The three had also made a pact to not discuss Nola or Guy. One, it was too depressing. Two, they felt they were going around in circles about it. Three, Tedi especially needed to be distracted, which is exactly why she had left her daughter and husband at Farmington Country Club while she repaired to Keswick. Both country clubs also had hunt clubs bearing their names.
By the time the main courses arrived, all were in much more relaxed moods. Sister ordered sesame-crusted salmon; Tedi tried the pan-seared tuna, which she found delicious. Shaker stuck to chicken.
By the time they'd ordered their desserts they were telling old hunting stories and laughing.
Nancy Holt, the club tennis pro, came in and was hailed over to the table. She hunted with Keswick Hunt Club during the season on her day off, Wednesday.
“And what are you doing at work?” Tedi asked the tall, attractive woman.
“Just finished a kids' tournament. Hey, I didn't know Crawford Howard paid an extra five thousand dollars so Doug would come over to Shenandoah.”
“What?” All three stopped, forks filled with rich dessert poised in midair.
“Yes. Doakie Sproul was in the tournament. His mother told me they were surprised but grateful.” Mrs. Georgianna Sproul, wife of the master of the Shenandoah Hunt, was Doakie's mother.
“That son of a bitch.” Shaker put his fork down.
“Uh-oh. Did I say something wrong?” Nancy put her hand to her mouth.
“No, you did not. Sit here. Would you like dinner?” Tedi patted the seat.
“No, thank you, but I'll take a drink.”
As the drink was ordered, Shaker's face grew redder. “That asshole. That total shit.” He drank a sip of tea. “I'm sorry, ladies.”
“I guess you didn't know.” Nancy had no great love for Crawford since he kept running into her during joint meets. He'd use her for a bumper when he couldn't hold Czapaka.
“Who did?” Tedi wondered. “And how come Wyatt Sproul didn't tell you?” Wyatt was Shenandoah's master.
“Wy is a good man. He must have thought I already knew.” Sister was putting two and two together.
“Doug would have told you. Means he doesn't know,” Shaker said, his color returning to its normal ruddy shade. “Sister, do I have your permission to strangle Crawford?”
“No, dear, he's not worth going to jail over.”
“We have to get even.” Tedi, too, was disturbed at this underhanded ploy.
“Oh, Tedi, we will.” Sister returned to her impossibly rich chocolate ice cream.
All four people realized Crawford had secretly paid to bump up Doug's salary. Not only would this make the huntsman's job more attractive but it would help Sister Jane accept that Doug should be at Shenandoah Hunt, not a particularly well-heeled club. Much as she wanted him to carry the horn, she didn't want him to starve doing it.
Sister realized Crawford wasn't motivated by a desire to help Doug, but rather one to weaken Jefferson Hunt. Doug was an inspired first whipper-in, and one reason for the club's success in the field. Crawford was betting on his substitute, like any rookie, making mistakes. If the season wasn't as good as it might be, if other clubs boasted better seasons, a certain amount of unrest would bubble up in the club. The hardened hunters knew better, but the fair-weather hunters and newcomers to the sport could be easily discouraged by a lackluster season. Especially if other clubs were having a good one.
Then he'd move in, and fan the unrest. As he was fanning, he would make certain everyone would become aware of the many fine things he could do if he were master, but you can't expect a man to spend his hard-earned cash in lavish amounts if he isn't going to carry the title of joint-master.
Tedi leaned back. “He'll stop at nothing.”
“That idiot will be joint-master over my dead body.” Shaker's eyes blazed.
“Don't say thatânot under the circumstances,” Sister gently corrected him.
CHAPTER 23
Spotty scent kept the hounds picking on the morning of September 10. They'd find a thread of enticement in the woods at Foxglove Farm, tease it toward the hayfields, then lose it in the middle of the hay, bent low under a steady wind slicing down off the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Days like this tested hounds, huntsman, and staff. During formal hunting, if the field was running and jumping, they usually paid little mind to the hard work of hounds, the conditions of soil and wind. But most of the souls who roused themselves to be at the fixture at seven-thirty in the morning knew hunting and were respectful of hound work. Cubbing brought out the best.
The tails, down, on Sister's old brown hunt cap flapped as she reined in one hundred yards from the huge chestnut in the middle of the hayfield. Two jumps beckoned enticingly in the fence line, but there was no telling if the hounds would head in that direction.
Walter took off work to hunt Thursday mornings, but as this was Tuesday, she found she missed him. Most wise employers in Virginia Horse Country will allow their employees one morning off, especially if the employee will work late another day. Beneficent as this sounds, it's a little bit like the schoolteacher who wishes everyone well on the first day of deer season and suspends classes. They're going to go, so you might as well make the best of it. City people frothed at the mouth over this when they moved to these parts to start a business. They often left declaring the eternal backwardness of Southerners.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, the numbers in the field remained low until Opening Hunt, perhaps ten to twenty depending on the weather. During formal hunting, Sister Jane averaged about twenty-five on weekdays and sixty on weekends.
Today, Tedi, Edward, Ralph, Xavier, Ronnie, Jennifer Franklin, Crawford, Marty, and Sari Rasmussen, a school friend of Jennifer's, waited with Sister in the hayfield.
The fox whose fading trail they'd been following, Grace, was a vixen from Target and Charlene's litter last year. Slender with a lot of black on her mask, she loved to fish in the ponds at Foxglove Farm. These two ponds on different levels had a waterwheel between them, moving water from one level to another, aerating the water. Grace's mother would shake her head and wonder why any child of hers preferred fishing to sauntering into the barn to eat grain and a few fat barn mice. Foxglove's house dog, a German shepherd, betrayed no interest in chasing foxes.
Once Grace heard Dragon's big mouth, she took off, running up the creek, over the rocks, and finally bursting into the hayfield. She knew hounds were far behind her and struggling with scent, so she doubled back on her track and slipped into her brother Reynard's old den. Reynard, killed last year by an act of human malice, had a roomy den that no other creature currently used. Grace's den was under one of the barns at Foxglove Farm. She could walk to work, as she put it.
She curled up for a well-earned snooze.
The field waited for ten minutes as the morning sun changed from scarlet to pink to gold.
Betty Franklin, on the left side today, stood at the edge of the hayfield. Sister figured Sybil was still in the woods to the right. Every now and then she heard Shaker's “Whoop.”
He could blow a beautiful hunting horn but preferred to use his voice until hounds found scent, then he'd call other hounds to the line. When hounds burst out of the covert he'd blow “Gone Away.”
The riders watched the hounds fan out over the field. Sister was very proud of her members, even Crawford, as they didn't automatically chatter and gossip at checks like this. Since he so desperately wanted to be joint-master, Crawford was now listening intently and making certain his behavior was unimpeachable in the field.
Target heard the hounds as he was heading home from the south side of Hangman's Ridge. He trotted across the sunken fields, crossed Soldier Road, then loped across the floodplain fields until the earth rose in front of him. He crossed under a three-board fence and entered the swaying hayfields directly across the farm road from where Sister waited.
Every now and then he'd catch a word or two in the distance from Dragon. He laughed to himself.
He walked through the hay, jumped on top of a coop, and sat, waiting for someone in the hayfield opposite to notice him. He was, at most, four football fields distant.
To add insult to injury, he groomed himself.
Edward had kicked his feet out of the stirrups to let his long legs dangle. When he picked up his stirrups again he looked across the field.
“Tallyho,” he whispered.
Tedi passed it up to Sister. “Tallyho.”
Sister's eyes followed the direction of Edward's cap. He'd taken off his hunt cap, pointed his arm straight toward the fox, and also pointed his horse's nose toward Target.
Crawford saw and foolishly bellowed, “Tallyho!”
He should have remained silent. Since hounds diligently kept their noses to the ground, he didn't spoil anything except he again demonstrated how slender his grasp was of both the necessities and proprieties of hunting.
“Tallyho, yourselves,”
Target murmured, and continued grooming.
On ascertaining that Target, whom she recognized, was in no hurry to depart, Sister cupped her hands to her mouth, being certain to holler in the direction of her huntsman. She let out the rebel yell, “Yip yip yo-o-o-o.”
That particular cry alerted Shaker that it was the master viewing and the master was unlikely to “tallyho” a groundhog, house cat, or fawn, each of which had been tallyho'd at one time or another by a member of the field.
He raised his voice to a high pitch. “Come to me. Whoop. Whoop.”
Trinity, although on her very first hunt, knew she was being called back to the huntsman, so she obediently turned, as did her sister, Tinsel. Delia, the mother of Dragon, Diana, and Dasher, called out to the others. Delia, moving a step slow these days, proved invaluable in steadying young ones. If she ran at the back of the pack she didn't much mind. She'd had her day up front and she didn't straggle, she stayed with the pack. A hound like Delia is a godsend to a huntsman.
Even Dragon, who resented interference, as he saw it, from Shaker, wanted to chase a fox. If Shaker was calling them, something must be up.
As the hounds returned to the huntsman, Sybil, who had been shadowing the pack on the right side, swung back with them.
Shaker wished to speak to his hounds, not humans. Sybil knew enough to stay on the right, so he merely waved her forward a bit. He was sure she'd learn the ropes quickly, but he hadn't realized how much he had relied on Doug Kinser, who would have been across the farm road by now.
“Let's find a fox.” Shaker smiled down at the upturned faces, then squeezed Hojo, a loud paint, his Tuesday horse, into an easy gallop. They moved smartly through the hayfield where the happy sight of the entire field, caps off, pointing to Target, poised on the far coop, greeted him.
Shaker slowed to a trot, let his hounds get up front of him, then urged them toward the farm road. The point was to give Target a chance to run; it would have been unsporting to do otherwise.
He let out a loud “whoop” to wake up the fox.
“What an ugly sound.”
Target looked brightly at the huntsman.
Wind swept the golden hay where hounds were working toward him; he could see sterns aloft. Target knew his scent was being blown away from the hounds but, as they closed in, they'd pick up his scent when he moved off. His pads would leave a scentprint for hound noses.
Betty quietly moved forward on the left, at a walk, no need to make a show of it.
Sister held her breath. “What is Target doing?”
“Dragon?”
Dragon lifted his head at the sound of Target's voice.
Tinsel and Trinity lifted their heads, too. No one had told them about this part.
“You couldn't find a fox with radar,”
Target taunted Dragon, then lifted off the far coop, swirled in midair, and ran flat out through the hay toward the sunken meadows. He figured he'd make a burst straight for his den, only zigging and zagging when he had to throw them off.
“I'll break your neck!”
Dragon roared back, his deep voice sending shivers down the spines of the humans.
“Follow me,”
he called over his shoulder.
Target had vanished into the hay, but Dragon relied on his nose to find him. He knew he could be fooled by sight and his eyes weren't as good as a fox's or a cat's. But his noseâhis nose was superb.
He leapt over the first coop. Why go under the fence line? Give everyone a show! He reached the second, cleared the coop without even touching it, put his nose right to ground on the other side, and let out a soul-stirring note in his rich baritone.
“I'm on!”
Shaker cheered the other hounds toward him. Delia double-checked Dragon's findings. Dragon was now about fifty yards ahead.
“Scorching!”
The young ones got a nose full of burning scent and became so excited that they tumbled over themselves. They picked themselves back up, hoping no one noticed.
All voices lifted to celebrate the thrill of the chase.
Shaker and Hojo smartly sailed over the first coop, raced across the farm road, sunken perhaps a foot below the hayfields, then went up and over the second.
Sister, heart racing, a grin from ear to ear, rode Keepsake over both coops and was thankful they'd just rebuilt them. Behind her she heard the rap of hooves as someone got in too close. Mostly she heard the “oomph,” “oomph,” “oomph,” of humans exhaling as they landed safely.
She kept about forty yards behind Shaker, fighting the urge to go right up with him.
“Squeeze him over,” she heard Marty Howard calling behind her. Sister glanced back to see that Crawford had gotten stuck on the farm road between the two jumps.
Under these circumstances, a rider is supposed to circle and go to the rear or wait, if he can't circle, and let everyone else by. Crawford, however, bottled up the rest of the field. No one wanted to thunder past him for fear of spooking Czapaka or, worse, crashing into him. He didn't have sense to go down the road and get out of everyone's way.
Finally, with a terrific squeeze and smack of his crop, he lurched over the second coop. Ronnie Haslip, not deigning even to look at Crawford, effortlessly sailed over both coops, flying by Crawford perched on his big, beautiful warmblood. Ronnie was followed by the two high school seniors, Jennifer and Sari, who didn't want to get stuck behind Crawford again, just in case.
There was an old stone fence line on the south side of the hayfield. After that pretty jump it was open country, Soldier Road, more open country, and up Hangman's Ridge or the long way around it at the bottom.
Betty, thinking ahead, was already over the stone wall on Magellan, a horse who had a tendency to stand back and leave a half step earlier than her trusted and true Outlaw. She and Magellan were still getting accustomed to each other, but she was thrilled at having two horses to hunt.
The day was turning out to be so good, she felt half guilty about leaving Bobby at workâbut not so guilty she wouldn't do it again.
Sybil didn't move fast enough, and Shaker preceded her over the stone wall at a low point where a few gray stones had fallen down. She swung in behind him, then tore out to his right side. He didn't criticize her since he knew she already understood she was not in the right position.
Keepsake, a handy fellow, thought the stone wall a lark. He liked taking different types of fences and he really liked having Sister on his back. She was much lighter than his former owner. Sister felt like a feather on his back.
This time Crawford took the jump last and cleared without incident.
Hounds streamed across the sunken meadow filled with the last of the black-eyed Susans and the first of the Jerusalem artichokes. Pendulous blackberries marked its eastern boundary.
Sister paused a moment at Soldier Road. She couldn't hear or see any motor traffic. She trotted over, jumped the old sagging coopâit needed replacingâand rode into the sunken meadow on the north side of the road. She galloped past more black-eyed Susans, Jerusalem artichokes, cornflowers, Queen Anne's lace, and white morning glories, their magenta throats pointing to the sun. Purple morning glories tangled through the grasses.
Hounds screamed. Their music gave her goose bumps.
Target, putting on the afterburners just to prove a point, shot straight up Hangman's Ridge, which at its summit was seven hundred feet above the watershed meadows below.
“Force those damned hounds to climbâand the people, too, if they're dumb enough,”
he thought.
Sister, however, wasn't going to push anyone that hard quite this early in the season. If it had been December, the air cool, the horses 100 percent fit instead of 85 percent fit, she would have climbed up. Today she circled around to the old rutted wagon path. It cost her precious minutes and she'd have to hustle once she reached the ridge to make them up. This she did.
Target, for effect, had raced to the hanging tree, left a mark at its base, then charged straight down the other side. He could now hear Dragon behind him. The hound was fast. Target had indulged in too much chicken the previous evening. A straight shot to his den might not be the best plan after all.
So he hatched a diabolical new one. Once at the base of the ridge he crossed the farm road there and dashed through Sister's old apple orchard.
Sister, now on the ridge, saw the last of her hounds go by the hanging tree, then straight down the ridge. The wagon path on the other side of the ridge connected to her farm road. If she pushed Keepsake toward it, they'd have to cover a quarter mile to reach it.