Рита Браун: Full Cry

“Uh, yes, ma’am.”

With that, Sister followed Shaker and the hounds back to the hayfield, back to the tiger trap jumps.

“Edward, take the field a moment, will you?”

Tall, elegant Edward Bancroft touched the top of his hunt cap with his crop.

Sister rode up to Shaker, tears in his eyes from laughing.

“Oh, God, that man is dumb as a sack of hammers.”

She laughed, too. “Donnie Sweigert isn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but to make amends I’m letting him hunt the peach orchard Monday morning. He’ll forgo eau de vulpus. ”

At this they both laughed so loudly a few of the hounds laughed out loud, too. That only made the humans laugh harder. The hounds took this as a cue to sing.

“All right, all right.” Shaker wiped his eyes as the hounds ended their impromptu carol.

“We’ve had a pretty good day, all things considered. Let’s lift these hounds and go home.”

“Yes, boss.” He touched his cap with his horn.

Later at the breakfast held at Orchard Hill’s lovely 1809 white clapboard house, the mirth increased with each person’s retelling of the situation.

Clay Berry told everyone that come Monday morning he’d present Donnie with a bottle of cologne. He’d also give Donnie a fixture card so he could stay away from fox hunts.

“Do you really think humans can disguise their scent? Would a deer have been fooled?” Jennifer Franklin, Betty’s teenage daughter, asked Walter. She had a crush on Walter, as did every woman in the hunt club.

“I don’t know.” Walter smiled. “You’ll have to ask Sister that one.”

He motioned for Sister to join them. Walter was a well-built man; he’d played halfback at Cornell, and even during the grueling hours of medical school and his internship, he had worked out religiously. Sister stood next to him. At six feet, she was almost as tall as he. She’d lost an inch or so with age.

Those meeting Jane Arnold for the first time assumed she was in her middle fifties. Lean, strong, her silver hair close cropped because she couldn’t stand “hat head” from her hunt cap, she had an imposing yet feminine presence.

Walter repeated the question. She thought a moment, then replied as she touched Jennifer’s shoulder. “I expect a deer or any of us can be fooled for a little while, but sooner or later your real odor will rise on up, and then you’ll be standing like truth before Jesus.”

On weekends Jennifer Franklin, a senior in high school, and her best friend, Sari Rasmussen, cleaned and tacked up the horses for Sister, Shaker, and Betty. When the hunt was over, the girls would cool down the horses, wash them if necessary, clean all the tack. When the horses were completely dry, they’d put on their blankets and turn them out, an eagerly anticipated moment for the horses.

The two attractive girls would then attack five pairs of boots, which included their own two. However, this Saturday their high school was having a special late-afternoon basketball tournament, so Sister had given the two girls time off.

During weekday hunts, Betty saw to the horses while Sister and Shaker fed the hounds after a hard hunt. This gave them time to check each hound, making sure no one was too sore or had gotten torn by thorns or hateful barbed wire. If anyone sustained an injury, he or she would be taken to the small medical room, lifted on the stainless steel table and washed, stitched if necessary, or medicated. The hardy hounds rarely suffered diseases, but they did bruise footpads, rip ears, cut flanks.

When Betty finished with the horses, Sister would usually be finished with the hounds. Then the two women would stand in the stable aisle cleaning their tack, the bucket of warm water loosening stiffened, cold fingers as well as softening up the orange glycerin soap.

While the ladies performed this convivial task, Shaker used a power washer on the kennels. Sister would clean his boots when she cleaned hers during the weekdays.

The familiar routine was comforting, but the hunt club really did need at least one more employee. While wealthy members like Crawford would build show grounds because it was flashy, they didn’t throw their money in the till for a worker. An employee lacked the social cachet of a building, and the slender budget left no room for another pair of hands. Since Sister and Shaker performed most all of the work, their days were long: sunup to past sundown.

Sister and Betty stood side by side, cleaning their bridles. They were almost finished.

“Read the paper this morning?” Betty asked.

“I don’t get to it until supper. What have I missed?”

“Oh, those antique furniture and silver gangs are at it again. The Richmond Times-Dispatch had an article about how they’re moving through the west end.”

“Every couple of years that happens in Richmond. Smart thieves,” Sister said.

“Well, what I found interesting was these rings work full-time. They move through Richmond, Charlotte, Washington, even the smaller cities like Staunton or ritzy places like Middleburg. Apart from knowing real George II silver from silver plate or a Sheraton from a Biedermeier, they’re obviously well organized.”

“I get the Sotheby’s catalogues. Some of those pieces sell for the gross national product of Namibia.”

Betty laughed. “I’ve always wondered why people become criminals. Seems to me if they put all that energy into a legitimate career, they’d make enough money.”

“I wonder. I can understand a thirteen-year-old kid in the slums not wanting to work for McDonald’s when he or she can realize a couple of thousand a month dealing and delivering drugs. But a furniture gang? I know what you mean. The same effort could just as well produce profit in an honest trade.”

“Well, maybe there’s more profit than we realize. Guess there’s a chain of people to make it all work, too, like crooked antique dealers.”

“Hmm. It’s one thing to steal money, but family silver, furniture—so much emotion tied up in those things. Like all those little silver plates and big trays we won in horse shows when we were young.”

“Or my great-grandmother’s tea service.”

“Are you going to lock your doors?”

“Oh, they won’t come out here.”

“Hope not, but still, glad I’ve got my Doberman,” Sister said.

The phone rang. As Sister hung up her tack on the red bridle hook, she picked it up. Betty reached up next to her, putting up her hunting bridle with the flat brow and nose-bands, its simple eggbutt-jointed snaffle gleaming from rubbing.

“Hello, Ronnie, I’d thought you’d had enough of me today.”

He laughed. “It’s all over town, hell, all over the county about Donnie Sweigert being, uh, quarry. Guess his nearest and dearest will take to calling him fox urine.”

“Bet they shorten that.”

“Bet they do, too.” He laughed harder.

Ronnie, a man who, besides being fashionable, needed to be the first to know everything, enlivened every hunt. Usually discreet, he could let it rip and surprise everyone.

“What can I do for you? I hope you aren’t calling about the board meeting. It’s not for three more weeks, and I haven’t even thought of my agenda. Well, except for more money.”

“Oh, that.” His voice registered sympathy. “I say we get each hunt club member to buy a lottery ticket for a dollar each week. If they win, they give half to the hunt club.”

“Ronnie, that’s a great idea!” Betty leaned close to the earpiece of the phone upon hearing Sister’s enthusiasm. Sister put her arm around Betty’s waist. A fabulous thing about being a woman was touching, hugging, being close to other women without worrying about repercussions. Men misunderstood affection for sexual interest, and it caused no end of difficulty.