Riding Shotgun

by Rita Mae Brown

  She motioned for Grace to come alongside her. “What do you think?”

  “He can’t get across the river at this point but if he makes it back to Tinker’s Creek he’ll go right up the middle of the creek and run upland—if it’s the fox I think it is. Fattail.”

  “Yeah, he’s smarter than the rest of them put together. I’m going to cut up on the other side of the creek. Let’s see if we can stay clear of his line but still get out of here fast.”

  “Okay.”

  At Tinker’s Creek, Cig held up her arm for the field to halt. She strained to hear the hounds. She heard hoofbeats. Laura and Roberta pulled up at the rear of the field. Hunter turned and winked at his sister, put his fingers to his lips. They all strained to hear a twig snap, a hound call, anything.

  Cig turned to Grace and shrugged. The fox must have leaped the creek and continued on. They picked their way over the creek and just when the entire field was on the other side, Caruso burst out of the woods, followed within minutes by the rest of the pack.

  “Staff!” Cig yelled.

  Everyone crowded to the side of the road, horses’ tails turned away from the oncoming hounds as the pack splashed into the creek, which fed the James, then scrambled up the opposing bank. Roger and Sidekick cleared it in one huge arc. Carol, Jane, and Agnes were nowhere to be seen.

  “Reverse field,” Laura called from the back just as her mother soared over the creek.

  They turned around in the order in which they had been moving and blasted out of there. At least they hadn’t lost the hounds. The pace accelerated. By now they’d been running, with the exception of the cornfield check, for a solid forty-five minutes.

  Harleyetta, next to Hunter, was gasping. “If this keeps up we’ll be in Richmond for lunch.”

  A tree blocked their path looming dangerously in the mist. It must have come down in the previous week’s high winds. Cig reacted instantly. She slowed up, warned the field, then adroitly picked her way around the outstretched branches and continued on.

  Finally they curved to the left, away from the river, out of the fog and back through the woods into a very small clearing. Not a sound could be heard other than people and horses trying to catch their breath. Cig halted in the clearing.

  “We’re over to Jace Goodling’s place,” she said to Grace.

  “Damn. I didn’t think we’d gone that far.”

  They sat quietly for a bit. A red-tailed hawk, gazing down at them, decided they weren’t worth squat and flew on.

  As they strained for an echo, a reverberation, the mist from the river crept into the clearing. Cig rode to the edge and, scarcely breathing, sat still. She glanced back to look at the field. Roberta, worn out, pulled on her flask filled with a concoction of orange juice, bourbon, and many tablespoons of sugar. Binky sidled up to her, checking to see where the dreaded Harleyetta was, and gratefully knocked back a swig when it was offered to him. Grace, face flushed, chatted with Bill, a colleague of her husband’s, an OB/GYN man. As it was a small hospital, everyone knew everybody.

  For an instant Cig felt as though time were frozen. She was in a tableau painted by Sir Alfred Munnings, George Stubbs, or Ben Marshall. Here at the close of the twentieth century, the most murderous era of all human history, here for this brief moment, she and this intrepid band belonged to something ancient, something Homer wrote about, something great Elizabeth I enjoyed, something so deep in human bones that no amount of technology or “progress” could change it: the chase.

  The horses, nostrils flaring, large kind eyes looking about, pink tongues playing with bits, could be horses that Achilles would have admired, or Balzac, that passionate fox-hunter. Century after century, the bond between human and horse held them together in a ballet of use and love, a negotiation between need and service. The horse submitted to domestication, the human to providing food and training, until a time came when one couldn’t quite live without the other. Not even the advent of the automobile could dissolve this bargain of friendship.

  The scarlet coats of the gentlemen answering the flaming red of the turning maples, the shining black patent leather boot tops of the ladies who had earned their colors, the white saddle pads and the rich Havana brown of the well-oiled tack, the vibrancy of the scene filled her with a sense of fragile holiness.

  And for a flash, a fleeting screech of time, she could see how truly beautiful her sister was. The high peach shine in Grace’s cheeks, the dancing eyes, the hard-won and bought perfection of her body, the light touch of her hands, the perfect pitch of her voice. Yes, her sister was Aphrodite and for that split second she forgot decades of suppressed jealousy, the pain of not being the beautiful one, and she just drank in her sister’s beauty as though Grace had stepped, laughing, from a sensuous canvas by John Singer Sargent.

  Hunter, tall, the black shadow of his shaved whiskers barely visible beneath his square jaw, his curly black hair peeking out from under his old hunt cap, so worn the black was now faded to brown, could have stepped off a canvas as well. His lips glistened red. His teeth were as straight and white as the orthodontist could make them. Hunter didn’t realize he was irresistible. For that his mother thanked God.

  Laura was a template of Grace, her beauty unripened whereas Grace’s was in full flower. In a culture that worshiped surfaces, Cig knew beauty would help her daughter survive. Laura, without ever consciously knowing it, had learned a woman’s watchfulness. Her brother was far more trusting and innocent. Laura listened, weighed, and then acted. As for last night’s declaration, Cig couldn’t make head or tail of it. She stared at Laura, straining to remember how it felt to teeter on the edge of womanhood.

  And she thought of Blackie. How he would have loved today’s hunt. No fence was too high. No run too hard. He delighted in putting the pedal to the metal. His rider’s ego was out of proportion to his accomplishment, but no one had much seemed to mind.

  The funny thing was, even though he was never a true partner, a mature man, she had loved him longer than was reasonable because he was all she knew. His sheer physical intensity overwhelmed her. She could never detach herself from how gorgeous he was, and he became more handsome with age.

  She put him out of her mind as she listened for the hounds. What was there about physical exhilaration, about the fluid beauty of foxhunting, that could open her soul? She searched the woods then glanced back at the people. In her own way, she loved them, even the ones who drove her crazy.

  A lone howl alerted her—Ramey, the basso profundo of the pack. Not a fast hound but as steady as a rock, Ramey never bayed falsely. Closer came the magical voice. Then she heard Lily Pons, a funny little bitch with pop eyes who straggled behind but somehow managed to keep in the hunt. Lily had an uncanny ability to stay on the scent no matter how rough the terrain and to stick to a cooling scent until it warmed again.

  Cig held up her hand for silence since the group had begun to gossip. They quieted.

  Fattail himself burst into the clearing, stopped in his tracks right in front of Cig. He had the audacity, the sheer gall to bark right in the Master’s face. If the field hadn’t seen it they wouldn’t have believed it. Then Fattail, flicking the mighty crimson plume for which he was named, trotted around the group, downshifting to a walk out the west side of the small meadow and back into the woods. Within seconds, the pack dashed into the field only to run around the horses who naturally began moving about a bit, thereby disturbing the scent. Everyone in the field turned his horse’s nose and held his hat in the direction of Fattail’s imperious exit so that when Carol first rode by on the right, then Jane on the left, at least they knew where the fox had gone. It was a rare sight indeed to see the entire field indicating the direction of a fox’s path, but Fattail’s display was so blatant, even the least observant couldn’t miss it. Roger, followed by Agnes, emerged, appraised the situation and dove back into the woods, Cig hot on his heels.

  They cantered through the trees, praying their knees would survive it, headed up a steep,
rocky incline, and came out in Bob Maki’s hay field, the hay bales in rows, a flat hay wagon standing between the rows. The sun glittered on the hay, squares of gold. The fox shot through the hay field, leaving the hounds and the field a torturous path to follow. Cig, impatient, did something she would chide a member for doing. She set her course straight for the other side of the field, soaring over the hay wagon.

  At the fence line into the next field she cleared a coop, the field following behind her. She ran hell-for-leather through that field, downhill most of it, taking a coop at the other fence line. Into the woods again but only for an instant because Fattail scooted through a huge tree trunk just to drive the hounds nuts and get a few stuck behind him. Then Fattail charged into a herd of sheep. That trick slowed the hounds for some time. Roger could have lifted them and brought them to the other side of the herd but Fattail, a genius at dumping hounds, had vanished. Roger let his hounds work while the field checked for a moment, grateful for the rest.

  Ramey stopped and lifted his nose, then put it back to the ground. Caruso and Pavarotti, far in the front, began to whine. They lost the line.

  “How does he do it!” Cig slapped her hand on her thigh.

  Grace joined her as did Hunter and Laura.

  “Mom, he’s got some mojo working in this field.” Hunter lifted his cap off his head and ran a hand through his pasted down curls. “He always disappears in the same place.”

  “Into thin air.” Grace found need of her flask, full of Harvey’s Hunting port, which she offered her sister who took a big swig and handed it back.

  Then Cig pulled on her own flask, straight scotch, and offered it to Grace.

  “God, no. I’d die.”

  “Wimp.” Cig smiled.

  “Mom?”

  “Hunter, I’ll avert my eyes since you aren’t of age.” Cig passed him the flask, and when he returned it, offered it to Laura. “A sip?”

  Laura shook her head. “No.”

  “What I don’t understand is he has no den here. If he went to ground—well, it’s just too weird.” Grace accepted a drink from Harleyetta’s flask. It brought tears to Grace’s eyes.

  Cig spoke to the field. “Fattail ditched us again. Same time, same station.”

  “I can’t believe that he barked in your face.” Harleyetta, like the others, was astounded.

  “What do you think he was saying?” Bill laughed.

  “Fuck you,” Binky offered.

  “And then some.” Cig laughed.

  Carol, on her way to gather hounds still in the woods, just shook her head.

  Cig called out to her, “If I live to be one hundred years old I swear I will find out how he does this.”

  “Better turn into a fox then,” Carol called back.

  “I bet other foxes don’t even know,” Florence Moeser added, her voice cracking a bit.

  Cig, grateful that Florence had survived the chase, exhaled. She knew, too, that someday Florence would die hunting—and that’s exactly how the eighty-four-year-old wanted it.

  “Folks, let’s hold up here for a minute.”

  A hound squealed back in the woods. It sounded like Streisand, hurt or scared.

  Cig waited a moment but the yowling continued. Carol had ridden to the other side of the woods to gather hounds so she wouldn’t be able to hear this one. Wanting to speed things along Cig noticed that Roger was checking on the other side of the sheep. Fat chance.

  “Harleyetta, come with me. Grace, take the field—just in case.” Cig singled out Harleyetta to make her feel good and because the woman had to have known she was often the butt of many jokes, both because of her intermittent drinking and the fact that she couldn’t hold her horse. She was a loyal member of the club, though, and Cig liked her.

  They rode into the thickly scented woods. The mist, heavier than before and odd for this time of the morning, nine thirty now, continued to roll up from the river. They spied Jane Fogleman, on foot, trying to overturn the huge old fallen tree trunk that Streisand refused to leave. Cig was glad Jane had found Streisand. The bitch put her head back and howled at the top of her considerable lungs.

  “Jane, what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know. She won’t leave here and she’s just—well, look at her.” Jane was at a loss to explain the hound’s distress. “Bet Fattail ran through the trunk or stopped and left a little marker, you know.” Jane, with a major effort, rolled the trunk a bit more. A bony hand, what was left of it, protruded through a rotted hole in the trunk. “Good God!” Jane involuntarily took a step back.

  Cig dismounted, handing her reins to Harleyetta, whose eyes bugged out of her head. Without saying a word Cig knelt down and began tearing at the hole in the trunk. A skeleton was wedged in the fallen tree trunk. They stared.

  “This huge old chestnut has been here for three hundred years at least. Look at the size of it.” Jane kept blinking. “The body was in the trunk. Now who would do something like that? And why?”

  “Why is obvious,” Cig answered her. “To hide it.”

  Harleyetta handed the reins to Jane and carefully examined the bones, which had fallen apart over the decades. “He’s been here for a long, long time. There’s not a scrap of flesh, a bit of hair, nothing.” She plucked out the skull; the big square teeth were still intact.

  Jane patted Streisand to calm her down.

  Cig took the skull from Harleyetta. A strange flash of recognition made her nearly drop it. There was something unnervingly familiar about that dead smile.

  “Maybe he’s a leftover from the War Between the States.” Cig stared at the whitened bones, a faint shiver running over her body as she replaced the skull.

  “Could be,” Jane said. “But the Yankee gunboats didn’t get this far upriver and there was nothing to come up here for anyway.”

  “Meanness. Never forget that.” Harleyetta stood back up.

  “Well, let’s call the sheriff, and he can give this fellow, or what’s left of him, a resting place with a stone on it.” Cig held Gypsy while Harleyetta, with difficulty, remounted. A rustle behind some dogwoods diverted her attention for a moment. She thought she caught a glimpse of Fattail.

  Then Cig, thanks to her height, easily swung into the saddle. “My God, what a day this has been—and it’s not over yet.” She half-laughed.

  “Best run all season. Maybe ever.” Jane took off her cap. She glanced again at the bones in the trunk, then mounted up. “I’m going back farther into the woods. We’re still missing two hounds.”

  Streisand followed Cig and Harleyetta as they walked away.

  “Guess you get used to seeing stuff like that, being a nurse.”

  Harleyetta shook her head. “Not quite like that. It’s worse when you know them.” Her lips clamped down as though she were fighting the words that threatened to tumble out of her own mouth.

  “Speaking of knowing them, I don’t know if I ever told you how much I appreciate all you did for Blackie when he came into the E.R. I know he was beyond help, but you tried everything to revive him. I’ll always be in your debt, Harley. You’ve taken care of many of us since you’ve been down at the hospital.”

  “Oh, Cig, don’t mention it. He died fast and happy. Even if I’d been at Grace’s house I don’t think I could have saved him, but you’ve got to try. That’s—well—” She shook her head.

  “Happy?”

  “Uh—” Harleyetta stalled.

  “What do you know that I don’t?”

  “Nothing.” Her voice hit high C.

  Cig, without knowing it, opened Pandora’s box by her nonchalance. “Knowing Blackie, he’d probably just got laid and—”

  Harley breathed a sigh of relief. “Here I’ve been carrying this around for a year and you knew all the time! I’ve got to hand it to you, Cig. You’re something special. Most women couldn’t have taken it.”

  Cig shrugged. Her breath caught in her throat. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know whatever it was Harleyetta thought she knew. �
��Can’t do anything about it when they’re gone.”

  “Can’t do anything about it when they’re alive. Men.”

  Cig kept her voice as firm as she could. “How’d you know?”

  “I put him on the gurney after we tried every procedure to resuscitate him. Helped undress him. His jockey shorts told the tale. I mean, I knew anyway. We all did. We didn’t know if you knew what had been going on so everybody just clammed up. We talked to each other, of course. Can’t stop that.” She inhaled. “Well, he died in the saddle. Must have been hell for her to get his clothes on.”

  “Grace is a remarkable woman,” Cig whispered.

  “Oh, here, I’ve made you think about all this again, and you and Grace have made your peace. Blackie was just like that, you know. In his own way, he loved you.”

  “That’s what he always said.” Cig smiled reflexively. The mist felt clammy on her skin. A wound opened up in her stomach. The edge of the woods was ahead.

  The field stood waiting.

  “They’ll never believe this. None of us will ever believe this day,” Harleyetta said, voice filled with excitement.

  Streisand bounded forward to join the pack.

  Cig stared at her sister and wondered if she could keep from killing her.

  Another yowl from the woods and a call from Jane drew Cig’s attention away from Grace.

  “Found it,” was what her words sounded like, but then her voice faded away.

  “Grace,” Cig, relieved to have an excuse to be alone for a few moments to collect herself, called out, “I’m going back for a minute.”

  “Okay.” Grace answered, unaware of what had transpired.

  The hound’s voice pierced the air. Cig turned Full Throttle back into the woods. “Harley, tell them what Jane found. I’ll catch up to you if you move off.”

  She had to get through this hunt, get the horses back home and then think of how to kill Grace. Swiftly or a slow, wretched death?

  She rode back to the trunk. The bony hand seemed to reach out for her. She shuddered now, uncontrollably. Within seconds she was enveloped in mist. She had no desire to be in the fog with an oddly familiar skeleton no matter how old it was.