Рита Браун - The Tell-Tale Horse

She loved Gray but hadn’t told him. Why? Words always came back to haunt her. But she knew she loved him, and she felt he loved her. Different from Big Ray or Peter Wheeler, both of them robust, extroverted, physical men, Gray soothed her but kept her alert mentally too. Handsome, descended from Lorillard slaves and therefore taking the Lorillard name, Gray possessed all the brilliance of that line, which ran in both white and black pedigrees. Of course, every true Virginian knew there was no such thing as an all-white or all-black pedigree, but that was another subject best left on the table. People could be wildly irrational about race from all quarters. Race and sex set up more shrieking and flying feathers than a cockfight.

On a cold crackling morning like today, Big Ray would have been walking with her, both of them with arms outstretched for balance, hands touching, trying not to fall on their keisters and laughing; God, how she could laugh with that man! A stream of ideas about hounds, horses, territory, and whippers-in, liberally spiced with both invective and praise, would awaken the birds, who would grumble about it. She would laugh to hear a disgruntled cheep from a hole high inside a tree or the censorious click of a beak from the owl in the barn. Owls make so many different sounds. She’d learned to recognize them; Sister had a rudimentary sense of most animal communication. People often wondered how she knew where the fox was or when a storm was coming. She’d say, “The red-tailed hawk told me” and they’d laugh, never realizing she meant it.

This morning, all silent except for her breathing and the ice crackling, her eyes lifted to the east. A thin light-gray line gave hope the sun would rise eventually, and perhaps the cloud cover would disperse too.

The lights were on in the kennels. Shaker, like Sister, kept to his routine. He loved his work.

“How’s Delia today?” she asked, as she walked into the large feeding room, nodding at the boys with their noses in the trough.

“She’s gaining weight, but her hunting days are over, boss. She’s slowed down, and it’s hard to keep weight on her. I can see it melting off during a hard run.”

“You’re right. She can stay in the Big Girls pen until the day comes when they start to roll her. Won’t be for a year or two. I’ll take her up to the house then.”

A master from Maryland had once upbraided Sister with the taunt, “You don’t live in the real world,” because Sister refused to put an old hound down as long as it was healthy. The other master was right in that this kept expenses higher. But damned if Sister would put down a hound who had served her well. She was the same about horses. Okay, it did run up the bill, but let them live out their final days in peace, comfort, and love. It was the least she could do for the devotion they accorded her.

Once a hound was rolled in the kennel by the younger ones, she’d see if a member would have it for a house pet or she’d move it up to her own house. It pained her that people didn’t understand what good pets foxhounds make. The longest it ever took her to potty train an older hound was two weeks. Most get it before then. Whip-smart, those hounds are fanatically clean. Perhaps it was vanity, for they knew how majestic they were.

She left Shaker and walked to the special run for hounds who needed extra attention or who had been injured during hunting. Now it was just sweet Delia, eating a warmed mash of kibble and canned food.

“Aren’t you the lucky girl?”

“I am,” Delia replied, and stuck her nose back in the aluminum bowl.

“Love you, baby girl.” Sister smiled at her old friend and returned to the feeding room.

“Boss, what saint’s day is it?”

“Wulfric and Eustochium Calafato.”

He laughed. “Those teachers at your Episcopal girls school certainly drilled information into your head.”

“Latin too.” She grinned.

“Okay, what did Wulfric and Eusto—you know—what did they do?”

“Wulfric was from Somerset, a contemporary of Lady Godiva, actually.” They’d both done their Godiva research. “He hunted with hounds and hawks, so he should be dear to us. Maybe not as dear as St. Hubert, the patron saint of hunters, but important nonetheless. We can use all the celestial help there is. He lived as an anchorite and supposedly possessed second sight. He healed a knight with paralysis. Mmm, bound books. Visited by Henry I and then his son, Stephen, when king. That’s about all I know.”

“I’ll read up on him. What about the other guy?”

“Girl. Abbess of Messina, Franciscan order. She seems to have been strict and devout and died at thirty-five. Her body did not decay. She died in 1468, and when she was dug up from her grave in Montevergine in 1690 she was fresh as a daisy.” Sister shrugged. “Nonetheless, dead as a doornail.”

Shaker laughed. “Do you believe this stuff?”

“I take it with a grain of salt. Do I believe these people were extraordinary? Sure. A lot of saints behaved miserably before seeing the light. Just the fact that they redeemed themselves is worth emulating.”

“So there’s hope for me?”

“Hope for both of us.”

“Must I vow poverty and chastity? I’m not good at either.” His lopsided grin was infectious.

“Me neither. Both are overrated; I doubt they’re really virtues. Getting someone to give up their worldly goods was an early form of income redistribution. Of course, the communists raised it to new heights.”

“Another kind of religion gone bust.”

“I’ll say, and think of the millions that died because of it on both sides of the fence. Don’t you think it odd that human beings will die for ideas? I’d die for a living creature but not for an idea. Too cold for me.”

“Yep. Come on, boys. Look at how those coats gleam. That corn oil in the winter just works a treat.”

“It does, and I don’t care what the analysis is on the back of those big feed bags, nothing puts a shine on their coats like corn oil.”

Shaker, wellies squishing on the concrete floor, which he washed obsessively, opened the door to the Big Boys’ run, a quarter of an acre.

All the hounds enjoyed huge runs with grass, trees, and boulders as well as condos to supplement the beds inside the kennels. They liked being out and about. It certainly cut down on bad behavior, since everyone had plenty of room.

Once the boys trotted out, door closing behind them, Shaker refilled the troughs, poured corn oil over the high-protein kibble, and set the gallon jug high up on a shelf, along with the twenty-four others stored there. They bought in big lots to save money. Sister might carry hounds longer than another master, but with her practical mind she saved in all other areas.

“All right, my fast ladies,” Shaker called, and the bitches shot into the feed room, tails high.

“We’re excited this morning.” Sister smiled at the hounds. “Shaker, I’ve been thinking about Dragon. When he was in sick bay after being torn up by that coyote early in the season, the pack was more cohesive.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too. He’s only been back in for the last three hunts, and I can feel the difference. For one thing, he distracts Cora.”

“He challenges her. We can’t have two strike hounds, and Diddy might develop into a good one when we most need her, when Cora retires. But Dragon is ready now.”

“Draft him?”

“No. Not yet. What if we use Dragon on Tuesdays, Cora on Thursdays, and toss a coin for Saturdays? We’ll see how the pack performs. If they go equally well, no need to change anything or draft him out. If not, then we should draft him to a hunt needing a good fast strike hound.”

“We’ve got plenty of the blood,” Shaker replied.