Рита Браун - The Tell-Tale Horse

The motor cranked on the truck. Sister never tired of that sense of power.

Once out on the road, Betty covered her eyes a moment. “We were pretty close to a ticket out of life.”

“I know.”

“Cabel always hated you. Never stopped. Never could let the past go.” Betty inhaled deeply. “Lot of people like that in the world. All it brings is misery and death.” She paused. “I never saw it coming, did you?”

“No. Funny how the mind ignores evidence. I underestimated jealousy and hate, and I underestimated Cabel. Good actress, though. I kept looking for a male killer, not a female. I was blind, really.”

“She just”—Betty paused, then used the southern explanation for tremendous misdeeds—“snapped.”

“Took Ilona with her.” Sister noticed the flock of crows overhead, St. Just in the lead. “I don’t understand a lot of things in this world. I don’t even try anymore. I accept that I can’t understand and that, if there are answers, I won’t find them. I don’t know if that’s maturity or resignation.”

“Both.” Betty leaned forward to watch the large flock of crows fly overhead. “Not much for crows but someone has to be nature’s garbageman.” She turned back to Sister. “You could have been killed.”

“You too.”

“Were you as calm as you seemed?”

A long pause followed. “Yes.” Then she smiled. “When the Good Lord jerks your chain, you’re going. He doesn’t want me yet. Then again, what if I’m headed downtown, not uptown?”

Betty laughed. “Won’t know until we get there.”

After a few moments, Sister spoke, “Hindsight makes us all smart. It’s obvious now but I didn’t see it there. You know, Cabel’s hair loss, erratic behavior, loss of self-control: She was in the last stages of syphilis. You lose your mind.”

Betty rubbed her temples. “It’s making a big comeback.”

“She hadn’t been to the doctor in about twenty years. He had. But he passed it on to her.” She paused. “They both paid for it.”

“Sometimes I think history should be written from the standpoint of syphilis, malaria, black plague, tuberculosis, AIDS.”

“You’re right.” Sister sighed heavily.

“It will take years for this to really hit those girls,” Betty added.

“Us too. But you know, it’s the duty of the old to protect the young. The only person in that mill who should have hidden herself and wouldn’t have been shamed for it was Sybil. Her sons aren’t grown. For the rest of us—well, we did what we had to do.”

“Not everyone thinks like that.”

“We’re not everyone.” Sister suddenly felt a burst of emotion. “Not by a long shot. I don’t give a damn what’s popular, and I don’t give a damn about fashions, including moral fashions. The old must protect the young.”

“I know.” Betty felt Sister’s energy lifting her own. “But we’re country people. We live close to nature.”

“Makes no matter.” As Sister saw her Roughneck Farm sign, a flood of gratitude welled up in her. “City people are as obligated as we are to take care of the young.”

“They don’t obey the laws of nature. They no longer know them.” Betty worried about urbanization and the destruction of the environment by people who often thought they were protecting it.

“Well, you know what, sugar pie? Nature will one day reach into those steel towers and shake them loose. Hers is the ultimate power.”

As they coasted to the stable, Inky and Georgia shot out from the barn, where they had been enjoying leftover sweet feed and a bowl of sour balls.

Sister and Betty led one set of horses off the trailer and then a second. They cleaned them, tossed fresh blankets over them, put each in a stall with fresh warm water and delicious flakes of hay, and added a couple of handfuls of sweet feed to their food buckets.

The routine of chores helped each woman calm down.

A cat door, cut into the stable office and well used by Golly, had also been used by Inky and Georgia. They left behind their signature scent, a fox calling card.

Chores done, Sister and Betty walked into the heated office for a moment to warm their hands, and both noticed the bowl of sour balls, wrappers all over the floor.

“How do they do that? How did Inky get the cellophane off?” Sister put her hands on her hips.

“Foxes work magic.” Betty laughed, then looked at her silver-haired friend. “Jane, I love you. I could have lost you.” She hugged Sister.

“I love you too.” Sister hugged Betty back. “But by God, Betty, we would have died game.”

Dedicated to

Donna Gaerttner,

who loves foxhounds

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Marion Maggiolo and Wendy Saunders helped enormously by fighting their way through a first draft, correcting mistakes and making good suggestions.

For the record, the information regarding Horse Country’s security system is false for obvious reasons. The John Barton Payne massive trophy, owned by the Warrenton Horse Show, is housed there because Marion’s security system is second only to the bank’s. The bank did not have a large enough space to house this incredible bowl, ladle, and tray, known affectionately as “Big John.”

The Warrenton Horse Show, an outdoor show held at summer’s end, is a delightful spectacle, well run and worth a visit.

For those of you not able to make the trip to Warrenton, you can visit Horse Country at www.HorseCountryLife.com. The phone is 1-800-882-4868. You always meet people you know there even if you’ve never met them before.

Special thanks to Danielle Durkin, my former editor, and good luck writing her own novels.

Man does not live by bread alone but this woman does when she’s writing. Were it not for Mrs. Ryan Schilling and her soda bread, Mrs. Robert Satterfield and her banana bread, Mrs. William Stevenson III and her corn bread, I’d perish. Emily, Sue, and Lynn, respectively, are also members of Oak Ridge Hunt Club. Sue leads first flight and is bold as brass. Emily is training as a whipper-in and helps me in the kennels, and Lynn is our hunt secretary, a task I wouldn’t wish on a dog and she performs it with aplomb.

I note here the passing of my glorious, huge, old Plott hound, Punch. He was eighteen, had all his faculties, but age caught up with him May 1, 2007. Born to hunt bear, he did so without my contrivance. When he finally realized we hunt foxes around here, he declined smaller game and took up hunting thunderstorms. This had to be seen to be believed. He was a dear friend and I will miss him. Even my cats miss him, which is a testimony to his personality.

On another note, four hunt books equal one year. I have not clearly stated this before but thought perhaps I should. Each book represents a season: spring, summer, fall, winter. If I didn’t do this, Sister would be one hundred before you know it. Yes, she has to grow older, as do I, but let’s not rush it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

RITA MAE BROWN is the bestselling author of (among others) Rubyfruit Jungle, Six of One, Southern Discomfort, Outfoxed, and a memoir, Rita Will. She also collaborates with her tiger cat, Sneaky Pie, on the New York Times bestselling Mrs. Murphy mystery series. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and poet, she lives in Afton, Virginia. She is master and huntsman of the Oak Ridge Foxhunt Club and is one of the directors of Virginia Hunt Week. She founded the first all-women’s polo club, Blue Ridge Polo, in 1988. She was also Visiting Faculty at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Visit her website at www.ritamaebrown.com.

Books by Rita Mae Brown with “Sister” Jane Arnold in the Outfoxed series

Outfoxed