The Hunt Ball (19 page)

“You mean you aren't going to give us demerits?” Felicity balanced her overflowing plate.

“No.” Charlotte shook her head.

“Great!” Valentina breathed deeply.

“If you girls would like a demerit, I'll arrange one or two,” Bill teased them.

“No, thank you, Mr. Wheatley.” Tootie took this opportunity to head toward a table.

As the girls followed her, Alpha said, “The Three Musketeers.”

“Who's d'Artagnan?” Knute loved the Alexandre Dumas novel, but then who didn't.

“Valentina, but a seasoned one, she's past the girl-from-the-country stage,” Alpha smiled.

“Well, Tootie's the brains of the bunch,” Bill said, pouring more hollandaise sauce on the asparagus, which was quite good for institutional food.

“Let's get her in the administration,” Knute laughed.

The holiday season picked up everyone's spirits. The kids burst with energy and the faculty and administration were looking forward to their vacation as much as the students. The only person not bubbling was Charlotte, but she was trying.

After dessert the three girls came up to Charlotte.

“Ladies, did you keep any notes from your work with Professor Kennedy?”

“Yes, ma'am,” they chimed.

“Bring them to me after classes. How about four?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Then Felicity said, “Mrs. Norton, mine are in a notebook.”

“That's fine. I want you to sit down and go over your notes with me. And if Pamela has notes, bring her. On second thought, I'll talk to her.” She smiled, realizing these three did not get along with Pamela. “What I want to do is review what you found, what you learned, and then when Professor Kennedy's report comes in, we can compare. I think it will be very interesting.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And as my Christmas present to you, you can hunt with Sister Jane this Thursday. The field will be small and you can get up front to see the hounds work.”

“Thank you!” Their faces flushed with their good fortune.

“That means you are missing my class,” Alpha remarked with sternness.

“Well, Mrs. Rawnsley, I am the culprit,” said Charlotte. “Will you accept this absence if they write a book report on Siegfried Sassoon's
Memoirs of a Hunting Man
?”

Alpha's eyes lit up, “Marvelous book. All right, ladies, you have your assignment.”

After more thank-yous, the three hurried out of the dining room to the library to check out copies of Sassoon's book. The library boasted extensive hunting titles as well as a vast equine collection. Some of these books were worth hundreds of dollars and could only be read in the rare book room.

Knute watched them hurry out while trying not to run. “You made them happy. I can't imagine their notes will be much.”

“At the least there should be descriptions of the items each girl had to handle.” Alpha was all for training young people to use their powers of observation and then accurately describe what they saw, heard, felt, tasted, touched.

“I think we're lucky some of it didn't disintegrate in their fingers,” Bill added, stifling a laugh.

“Bill, it's not that bad,” Knute replied.

“Not that good.”

Alpha shrugged, “Mixed blessing.”

“Why do you say that?” Charlotte's senses were keen. She looked for anything out of line.

“Custis Hall has a long, dramatic history. Our founder, our benefactors, truly have given so much to this school, but what do we do with it? And Pamela may be a troubled child, an unhappy child, but I think she's hit the nail on the head.”

Knute snapped, “By calling us racist pigs, in so many words.”

“She was pretty direct.” Bill again had to stifle a laugh.

“No.” Alpha was accustomed to her male colleagues' flares of ideological passion, or of plain old ego. “She's forcing us to look anew. Her motives are scrambled but then is there anyone on the planet with pure motives? In a way, I think she's done Custis Hall a favor.”

Charlotte thought a moment. “Alpha, I think you're right.”

“Well, I don't. Whatever this report turns out to be it's going to cost us money.” Knute put his right hand on the table, quietly, palm down. “Obviously, some of those pieces have to be worth money. And even if they aren't, they are important to Custis Hall. We're going to have to wire the cases, put up new locks, and who knows what else?”

Bill grimaced. “Nothing has been right since Al was killed.”

Knute nodded in agreement. “We'll never find another Al.”

“No progress.” Alpha's eyebrows raised quizzically.

“Not that I know of,” Knute replied.

“It will take time, but you know Sheriff Sidel will keep at it; he's a dedicated man.” Charlotte liked Ben Sidel a lot.

“Small-time,” Knute simply dismissed Ben.

“Back to the objets d'art or whatever you'd like to call them.” Bill felt expansive after his delicious lunch. “You can't rewire those old cases. You'll have to rebuild everything in there, which means the whole damned hall gets torn up. And the contractors will probably find old horsehair stuffing in the walls, which someone will declare a health hazard. People used horsehair for insulation for centuries and seemed to live quite normal lives, but trust me, it will all be ripped out. And then the old plaster will crumble and that will come out, too. You'll rebuild the interior of the whole damn hall, I'm telling you, and the electrical costs alone will fry you, forgive the pun.”

“You're full of Christmas cheer,” Knute sourly replied.

“It's the truth. Your worry about security costs is scratching the surface. The security costs will be a pittance compared to the rest of it.”

Alpha asked Bill, “Isn't there another way? Does it have to be that extensive?”

Bill laughed, a true belly laugh. “Well, I can make it look like it's wired, like we have a security system. Hell, I can even set up infrared beams. It won't cost the school more than two thousand dollars because I'll throw in my labor for free.”

“Bill, that is completely irresponsible!” Knute raised his voice. Those left in the dining hall looked at him. He immediately shut up.

“Why don't we wait for the report?” Charlotte smoothly said as she rose, her folded napkin on the side of the plate.

C H A P T E R   2 7

E
ven in summer's sunshine, Hangman's Ridge exerted a brooding presence. On a cold December night, with clouds piling up on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the place reverberated with accumulated sufferings, no matter how well-deserved.

Georgia, exploring her territory, climbed up to the ridge, beheld one murderer's ghost jibbering, and shot down through the underbrush.

She ran up on her mother, Inky, strolling to the kennels.

“I'm not going back up there again!”

“Dead humans,”
Inky simply said.

“Why don't they go away? Where do they go?”
Georgia hadn't considered the human soul.

“Depends on the human, I guess. Some believe they go up to the sky and play harps.”

“How strange.”
Georgia thought that version of an afterlife quite tepid.

“Others think they go to paradise and have forty virgins if they die a martyr's death,”
Inky wryly commented.
“Exhausting, I should think. And others think they don't go anywhere. And then there are those who think they come back in some other form at some other time.”

“We could have been humans?”
Georgia thought out loud.

“I don't know. They call it reincarnation, and if it's true and a human comes back as a fox, it would be a step up,”
Inky confidently replied.

“Be on four legs. That's a whole lot better right there.”
Georgia marveled at how humans kept their balance.
“How happy they'd be. They could run and jump and turn in midair. They could see at night, too. I hope reincarnation is right.”

“I don't know.”
Inky inhaled the tang of oncoming moisture.
“Snow in a few hours. Light, I think.”

“My den is warm. I'm glad Sister moved me. Shaker, too. They set out treats.”

“They're good that way.”

“Where are you going?”

Inky heard a faint complaint in one of the trees as a wren awakened.
“Kennels. Thought I'd see if Diana would be out for a walk. She likes to sit still at night and listen. She's very enjoyable.”

“May I join you?”

“Yes, that's a good idea. It's time you got to know the hounds and they you.”

As the two foxes passed Shaker's cottage they inhaled cinnamon. Lorraine's car was parked in the drive, a light sheen of frost forming on the windshield.

A pair of headlights just missed them, turning left toward the main house.

“I'd like to ride in a car,”
Inky mused, as she reached the outdoor gyp run.

Cora, also out for a walk, heard her.
“It's fun unless you ate too much. Makes you sick.”

“Cora, this is Georgia, one of my daughters. The other one made a den at Mill Ruins. Georgia, this is Cora, she's the strike hound. That means she usually finds the scent first and runs up front.”

“You're the young one Sister and Shaker put in the apple orchard,”
Cora noted as Diana came alongside.

More introductions followed.

“Diana is the anchor hound. She is the leader, she tells the others what to do if they need it.”

“You'll learn how to foil your scent, how to double back. There's a lot you can do to throw us off or slow us down. If we get too close, duck into a den, anybody's den,”
Cora advised.

“You're only half-grown, Georgia. Don't go too far from your den this year. There's a lot to eat right here around the kennel and stables. Learn all you can before going out on long runs.”
Diana also gave sensible advice.

“Will you kill me?”
Georgia worried.

“I'd roll you first.”
Cora told the truth.
“Blast off sideways. Whatever you do, don't reverse your direction, because you'll run smack into the entire pack since I'm usually first. Just go sideways and run like hell. If you can't find a den, climb. But this year, really, don't go far from home. Dragon, especially, can't be trusted. He's out to kill.”

“That's one of my brothers,”
Diana informed her.
“The other one, Dasher, is fast, too, but he has a lot more sense.”

“You should stick close to home, anyway, honey. It's one thing if a pack of foxhounds do their job. It's another if a hound that's been left out by deer hunters or one that's lost comes around. They'll eat anything, and that includes you. You need to learn the ropes,”
Inky said firmly.

“I will,”
Georgia promised.
“Why would a human turn out a hound?”

“Cheap,”
Diana replied.

“Pardon me?”
Georgia was a polite young fox.

“Too cheap to feed them once deer season is over. Now, the coon hunters will rarely turn out a hound. Bear hunters, too, but there are many, many more deer hunters than those other kinds. Some of them are bottom-feeders.”
Cora did not mince words.

“And Sister gets blamed for any problem with any hound. Someone sees a hound, they think it's one of ours. Doesn't even look like a foxhound but most people don't know the different types of hounds. Once deer season ends, Sister, Shaker, Betty, Walter, and Sybil are out picking up starving hounds. The SPCA can't adopt them out very easily because people think hounds are dumb. It's pretty awful.”
Diana loved Sister and worried when her dear old human friend became worried.

“What happens to the hounds?”
Georgia asked.

“Well, whoever picks one up has to get him healthy once again. Once the animal is okay they housebreak him and then call all their friends to see if someone will take a stray. Most foxhunters will help a hound, if they can. But it's sure a lot of work.”
Cora lifted her fur. The cold was settling in.

“Why would a human be so . . . so . . . horrible to a hound? To let an animal starve and in the winter, too?”
Georgia was shocked.

“Georgia, they let their own children starve, some of them. They even abandon their children,”
Inky told her.

“How can an animal abandon her cubs?”
Georgia just couldn't believe it.

“They do.”
Cora lifted her head straight up to the sky.
“And they kill other people's children.”

“They walk up to the den and kill them?”
Georgia was bowed under the weight of this news.

“Let's put this in order,”
Diana, always thinking, said.
“No, they don't walk up to a human den and shoot their children. It usually is some sick human. He'll snatch them off the streets—in big cities mostly. You don't have much of that in the country, but humans will kill other humans' children in wars, by the millions. It's very hard for a hound or a fox to imagine that kind of bloodlust. But really, Georgia, millions die in wars.”

“I don't know what a million is,”
Georgia soberly replied.

“They don't either. They just think they do.”
Inky laughed.

“Would Sister kill children?”
Georgia was perturbed.

“No,”
Cora and Diana replied in unison.

“Do a lot of them do this?”
Georgia wondered.

“Enough for it to be a problem, apart from war, I mean,”
Diana said.
“War is different. They can kill and it's all right. I can't explain why, but they truly believe this. You can kill anyone you want as long as they are on the other side. Men, women, children, it doesn't matter. They call them an enemy so it's not like killing your neighbor. They don't have to think about it.”

“Do they eat what they kill?”

“No, Georgia, they aren't allowed to do that,”
Inky flatly replied.
“That's forbidden.”

“Unless they are starving. But even then, it's a terrible taboo. If they eat another human sometimes they lose their minds because it's so horrible to them,”
Cora interjected.

“Let me understand, a human being can kill millions of other human beings if it's called war and that's okay. But a human being can't eat another human being?”
Georgia paused.
“It doesn't make sense.”

“No one ever suggested it did. But that's humans for you,”
Diana said.
“There was a dead human under St. John's of the Cross, but we couldn't pull it out. Now, that is kind of unusual. Even if they kill, and kill in numbers, they do their best to bury or burn.”

“Couldn't a human have crawled under there to die?”
Georgia already knew how some animals chose to die.

“They don't die like that. They flop down and croak.”
Cora giggled.
“I mean they just flop around like a chicken. It's because they don't listen to their bodies so they don't know when they're going to die. They deny it and then they just die in front of everyone unless they're in a hospital or something. We've been talking, those of us who hunted that day, about the body at St. John's. We didn't see it. Smelled it. The humans couldn't.”

“Is it a bad thing?”
Georgia asked.

“It is,”
and Diana fretted over this.
“And Target has a ring. We're pretty sure it came from that body because he said it was on a finger. He doesn't have the finger anymore. He's been bragging to everyone about the ring. He hoards stuff.”

“He even has a Day-Glo Frisbee.”
Inky laughed.

“Charlene made him find his own den.”
Cora mentioned Target's mate.
“She said she couldn't stand the clutter. He won't give up anything.”

“Are all dog foxes like that?”
Georgia really was a youngster.

“We'll talk about males some other time,”
Inky replied as Cora and Diana laughed.

“I heard that,”
Ardent called from the boys' run, which made them all laugh more.