Рита Браун - The Hunt Ball

Each Custis Hall student made note that she’d heard that earlier. They would find out soon enough how critical and testing that philosophy was: simple, true, and to the bone.

C H A P T E R 2

After the tailgate, the rigs pulled out and Sister returned to the kennels. Her house dogs—Raleigh, a Doberman, and Rooster, a harrier—bounded along as the mercury climbed to the low sixties, the mists dissipated, and the dew sparkled on the still-green grass.

Golliwog, the calico, long-hair cat, sauntered behind, not wishing to appear to be part of the group.

Sister opened the kennel door as Shaker was walking toward the office.

“Good day, really,” he beamed.

“Indeed. The fog gets disorienting but—” Sister didn’t finish her sentence as Betty, wearing her ancient Wellies, trooped toward her.

“New den.”

“Old one, new fox.” Sister smiled.

“Spooky out there for a little bit, wasn’t it?” Betty, having lost twenty pounds, now back to her schoolgirl weight, burst with energy.

“Clammy damp.” Shaker heard a yelp. He walked back down the wide aisle. “All right now.”

“He started it,” Dreamboat, a hound, tattled.

“I did not. All I did was step on his tail , ” Doughboy defended himself.

Shaker sternly peered into the young boys’ run, as they called it. “You all did very well today. Don’t spoil it.”

The youngsters wagged their tails, eyes bright. They’d put their fox to ground, working right along with the “big kids.”

Shaker returned to his master and whipper-in. “Sybil said her ears played tricks on her at the base of Hangman’s Ridge. She thought she heard a truck motor up there.”

“Sound bounced like a ball.” Sister liked Sybil. Her mother, Tedi, was a friend of fifty years.

“Where is Sybil?”

“Had to hurry home. Board meeting in town. Marty Howard convinced her to serve on her literacy campaign group. Say, before I forget, Shaker, Halloween night, the boys from the Miller School will be doing something up on Hangman’s Ridge. I said I didn’t care as long as they cleaned up their mess. They’re going to the big dance at Custis Hall and then Charlotte has allowed the girls to go to the ridge, chaperoned, of course, for an hour of fright after the dance. Guess it will be big beans.”

Betty grimaced. “Too many hanged ghosts. Aren’t there eighteen or something like that?”

“Think so.” Shaker rubbed his chin. He’d missed a spot, fingered the stubble.

Sister thought of the souls wandering on the ridge as well as the souls of all those they harmed in life. “Well, the world’s full of anguish. Let’s keep it at bay.”

“I’ll go start on the tack.” Betty wiped her hands on the coveralls she’d slipped over her britches. “That’s my contribution to keeping anguish at bay.”

“The Custis Hall girls already did it.”

“They did?” Betty smiled.

“Their own idea. Neither Charlotte nor Bunny pushed them to it.” Sister, a board member of Custis Hall, was pleased at the young women’s thoughtfulness. “Good job, too.”

“Bunny Taliaferro makes them break down the tack and clean it with toothbrushes,” Betty laughed. “Not every day, of course.”

“She’s a hard nut, that one.” Among these two friends, Shaker could freely express himself.

“Yes, she is. A good-looking woman, but stern,” Sister agreed.

“Sure knows how to turn riders into horsemen. Got to give her that.” Betty folded her arms over her chest, then noticed a cobweb up in the corner of the office that she had to attack immediately with the crop Shaker had placed on the desk. “Gotcha.”

“Spider will haunt you,” Sister laughed.

“I didn’t kill her. I’ve only invited her to spin her web elsewhere.”

“I sure miss Jennifer and Sari,” Sister changed the subject. “Not just because they cleaned tack. Those two were a tonic.”

Jennifer was Betty’s youngest daughter. Her oldest, Cody, languished in jail, having fallen by the wayside thanks to drugs. Sari Rusmussen was Jennifer’s best friend and the daughter of Shaker’s girlfriend of one year.

“Well, she loves, loves, loves Colby College. I tell her, you keep loving it, honey, wait until that Maine winter settles in for eight months. She and Sari talk to each other every day via e-mail even though they’re roommates.”

“Why in the world do they do that?” Sister, although a fan of her iMac G5, still considered using it drudgery.

“They have one other roommate,” Betty said and burst out laughing. “And they can’t stand her, of course.”

“What do you hear?” Sister asked Shaker.

“Thriving.” He paused. “Lorraine’s not. In the last month she’s sent four care packages, one a week.” He smiled a warm, engaging smile.

A knock on the door turned their heads in that direction.

“Come on in,” Sister called out.

Marty opened it and stuck her head inside. “You didn’t forget our meeting, did you?”

Betty and Sister looked at each other, because they had.

“Oh, Marty, I’m so sorry. I saw Sam drive away with Crawford in the passenger seat and I blanked out. Betty, come on.”

“Let me get out of my coveralls and Wellies.”

“You make a fashion statement,” Marty teased her.

“The aroma of horse manure is a bonus. Be right up.”

As Sister left with Marty, the two dogs fell in behind and Golly brought up the rear.

“Black bottom, you got ’em.” Golly sang a few notes from the old 1926 song.

“She’s referring to you.” Rooster’s pink tongue stuck out between his teeth.

“I’m not paying any attention to her.” Raleigh lifted his noble head higher.

“How much is that doggy in the window?” Golly moved forward in time to Patti Page’s 1953 hit song.

“Golly, what’s the matter with you, going mental on us again?” Rooster loved to torment the cat. It was mutual.

“Death to all dogs!” she screamed, shot forward, jumped off the ground, and hit Rooster on the side with all four paws. She bounded off like a swimmer making a turn in a pool, then she scorched ahead of the dogs, blasted past the humans, and climbed up the old pawpaw tree, where she immediately struck a pose on a large branch.

“You’re very impressive,” Sister drily commented as she and Marty passed under the pawpaw tree.

“I am who I am! I am the mightiest cat in all Christendom. Dogs shudder at the mention of my name, Killer Kitty!”

“I’m going to throw up,” Rooster coughed.

“Roundworms,” Golly taunted.

Raleigh, on his hind legs, tried to reach the branch.

Betty, hurrying to catch up, called out to the sleek animal. “Your mother will give you such a smack.”

Sister turned and beheld Raleigh, Rooster waiting at the bottom of the tree. “Boys, leave her alone.”

“You’re lucky she protects you or I’d be throwing up a big hairball: you,” Rooster barked with mock menace.

Sister called over her shoulder, “Boys, she’s not worth it.”

“Ha!” Raleigh dropped to all fours and pranced toward the three women as Betty caught up.

Rooster followed.

“She doesn’t protect me. I can blind you with a single blow. I can tear out your whiskers one by one. I can bite your tail in two.”

“Ignore her,” Sister said in a singsong voice.

“You’re afraid of me. Admit it!” Golly ratcheted up the volume. She huffed, she thrashed her tail. No response. The two dogs didn’t even turn to watch her. Disgruntled, she backed down the tree, grumbling loudly, so loudly that Cora, the head bitch, could hear it in the big girls’ run.