Lost & Hound, page 11
“Find your fox.”
“Stuff is blowing up my nose.” Ardent sneezed.
“Me too,” Parker, a year older, commiserated.
Skinny Jinks, still filling out, called, “Maybe. Think I’ve got something.”
Dreamboat trotted over. “Faint but he’s right.”
All the hounds scrambled over as branches swayed overhead. With deliberation, tails feathering, the pack moved toward the farm road, yet stayed in the woods. They veered due north. The pace picked up to a slow trot.
Sister, knowing the only wide trail was the farm road once over the creek, headed for it. Kathleen and Aunt Daniella saw her up ahead. Soon the field was behind her, followed by Bobby Franklin and Second Flight.
The wind smacked everyone on the face, but hounds were speaking so all kicked on. Kathleen followed seventy yards behind the last person.
“What’s Barry Harper doing in the rear? He’s usually First Flight,” Kathleen wondered. “Maybe letting the other riders block the wind.”
“Hell no, Kathleen. He wants to be by Elise Sabatini. She’s a looker.”
“Oh.” Kathleen hadn’t thought of that.
“Speaking of men looking at women. How’s Buddy Cadwalder?”
Kathleen didn’t answer at first, moving a bit faster, as in twenty miles per hour. “Ah. Quiet again. Buddy? I like him. He’s thoughtful.”
“Good.” Aunt Daniella pulled her scarf high around her throat. “Even a crack, a little opening and I feel the dropping temperatures.”
“I do, too.”
Hounds moved on the same line, which heated up. Then they turned, heading due west again. Sister had to turn back to find a decent east-west path. Kathleen pulled over to the side of the road, cutting the engine. The minute Elise and Barry trotted by, Kathleen turned on the motor.
“Ah.” Aunt Daniella held her hands to the vent.
“It’s getting hateful. Yvonne’s tough, being out there, and winter will be colder than this.” Kathleen turned around.
“She’s having a wonderful time. She says she’ll never have to go to the gym again.”
“I believe it.”
Out they drove, reached the bridge. Windows down again.
“Moving fast. They’re heading straight for the fence line.” Aunt Daniella, having lived ninety plus years in the county, knew her territory intimately. “Go through the bridge, then stop. We might be able to see up to the fence line.”
Kathleen did. They focused to their right. Aunt Daniella, on that side, had her window down a bit.
“Hounds are speaking. The field has to take the hog’s back jump. Yep. There go the hounds over it. Next Weevil.”
Sister followed in three minutes. The narrow cleared path allowed riders to gallop in single file. Everyone kept up.
The fox, Comet, shot for his den under Tootie’s cabin. He reached it, ducking in under the porch, sliding into his spacious den.
Hounds reached the porch five minutes later.
“Come out,” Thimble hollered.
“Yeah.” Twist couldn’t think of anything more original.
Weevil arrived, dismounted, blew “Gone to Ground.” He also knew Comet, so this was the end of the run.
A blast of air made some tree branches scratch the cottage’s windows, an eerie sound.
Another blast turned cheeks cold.
Sister turned her collar up. “Weevil, pull them up. We’ve been at it for two hours. This weather isn’t going to get any better.”
“Come on. Come along.”
Comet came out of his den to peer through the latticework. The wind, not as bad as higher off the ground, rustled his gray fur. Back to the den.
Jeeter, a first-year entry, asked Zorro, “Does a fox ever come out of his den?”
“I’ve never seen one. Once they reach it, that’s it. Kind of like our kennels. You get back, it’s warmer, you got food,” Zorro replied.
“He has food in there?”
“Sure. He can come out and find stuff from the cottage or he can go to the stables. Humans leave food around.”
“They never eat it all?” Jeeter was surprised.
“They make too much. Seems like that to me. Sister, Gray, Tootie, and Weevil fill up their garbage cans.” Zorro happily marched to the kennel.
He’d had enough of the wind, too.
Betty took Midshipman, a young Thoroughbred Sister was now hunting a bit.
“He did pretty good in the wind.” Sister handed the reins to Betty. “Young but a good mind.”
“They all need time on the target. I’ll throw a blanket over him and Outlaw. After the breakfast, I’ll come out and clean them and the tack.”
“I’ll be with you. See you at the house.”
The breakfast was a potluck, always a delight. People brought their favorite dishes or tried a new one on the group.
Gray, who didn’t hunt today, had the coffee and tea ready, along with ham biscuits.
Once everyone was inside, the kitchen table was full. People grabbed food. Few people eat a big breakfast before hunting. Everyone is starved. They filled their plates, carried them to the long dining room table, and sat down. It’s so much easier to eat if you don’t have to balance a plate on your lap.
“Bet it gets into the twenties tonight,” Kasmir predicted.
Buddy came in late, plate in hand. “Put on Liberty’s heavy blanket.”
Blankets became a discussion.
“Is everyone getting ready for the midterms?” Cameron asked.
“Are you trying to make us sick?” Freddie teased him.
“A waste of time and money,” Betty said with firmness. “Think what all that money the parties spend on ads could do for each state.”
“That’s the truth,” Elise piped up. “But the media is how people pick up information. It isn’t cheap.”
“Hey, speaking of cheap…sorry, that’s the wrong way to put it. Barry, did you ever find out what your stolen stamps are worth?” Bobby asked.
“Sort of. I contacted the Philatelic Society in New York. There’s one outside Philadelphia, too, but I have friends in New York. They put me in contact with a fellow in Tennessee. Sent him the list I had and some pictures. He said he couldn’t give me an exact figure but he estimated about seven thousand dollars,” Barry answered. “Most of the stamps are from 1987.”
“No kidding,” Ronnie Haslip remarked. “I wouldn’t mind that for our treasury. We’ll never be able to rehabilitate our fairgrounds without cash.”
“We know. We’ll focus on fundraising after Christmas.” Freddie didn’t want to hear about the fairgrounds.
“There are stamp collections worth fortunes. Mine is a modest amount. That doesn’t mean I wanted to lose those stamps,” Barry grumbled.
“Funny they are from 1987.” Ronnie looked at Barry.
Cameron, who had joined the group, full plate in hand, shrugged. “Maybe they were easy to grab.”
Ronnie added, “Maybe 1987 means something. Barry, investigate the year.”
“Well, maybe it means you should investigate your security.” Cameron pointed his fork at Barry.
“New subject.” Gray tapped his cup of tea. “Does everyone have their tickets for the Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra?”
A chorus of yesses and some raised hands.
“I need two,” Buddy volunteered. “For the balcony.”
“Me too.” Alida called out, finally warming up. “Make it four. We’re expanding.”
“Gray, are you taking Aunt Dan?” Sam asked.
“Yes.”
They chatted on. Warm, fed, and happy. Finally, when the group left around noon, Sister and Betty walked out to the barn. They checked the horses, took off the blankets, brushing the horses down, then putting the blankets back on.
“Glad they didn’t get too sweaty,” Sister said.
“Me too. Don’t like washing horses in the cold. They dry out with a sheet in their stall then we put on the blanket, but it’s one more step.”
“Is.” Sister put a treat in the palm of her hand for Midshipman to delicately lift off. “Before we do the tack, let’s go to the cottage for a minute.”
They pulled heavier coats back on, passing the kennels, where Weevil and Tootie were finishing up their chores. The hounds were already asleep on their raised beds or in the condos stuffed with straw. A smaller swinging door allowed the hounds to go in and out without letting too much cold air in.
Kneeling down, side by side, Betty following Sister’s lead; a pair of luminous eyes stared back at them, as Comet heard the approach.
“You outrun us every time.” Sister had seen the guy around her farm for years.
“I can run fast, forty-two miles an hour.” Comet told the truth.
“That little devil yipped.” Betty laughed.
Sister laughed as well. “Wouldn’t it be fabulous for one day, just one day, to be a fox and feel what it’s like to run on four feet, to have that acute hearing and sense of smell?”
“I guess.” Betty smiled at the fox, eight feet away.
“Maybe at sunset I’ll bring him some leftovers from the breakfast,” Sister thought.
“Good idea.” Comet popped back in his den.
CHAPTER 16
October 9, 2022, Sunday
“The collars are three hundred dollars apiece.” Ronnie grimaced.
“Dear Lord, we can’t afford sixty tracking collars.” Sister blanched.
Gray, also sitting in Ronnie’s living room, placed the papers on the modern glass coffee table. “We don’t need a collar for every hound in the kennel. We only need ones for those hunting. There are always hounds left back because they’re in season, have a cracked foot pad, stuff like that.”
“You’re right, honey. It’s so expensive. I know you’re right. But if twenty hounds are out, that’s twenty collars.”
Ronnie, who had hunted with Sister since he was ten and who was one of her late son’s best friends, scanned his figures again. “Why can’t you put tracking collars on the young entries and some on steady hounds like Dasher? You wouldn’t need a tracking collar for every hound out there. If you had, say, eight collars and twenty hounds, the wheel whip will know where hounds are.”
A silence followed this.
Sister folded her hands together. “We can try.”
“Next question.” Ronnie ran his right hand through his thinning sandy hair. “Who will or can be a wheel whip?”
No hesitation, Sister piped up. “Shaker.”
Shaker was the long-term huntsman of Jefferson Hunt who had to retire due to a serious injury. He could still ride, but not hard. Despite the doctors’ best efforts, his thigh bone had healed a bit off center. The real problem was his concussion. He forgot everything about the accident and once recovered he had memory lapses. He had fought it but finally handed the horn to Weevil.
“Do you think he would do it?” Ronnie liked Shaker, understood his pride.
“I do. He’d be back with the pack. He knows the territory, so he would know where to drive, where to sit. And we would pay him,” Gray said.
“How much?” Ever the treasurer, Ronnie sat straight up.
“What is more fair? An annual stipend or by the hour?” Sister asked.
Gray folded Ronnie’s copy for him lengthwise. “My suggestion is start the season…well, the formal Season, we’re almost there…with an hourly rate. We’ll see what the sum comes to. Remember, Shaker probably can’t be at every hunt.”
“Why?” Sister looked at Gray.
“Skiff.” He named Cynthia Skiff Cane, who hunted Crawford’s now registered farmer pack.
She shook her head. “Of course. I never thought of that. I still think of him as our huntsman, in a way. All those years together.” She sighed.
Gray, sensitive to the situation, suggested, “Offer him the job. He’ll talk it over with Skiff. She hunts on Saturday and so do we. My hunch is he’ll help her on Saturdays.”
Ronnie interjected, “Well, he can’t ride but he can help her with the draw.”
He meant the hounds selected to hunt that day.
Gray spoke again. “He knows the territory, both Crawford’s and ours. So let’s take Saturday.”
“It’s our biggest day,” Sister said, raising her voice.
“Yes, it is.” Ronnie’s mind was turning…well, spinning.
“Look, if we can find someone soon, they can ride with Shaker and eventually take Saturdays.”
“Great. Two salaries.” Ronnie slapped his hand on his knee, which made his ferocious chihuahua bark. “Atlas, that’s enough.”
“No.” Gray laughed as the little dog ran in the room and gave everyone the evil eye.
Then he jumped in Ronnie’s lap.
“Give everyone twenty dollars an hour?”
Sister said, “Would be the same as one salary. Mmm. Five to six hours each hunt day, depending on the fixture.”
“Not even that much. The wheel whip wouldn’t need to help at the kennels. I figure three hours per hunt, four at most.” Gray could come up with numbers in an instant. “So figuring four hours, sixty dollars per day. Three days. One hundred eighty.”
“Reasonable.” Ronnie nodded.
“Do you know, Ronnie Haslip, that is the first time I have ever heard you agree to a sum without a fight.” Sister smiled.
“Well, mark this day on your calendar and we can celebrate it.” He laughed with her. “But as your treasurer it’s my job to control costs.”
“You do a great job, Ronnie. You have for years, but with all this inflation, we’d better raise money just in case. I don’t see prices falling. In fact, I would bet on a recession,” Gray stated forcefully.
“Don’t say that out loud, honey. People know all that work you did and still do in Washington. You’ll scare the bejesus out of them.”
He had a tight smile. “Better we scare the bejesus out of Washington.”
Ronnie kissed Atlas’s head. “Gray, no one ever learns. It’s an endless cycle. Okay. Back to the budget. What do we do about raising money for eight collars? A ten-inch screen on the wheel whip’s truck, which will be your work truck, costs $1,499.99. Eight-inch costs $1,299.99.”
Sister threw up her hands. “My old truck. It will probably die on the first hunt.”
Gray laughed at the thought. “Sam and I will take care of the truck. Bragging, but we’re good with engines. The truck will make it.”
Ronnie laughed with them. “Whoever is driving it will look country.”
“Chewing tobacco should complete the picture.” Sister smiled. “I’ll start thinking about a Saturday wheel whip.”
“Hey, what about Kathleen Sixt Dunbar? Aunt Dan will do it for free. They’re usually following anyway. This time they’ll be right in the middle of it.” Gray brightened.
“Fundraiser?” Ronnie loved the thought of a ninety-four-year-old wheel whip, who could wheedle funds from a new standpoint.
Aunt Daniella had held steady at ninety-four for the last two years. Even Gray didn’t know his aunt’s real age. His late mother had lived with her and for her. This was the generation that believed a woman who tells her age will tell anything. Aunt Dan didn’t need to tell her age to revel in gossip, old or new.
“Do you want to call, or shall I?” Gray wondered.
“Let’s do it together. The one-two punch.” Sister grinned.
Ronnie returned to money. “We need a fundraiser.”
“The Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra is October 28. That might make enough. You have your tickets?” Gray looked at Ronnie.
“Two.” Ronnie fidgeted with Atlas’s collar. “I don’t have a date.”
“There’s got to be someone. Maybe not in our hunt club, but we’re surrounded by other clubs. There has to be someone,” Sister encouraged him.
“Doesn’t have to be a foxhunter,” Gray added.
“This is such a problem,” Ronnie moaned.
CHAPTER 17
October 10, 2022, Monday
Marty Howard stood next to Sister in what she now called Sister’s monarch field.
Looking across the acres, spots of the color from the black-eyed Susans here and there, Marty noticed a sycamore far at the edge of the field. “I don’t remember that tree.”
Sister replied, “More dramatic now. More bark is off.”
“They’re usually near water.”
“It is. That little creek near it feeds into Broad Creek, dries up usually, but this was a rainy spring and summer. Made everything wet.”
“Yes, it did. I thought I could catch and store rainwater in those large lined wooden tubs. I did, but Crawford says they are period pieces. We have to use what Sophie used in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Showed me what was used.”
“It’s the everyday stuff that gets lost. For instance, did Athenians, ancient Greeks, use colanders?”
Marty laughed. “Who would have thought of that?”
Sister tapped the ground lightly with her right foot. “Exactly.”
“Well, maybe Sophie did use large tubs. They wouldn’t be tin. Too expensive.”
“Right. Wooden tubs bound by metal hoops is a good idea. And if the planks were grooved so one fit slightly into the other, they would be tight.”
“That was my mistake. I should have thought of grooving the wood. I lined the tubs with tin.”
Sister slowly walked forward, Marty in tow. “That was possible for her, as she was ultra-rich.”
“That she was, but you know, Sister, working on Old Paradise, the big main home, the outbuildings, I learned she used the best materials. Not for show, but because they would last. She knew what she was doing.”
“Here. Step over this log.” Sister pointed down at the fallen trunk of a tree. “Got the branches cleared but not the trunk. Here we are.”
