Riding Shotgun

by Rita Mae Brown

“Yes.” Cig pondered that, then slowly responded. “But if she wanted to be part of this, this circle, she could. She could find warmth and love by stepping outside her door. In my time, millions of people don’t even know their neighbors.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Shocked, Margaret stopped her knitting. “You can’t live without your neighbor.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I am telling you about it.”

  “Sorry, Margaret, it’s an expression. I wish I could take you home, but I was thinking again that I wish I could bring my children here. I’d almost rather bring them here than go back. Funny. I”—her eyes misted over—“I would like them to feel this—” She put her hands up in mute expression.

  “Love.” Margaret put down the scarf and put her arm around Cig’s shoulders. “Pryor, love is where you find it. That’s been said long before I was born but it can’t be that barren in your time. You feel barren. You’ve been wounded by your sister and your husband. If that had happened to me I would no doubt feel as you do but truly, sister, there is always love.”

  “I know,” came the wobbly reply. “But individual love can’t replace community love. I wish I could find a better way of putting it. Margaret, in my time very few people love you or even like you for yourself. They like you for what you can do for them. No one has any time to waste. Waste. The word itself tells you how we feel about passing the time with someone else.”

  “I would guess that if you talk to your friends they will talk to their friends. Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.”

  “Perhaps. More than perhaps. You’re right. If people want things to change for the better then they do.” She jabbed her finger. “I hate this.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Margaret, I’ve got to learn sometime.” She sucked her finger. “You’ve been chirping like a bluebird these last few days. What’s up?”

  “Another expression—well, I haven’t told Tom because I won’t be sure until next month but,” she paused, thrilled, “I think I’m with child.”

  “Hurrah!” Cig threw the shirt on the floor and hugged her.

  “I’m hoping someday to hug you for the same reason.”

  “Well—you never know. Anything is possible.”

  “And soon.” Margaret laughed, her eyes twinkling. “We will prevail upon Fitz to stay the night after the foxhunt. It will save the road to Jamestown. That man will wear it out from travel.”

  “You know, Margaret, if I ever get back to my home I’m going to miss you.” Cig felt her chest tighten.

  37

  A hard frost, silvery in the pale dawn, cloaked the earth. Everyone at Buckingham had risen before dawn to prepare for the day’s hunt. The ladies from surrounding plantations would be bringing food. Margaret had been cooking an enormous pot of ham and bean soup for two days. Cold meats, cheeses, and sweetcakes were wrapped in moist towels and placed in the summer kitchen. After the chase Margaret and Marie would quickly lay out the food for their famished guests. Much as Margaret wanted to participate she needed to supervise the hunt breakfast.

  People arrived with the sun, some coming across the river on John MacKinder’s ferry. Horses would be brought for them by friends on the north side of the James River.

  Cig wore her hunting clothes, including the white silk stock tie that she’d borrowed from Fitz, and she’d hung the Indian knife in a leather sheath on her belt.

  “It’s going to be a good hunting day, Tom,” she greeted him.

  “Aye.” He smiled.

  The hunt was to serve two purposes. The first was to bring people back together to demonstrate that the Deyhles, the deVries, and Devlin Fitzroy had made their peace. The second purpose was to celebrate continued good fortune. Blackpaws had commanded his people to live in peace with the whites. His younger son was banished from the tribe.

  William Byrd returned to report that the tribes south of the James River intended to keep their promises. As for hotheads, it seemed that was a function of youth.

  Dr. Steinhauser traveled to Jamestown to remove Fitz’s stitches. Fitz was eager to hunt.

  When he rode into the Buckingham quad with his black and tans, Cig couldn’t restrain herself. She ran out of the bam to greet him.

  He dismounted and kissed her.

  “I am the luckiest man in Virginia. A beautiful lady, a fine horse, and a good pack of hounds.”

  “In that order?” She hugged him.

  “In that order.”

  “I’ll be with you in a minute.” She started for the barn.

  “I hope you are with me for my entire life.” He smiled but his voice was serious.

  She stepped back to him. “Patrick Fitzroy, just try to get rid of me.” Then she kissed him again and ran to the barn while he remounted, wincing as he braced off his left leg.

  Cig joined the crowd of people assembling.

  “Lionel and Tom, ride with me,” she called, as Lionel had just arrived with his mother.

  The two men rode up to her. Kate deVries stayed back with Margaret to help her set the table, warm the soups and prepare the breakfast.

  The black and tan hounds gathered around Fitz, looking for a command, their sweet brown eyes eager. He winked at Cig, blew his horn and moved off. She rode in his pocket while Tom and Lionel stayed just behind in hers.

  The hounds thrashed about for fifteen minutes and then a huge hound lifted his head, gave a deep cry, and then, nose down, dashed after the scent. The others honored his cry.

  The hounds veered sharply right into the woods at the curve of the river. Cig, without thinking, leaped over a fallen tree trunk to plunge into the woods. Some of the riders fell off at the sharp turn. Those still seated picked their way around the fallen tree. The hounds stopped in the woods, cast themselves and then picked up the scent. They swarmed past Cig then moved west again.

  The hounds ran at a blazing pace while the field still wended its way through the woods and muck from the melting snows.

  Once out of the woods on the other side, Cig halted to listen for the hounds.

  “If the hounds doubled-back we should have seen our fox,” she half mumbled.

  “Unless he climbed a tree,” Tom added.

  “Or unless there’s more than one fox,” Lionel said.

  “There is always that.” Cig smiled at him.

  “Damned strange.” Tom noticed a fog developing on the river.

  Cig, thinking nothing of it, airily replied, “Means the water temperature is higher than the air temperature.”

  The thick mist moved in quickly as they watched it curl around their horses’ legs.

  “Can’t hunt in this,” Daniel complained.

  “True enough but a bad day hunting is still better than a good day at work.” Cig tried to raise their spirits as everyone had looked forward to the day’s sport.

  In the distance she heard the hounds. “Tom, why don’t you take everyone back and I’ll fetch the Huntsman.”

  “He’s coming closer,” Tom said.

  “He is, but you turn back and I’ll be hard on your heels with the pack. I don’t want people sitting in this fog. You can take a nasty chill.”

  Tom stubbornly stayed put.

  “Tom.”

  “What if they find again?” He wanted to hunt.

  “We’ll kill ourselves stepping into a hole or a low tree branch. We can’t take people into this.” She appealed to Lionel “Lionel, please take them back. I’ll be right behind you. I would consider it a very great favor.”

  He couldn’t refuse that. He nodded. “As you wish.” Then he called to the field, “Follow me.”

  People, disappointed, turned back toward Buckingham.

  Cig rode toward the sound of the horn and the hounds.

  “Tom, you can be pigheaded.”

  “Runs in the family.”

  “Fitz!” No answer, so she rode forward. A hound streaked by her, then another. “Fitz!”

  “Yes,” he called back. Within seconds he
was by her side. “Damned filthy fog.”

  “Could have been worse. Could have been a blank day.”

  The remaining hounds trotted out on the road.

  That quickly, those hounds found scent, surging forward. Fitz blew the return call but they didn’t obey, which infuriated him.

  A bark, higher pitched than a hound’s, captured Cig’s attention. In the road in front of her sat Fattail. He had eluded the hounds, doubled-back, and insouciant as ever, called out his challenge.

  “Fattail!” She cheered at the sight of him.

  “He’s huge,” Fitz said admiringly.

  I’ve been chasing this fellow for years.”

  “I’ve seen him watching me in the fields,” Tom said.

  “Let’s chase him some more, the fog be damned.” Fitz blew on his horn. A few hounds could be heard returning but the others were either out of range or practicing selective hearing.

  The merry fox stayed just ahead of the three humans so they could see him in the fog.

  “Bold.”

  “Bold as brass.” Cig laughed, thrilled to see the familiar beautiful face. She charged in front of Fitz, who didn’t mind.

  The sound of the few obedient hounds drew closer. Fattail picked up from a trot to a moderate run. Fitz began to canter. The fog thickened, swirling around him. Cig heard a strange twang, a gurgle following. She turned and looked behind but could see nothing.

  A rustle in the forest along the river and an odd bird call like a woodpecker sounded innocent enough.

  Fattail barked again—Move it There was urgency in his voice.

  Both Cig and Fitz heard hoofbeats behind them. Helen, riderless, shot past them.

  “Damn, he must have fallen off. I’d better go back.”

  Fitz turned to see if he could find Tom. His face whitened. He shouted to Cig, “Run, run, as fast as you can.”

  She hestitated a moment. “What about Tom?”

  “RUN!”

  She spurred Throttle, charging into the silver shroud. She heard Fitz immediately behind her then heard him turn his horse. A loud shout followed, a battle cry.

  She wanted to turn back but she feared his fury as much as she feared whoever was chasing them. She looked to Fattail who was running flat-out, his ears back against his head. Throttle’s nostrils were wide open. He reached long with his forelegs straining for ground.

  She heard another shout, a cry of pain.

  She clutched for breath. Throttle shot forward like a jet. The hoofbeats came closer. She heard a whizzing sound and a thunk. She knew better than to look back. She was running for her life.

  She put her hands far up on Throttle’s outstretched neck, lying low on the saddle as another whizzing sound sped by her ears. She sat up slightly and felt a sharp pain slide across her back. She doubled down, putting her head alongside Throttle’s neck, crouching as low in the saddle as she could.

  Her throat was on fire. Tears filled her eyes from the wind and from stark terror. Another thunk, louder, made her wince. Fattail stayed immediately in front of her, flying.

  She rode hard, veering right off the river road, following Fattail as he clambered up an embankment, then they were in the woods. She saw a post-and-rail fence before her. Throttle gathered himself, soaring over the fence, Fattail shooting under it.

  She burst into the meadow as the mist lifted. There was her hunt field, patiently awaiting her, Grace in charge. Fighting back her sobs, she charged up to them as Hunter and Laura, seeing her distress, pulled away from the group to meet her.

  Cig wanted to say something. She wanted to say that she loved them, that Fitz was right behind her. She pulled up, sliding off the saddle in exhaustion. She took a few steps and then fell facedown in the grass.

  Grace turned from her conversation with Binky and saw her. “Good God!”

  Dr. Bill Dominquez dismounted and ran over to Cig as Hunter and Laura were already bending over their mother. He knelt down and noticed a deep slash across the back of her jacket. Blood was seeping through.

  “Oh, Mom!” Laura threw herself on her mother as Grace, also now on the ground, ran flat-out to help. The entire hunt field was hurrying to her.

  Bill took her pulse as Hunter, ashen, tears splashing down his cheeks, asked, “Will she be okay?”

  Fattail sat down, observed, then melted back into the October woods.

  PART III

  38

  What’s worse, the antiseptic white of a hospital or the disinfectant odor? Cig focused on the harvest gold floral pattern of the drapes. The only color worse than institutional harvest gold was avocado.

  Her back stung. A single IV line ran into her arm but no tube up her nose and as far as she could tell she was not sedated. A shuffle outside her room alerted her to a possible intrusion but whoever it was passed the room.

  She sat up, slid her feet out from the covers and padded to the window. She parted the offending curtains and discovered it was blackest night with a thick frost. Satisfied, she walked back to bed. She was in her century. She wasn’t sure how or what had happened but she determined to keep her mouth shut.

  Wincing as she lay down on the bed, she curled over on her side and tried to sleep but the sound of Fitz’s voice rang in her ears. Each time she closed her eyes she heard him bellow “RUN” and trembled to think of what had become of him. She prayed that he had galloped through time with her and she’d see him in the morning.

  Not for a minute did she believe her sojourn with Tom and Margaret was a dream. It was too vivid. She flicked on a light above her bed then flicked it off for the sheer excitement of it. Tiny iridescent dots danced before her eyes. No wonder people at the end of the twentieth century were hateful. Their eyes hurt from the harsh light and they didn’t even know it.

  The sound of a telephone ringing down at the reception room, such a familiar sound yet now so alien, irritated her even more than the electric light.

  Her right shoulder ached so she rolled on her stomach to avoid pressing her back against the bed. That didn’t feel much better. She was restless and out of sorts.

  The split second she had laid eyes on Hunter and Laura carried her through the raw misery gnawing at her entrails. She knew Fitz was dead despite her prayers. Not just because it was 1995 and he’d been dead for almost three hundred years. The cry of pain she’d heard behind her in the fog was the last sound he made.

  “So this was the trade-off of the gods? In exchange for seeing my children again they get the man I love.” A flash of bitterness opened her eyes again.

  To never see Fitz’s strong sensuous mouth, hear his lilting Irish voice—the visceral reality of him overwhelmed her. Gone, as were Margaret’s kindness and Tom’s ready laugh. Lionel DeVries’s imposing presence had vanished before the Revolutionary War. Unless Abraham Boothrod lived to an advanced old age that sweet young man had aged and died before the colonies became independent as well. Time could be measured in nanoseconds, yet this was an exercise in futility for Chronos always won.

  We will die. Time remains eternal.

  Hot tears splashed on her pillow. She could hear the lap of the James on the riverbank and John MacKinder’s deep baritone as he sang out, pushing into the current.

  The door opened a crack. She wiped her eyes on the pillow lifting her head. As she was looking behind her, over her shoulder, she couldn’t really see so she sat up.

  “You’re awake.”

  “Yes. How long have you been here?”

  “I rode in the ambulance with you.” Grace walked over and pulled up the small, uncomfortable chair by the night stand. She sat down and snapped on the bedside lamp. “You were out cold for over an hour. We thought you had a concussion but you didn’t. That cut on your back is nasty. I’d sure as hell like to find whoever pulled that stunt.” Her voice vibrated.

  “We’ll never find them,” Cig matter-of-factly stated.

  “What makes you say that?” Grace reached for Cig’s hand. Cig pulled it away.

  �
�Whoever cut me up has disappeared in the fog.”

  “That was weird wasn’t it, that fog?” Grace was troubled by Cig’s withdrawal.

  “It’s funny though. Sometimes you need the fog to see clearly. We trust our eyes too much and our instincts too little.”

  “Well, I’m not ready for Philosophy 101 at four in the morning, but I am glad you’re all right. Bill Dominquez says you can go home Monday. The doctor on duty down in the E.R. said it looks like you were shot with some kind of arrow.”

  “Stone head?”

  Grace’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  “A guess.”

  “Well, that’s what Dr. Sonneshine said—a steel-tipped arrow would have made a more uniform trench. Sorry—” She wished she hadn’t used that word trench.

  “It’s all right.”

  “Bet it hurts like hell.”

  “Starting to.” Cig asked, “How are Hunter and Laura?”

  “Fine now that they know you’re okay. They drove the rig home, along with Harleyetta and Roberta, and took care of the horses, so don’t worry about that. Then the kids brought some clothes for you. They stayed until eleven when I made them go home. Bill Dominquez and Dr. Sonneshine assured them that you were none the worse for wear, you just needed to sleep and so did they. After a ceremonial tussle they finally left.”

  “Thanks.” Cig lapsed back on her pillow, a mistake. She winced then sat up again and plumped the pillow behind the small of her back.

  “Here, let me help.” Grace took the other pillow and put it under Cig’s knees. “Always makes me feel better. Can’t do anything about your back but I can make you more comfortable in other places.

  “Will came by while you were asleep. He said he’d drop by out at the farm later in the week.”

  “That was good of him.”

  “It was,” Grace agreed.

  Cig studied the perfect face before her, a slant of bright light across the porcelain skin, a flash of those big blue eyes. She had forgiven her at Margaret’s bidding. But back here she would have to forgive her all over again. It was one thing to recall betrayal. Quite another to have the betrayer in your face. “Grace, do you love me?”