Рита Браун - Fox Tracks

On network TV, Congressman Dave Rickman ate a large portion of crow but did his best to make it look like pheasant.

Sister, Gray, and Tootie watched the news report Wednesday morning.

“I’ll be damned.” Sister clapped her hands, which made the dogs bark.

“I’m eating,” Golly complained. “Let’s be civilized.”

“I wonder who got to him?” Gray said.

“Crawford,” Sister answered. “I don’t know how he did it, but he did it. True to his word. At our emergency board meeting, he said he’d take care of it.”

This in-studio report was followed by a news correspondent in Cairo reporting on riots on the streets of Egypt.

Tootie watched in horror. “When I talked to Tariq the last time he hunted with Jefferson, he said he was going to try and get his parents and sisters out of there. I can see why.”

After Gray left for a meeting in Charlottesville, the two women finished the outside chores, then drove to Mill Ruins. Sister had asked Walter if she could feed the foxes on his property, and he’d agreed.

With the truck bed carrying twenty-five-pound bags of kibble, the first stop was in front of the old mill. Tootie hoisted the bag on her shoulder and they walked behind the mill, where a large wooden feeder box was tucked under heavy brush.

Sister fought the branches and creeper, lifting up the large door on top. “I make this hard for myself.”

Tootie set the bag down, sliced off a corner with her pocket-knife, then lifted it up, pouring the kibble into the feeder box.

“They cleaned this out, didn’t they?” Tootie could smell fox.

“It’s been a month. If the weather is bad, with nothing left out there—which is usually the case in February, early March—I step it up to every three weeks. But it’s been such a warm winter until now.”

They walked back to the truck, crunching little ice crystals below in the mud. The low farm road ruts were half filled with melted snow, a skim of thick ice on top.

The second stop was way back at the edge of the property’s pastures. Sister crawled over a coop and took the bag from Tootie, who then lifted herself over. Then they filled another big box in the woods.

Walking back, both women breathed a little heavier than when they started.

“I thought I was in good shape.” Tootie smiled.

“Two legs. You’re usually up on four when you’re covering distance,” Sister said. “Okay. Two more buckets at Mill Ruins, then we’d better drop some food at Tattenhall Station.”

The thick mud made getting back to the big shed difficult: The bed of the truck fishtailed, but that four-wheel-drive did the trick. Finally, they made it. The door to the shed was not locked.

“No feeder.” Sister got up on the back of the truck to hand down two five-gallon buckets with lids. A small hole was drilled at the edge, two inches from the bottom.

She handed these to Tootie, then jumped down to pull off a bag of food.

“I thought you put food a ways from the den. Make them travel for it,” Tootie said once they were in the dimly lit shed.

“I do, but I think we’ll have babies here come early April,” explained Sister. “So I’m going to put one bucket by the two openings and we can walk another one to the woods’ edge. When we hunted here we jumped a dog fox I didn’t know. He’s here with our vixen. Oh, hey, will you go get me baling twine? There’s a roll on the floor on your side of the truck.”

“Right. Along with the hair dryer.” Tootie left quickly, returning with the twine.

Sister tied the bucket through the handle to an old nail sticking out of a support post. This way the foxes could fish out the food but not overturn the bucket.

“Ready?” Tootie then poured part of the feed bag into the five-gallon buckets.

Sister clamped the lid on top.

As they drove out after taking the other bucket to the woods, they again fishtailed left and right. A quarter of a mile from the turnoff, Art DuCharme was driving straight for them. Surprised at seeing them, he backed out—no easy task.

Sister waved as she reached the paved road. He waved back while trying to appear nonchalant.

“Wonder what Art’s doing back here on Walter’s land?”

After driving down the much better farm roads and filling up four huge feeders at Tattenhall Station, they returned to Roughneck Farm. She needed to make her draw list, the list of hounds to hunt, and give it to Shaker to compare. Tomorrow they’d hunt at Little Darby.

Before that, she phoned Ben Sidell. “Ben, I was at Mill Ruins filling up feeders. I ran into Art DuCharme on the road to the shed, the one that was locked up.”

“I thought I told you not to go back there or to the abandoned road at the Lorillard place.”

“You did, but time has passed and I need to feed the foxes. I’m sorry, I should have called you first.”

“You should.” He waited. “Art?”

“Right.”

“Was he surprised to see you?”

“I’d say so. Probably as surprised as I was to see him.”

“Well, thank you for calling me.”

“Is Art a person of interest? Isn’t that what you say now?”

“He is. Not for murder, but he did work with the victim, and he’s had run-ins with the law before. Always for the same offense. Moonshine.”

“He might have a new one.”

CHAPTER 29

The four-horse trailer swayed slightly as the road curved. Well accustomed to riding in the horse trailer, Rickyroo, Outlaw, Hojo, and Iota paid it no mind and continued pulling bits of hay from their feed bags. Due to the cold, the windows for each trailer berth were closed, but each horse could see outside well enough. An overhead vent provided some air circulation.

“It’s those high thin clouds,” Rickyroo noted.

“Supposed to snow Saturday.” Outlaw always listened closely to the barn radio, as did all the horses.

“Bitsy predicts snow, too,” said Hojo. He found the small owl amusing.

“Bitsy may be the nosiest animal ever,” declared Outlaw. “She’s not content with reporting on the living, she has to bring reports from the dead.”

“I tell her to stop flying around the Hangman’s Tree, but she perches, hears the spirits, and then scares herself,” said Hojo. “Live humans are bad enough. Why does she want to listen to dead ones?”

“Maybe she’s trying to scare you,” Rickyroo teased.

“Nothing scares me,” Hojo bragged.

“Me neither.” Outlaw exhaled loudly. “But I am cautious when approaching the Ha-Ha fence at Little Dalby.”

A Ha-Ha is often made of brush, often American boxwoods, and beyond it lies a ditch. If the animal did not clear it, he could push through. In general, Americans shied away from using brush as fencing, but it could work as a barrier. Ha-Ha fences were often one or two hundred years old, the hedgerow clipped, the ditches cleaned out. There was room to get your footing if you jumped the ditch, then faced the fence. If coming from the other direction, a horse could pause, then take the ditch. A few, full of themselves, took the whole obstacle. Some made it, some didn’t. Being stuck down in the ditch invariably caused a scramble among riders.

“What you have to do is ignore your human,” said Hojo. “Pace yourself. Of course, if they’re seesawing at your mouth and pulling your head up, there’s not but so much you can do. However, the smart ones eventually learn to trust you to take the fence and to sit there quietly.”

“That’s why it’s called a Ha-Ha fence,” Outlaw replied to Rickyroo’s advice.

At this, they all laughed.

“So what’s Bitsy’s latest news from the beyond?” Iota asked. “I haven’t talked to her lately.”