Рита Браун - Hotspur

“I am sick and tired of waiting for everyone!” she complained.

“Pipe down, Golly!” Sister ordered the cat, a useless order, of course.

“We found Nola Bancroft’s body,” Raleigh informed the imperious creature.

Nola had disappeared long before Golly was born— the cat was now in the prime of life—but she had heard odd snippets over the years concerning the Bancroft girl who could have been a movie star. Not that she paid much attention, since she always preferred to be the topic of conversation herself.

“What, she just popped up somewhere?”

“Peppermint died this morning and we found her when Jimmy Chirios dug the grave with the backhoe.”

As the dog and cat considered the morning’s events, Sister stood up. “Well, we’ve got to do something, but I don’t know exactly what.”

“Pay a call,” Betty suggested.

“Yes, I know that. We’ve got to let the club members know. She was a member of Jefferson Hunt, after all.”

“You’re right. I’ll get the telephone tree going,” Betty said. Shaker pulled the club directory from his long middle desk drawer, handing it to Betty.

“I suggest you don’t,” he said.

“Why?” Both women stared at him.

“Wait until you talk again to the sheriff. He might not want the news out quite that fast.”

“Shaker, this is Jefferson County. Gossip travels faster than light,” Sister truthfully stated. “Even now the phones are ringing throughout the county.”

“But it shouldn’t be on our heads. He’s going to want to talk to anyone who remembers Nola, which is anyone in our club over twenty-five, and that’s most everyone.”

“He’s right.” Betty handed back the directory.

Sister, usually politically astute, considered the wisdom of Shaker’s suggestion and realized she’d been more rattled by the discovery than she’d thought. “Right.” She rubbed her temples a moment. “Do you know what keeps running through my mind? It’s Peppermint. He loved her. He would do anything for Nola. He carried all the Bancrofts at one time or another, but he loved Nola best of all and now he’s led us back to her.”

“In death,” Betty said, sounding a trifle morbid even to herself.

“Fate.” Shaker reached for his old briarwood Dunhill pipe, his father’s.

“Aren’t death and fate the same thing?” Betty wondered.

“No, ma’am, not by a long shot.” Shaker leaned against the desk. “Not by a long shot.”

CHAPTER 3

As the last human left the grave site, a tremendous clap of thunder shook the earth.

Inky, a member of the gray fox clan who happened to be black, had been watching the activity at the grave site so intently that she jumped at the thunder. She looked toward the west. Roiling low clouds would be directly overhead in fifteen minutes or less.

Her curiosity, overcome by the weather, gave way to a mad dash for her den, a tidy place two miles west of After All Farm. Inky lived on Sister Jane’s place, Roughneck Farm, at the edge of the cornfield, near a mighty old walnut, on high ground above a small tributary feeding into Broad Creek. She lived very well and at one and a half years of age she was a sleek, healthy creature with unusually bright eyes.

The first huge raindrops splattered around her just as she reached the border of Roughneck Farm. Another few minutes and she’d be home. The sky, dark now, seemed close enough to touch. Sister pulled out onto the farm road in her new red GMC truck. Her headlights caught Inky for a moment, but the fox did not stop to give the older woman the pleasure of her company. She raced for her den, shooting in as thunder rumbled overhead and lightning momentarily turned the sky lavender green.

Inky hated getting wet. She nestled in her sweet-smelling hay bed, which she’d carried home after the last cutting.

Like all foxes, reds and grays, Inky was a highly intelligent, adaptable creature. Part of this adaptability derived from being omnivorous like humans. Whenever that insufferable cat, Golliwog, would fuss at Inky for visiting the kennels where she liked to chat with Diana, a young gyp, Inky would remind her as she left that Golliwog was an obligate carnivore.

This would infuriate Golly, who in retaliation would stir up the hounds. Then Shaker would open the front door of his clapboard cottage and speak to the hounds to quiet them. Golly could be vengeful, but she was smart. Inky had to give her that.

As Inky dried herself she wondered who was in that grave. The human emotions had cast a strong scent that carried up to her. As soon as the storm was over she thought she’d go out again and visit her parents, who lived deeper in the woods near strong-running Broad Creek. Perhaps they would know something. And she wanted to tell her family that Peppermint had passed on. He had loved chatting with his former adversaries, as he’d dubbed the foxes. Peppermint had always had a quaint turn of phrase like the older gentleman he was.

Inky knew that when humans were feeling wretched the shock waves would vibrate over the countryside. Her curiosity was thus more than a mental exercise; it was key to survival.

“Hello, Inky,” Sister said, noting the lovely animal racing beside the road.

“I worry that she’s getting too tame.” Shaker pressed two fingers around the knot of his tie.

Never comfortable in a coat and tie, he was a proper fellow. Given the circumstances, he would not cross the Bancroft threshold unless respectfully dressed. Lean and wiry, Shaker exuded a toughness that belied his kindly nature.

Both Shaker and Sister had hurried to clean up after Betty had hopped into her car. She’d pick up Bobby, fill him in, clean up herself, and meet the master and huntsman at After All.

“The legend of the black fox.”

“Bull. We’ve always had black foxes.” He half snorted. “We just don’t always see them.”

“I know that.” She turned the windshield wipers to a higher speed. She wasn’t 100 percent familiar with her new truck yet, so she had to fiddle with the stick on the steering column.

“Be nice when you learn to drive this thing.”

“Be nice when you learn to treat me with respect.”

“Oh la.” He half sang. “Janie, none of this bodes well, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. And I know I’m using Inky as an excuse, but you will recall a black fox gave us a hell of a run just before Ray died, and then again before Raymond died.” Ray, her son, was killed in a freak harvesting accident in 1974. Her husband, Raymond, died of emphysema in 1991. “And Raymond’s grandmother would always rattle on about how her mother swore that in 1860 all they hunted was black foxes.”

“Hunted Yankees after that.” Shaker, born and bred in Mount Sidney, Virginia, half smiled as he said it.

“Jesus, think we’ll ever get over it?”

“The Jews built Pharaoh’s pyramids five thousand years ago and they’re still talking about it. The Irish still fuss about Elizabeth the First like she just left the throne. People have to have something to bitch and moan about.” He caught his breath for a moment. “If you ask me, people can’t do without their tragedies. Makes them feel important.”

“You might be right. The Bancrofts aren’t like that, thank God. Shaker, I can’t exactly fathom it. Not to know where your child is for all those years and then to find out she’s been buried on your own property all along. A ring on a bony hand.”

“Horrible.” Although he wasn’t a father, he could sympathize as could most anybody with a heart.

“When I lost Ray, well, you were there. Yes, it was dreadful. Yes, I wanted to die with him. But at least I knew. I could say good-bye. I could grieve. All those years that Tedi and Edward hoped and prayed and then settled into a dull ache of a life. And now, to finally know where Nola is. Where she’s been all along . . .”