Рита Браун - Hounded To Death

“Anyone ever tell you you have ice water in your veins?” They had reached the top of the rise where the building site was already cleared. Kasmir was directing three men in work clothes.

“Not in so many words.” She waved at the personable Kasmir. “I brought company.”

• • •

Two hours later an overinformed but highly entertained Sister and Ben arrived back at their vehicles.

“Best thing to happen to this hunt club in years, that man.” Sister beamed.

“I think he has more money than Crawford Howard.” Ben named an ex-member and Sister’s current nemesis, after a nasty run-in over the treatment of one of Sister’s hounds.

“There are different kinds of best things. Money’s always good, but people who give with their hearts are even better. Most of our members are those kind of people. Givers.”

“Forgot to ask while on the subject of giving. Skidby?”

The biggest grin crossed her face. “Yes.”

When Sister reached home, a huge floral display had been left in the mudroom. Fortunately, Golly hadn’t gone in. She had a habit of tasting flowers. If they weren’t what she liked she simply pulled them out.

Sister checked the water, then placed the flowers on the coffee table in the den.

She tucked the card into her jeans pocket.

It read:

To whom thy secret thou dost tell,

to him thy freedom thou dost sell.

—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

She knew Barry had sent them. She thought it funny that he was counseling her to keep last night secret. But then he might well have a lover in Richmond, so he had his own reason to keep their pleasurable evening private.

CHAPTER 10

On Sunday, June 1, the day of the Virginia Hound Show, over one thousand foxhounds appeared at Westmore-land Mansion in northern Virginia, escorted by a phalanx of humans. Huntsmen, masters, kennelmen, moonlighting showring handlers—all devoted themselves to these extraordinary canines.

People flocked from different parts of the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, although united was a misnomer. All the animosities held somewhat in check since the eighteenth century had opened once again. Would hounds and hunting be valued in Ireland? Surely the Irish wouldn’t shoot themselves in the foot as the English had under the sway of Labour. After betraying their followers on so many other issues, they threw them the bone of a ban on hunting. As for Scotland, foxhunting was banned in theory, but the Scots had long displayed a healthy disregard for rules, as the Romans found out two thousand years ago. Despite all this turmoil, hound people crossed the Atlantic just as Americans crossed to visit the European shows, regardless of political differences.

A few French citizens came. Once upon a time the various duchies of France each bred hounds, which they hunted with pride. Kings kept huge kennels. But France paid dearly in World War I, when thousands of lives had been lost, hound as well as human. The canine hunting population never quite recovered from that first gruesome bugle call of the twentieth century. Still, away from Paris there remained people who cherished a beautiful hound.

Germany, too, lost thousands of hounds and horses. Europe, like Chronos, devoured its children in the twentieth century, both the bipeds and the quadripeds.

Perhaps a few people with a view toward history—and what are bloodlines but history?—still considered what happened to the long-standing traditions of hunting Over There.

Sister often thought of it. If she saw a bluetick hound, she wondered if it carried Blue Gascon blood; could the blood be traced back to Lafayette’s gift of a pack to his hero and hers, George Washington? And those sleek ring-necked Orange County hounds, did they carry a hint of redbone or was the blood really from the Talbot tan packs of Olde England?

Overwhelmed by all the incredible animals to study, she felt dizzy as she stood under the shade at the American hound ring.

As a long-serving master, she spent hours that morning saying hello, catching up, all the while wearing her kennel coat, washing hounds, wiping down leads, and telling Tootie to just go out and do her best.

Shaker, too, kept busy. This time they had Valentina and Betty along. Finally finished with her term paper, Val had eagerly hopped into the Forester. She would also be showing hounds.

Tootie showed Giorgio. Dog hound classes always preceded female hound classes, and Giorgio came in second, to Jefferson Hunt’s great joy. Fred Duncan, former huntsman at Warrenton and now head kennelman at Middleburg, strode over to Sister, long legs covering the distance in the blink of an eye. He leaned his shoulder on hers—he was a bit taller—and whispered in her ear, “I’m seventy-three. You know, seen a lot.”

She nodded. “We share that.”

“And I’m telling you”—his voice was low, quite distinctive—“that young’un is a natural. A real natural.”

“I know.”

“Doris agrees.” He nodded at his wife, dressed in a cool linen shirt and blouse. “She said, Let’s pray this kid goes into hunt service.”

“I don’t know, Fred. Her father is hell-bent on her being the next Condoleezza Rice. She goes to Princeton mid-August for orientation, but I have her until then.”

“The blonde girl is good, too, but this pint-sized kid”—he smiled broadly—“must be part hound herself.”

“Thanks, Fred. You know I prize my juniors.” She thought a moment as hounds were taken off lead in the ring. “Actually, I prize all my members.” He raised his eyebrows. “I said I prized them, not that I like all of them.”

“There’s an honest opinion.” He put his arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze. “Glad you got your hound back. That is one man I won’t miss.”

“Me neither. I rest a little easier at this show knowing Mo’s not here. However, just in case there’s another creep lurking around, someone will be near the Jefferson trailer at all times.”

“Good thinking.” He noticed Doris waving and added, voice low, “My bride needs me.” Married fifty-two years, Fred and Doris remained wild for each other.

As the lovely man walked away, Sister wondered what it would be like to still have Ray.

If life is a necklace, each year a pearl, Sister figured she wore an invisible double strand of nine millimeter pearls. Her years were her wealth.

The heat rose and clouds began to pile up in the west. If they could get through this show before a thunderstorm, it would be a miracle. She looked around at the people fanning themselves and watched the judges, all of them outstanding people. These people, these hounds, this event was the string on which those pearls were set.

What would she have become had she not been a master? A profession shapes you over the years until you transform into someone perhaps deeper or perhaps more shallow than you were when you started.

Whatever their individual faults, she recognized that all these people crowding the four rings shared a passion for hounds and, most likely, hunting.

A life without passion isn’t worth living. A terribly sophisticated urban person might look scornfully at this gathering, but she hoped not. Or if that person did, Sister at least hoped he or she had a passion. A human being without an emotional force divorced from money and material goods is a sorry soul indeed.

These thoughts flitted through her head as the judges made their selections and the crowd at the American ring applauded. As it turned out, Grant Fuller was handling the winning hound. He smiled broadly. Spectators knew hounds at this show. If they disagreed with the judges they withheld their applause. Sometimes the roar for the second pick would shake the leaves on the trees. Judges couldn’t help but notice.