Рита Браун: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

“That’s what happened. There was no hope so we turned back, everyone turned back.”

“Did Glen get the hounds up?”

“You bet he did.” Ginny smiled. “They didn’t want to be out either.”

“Good.” O.J. breathed relief.

Both Sister and O.J. loved their hounds. Being Masters, they were, in effect, the chief executive officers of their respective hunts. An overwhelming number of chores dropped into their lap but Sister sometimes thought her most important function was to patiently listen.

“Everybody ready?” O.J. asked.

“I haven’t cleaned my tack yet.” Sister wondered if her hands could do it.

Betty, saddle over her forearm, bridle over her shoulder, announced, “I’ll do it in my room. You rest. Don’t forget you need to be at your best at the dinner.”

Sister smiled. “We all need to be at our best. Woodford never does things halfway.”

Both Sister and Tootie, along with many other Jefferson Hunt members, stayed in the Long House at Shaker Village. Each of the original rooms remained as they had been built, though were now guest rooms with a shower and sink. No TV. No radio. Scrubbed wooden floors, chairs hung up on pegs to create more space, a nice bed with blankets, all bore testimony to the pure design of Shakers.

Standing outside the door to their room, Sister knocked, wincing as she did so.

Gray opened the door. “Honey, I’ve been so worried about you.”

Stepping inside, she allowed him to peel her out of her heavy frock soaked at the shoulders. She then wriggled her arms out of her vest. “The storms knocked out my cell phone, plus in that freezing torrent I couldn’t use it anyway.” She inhaled deeply.

“Here, sit in the chair.” He pulled a second one down off the wall for her. “I’ll undo your tie.”

“You’re an angel. There’s no way I could unfasten the pin.”

Gray expertly freed the long titanium pin, a gift from a friend, Garvey Stokes, owner of Aluminum Manufacturers, and also unfastened the two safety pins to hold down the ends of the tie.

She began to fill him in on the adventure. “A pogonip.”

Gray, African American and well versed in the old stories, murmured. “A bad sign.”

“Well, that’s what the Virginia tribes always said.”

“My grandmother, too.” Their eyes met. “Okay, beautiful. Be brave. You have got to get your boots off.” He pulled the big bootjack over for her. They always took a big bootjack when they traveled, just as she always took a heavy down comforter, a real necessity in these rooms without insulation. A few of the Shaker lodgings had horsehair in the walls but the wind rattled the hand-blown glass, finding every crack in the walls.

“Come on. I’ll hold the handle along with you but you need to get your boots off before the warmth makes your legs swell.”

“What warmth?” She felt a wedge of cold air from the window reach her as she stood with one foot on the bootjack the other in the slot where the heel would rest.

He laughed. “Come on. Better a short, sharp pain than a long, drawn-out one.”

“Dear God.” She gasped as she freed one foot.

“One more.” He encouraged her and she did pull her foot out of the boot, pressing her lips together so she wouldn’t scream.

“Will I ever walk again?”

He put his arms around her. “I don’t know, but I know you’ll ride again. You get the rest of those cold, wet things off. I’ll start the shower. All you have to do is step inside. I’ll have your Constant Comment ready when you step out.”

“Weren’t we smart to bring the electric teapot?” She gingerly stepped to the bathroom as he preceded her.

Feeling had returned to her frozen feet and they hurt like hell.

Once cleaned up, wrapped in her heavy robe, she sat on a ladderback chair across from him.

Gray scanned the room. “I admire Shaker design, don’t you?”

“I do. It reminds me that I have too much stuff. Whenever we come here, I feel cleansed.”

Holding the heavy mug in her hands felt restorative as did a sip. Tea always lifted Sister’s spirits as did the sight of a horse, hound, or Gray.

“Funny, how we remember the old tales, isn’t it? I mean the stories about freezing fogs.”

“I wouldn’t disbelieve them and you were lucky to get through that pogonip, those damn winds. What in the hell were you doing out there?”

“I told you. We whipped in on the left side and within five minutes, whammo. ”

“Actually, it was pretty much that way in the field, too. I don’t remember anything quite like it.” He took a sip of his own tea. “I’m looking forward to the dinner at Walnut Hall. I’ve never been inside.”

“It’s fabulous. But then everything that Meg and Alan Leavitt do is pretty fabulous,” she said, referring to the owners of Walnut Hall.

Meg Jewitt was the aunt of the new, young Joint Master, Justin Sautter, about whom O.J. was thrilled. Well, she should be. Young people bring with them energy, new ideas, and physical strength.

“I remember a pogonip when I was in grade school,” said Gray. “The teacher wouldn’t let us walk home. Took forever for our parents to fetch us and, of course, my mother had to go on about unhappy spirits being released during a pogonip.” He paused. “And you know, it was February first like today.”

Sister sipped again. “Do you believe that stuff about unhappy spirits?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

In a sense, they were about to encounter one.

CHAPTER 2

Nestled in Gray’s big-ass Land Cruiser, Sister felt warm at last.

The SUV’s heater was a godsend. He exited the drive from Shaker Village, turning right.

“It’s more scenic if you turn left,” Sister offered.

“Takes longer, too.” His iron-gray military mustache curved up at one end as he teased her, “You know, I could install a steering wheel on your side.”

She turned to face him, as always admiring his handsome profile. “You say.”

He laughed. “So, I do. The sun won’t set until five-thirty. I love the light. I mean, winter has its beauty but sometimes the darkness gets me. We now have an hour’s more light than on December twenty-first. Never seems to bother you.”

“Doesn’t. How do people live without the seasons? That would get me. I’d go stark raving mad. I measure time, even emotion, by those shifts.”

“Mmm.” He paused for a moment, then turned another right onto one of Kentucky’s highways. “Boy, this state has done a lot of work on the roads.”

“Yes, it has. They have a good governor in Beshears and they have had some good ones before. Some real stinkers, too.”

“It’s the legislature that’s the problem.” Gray, a retired accountant from a high-powered firm in D.C., kept up with financial incentives and disincentives in government. Although he’d made a career as a tax lawyer of impeccable repute, he knew only too well how the system could be gamed from either end.

“Right now we Virginians can’t really hold our heads up either. Hopefully, McAuliffe will prove more rigorously honest than the governor before him, who I thought was pretty good until the stories came out about accepting money, a watch, etc., for favors. So very foolish.” She noticed a huge sycamore in the middle of a field that meant water was nearby. “What is it about old trees that call to one?”

“Old spirits.”

“That’s one of the things I liked about the Harry Potter movies; the trees talked and moved. Well, all that started long before that, remember the story about Apollo chasing Daphne? Just as Apollo grabbed her, Daphne called to her Mother Earth, who snatched her out of Apollo’s arms, putting a laurel tree in Daphne’s place. Apollo created a laurel wreath to console himself. Somehow the laurel wreath was used ever after to crown victors in the real Olympics. It was used for artistic contests, too. I’d love to see that now. You know, current Olympians crowned with laurel leaves, the Wimbledon winner, the winner of the golf U.S. Open, that sort of thing. There’s something beautiful about it.”