Riding Shotgun (22 page)

“You might have to.” She called over her shoulder for the hounds, in full cry again, stretched out their longs legs, eating up the ground. A flock of extremely fat turkeys flew up out of the edge of the woods. A horse in the rear shied, the rider hitting the turf with a thud.

Cig soared over the snake fencing. Lionel, not to be ou”I’d one, followed suit although it wasn’t easy for him. Tom and Abraham leaned way back in their saddles to clear the chestnut rails. The rest of the field ran around the fence, costing them time.

“Close up!” Cig instructed them.

The tail hounds, clearly in sight, held steady on the line. The pack worked efficiently. Cig reined in and slowed to a trot behind the last tail hound. He wasn’t off course but something had caused him to slow down. He lifted his sensitive brown eyes to Cig then picked up speed.

She could see Fitzroy, relaxed in the saddle, horn to his lips, up ahead. The hounds slowed a moment, then opened again with one collective cry. They swept into a bit of woods only to turn and charge right back out of them.

Cig turned with them, galloping back in the direction from which they came. They wound up on the road where the sidecar ladies had been following. Without hesitating or slowing her pace Cig jumped the drainage ditch by the road, thundered by the ladies, one of whom—smart woman—had stood up in her stirrups, hat off, pointing in the direction of the fox.

“Gray or red?” Cig asked as she blasted by.

“Red!” came the resolute reply.

They know their foxes, Cig thought to herself.

She lost a few more riders as they attempted to negotiate the drainage ditch. Straight ahead squatted a stone fence, gate closed. She recognized neither the fence nor the gate but figured it must be the back entrance to a plantation with a lot of livestock.

She checked over her shoulder; her brother and Lionel kept close. Daniel was falling behind. Abraham passed him. No horse in the field possessed Full Throttle’s speed, in her excitement she didn’t realize that this was the first time she’d thought of Tom as her brother.

“If you can’t jump get the gate and close it when everyone is through,” she bellowed at Tom.

“I’ll clear the fence if I have to jump it myself.”

She laughed as Throttle lifted off over the fieldstone fence. My God, he feels good, she thought.

Tom wrapped his hands in Helen’s mane, squeezed with all his might and the mare launched herself over. Tom flopped back a little but stayed on. Lionel, bold and supple, never flinched, nor did his horse, a solid roan, hunting fit. Abraham made it over as well.

Daniel stopped, turned right and shouted to a groom to open the gate. This he did and the field barreled through, the thinning frost still heavy enough to hold down the dust. Daniel Boothrod stood in his stirrups to catch sight of the frontrunners.

Edward Hill, panting by his left side, called out, “Daniel, are my eyes deceiving me?”

“They’ve no fear!” Daniel replied.

“That’s the way to live, by God.” Edward enviously smiled.

“’Pon my soul.” Daniel laughed.

Cig pushed her little band along another verdant pasture. The hounds abruptly stopped their music.

A few confused yowls bespoke their frustration. Fitzroy blew on his big horn. The hounds gathered together then fanned out again.

Cig held up her arm. The field knew enough by now not to run past her. She shifted in her saddle to see who’d survived. More than she’d anticipated.

A tough bunch, she thought with pride.

Edward and Daniel came alongside of her, breathing hard, happy for the check.

Daniel, in particular, gasped. “Still as a statue, yes, still as a statue when you jump that animal.
Magnifique!”
He accented his French.

“Thank you. Gentlemen, if you sit still for a moment I’m willing to bet another red fox is going to burst out”—she pointed to a gentle grade by the meadow that rolled toward the forest stream—“right over there. I believe our first sprinter has gone to ground and passed the baton.”

Before they could comment, sure enough the hounds gave tongue. The strike hound, a spectacular compact bitch with tremendous drive, moved toward the forest.

“Shall we?”

Lionel nodded, catching his breath. Abraham and Tom exchanged glances then fell in behind her. Daniel floated off to the right hoping for sight of the fox. Margaret remained in the middle of the group, her legs clamped to Pollux’s broad sides.

Lionel rode eight strides back. He knew better, now, than to crowd Pryor.

They trotted along a thin slice of creek, the stones slick as patent leather. The hounds worked steadily, the terrain slowing them. Cig picked an easy spot to ford.

She motioned to Tom. “How far to the river? A mile?”

“Not even.”

“Is it all wooded?”

“Most ways,” Tom replied.

“If we could head straight out we’d reach Ranke’s cornfield,” Abraham added.

“Okay,” she said and smiled as he shook his head at her peculiar speech. “Reynard has lots of choices.”

Full Throttle carefully picked his way through the woods. Eventually they reached the cornfield. The hounds fanned out into the field, the corn swaying as they moved through, their voices rising and falling. Fitzroy rode with them, his whippers-in spreading out on the sides.

Cig reached a slight rise in the pasture along the cornfield. The group gathered on the hill. They waited about five minutes for the sidecar ladies to join them for they circled around the woods.

Edward asked her, “Have we cornered Reynard?”

Cig noticed his clear light eyes, kind eyes. “He’s having as much sport with us as we are with him. When he’s ready he’ll shoot out of that cornfield like a hot cannonball unless he’s got a den in there. Usually, though, a fox doesn’t want to live where we traffic.”

“I don’t want to live where we traffic,” Edward replied.

Daniel dabbed his forehead with his lace handkerchief. “Now, don’t decry rude Jamestown.” He mocked Edward’s voice.

“
You
live there, Daniel” Edward jabbed at Daniel’s paunch.

A sleek vixen, at a dogtrot, emerged from the end of the cornfield. With saucy eye she perused the humans and horses on the low hill. She considered them species of low degree.

Cig put her finger to her lips before the group could screech at the sight of the vixen. The silence created even more tension.

A few long minutes passed and then three hounds, hard on the scent, cleared the cornfield. Fitzroy followed, looking to Cig.

She removed her cap, pointing in the direction the vixen took. He smiled and pushed on, and a strange Chill racked her body. By now the rest of the pack came out of the cornfield. Cig moved down the hill, falling in behind the pack.

The sweet smell of the ears hanging on the stalks to dry, fodder for winter, curled into her nostrils as she approached the bottom of the hill. The hounds picked up the scent and opened up. She squeezed Throttle but just as quickly pulled him up. The hounds lost the scent.

“By the saints!” She heard Fitzroy curse.

The sun was near the top of the sky; it must be close to eleven. The day warmed considerably, the scent rising with it.

Without thinking about it she rode over to Fitzroy much as she would to Roger Davis. He was even more handsome at close quarters, his blue eyes sparkling.

“Given the warmth the only hope is to cast by a creek.”

He said nothing for a moment. “A Huntsman, are you, madam?”

“I’m sorry. Second nature.” She blushed. She’d forgotten that she wasn’t the master, this wasn’t her Huntsman. She had no right to offer direction. “You’ve a beautiful pack and my enthusiasm for more sport made me forget my manners.”

He nodded his head. “Patrick Devlin Fitzroy at your service, madam.” His brogue had a lilt to it.

“Pryor Deyhle.” She smiled. “It’s the strangest thing, but I feel we’ve met before.”

He smiled now. “I regret that we have not, but you ride like the Devil himself. Dress like him, too.” He indicated her scarlet jacket.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or be insulted. “You won’t lose me in the woods this way.”

“Ah, Virginia practicality. Not much forest in County Cork.” His eyebrows pointed upward for a moment. “You are Tom Deyhle’s twin, I gather?”

“I am.”

“And where did you find such a horse? Not in the New World, I’ll wager.”

“Uh—” She lied, “A Barb I purchased in England.”

“If ever I’m a rich man III send you back over the water to buy one for me.”

As
the field caught up to them and gathered round Cig said, “Thank you for this fine day. It was a pleasure to hunt with you, sir.”

The others thanked Fitzroy as Lionel joined Cig. Abraham came along her other side, much to Lionel’s irritation.

When they returned to Shirley a famished bunch, they rushed to the sumptuous hunt breakfast as their grooms and Edward Hill’s servants rubbed down the horses, which, once cooled out, were rewarded with oats laced with a bit of bran and molasses made into a mash.

Ham biscuits, sausage gravy, hot cornbread, mountains of sweet butter, slabs of bacon, eggs, pancakes and waffles drenched in the thickest maple syrup or creamy clover honey, and orange rinds dazzled the guests for whom citrus was a rare delicacy.

As they ate, the hunt became fiercer, the fox bigger, and the stone wall loomed large as Hampton Court.

The ladies peppered Cig with questions about her riding habit. Margaret, at her elbow, said or whispered names, mentioned children and subtly nudged her in the right direction.

The men, swilling stout home brew as well as more refined spirits along with the biscuits, spoke of tobacco prices, the hopes of acquiring land farther upriver, and they picked over the issues before the Assembly. The subject of the murdered Indian was thoroughly dissected with Lionel firmly expressing the opinion that if the Indians could benefit from trade, plunder would be less alluring.

The men also discussed the ladies. Abraham wanted to have a few moments with Tom. He wanted to ask about Pryor but Tom, in the center of the group and well-liked by all, couldn’t be pried away. So Abraham pretended to be interested and peeked out from time to time to catch a glimpse of Pryor.

Fitzroy, irreverent, had the men laughing and he didn’t mind being the butt of the jokes himself.

In time the gentlemen joined the ladies, which provoked more hilarity. Daniel Boothrod declared that what Virginia needed, apart from more good women like his wife, was more foxhunting and more dances. Abraham declared that they should invite the foxes to the balls at which point Fitzroy bowed to the ladies and purred, “But we have.”

Lionel fumed inwardly. He wished he’d said that for Pryor laughed with delight. Willful and independent from birth, she was even more so since her return from England. He stared at her and felt that she had changed. She had always been reckless and wild but now she openly challenged him. Well, that would change when he married her.

A warm south wind fluttered over the pastures and lawn. If Cig closed her eyes it felt like spring. Before she could rise to carry her plate back to the table a servant, Welsh from the look of her, gently lifted it from her hands.

“Thank you.”

“Anything more, m’um?” the young woman asked.

“No, thank you.” As everyone was talking to everyone else, and she found herself alone, she chose the moment to gratefully slip away. She walked toward the stable, a magnet for her since she gravitated toward animals whenever she needed to think. Hearing the laughter of the grooms, she stopped then walked over to a black gum tree at the edge of the lawn.

She leaned against the textured bark, her eyes sweeping the buildings, noticing the efficient use of topography and materials. The laughter and conversation hummed in the near distance, the horses nickered to one another as the grooms hauled buckets of water, snapping each other with rags. An old man, his white beard patchy, his teeth long
gone, dozed while seated on an upturned wooden bucket. Between his boots rested curry combs.

The squeal of children, dressed like tiny adults, made her smile as did the barking of the house dogs chasing the balls thrown for their benefit.

Cattle grazed on good pastures, chickens strutted and scratched, careful not to waken sleeping cats stuffed full of ham biscuits.

Shirley Plantation was quick with life, with plans for the future. The sweet smell of hay, roasting ears of corn and cleaned leather filled her with memories of parties at her parents’ farm. Grace would rush about begging anyone and everyone to chase her. Cig usually did, invariably getting her starched dress dirty whereas Grace never seemed to attract so much as a speck of dust. If she shut her eyes the sounds were the same except no horns honked, no motors started and stopped, no big rubber tires crunched down the stone driveway and no radio played in the background. Her mother used to bring out the kitchen radio, putting it on a wide branch of the lowest tree. Extension cords snaked over the lawn. Apart from that, the energy, the gossip, the flirting and fighting, the dogs ecstatic with excitement—it was the same.