The Hounds and the Fury (13 page)

CHAPTER 18

Y
ou take it too seriously.” Jason shrugged off Walter’s anger at his whipping-in, if it could be called that, to Crawford Howard.

“Yes, I do. Seriously enough to drive over here after the hunt on my day off. You don’t know what you’ve done.”

Jason’s dark eyebrows lifted. “I rode with an undisciplined pack of hounds, Crawford got his lip split open by Sister, and Margaret threatened my life. So what?” He laughed, albeit hollowly.

“You rode with an outlaw pack. You can’t ride with the Jefferson Hunt again or with any other hunt associated with the Master of Foxhounds Association of America.”

“Bullshit.”

“The MFHA was founded in 1907 to avoid exactly what happened. And you’d better believe they’ll enforce it. If, for example, you try to ride with Keswick, and if word got back to the MFHA that the masters allowed you to do so, they would risk losing their recognition, which is like losing your medical license. I’m telling you, Jason, you don’t know what you’ve done.”

Jason pushed his back against the chair. “Well who is going to report me? Sister? You?”

“She’ll wait for you to come to your senses today. If you do, she will explain to the president of the MFHA that you were unaware of the rule and you will never ride with Crawford again. If you don’t call today she will report you, or I will. We have no choice.”

Jason slammed down his coffee cup. “It was supposed to be fun. I’ve all but bought Paradise.”

Fortunately, the cup was heavy.

“You don’t own it yet.” Walter stated the obvious.

He’d driven to Jason’s spacious brick house downtown. Jason had bought it as an investment, declaring he’d sell it as soon as he found the country property he wanted.

The fireplace in the kitchen had Delft tiles around it. Jason had paid a decorator who mixed antiques with modern pieces, to lovely effect.

“I don’t need Sister’s help or your help. I’ll call the MFHA myself.”

“That will make matters worse,” Walter grimly predicted. “Apologize to Sister, then let us handle it.”

“I suppose she’s mad at me?”

“We’re all mad at you. And let me tell you why you’ll need her help. It’s a small world, and most foxhunters recognize why we can’t countenance outlaw packs. You’re going to be on everybody’s shit list, not just Jefferson Hunt’s.”

“Countenance? You sound like a preacher.”

“A Virginian, at least,” Walter half smiled. “We grow up on the King James version.” He leaned across the rectangular table. “Look, I’m upset that you rode out with Crawford, who means us no good. But I’m your colleague, you know. The hospital is a small world—like foxhunting. I’d like things on an even keel.”

Jason listened, holding his cup with both hands. “Tell that to Margaret.”

“She has every right to be angry with you. You need to apologize to her, to Binky and Millie and Alfred.”

His dark eyebrows raised, then lowered. “I will. I’ll smooth the waters. But you know, if they don’t sign that contract next week, I’ll buy another property. They’ll never ever get a deal like mine. Seven million dollars. No financing.”

Walter, though the sum was impressive, wasn’t impressed. “The DuCharmes have owned Paradise for just about two hundred years. You aren’t from here, Jason. It’s hard for you to realize the pull of blood and time. It truly outweighs money.”

Jason’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Two old men without a pot to piss in. They live off Margaret and cutting timber every five years. They have to agree to my terms, which are very generous.” When Walter didn’t respond out of good manners, Jason, exasperated, announced, “I offered them seven million dollars for a bunch of Corinthian columns.”

Walter glanced down at his cup, then up at Jason. “And five thousand acres, much of it in good Davis loam. The timber program is good. You sell Alfred short. He’s managed the farm wisely, and Binky has had the sense to stay out of his way and run his little gas station. They may be pathetic, battling old men to you, but they aren’t stupid. And Margaret is smarter than both of them put together.”

Jason flared up. “I saved Alfred.”

“You have a remarkable record as a doctor. I respect that. Your patients, cured or in remission, are walking advertisements. But this is different. If you don’t apologize to Sister Jane, you’re cooked. If you don’t back off from Crawford, you’re cooked. Am I clear?”

Silence followed. The stainless steel wall clock ticked loudly.

“If I back off from Crawford, I’m cooked.” At last, a genuine emotion, worry, played on Jason’s face.

“You’re in the tank?” Walter used the old political expression, meaning you’ve been bought off in one respect or another.

“Yes.”

“How deep?”

“He’s my silent partner in purchasing Paradise.”

“I can’t imagine Crawford wants to see you restore Paradise to its former glory. So you are going to develop Paradise?” Walter clamped his mouth shut. “You lied.”

As Jason had bandied about some of his plans for Paradise, Walter knew he’d made a big to-do about respecting the past, allowing no development, and other such pious statements.

“Not exactly.”

“Oh, is this like Clinton saying a blow job isn’t really sex?”

Jason’s face darkened. “We’d wait a year. We’d develop one thousand acres as an equestrian paradise. It would be impeccably done.”

“And you’d both make double-digit millions—and you get to live in Paradise as well.”

“Oh,” Jason corrected him, missing Walter’s sly comment. “We’d generate jobs and revenue for the county.”

“No doubt. That does put you over a barrel. Do you want to hunt with an outlaw pack, or do you want to make even more money than you already do?”

“I’ll bring Crawford around to registering his pack.”

“Good luck. He’s publicly derided the MFHA. Crawford’s not one to reverse a public position.”

“If it’s in his extreme self-interest, I’ll bet he will.”

“Like I said, good luck,” Walter admonished. “I know you don’t want to get on the bad side of Crawford. I understand, but you don’t want Sister angry at you. She can take you down.”

“She knows how to throw a punch,” Jason nodded. Then he leaned nearly halfway across the table. “Is it true her husband was your father?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t upset her?”

“No.”

“Does it upset you?”

“For my father, it did. But Big Ray was one of those men who walked into a room and women’s heads swiveled around. Whatever he had, if we could have bottled it, we’d be worth billions.” He exhaled. “Things just happened around Big Ray. ’Course they happened around Sister, too.” He shrugged. “Ancient history. I love her. I’ve always loved Sister. When I was a kid I wanted to ride like her. Working with her is one of the joys of my life. I just wish I knew what she forgot.”

“Plenty of good foxhunters out there.”

“She’s beyond good.”

“Look, I’ll concede that Crawford doesn’t know shit. Those hounds running all over proves that, but it’s not rocket science.”

“Exactly.” Now Walter leaned forward. “It’s an art woven into primeval instinct. She has it. Sister has horse sense, hound sense, game sense, and that something extra. You can’t teach it. You can’t buy it. I’m learning hounds and game, but I also know that what she has I’ll never have. What I have is a sharp political sense. I’m useful to her for that. And I love hunting. I’d lose my mind without hunting.”

“Suppose I would, too. That’s why I want to whip-in. I don’t want to be in the field watching everyone’s ass over a jump.”

“Some of those asses are mighty fine.”

Jason leered. “Well, yes.”

“Jason, we’d all like to whip-in to this pack. To whip-in at Jefferson Hunt is to be taken seriously by other foxhunters. None of us are immune to that kind of attention. I can’t do it, but I wish I could.”

“Why?”

“I’m not that good a rider, and I don’t have much hound sense, although I like the hounds. But I have people sense.”

“I can ride,” Jason boasted.

“What about the rest of it? She’s right to make you walk-out. And I don’t know if she’ll keep that offer after what you did yesterday.”

Jason shifted in his seat. “If I bow to Sister, I lose Crawford. I have to find another way.” He exhaled. “Or accept that I’ll not be hunting with you.”

“Jason, I wish I knew what the middle way might be. Until you, I, or someone else can think of it, you’ve got to calm the waters. You’d better apologize to Sister.”

Jason’s cell phone rang. He flipped open the cover to see the caller’s number displayed. “Damn. Excuse me.” He pressed the talk button. “Hello.”

Iffy bellowed, “Jason, where are you?”

“I’m in a meeting.” He didn’t mention that he wasn’t in his office.

“A meeting with whom?”

“Walter.”

“Get out of it. I have to see you.”

“Don’t worry about the insurance paperwork.” He sounded soothing.

“It’s three-thirty. I have to see you. Not in your office,” she persisted.

“All right, but let me call you right back. This is an important meeting.” A note of irritation crept into his voice.

She slammed down her phone.

Walter noticed the expression on Jason’s face. “I’d better be going.”

The shorter man folded his cell phone up. “She needs a psychiatrist. Iffy.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Walter thought it best to stay out of this discussion.

“Her health is improving; her personality is not.” Jason, exasperated, shoved the phone aside.

Walter rose. “If you don’t call Sister by tomorrow, I’ll call Dennis Foster at the MFHA Monday. I don’t want to do that.”

Dennis Foster was the director of the MFHA. As a lieutenant colonel, retired, in the U.S. Army, he could be forceful when he needed to be. Jason would find this out in a hurry if he didn’t mend fences.

“I’ll do it. Will you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Don’t mention that Crawford and I are partners in the Paradise deal. Look, it’s possible we won’t develop it. If I can put my ducks in a row, I might be able to buy him out.”

“He’s not one to pass up a big profit.”

“If there’s prestige involved, he might.”

Walter cocked his head slightly. “What kind of prestige?”

“Master of Jefferson Hunt.”

“Jason, that will be a cold day in hell.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

Jason was right about that.

CHAPTER 19

H
unt days were outlined in bright green on Sister’s month-at-a-glance calendar on the kitchen wall. A smaller version was tacked onto her bathroom wall. Today’s fixture, Little Dalby, owned by the Widemans, interested her. During summer and fall, hunt club members reopened old trails and built jumps. The property, in limbo for years, had suffered neglect. The lawyers in charge of the old Viault estate lived in New York City. They had thought they were protecting the property by throwing off Jefferson Hunt. The reverse had happened, because it was the hunt club that had kept the hundreds of acres cleared, hayed, and tidied up during those last years of Mr. Viault’s life. It was Jefferson Hunt’s thank-you to a family that had been a vibrant part of foxhunting.

Pricker bushes, pokeweed, chickweed, and broomsage choked the once luxurious pastures. Outbuildings listed. A hole had been punched in the roof of the main house during a hurricane. The lovely little church, St. John of the Cross, had suffered comparatively little damage, although a great horned owl was now in residence.

Sister wondered whether the owl had converted to Christianity. She suspected not, given that the owl is sacred to Athena. Then, too, Christians talked too much about lambs and sheep and not enough about owls.

Last night Sister had called Anselma Wideman to make sure Crawford wouldn’t be hunting and to find out whether he had hunted the territory at all. The “all clear” pleased her. She wondered how long it would take Anselma and Harvey to realize this arrangement wouldn’t work.

After she’d checked in with Anselma, she and Gray hung on the phone like teenagers. Since Sam’s accident, he’d stayed home to help his brother. Usually from Friday night through Sunday night Gray spent the weekends at Roughneck Farm. Sister found she missed him. Apart from sharing a bed with him, she missed his picks and pans as he read choice passages from the morning’s paper.

Gray operated under a code of ethics as strict as that for physicians. He couldn’t discuss a client’s affairs, but she could tell from his voice that something was amiss. She figured the tension was because Farmers Trust had thrown a monkey wrench into the process of extending credit. But last night, she could hear in his tone that something was wrong, something more significant than Farmers Trust. Of course, she knew nothing about Garvey’s call to Ben Sidell. Nor did she know that the deputy sent to pick up Iffy couldn’t find her. She had flown the coop.

Gray promised to spend next weekend with her. Sam swore he could fend for himself. He told Gray to go; he was tired of being with a lovesick moose. Sister liked hearing that.

Right now she liked hearing little Diddy opening at St. John of the Cross. After drawing through a still unrehabilitated pasture for twenty minutes, Shaker finally jumped the coop into the woods. Sister noticed hound sterns waving. Diddy marched right up to the heavy front door, the cross on the graceful steeple covered in snow, and she sang out.

Since Diddy was a second-year entry, Diana trotted over to double-check.

“Good!”
The beautiful anchor hound seconded Diddy’s excellent work.

With that, the pack put their noses down, inhaled deeply, and opened in joyous chorus.

They threaded through the woods, the low limbs of spruces, bearing the snow’s weight, touching the ground. As hounds moved through they’d brush under the spruces; snow would cascade down in a shower of tiny sparkles.

Sister stayed on the farm road. No point plunging into the woods as long as she could keep near hounds. They were moving west. The folds in the land grew tighter. As she burst out of the woods the sun touched the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains, turning the snow crimson.

Scattered clouds began to glow underneath.

She turned to look behind. Tedi, Edward, Walter, Val, Tootie, Felicity, and Bunny Taliaferro constituted the field. The cold weather and last layer of snow had kept others at home. Then, too, the holiday season had ended, so folks redoubled their efforts at work. There were all those Christmas bills to pay.

The hounds suddenly shut up. Sister stopped on the meadow’s rise, the mild wind stinging in the cold, to behold them casting themselves.

Asa, wise, walked into the wind. Thirty yards later he picked up the scent, faint though it was, for the wind had blown it off the actual fox’s line and the scent dissipated as it lifted.

“Hop on it. Fading fast,”
he commanded.

Not one hound would ever question Asa. They collapsed on the line and opened again, pushing ever westward.

Ahead, Sister saw Betty with Outlaw, her favorite mount, a tough little quarter horse, battling snowdrifts like a destroyer in heavy seas. To her left, Sybil was jumping a stout stone fence, some center stones having tumbled down over the years. Sybil kept alongside the hounds but far enough away not to bring their heads up or cause them to question her presence. The whole pack turned as one and cut sharply left, heading southwest now, to disappear into second growth forest.

Sister squeezed Keepsake, her thoroughbred/quarter horse cross, the perfect mount for this terrain and these conditions. He found his spot, soared over the stone fence, and then stretched out as they flew along the deer path in the forest only to burst out onto another meadow, broomsage spiking up through the snow.

They galloped down to a swift-running creek, where hounds threw up, meaning they lost the line, throwing up their heads. Unfortunately, so did Felicity. As hounds cast for the line she dismounted, ran behind a bush, and tossed her breakfast.

She came back, bright as a penny, and hopped up on Parson.

Tootie reached over to feel her forehead. “No fever,” she whispered.

“I ate too many doughnuts on the way over,” Felicity whispered back.

“Me too.” Val put her gloved hand on her stomach, the white string glove contrasting sharply with the black melton coat.

“You going to heave?” Tootie whispered.

“No.” Val shook her head as Bunny turned to glare at them for whispering during a check.

Cora moved further away from the pack, but she could find nothing.

Dasher stared down the steep bank of the creek, then launched himself. Airborne for a moment, he hit the water with a splash, swam with the current, and reached the far bank fifty yards downstream. He clambered out, put his nose to ground and worked back. He passed the pack on the other side and kept working. After five minutes, he had found nothing.

“Come on, Dasher. Good work, boy.” Shaker called the hound back.

The big fellow hurtled off the opposite bank and swam again, the current carrying him downstream. He emerged, shook himself, and trotted back to the others, working in vain.

“Helicopter.”
Dasher laughed.

“Yeah.”
Trident agreed that the fox must have stepped into a helicopter to be lifted right up.

Nothing remained. Not the tiniest scrap of scent.

“I hate this!”
Cora, filled with drive, kept searching.

“Come along.” Shaker called them together. “Good work. I’m proud of you. We’ll hunt back.”

As they turned to hunt on the south side of the fixture, moving in an arc toward the trailers two miles distant, Sister heard a siren.

As the crow flies, they were little more than three miles southwest of Chapel Cross. By road it would take fifteen minutes, but the sound carried.

Sister wondered if one of the DuCharmes had finally met his Maker.

No, but one of the DuCharmes was deeply troubled.

Ben Sidell stepped out of his squad car. Margaret, in shearling coat, came out of the small dependency in which she lived.

“I’m so glad to see you. You made good time.”

“I was going against morning traffic.” He noted the rich seal-brown color of her hair falling over the shoulders of her coat.

“Look at this.” She walked to her Subaru Forester and opened the door.

Ben touched nothing but carefully noted Iffy’s wheelchair on its side, blood spattered over the backrest.