Рита Браун - Outfoxed

Doug walked beside Shaker, since the hounds behaved impeccably. “I can’t figure out how whoever it is got Fontaine to go with him.”

“Fontaine could have stopped to go to the bathroom.” Sister thought Fontaine was doing more of that lately, but then men did as they got on in years. He wasn’t that old, though.

“He stopped and another fellow stopped with him. Then led him off? That sort of thing?” Shaker breathed out two straight lines of mist from his nostrils.

“Partly. But Fontaine would come back to the main group. He wouldn’t get sidetracked by the splinter pack.”

“We were moving fast that day. His hearing wasn’t as good as yours.” Doug paused. “Course, no one hears as good as you. You’re uncanny . . . part fox.” He smiled at Sister. “Sounds bounce around out here. He might have followed the hounds that sounded the closest. He might not have heard the main pack. We really were flying. I mean, people ran out of horse the first hour. I watched them pull out,” Doug remarked.

“When did you have time to watch the field?” Shaker grumbled.

“When I reached Soldier Road. We were running so hard I headed straight for the road. I hoped I could turn the pack but they turned on their own. Almost one hundred eighty degrees. But they were heading back before that because I passed riders on the farm road early on. The pace was scorching.”

“Maybe Fontaine turned back,” Shaker said.

“Gunsmoke. No way.” Sister shook her head.

“He’ll be fine,” Doug said. “Had to call the vet this morning about Trinkle. Asked about Gunsmoke.”

Trinkle was a bitch with uterus problems. She was going to have to be spayed, a pity, as she had great bloodlines and was a good hound in her own right.

“Maybe Fontaine stopped to help someone. Someone good-looking,” Shaker added.

“That’s the best theory yet,” Sister agreed. “And if he or whoever stopped in the woods, they wouldn’t be that easy to see. For one thing he wore that gorgeous black weaselbelly with the white vest. Made for him in Ireland. God, he always was one of the best-turned-out men in the hunt field. If he’d been in scarlet, he might not have slipped away so easily.”

“Huh.” Shaker was considering all this as they climbed upward.

“If you want to kill someone and you don’t want to get caught, I guess you plan for years or you plan pretty intensely and wait for the wind to blow in your favor. I don’t know if things had turned out differently, if the young entry hadn’t bolted onto that drag, that Fontaine would be alive. But whoever did it was waiting. The drag was brilliant. If it didn’t work, he would have tried later. Maybe something in the hunt field. Maybe something somewhere else. This strikes me as planned but still trusting to luck. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

“Sister, what you’re trying to say is our killer is one bold son of a bitch.” Shaker, breathing hard, was relieved to finally reach the top of the ravine.

They were at the back side of the meadows surrounding Hangman’s Ridge. The ridge was a quarter of a mile in front of them to the west. They’d made a lopsided semicircle around it. Soldier Road was to their right, the bridge spanning the ravine and the creek immediately behind them. This early in the morning, the roads icy, there was no traffic.

“Only a mile back home.” Shaker smiled, as he intended to stay in the meadow. The walking would be much easier.

“I suppose Ben Sidell will question everyone that hunted. Someone is bound to have seen Fontaine stop.”

“Maybe,” Doug answered Sister.

“You know last hunt season I noticed he’d stop to relieve himself. Maybe he was getting prostate problems. I suppose they can occur at about any time.”

“Wouldn’t know.” Doug laughed.

“You will.” Shaker laughed right back. “Then they go up in there with a Roto-Rooter.”

“Ah, the indignities of age.” She laughed along with them.

“But not there, Sister, not there.” Shaker laughed even harder.

“Honey, that’s where your indignities begin.”

They laughed the whole way back to the kennel, keeping in this vein.

Later when Sister walked back in the kitchen, Raleigh, who knew where lazy Golly would be, snuck up on her and blew in her ear.

“P-s-s-t,” she spat.

“Scares the pee right out of me.” Raleigh giggled, then told the cat everything as Sister called the sheriff.

“You knew about this. You left me knowing what the foxes and the hounds were going to do?” The cat was desolate.

“You snooze, you lose.”

“I’ll get you for this, Raleigh Arnold. I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I do!”

CHAPTER 42

That same evening the clouds lifted, creating an odd sight: dark cumulus, Prussian blue overhead, with a thin band of turquoise twilight underneath.

Everyone on the farm was behind on their chores because of the long hound walk and the sheriff coming to pick up the rope. He asked questions about everything, which they expected. No doubt he would check today’s reports with Saturday’s, searching for discrepancies or new information. No one could accuse him of not being thorough.

Just as Sister and Doug were bedding down the horses they heard a trailer rumble down the drive.

Raleigh hurried outside, leaving Golly inside. He let out a perfunctory bark, then shut up. Golly was so upset at missing events she spent the remainder of the day following Raleigh around, to his amusement, not to hers.

“I’ll see who it is.” Sister slid back the heavy metal stall door, a mesh to allow cooling breezes in the summer.

In winter Doug or Sister could throw on an extra blanket. Keeping a horse cool in summer’s oppressive heat proved far more difficult than keeping them warm in winter.

The thin band of turquoise above the mountains slowly turned purple.

Sorrel Buruss cut the motor on the Chevy dually truck and stepped out into the cool air. “Sister, will you take Gunpowder and Keepsake? I should have called but I don’t know. I can’t seem to keep anything straight in my head and I know Fontaine would want the horses well cared for and used. They’ll sit around in the barn and that’s not right.”

“Sorrel.” Sister put her arm around the pretty woman’s shoulders. “I’ll give them the best of care. We’ll hunt them and when you’ve had time to think things through if you want to sell them, I will.”

“I’d like to donate them to the hunt.” Her lower lip trembled.

“Let’s wait and see how much money you have left when all is said and done. Okay?”

Sorrel, a well-groomed woman even in grief, cried. She couldn’t speak.

“Doug can unload. Come on. Let me get you a cup of coffee or a drink if it’s too late for coffee. All right?” As Sorrel nodded her agreement, Sister walked back into the stable. “Doug, will you unload Gunsmoke and Keepsake? We’ll be caring for them for a while.”

“Sure.”

Once in Sister’s kitchen, the fire roaring in the huge fireplace, Sorrel relaxed a little. “The funeral is tomorrow and I couldn’t stand one more deeply sympathetic condolence. One more person at the door. God, I must be awful. The kids are at Mom’s. They’re upset but at the same time kind of excited, all the food, flowers, people.”

“I often wonder what stays with them. The telling detail. I don’t know. I remember a great deal from my childhood and yet when my brother was alive he’d recall the same event not so much in contradiction but with a different emphasis. It used to make me wonder about my mind.”

“I gave up on my mind a long time ago.” Sorrel half smiled, grateful to be out of the gloom of her own home. “I apologize for just dropping in on you. I could have called. . . . I just went to the barn and pulled those guys out of their stalls. At least I remembered their halters and lead. I have moments when I can’t remember anything. I’m moving but I’m not functioning. Does that make sense?”