Hotspur

by Rita Mae Brown

  She called Alice Ramy in Blacksburg and told her if any wild rumors reached her at Virginia Tech or back home, to dismiss them until they could talk.

  By Thursday, October third, she felt they were as ready as they’d ever be. It was still warm with azure skies. She fretted over the weather.

  That afternoon she and Shaker walked out puppies.

  “Had a good look at Sari Rasmussen’s mother yet?”

  Shaker rolled his eyes. “A meddlesome woman.”

  “Me or Lorraine?”

  “You.” He laughed. “I’ve spoken to her a few times— when she comes by to pick up Sari. I’m starting to like the days when Jennifer’s car breaks down.”

  “Good.”

  They walked along, praising the young ones. Clouds of butterflies whirled upward from the horse manure in the farm road. Small butterfly umbrellas of yellow, orange, milk white, and rust attracted the puppies’ attention as they passed.

  “Nervous?”

  “Yes,” Sister answered truthfully.

  “I still think you should give Ben Sidell a heads-up.”

  “I don’t know. He’d be wasting an entire morning. Nothing may happen.”

  “The problem is, if something does flare up, if we do rock the killer’s world, it could get real ugly. You carry your gun.”

  “I will.”

  “Let’s stroll through the orchard. Won’t hurt these chillun’ to smell apples.”

  The boughs of the old trees bent low, their bounty ready for picking. The Mexicans specializing in such small orchards were due next Monday. A young enterprising fellow, Concho, contracted with the small orchards, and his business was booming.

  Puppies lifted their heads, nostrils wide open. The rich fragrance of apples greeted them as it did the humans. However, the hounds could also smell the different types of insects there as well as all the various types of bird droppings. Their experience of the orchard was richer than that of humans’, whose senses were duller.

  The hound pads pattered over the grass, creating a rhythm. Their light panting provided a counterpoint. The heavier tread of Sister and Shaker sounded like a backbeat.

  Once out of the orchard they headed back toward the kennels.

  “Occurs to me we are putting down a T cross.” Shaker finally spoke.

  “Uh-huh.” Sister felt the warm sun on her back like a friend’s hand, reassuring.

  Sometimes, especially if the summer or fall lacked rainfall, the earth packed hard like brick. Getting a line of scent proved damnably difficult. Older hounds, having endured bad scenting conditions, stuck it out, kept trying. Younger hounds became frustrated more easily. Cubbing season coincided with rutting season for deer, so their odor was intensified and tempted young ones. If they couldn’t find fox scent why not try this other heavy, powerful aroma, so powerful even humans could smell it.

  Whippers-in would crack their whips, pushing back the “bad kids” if they could reach them. The thick coverts of Virginia sometimes delayed a whipper-in and hounds skedaddled.

  Staff could forgive a hound breaking once and needing to be corrected. Touching a deer twice, the proper word being touching not chasing, called for other measures.

  Sister and Shaker would get the whippers-in or two trusty members to lay a T cross of scent.

  Early in the morning, the dew heavy on the meadows, one person would put down fox scent. The line ended up in a glorious pile of dog cookies.

  Crossing this just like a T bar would be a line of deer scent. This line led directly to a thick covert. One or two persons hid in there with noisemakers and ratshot.

  Deer scent and fox scent can be purchased at hunting stores. Whoever handled the potent little bottles needed to be careful or they’d reek for days.

  If hounds broke at the cross of the T and headed to the covert, an unpleasant surprise awaited them. The humans hollered at them, fired ratshot in the air. If a hound occasioned to be particularly thickheaded, persisting in pushing the deer scent, a little peppering of ratshot on the nether regions cured him.

  Usually, the cacophony startled the hounds and they turned tail quickly, joining their comrades who stuck to fox scent.

  By the time the group reached the cookies they knew they had made the right decision.

  The foxhound is a problem solver, a most intelligent creature. It remained the province of the human to make sure that the hound solved the problem correctly and was properly rewarded for it.

  “If this works and the killer goes on the false scent, you’ll be in high cotton.” He opened the chain-link gate to the puppy run. “ ’Course if that doesn’t work you are going to have a lot of people spring-loaded in the pissedoff position.”

  “I know.” She shut the gate as the last young one scooted in.

  “Even if you don’t see anything, by the time you get back to the trailers there will be questions. For all I know, these two actors will be back there waiting for their Oscars.”

  “Well, they’re supposed to come back here.”

  “Boss, Murphy’s Law.”

  “Oh, shut up. Don’t you think I’ve gone over this until I’m dizzy? I don’t know what’s going to happen.” She said this in a good-natured way.

  He sighed. “Maybe it’s a blessing we don’t know the future.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Hounds’ voices pleased hounds and humans, but Golly thought them cacophonous. Her oh-so-sensitive ears could listen to Bach or to the sound of a can of cat food being opened but not to hounds. She avoided the kennels on hunt mornings. The hounds in the draw pen exuded a state of rare excitement. The ones left behind howled piteously.

  Only after everyone settled down would she venture forth, pushing open her cat door, next to the much larger doggie door. She’d sit just outside looking left, right, up, and down with an air of studied superiority. Then, every move considered, she would daintily walk to her destination.

  This morning, Saturday, October fifth, she sat outside despite the noise at the kennels. This was the day the Jefferson Hunt would hunt Foxglove Farm.

  Walter, Melissa Lords, and Brandon Sullivan had arrived at the barn at six-thirty A.M. Each person so resembled the deceased that the effect was startling even without a mist. And Robert Van Winkle’s forecast had been on the money. A cold front nudged through, and thin fog hugged the creeks and swales. Walter, knowing the territory, led Melissa and Brandon to their places.

  Raleigh and Rooster sat with Golly, watching the activity.

  “Why don’t you jump in the back of the pickup?” Rooster suggested to Raleigh, who could jump much higher than he could.

  “She’d see me and make me get out.” Raleigh sneezed as a whiff of goldenrod tickled his nose.

  “Dirty pool. We get stuck here and hounds get to go— and on such an important morning,” Rooster grumbled.

  Golly knew her human. “She’ll put you in the tack room if you don’t behave and you won’t go anywhere. You sit tight. Once they move off you’ll have to circle in the woods, but you can do it if you want to follow.”

  Rooster looked at Raleigh, who lay down, putting his elegant head on his paws. “I don’t like one thing about this.”

  Rooster grumbled, “I bet those good-for-nothing red foxes won’t run. On top of everything else, a blank day.” He closed his eyes on “blank.”

  Golly replied, “You never know what a fox will do. But Sister needs you.”

  “Thought you could take or leave humans,” Raleigh wryly said.

  Golly puffed out her chest, showing off her long, silky fur. She was vain about her coat, but then she was vain about everything. “This is hardly the time to mock me, Raleigh. You know perfectly well that I love Sister. I just don’t see the reason to fawn and slobber over her as you do.” Her ears twitched forward. “There they go. Hurry!”

  The meet was at eight. It was now seven. As the light changed and the temperature dropped, the first cast time would be pushed from seven-thirty to eight and then finally to nine in the
morning, except for the High Holy Days. People needed more time on those days since everyone and their horses had to be perfectly turned out. Braiding manes and tails took a long time on a frosty morning. Fingers ached.

  Not that the members of the Jefferson Hunt didn’t sparkle and shine even during cubbing, but braids were not called for, nor silk top hats. And even though it was probably a trick of the mind, brown boots always seemed to clean up faster than black ones.

  As soon as the “party wagon” filled with hounds pulled out, followed by the horse trailer, Raleigh and Rooster took off for Foxglove Farm.

  Sixty-three people gathered at Foxglove. As hounds were decanted from their trailer, the whippers-in, Betty and Jennifer, stood with them. Members and guests hurried to tighten girths, find hairnets, knock the dust off jackets.

  By the time the hounds walked to Cindy Chandler’s graceful stable—with its whiskey barrels filled with mums and baskets of hanging flowers outside, her turquoise and black stable colors painted on each outside beam— everyone was mounted.

  Some hunts insisted that staff wear scarlet even during cubbing. At other hunts, staff wore red shirts. And there were those hunts whose staff turned out in tweeds. The Jefferson Hunt staff wore informal kit. After Opening Hunt they would ride exclusively in scarlet even on informal, also called ratcatcher, days.

  Although many people erroneously believe there is an absolute standard for hunt attire, in truth, the standard is set by each individual hunt. There was a hunt in Florida, before World War II, that rode in white. Considering the climate, a sensible choice.

  As Sister trotted forward to greet the riders, the hounds looked up at her but dutifully stayed with Shaker.

  Raleigh and Rooster, who had sped across the sunken meadows, lurked behind the hay barn. Both canines considered their early run just a romp. They were ready for more.

  Sybil, curiously, wore an old jacket of Nola’s, a dark blue fabric with rust windowpane woven through it. When her mother commented on it, Sybil said she’d left her lightweight cubbing jacket at her house so she’d grabbed one of her sister’s. All extra coats, jackets, vests, and stock ties were kept in the stable closet at After All. Tedi wondered if Sybil had noticed a missing jacket and derby. Her darker question, of course, was just what did Sybil know?

  Ken, too, commented on her attire. Both her mother’s and her husband’s questions irritated her. Half the field was too young to remember Nola’s clothing and the other half had seen her in her sister’s jackets before. She dismissed them and said everyone was too jittery. Ken soothed her by saying how happy he was to be riding in the field with his wife for a change.

  “Good morning. Welcome, visitors. I see some friends from other hunts.” Sister smiled. “I’m thrilled to have the senior master of Deep Run with us today, Mary Robertson.”

  Mary smiled. “Glad to be here.” She, too, had butterflies.

  “I see some friends from Rockbridge Hunt and Glen-more Hunt, Keswick and Farmington. Welcome.” She turned to her hounds. “You children better find Mr. Fox and show everyone good sport.”

  “No problem,” Dragon shot off his big mouth.

  “God, I hate him!” Asa repeated his leitmotiv, voice low.

  “I’d be remiss if I did not thank our hostess today. Cindy Chandler, thank you for allowing us to hunt Foxglove.”

  Cindy, immaculately turned out, replied, “My pleasure. Don’t forget the breakfast afterward. There’s fried okra.”

  Crawford involuntarily grimaced, which made Sister laugh. Most Northerners couldn’t abide this particular southern specialty.

  Tendrils of mist curled through the lowlands. The long rays of the rising sun painted the buildings with scarlet and gold. The temperature was a cool forty-five degrees. It was beginning to feel like hunt season!

  Traditionally, the master decides on the first cast. In many hunts, the master isn’t a true hound person and so agrees with whatever the huntsman suggests. Sister, loving her hounds beyond all measure, would sit down with Shaker the night before a hunt and plan the day’s hunt.

  Plan your hunt; hunt your plan.

  The advantage of this over the years was that each person developed an appreciation for the other’s mind. Sister might suggest going low on a windy day, and Shaker might remind her the muck on that particular bottom would be rough sledding. Try high first even with the wind. They’d bat ideas back and forth, they’d check the humidity, the wind, the temperature. They’d obsessively watch The Weather Channel, then sit down, grumbling that those people knew nothing about the weather hard by the mountains, which could change in the bat of an eye.

  They’d devise their plan, rise early in the morning, open their window, or hurry out the front door to check the weather. Had there been a light frost? It would occur up here before it would in town. Did the wind change? What was the speed and direction? If Nature decided to change her clothes overnight, the two of them could alter their plan to suit. Both people were flexible and both were true hunters. They worked with Nature as their partner. People who slaved in air-conditioned offices, drove home in cars with air-conditioning or heated seats, had mostly forgotten that humans don’t control Nature. If she shifts, you shift with her.

  Today’s plan was to cast eastward, over the rolling hayfields, past the huge old chestnut. If scent held on the pastures it ought to be a hell of a day. If not, they’d comb through the woods, good trails throughout, and surely hit a line.

  They’d go east to the one-room schoolhouse at the edge of Cindy’s property. By then, people and horses would be relaxed. Walter would appear then disappear in the swale before the schoolhouse. Then they would turn northward, making a semicircle until reaching the waterwheel at the twin ponds, one above the other. Mist ought to be thickest there. Melissa and Brandon would be the wraiths of the ponds.

  The cast they’d devised kept the wind glancing at them at about a ninety-degree angle up to the schoolhouse. Turning there, hounds would be heading full into the breeze.

  “Think they’ll hit?” Raleigh deferred to Rooster, who as a harrier possessed more knowledge of hunting.

  “Shouldn’t take long. This place is crawling with foxes.” Rooster lifted his head. “Crawling.”

  Inky, sitting in the hayloft, the top door open to keep the hay fresh, looked down. “Didn’t crawl. I climbed.”

  “Inky, what are you doing here?” Raleigh liked the small black vixen.

  “Well, it’s not like I live that far away. Curiosity got the better of me.”

  “Who will give them the first run?” Raleigh asked.

  “Yancy. If he poops out, Grace is fishing down by the waterwheel ponds.”

  The waterwheel ponds, built by Cindy for practicality and beauty, had a small waterwheel that kept the water moving between the two levels of the ponds. Grace, Charlie’s sister, would fish there for hours.

  Cindy would watch through her binoculars. Grace’s Christmas present was a juicy salmon placed outside her den.

  “Rooster, come on.” Raleigh loped toward the sound of the horn. “See you later, Inky.”

  The two house dogs hurried past the stable, past the freshly painted outbuildings, down the fenced paddocks, and out into the larger pasture. They need not have hurried, for the hounds were drawing northward in a thin line of trees lining the creek, twenty yards at the widest point.

  A heavy gray cloud cover began to creep over the Blue Ridge Mountains. This would help hold scent down— and the temperature.

  Uncle Yancy heard them coming. He waited by the fence line at the chestnut tree pasture. He’d give them another five minutes, then he’d walk across the pasture, mark the chestnut tree, trot to the in and out jumps on the road, go over them, and then run all the way to the old schoolhouse. He’d dive into the den under the schoolhouse. That ought to get everyone’s blood up.

  Back in the covert, Ruthie wrinkled her nose. “What’s this?” Tears filled her eyes.

  Delia touched her nose to the spot. “Skun
k. Don’t go there, dear. ”

  Her brother took a whiff and his eyes watered, too.

  “Mmm.” Cora inhaled the musky fox odor of Yancy.

  Dasher ran past his brother, irritating him, put his nose down, then bellowed, “Dog fox! Yippee.”

  “Just wants to show off for the Saturday crowd,” grumbled the king of show-offs, Dragon.

  “You poor baby.” Asa bumped him as he ran by, which only irritated Dragon more.

  Seeing the handsome young hound snarl, Betty, on the left bank of the narrow creek, said quietly, “Dragon.”

  “I know. I know.” He put his nose down and hollered in his pleasing voice, “Good. Good. Good.”

  Shaker blew three sharp “rat-ta-tats,” which brought together the other hounds that had been fanning away from that spot. They all ran in, put their noses to the ground, then opened, honoring Dasher and Cora.

  Dasher, now in the front, was quite proud. He usually deferred to his brother, a bully, but today the glory was his, and Cora let him have it. Even if she picked the line first, it was okay that he opened, it would build his confidence.

  Shaker now blew “Gone Away,” one of the happiest series of notes a human can blow on a horn. Each longish one-note blast is topped by doubled or tripled notes. Usually three such bars suffice, but in his excitement, a huntsman who is a true windbag can go on and on and on. You’d think they’d pass out from light-headedness.

  The members of the field squared their shoulders. The Hilltoppers, right behind them, also put their heels down and lifted their chins.

  Sister waited until the last hound, Tinsel, cleared the covert. Having somehow gotten turned around in the excitement, Tinsel finally went right and Sister then squeezed Lafayette. Off they flew.

  Lafayette, her usual Saturday horse, earned that honor by virtue of his brains, his beauty, and his smooth gait. Aztec and Rickyroo were still young and learning their trade. Keepsake, at eight, was a wonderful horse who did whatever Sister asked of him. She took Keepsake to other hunts because he would ride in the field without fussing. Lafayette had to be first. He believed deep in his heart that everyone was there to see him.