Рита Браун - The Hounds And The Fury

“Feels good. If I can get fifteen minutes of sleep here or there, I can power through. It’s my feet that hurt. I’ve caused you trouble, and I’m sorry for it.”

“You’ve already apologized.” She wondered what he wanted.

“As you know, I have a friendship with Crawford.”

“Yes.”

“If I walk out hounds with you, learn your routine, it will imperil that relationship. As it is, he’s trying to make me resign from the hunt. I won’t do it. I’m hoping over time I can lower the hostility threshold.” He smiled, pleased with his choice of words.

“Thank you for coming to tell me.”

“If you have any weakness, any crack in your armor, he’ll find it.”

“I expect he will.” She did have one, which she sidestepped.

Peter Wheeler’s will, which had bequeathed the Chevy 454, his estate, and fifty thousand dollars a year to the club, had been made in 1976. She had been forty-three, and Peter, having a bout of illness, thought he might be leaving the earth. He recovered. But he put in his will that she couldn’t take a joint-master. He’d realized his mistake in the last year of his life, but with so many other concerns, he hadn’t revised his will in time. She saw no reason to speak of this.

“Hopefully, Crawford will find a positive outlet for his energies,” she evenly replied.

He noticed the chewed-up ashes box, whose remnants were in the large wastebasket at the side of the big teacher’s desk built in the 1950s. He’d seen enough of such boxes. Peering down, he made out part of Iffy’s name on a typed label. “Iffy?”

She said without being asked, “It is. Was.”

“What happened?”

“No one would take her. We said a prayer for her at Hangman’s Ridge.”

“What happened to the box?”

“A hound grabbed it.” She declined to give the full story, which was funny to her but perhaps not to Iffy’s physician.

As he walked to the door, Sister threw this out. “Do you think Iffy wanted to live?”

“She did,” he replied, and left.

Felicity walked across the quad from the infirmary. Talking with animation to Howard on her cell phone, she planned their weekend date. This wasn’t easy, since neither had a car.

She ended the conversation as she went up the stairs to her dorm floor.

Tootie came into the hall when she heard Felicity’s footfall. “Are you contagious?”

“No.” Felicity smiled.

“So?” Tootie held her palms upward, flaring out her fingers.

“Food allergy. Mrs. Norton called in an allergist, and they scratched my back with all kinds of stuff. Dog dander, grass, things you don’t even want to know about.” She rolled her eyes.

“And?” Tootie leaned against her doorway.

“Bleached flour.” Felicity leaned against the other side of the door, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Wouldn’t you have gotten sick before now?”

“That’s what I asked, and the doctor said sometimes these things don’t show up until a person is older. So she gave me this.” Felicity pulled stapled sheets from her voluminous handbag. “If I follow the plan, I won’t be nauseated.”

“Well, that’s good. I was worried.”

“I was, too. It’s an awful feeling. And when I listed what I ate those mornings, what I could remember, I mean I don’t think about what I eat, but I ate white bread or rolls, stuff like that.”

“Can you eat any bread?”

“Dark. Pumpernickel. It’s weird.”

“You’re weird.” Tootie punched her.

CHAPTER 27

The party wagon swayed slightly as Shaker turned from the Roughneck Farm road right onto the state road.

“Wrong direction,” Cora wondered.

Ardent, who along with Asa and senior members of Sister’s “A” line was resting on the top tier, said, “Changed the fixture.”

“How do you know?” Delight asked, not impudently.

“Heard Shaker when he called me out of the Big Boys’ run. Trouble at Little Dalby.”

“What kind of trouble?” Diana, curious, lifted her head off her paws.

“Human trouble,” Ardent responded.

“That’s better than rabies.” Dasher, eager to hunt, paced in the medium-sized trailer.

“True enough,” Cora said, “but human trouble has a way of rolling back on us.”

Sister, with Betty in the cab, pulled the horse trailer to Foxglove Farm.

Straight as the crow flies, the distance was two and a half miles, a booming run on a straight-necked fox. Going around the land by available roads, it took fifteen minutes to arrive at the lovely farm, where nothing was done to excess, all in proportion.

“I hate to overhunt my foxes.” Sister slowly cruised round the big circle in front of Cindy Chandler’s barn. She parked, truck nose out, so other trailers could park alongside.

This crisp January 19 morning, Thursday, more people came than Sister expected. She had a very respectable midweek field of twenty-five.

Pleasing as that was, being forced to shift the fixture at the last minute plucked her last nerve. Anselma Wideman had called at nine last night to inform her that Crawford Howard had chosen to hunt Little Dalby on her, Sister’s, day. Crawford knew full well this would inconvenience Jefferson Hunt.

She changed the information on the huntline, simple enough. She sent out e-mails, also simple enough, and she called her staff to make certain they knew. Hunt clubs have phone lines that members call two or three hours before the appointed time in case a fixture needs to be changed because of weather or other events.

Needing all her wits to chase foxes, Sister held her emotions in check. She was wondering whether she could get away with murder. Crawford would be such a juicy, satisfying target. However, one murder was enough.

Walter juggled last-minute questions from visitors. He lent one an extra stock tie. The Custis Hall quartet along with Bunny, their coach, and Charlotte, the headmistress, were there.

Sister led Rickyroo off the trailer. Betty followed with Outlaw.

Sybil helped Shaker so Betty could assist Sister if she needed help.

Folding back her deep green blanket with dark orange piping, Betty, to lighten the mood, asked, “Perhaps we’ll have an epiphany, late as usual.”

“January 19 is a big day. Feast days of Branwalader, Canute, and Henry of Finland.”

“Think we might have to call on them?” Betty folded the blanket over, then stepped into the tack room to place it over an empty saddle rack.

“We might need to do that, but none of them are called upon by hunters.”

“I don’t have your head for dates, but I am a Virginian. Birthday of Robert E. Lee, 1807.”

“Yes, it is. And Edgar Allan Poe, 1809, and Cézanne in 1839. A lucky day.”

“Think there was an epiphany?”

“I do.” Then Sister laughed, her gloom lifting from the fixture problem. “But the Wise Men didn’t find Jesus. Their camels did.”

“Ha. Imagine hunting from a camel.”

“Think I’d throw up. Couldn’t take the motion.” Sister checked her horse’s girth and gathered the reins in her left hand, holding the left rein shorter than the right so if Rickyroo should take a notion he’d turn inside toward her instead of outside, which would throw her out like a centrifuge.

Betty did the same, and both women mounted up without a grunt.

Sister rode over to Cindy Chandler, who was on her tough little mare, Caneel. “Thank you so much for allowing us here on short notice.”

Cindy, a true foxhunter, smiled. “I love having you here.” She stepped closer to Sister, which pleased Rickyroo, as he was fond of Caneel. “Would you like me to speak to Anselma and Harvey? If you do it’s official, and you scare people sometimes.” Cindy could say this, being a trusted friend. “The Widemans don’t know hunting. They might finally understand territory conflict, but they won’t grasp overhunting foxes.”