stable, Weevil, gun trained on Binky, said, “We will open our doors at the same time. If you run, I’ll shoot you. We’re going inside to wait for Alfred.”

Binky opened the door, and waited. Weevil walked around the truck, dropped the tailgate, pulled out a spade, handed it to Binky.

Then he pulled out another one.

“It’s tempting to think about swinging that spade at my head, but I can fire this gun before you can hit me, so let us calmly, carefully walk into the stable. You first.”

As the two men walked into the sumptuous stable, three and a half miles away, Earl, the big red who lived in the stable, became careless. He’d been chasing grouse. He wasn’t hungry. He just wanted to hear them tweet and run away, then lift up.

Hounds picked up Sarge’s scent, ran to the boulders, tried again as they kept heading toward Old Paradise, then picked up Earl. So he had to move along a bit faster than he intended.

“It’s Earl, I know it.” Dragon sped, nose down.

“He’s got a head start.” Zandy kept up.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t try. There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip,” Diana counseled, and she couldn’t have known how prophetic she was.

—

Alfred, driving a new Range Rover, which he didn’t need, parked next to the truck. He walked into the stable.

Weevil and Binky waited for him in the center aisle.

Alfred stopped; his jaw dropped. “Weevil.”

Binky’s lip quivered. He looked at Weevil. “He made me do it. You know he made me do it.”

“Shut up!” Alfred stepped toward his sniveling brother.

“Ah, yes, brotherly love. Alfred, here’s a shovel. You and Binky are going to dig up Wesley Carruthers’s body. If you don’t, I will start by shooting your kneecaps and move up your body from there. Well, first maybe I’ll shoot your feet. Get to it.”

“I don’t remember,” Alfred lied, and that fast Weevil smashed the gun in his face.

“Do it now!”

Blood running from his eyebrow, Alfred stepped into the next-to-the-last stall, Binky behind him. Weevil stood in the stall door as the first spade bit into the good earth.

Earl sped toward the stable and shot into his home way ahead of any danger, but there were three men in the stable digging next to his stall. From time to time, Earl would loll about in the tack room, but when he needed to disappear, his den was it. Here were humans digging. Rude. Very rude, but his curiosity got the better of him. He tiptoed to the other side of the center aisle and watched through the open stall door. Weevil could smell him, but he’d smelled fox when he entered the stable. He kept his eyes on the two brothers.

“Dig faster.”

In the distance, hounds spoke, Shaker blew “Gone Away.”

Earl realized the pack was going to charge into the stable very shortly. He hurried to his den, jumped in in the nick of time. The entire pack of Jefferson Hounds roared into the stable and stood in the stall next to the one with the brothers in it.

“He’s in here!” Audrey, terribly excited, as this was her first time at a den, hollered.

“Earl, I know it’s you!” Parker stared into the opening.

“Oh, Parker, you’re a genius,” Earl sassed.

Shaker, now outside, dismounted and ran inside. He realized there was commotion, but he blew “Gone to Ground.” Then he looked into the next stall.

“Shaker, this man’s crazy. He’s going to kill us.” Alfred spoke as reasonably as he could.

“Shaker, if Ben Sidell is out there, would you bring him inside?” Weevil quietly commanded.

Shaker walked outside, looked up at Sister, and walked by her to Ben Sidell with Second Flight. “Sheriff, please come with me.” Ben dismounted, handing Nonni’s reins to Bobby Franklin.

The hounds, still in Earl’s stall, started digging themselves. Shaker led Ben to Weevil, then returned to Earl’s stall.