Рита Браун - Full Cry

“Would we miss him?” Alice tartly remarked.

“I reckon we would. Now Alice, all souls are equal before God.”

They both laughed, then rolled down separate aisles to wrap up their shopping before the storm worsened.

As Sister reached for milk replacer, another cart whizzed by her before stopping.

“Jane Arnold,” a deep voice called.

She turned to look into the liquid brown eyes of Gray Lorillard, a man of African American descent. Gray was the name of his maternal family, and everyone had always teased him about it when he was a kid. Few teased him these days; he was a powerful, wealthy tax lawyer and partner in a top-notch Washington, D.C., firm.

“Gray, how good to see you. We hardly ever do see you. Home for Christmas?”

He leaned on his cart. “I retired.”

“I hadn’t heard that. How wonderful.”

“Well, I turned sixty-five last August, and I said, ‘I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life.’ I want to farm. Took me this long to wrap things up. Kept the apartment in D.C., still do consulting, but Sister, I am so glad to be back.”

“Will you be at the old home place?” She referred to the Lorillard farm, which abutted the eastern side of After All, the Bancrofts’ enormous estate.

He looked her directly in the eyes. “Have you seen it?” “I drive by.” She tactfully did not mention its state of disrepair.

“Sam didn’t even change the lightbulbs when they blew out.” He breathed in, lowering his voice. “I won’t be living there with him, though I think he’s beat the bottle this time. God, I hope so.”

“I’m amazed he’s still alive,” Sister honestly replied.

“Me, too.” He smiled, his features softening. “I expect this storm will have us all holed up. But it has to end sometime.” He hesitated a moment. “When it does, may I take you to lunch at the club? We can catch up.”

“I hope it ends tomorrow.” She smiled.

All the way home, Sister thought about the Lorillards: Sam, Gray, and Elizabeth, each with different destinies. Elizabeth, the middle child, married well, a Chicago magazine magnate. She sat on the city council of the expensive suburb in which she lived, Lake Forest. She evidenced no interest in the home place, Virginia, or, more pointedly, Sam. Gray, a good athlete and horseman, won an academic scholarship to Syracuse, going on to New York University Law School. Sam, also a good athlete and horseman, won a scholarship to Michigan, finished up, then returned to attend the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He couldn’t stay away from the horses, which everyone understood, but he couldn’t stay away from women either. These disruptions and his ever-escalating drinking seemed intertwined.

Sister had ridden with Gray and Sam when they were young. It baffled her how someone like Sam could throw away his life as he did. Not being an addictive personality, she failed to understand willful self-destruction.

The Lorillards’ tidy and tight farmhouse had fallen down about Sam’s ears. Until four months ago, one often found him down at the old train station, sitting on the baggage carts knocking back Thunderbird with the other drunks.

It pained Sister to see those men. One, Anthony Tolliver, had been the first boy she ever danced with and loved. They remained friends until he lost the battle with the bottle. Anthony, well born, lost everything. On those times when she did see him, he would smile, happy for her presence. The fumes from him made her eyes water. She alternated among disgust, anger, and pity. Bad as he was, Anthony could bring back wonderful childhood memories. She couldn’t understand why he couldn’t get control of his drinking.

Sister had lived long enough to know you couldn’t save someone from himself. You can open a door, but he still must walk through it. It sounded as though Sam had at long last walked through the door his brother opened for him.

At the kennels, she unloaded the corn oil. Shaker walked in. As he took off his cap, snow fell to the floor in white clumps.

“Thanks for plowing the road.”

“I’ll give it another sweep before the sun goes down.”

“Four-thirty. We’re just on the other side of the solstice. I miss the light.” Sister stacked the Espilac on the shelf.

“Me, too.” He shook the remaining snow from his cap as he stamped his boots.

“Ran into Gray Lorillard. Said he’s retired and just moved back.”

“Ah, that will be a good thing. Maybe he’ll start hunting again.”

“Hope so. I think he went out with Middleburg Hunt when he worked in D.C. Anyway, we’re having lunch once the storm is over. I’ll get the scoop.”

“Where’s my girlfriend?”

She snapped her fingers. “I knew I forgot something. Next trip.”

CHAPTER 3

Early Sunday morning, the snow continued to fall. With a six-inch base of snow remaining on the ground from the week before, its depth now measured nearly two feet. Branches of walnuts, black gums, and the gnarled apple trees, coated with snow, took on a soft appearance. The younger pine boughs were bent low with its weight. The older pines appeared wrapped in shawls.

The silence pleased Inky, snuggled in her den at the edge of the old cornfield. This, the easternmost part of Sister Jane’s big farm, provided a safe haven for the two-year-old gray fox in her prime. Some grays are quite dark, but not many. Inky was black and uncommonly intelligent. Of course, being a fox meant she was extraordinarily intelligent compared to other mammals.

Even red foxes, haughty about the grays, conceded that Inky was special. She could connect with most mammals, even humans, and had a rare understanding of their emotions. The other foxes readily outsmarted hounds, humans, horses, even bobcats—trickier and tougher than the three “H’s,” as the foxes thought of the foxhunting crew. Foxes, reds and grays, thanks to their sense of smell, could pick up fear, sickness, even sexual attraction among other species. But Inky delved deeper. Young though she was, even reds listened when she spoke.

Her den, disguised under the ancient walnut tree, was also hidden by rocky outcroppings, some of the rocks as big as boulders. On high ground with many entrances and exits, not far from Broad Creek—which divided Roughneck Farm from After All Farm—this location offered quick access to fresh running water and all the leftover corn bits Inky could glean. Even better, the field mice haunted the cornfield. There was nothing like a fresh field mouse for a hot, tasty meal.

Inky’s littermate, Comet, had stupidly taken over a gopher den on Foxglove Farm across Soldier Road, about three and a half miles from Inky’s. Set smack in the middle of a wildflower field, at first this looked like a good thing. However, last fall Cindy Chandler, the owner of Foxglove, had decided to plow under the stalks, fertilize and then re-seed with more wildflowers, as well as plant one side of the field with three rows of Italian sunflowers to bring in the birds. Comet, appalled that his den had been exposed, moved to the woods. He should have listened to his sister, who told him not to nest in an open field.

At fourteen inches high, thirty inches long, and weighing a sleek ten pounds, Inky was the picture of health. Her tail, a source of pride, was especially luxurious now that she was enrobed in her rich dense winter coat.

A low rumble alerted her to a human visitor. She stuck her black nose out of the den, a snowflake falling on it. Sister Jane, on her four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicle, pulled up the low farm road, following Shaker’s plowing.

The ATV negotiated the snow and most anything else. Sister cut the motor and flipped up one bungee cord, which held a flake of straw. Putting that under her left arm, with her right hand she unhooked a second bungee cord, which held down a small plastic container of dog food.