The Hunt Ball (20 page)

C H A P T E R   2 8

A
ll living things, plants and animals, have optimum living conditions. Even plants have patterns; in their case it's when they pollinate, bloom, and bear fruit. For the higher vertebrates the patterns center on food, shelter, mating, and rearing the young.

Sister rested her hands on Keepsake's withers. Her white string gloves warded off the cold. The snow rested in crevices of rocks, down in the crease of ravines, and on the north side of those hills that received little sun because of the winter angle of the sun. Winds had blown off some of the snow; bald patches of ground dotted the meadows.

The sky, crystal clear, brilliant blue, heralded one of those high-pressure systems that delight the eye but make scenting difficult.

Knowing her quarry, Sister searched for evidence of last night's hunting, a tuft of feathers here, a hank of cottontail fur, sweet little berries, dried now, nibbled off lower branches of bushes and scrubs. If hunting had been spectacularly good, whole pieces of the kill would be strewn around as the fox ate the best parts and took other delicacies home to stash. Foxes, like humans, believed in bank accounts.

She caught her breath, for they'd had a fifteen-minute burst at top speed and they were lucky to have it considering the day. The hounds threw up, which is to say they lost the line, and Diana as well as Shaker were trying to figure out if they overran the line or simply zigged when they should have zagged.

When a high-pressure system is in place, the air is dry, almost light. Sound carries true to origin whereas in heavy moisture the ear can be fooled by the horn, the cry, or even the chatter of birds. It sounds as though it's coming from one direction, but in fact it's coming from another. Even on a high-pressure day, sound ricochets off mountains, hillocks.

Sister was a good field master. She kept the huntsman and the hounds in sight most times. Sometimes, though, she couldn't. St. Hubert himself would fall behind. On those days, she used her ears and her knowledge of quarry.

She knew the fox was close by. She also knew the luxurious trail of scent wouldn't hold on this bright meadow, which was the very reason the fox bolted from the covert only to cross the meadow. Sybil gave out a “Tally ho,” but by the time hounds were set on the line, the saucy red devil scurried a healthy seven minutes ahead of the hounds.

Sister thought of the meeting the previous night with Charlotte and Ben, who joined them later. She was especially glad that Gray was with her as he possessed a logical mind.

Ben suggested the meeting. Since Sister and Gray had discovered the body, there was no point in pretending to them that it wasn't Professor Kennedy. While they couldn't identify the body given the leaves and such covering it, they could see enough to know the corpse was slight, perhaps female.

She knew that Ben, waiting for conclusive lab evidence in making an I.D. before relating more information, was trying to figure out the pattern of his quarry.

Charlotte, on the other hand, wanted to see if there was a connection between Al Perez and Professor Kennedy. She couldn't find one. They may not have known each other, but she believed the second death was related to the first.

Gray took in all the conversation, then laid out what they knew and what they didn't know like the excellent tax lawyer he was. Trained to look for loopholes, he found an oddity, perhaps not a loophole. The first death had been staged. The second death had been hidden.

They batted around the possible meanings of that but could go no further than the seemingly obvious, which was the first death was a gaudy warning before an entire audience. The second removed a person who somehow got in the way.

Gray suggested there could be more than one type of irregularity. The artifacts could house illegal drugs, or pharmaceutical drugs from Canada here to be resold at cheaper prices than American prices. Smuggled diamonds might be on certain clothes or items like sword hilts without arousing suspicion. Hide it out in the open.

Ben wanted to keep the artifacts intact. He didn't want to go through them just yet. He asked Charlotte to check each night, then each morning, to see if anything had been disturbed.

“We're in a waiting game” was all he said.

It gave them all a lot to think about.

Diana loped on a diagonal and the pack fanned out. Shaker liked for them to cast themselves. This nurtured their self-confidence. Not all huntsmen do that. Some direct their hounds, lifting them, setting them down in another covert, directing their every move. This was a matter of personality as well as the type of hound.

Both Sister and Shaker believed the American hound would figure it out faster without their interference.

As she watched her hounds work, she remembered it was December 8, one of the principal feast days of the Blessed Virgin Mother. Today was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the womb of her mother, St. Anne. She mused about these immaculate conceptions, a bizarre twist in a patriarchal religion. She thought it an odd manifestation of male self-hate as well as a perverse nod to female power, to the remnants of matriarchy that even a religion as violently antiwoman as Islam can't quite eradicate.

Sister did not think of herself as a religious woman, although she attended the Episcopal church. Her deepest belief was that religion is in the service of political power. Spirituality is not. She couldn't imagine foxes dying for their version of God or blowing themselves up among the Infidel, believing they would immediately ascend to paradise and be rewarded with forty fat chickens.

The longer she lived, the more she pitied the human animal and admired the fox.

These ruminations evaporated as Diana, with an assist from the steady Asa, found the line again. Barely perceptible it was, but as the two determined hounds trotted across the meadow, down the hillside, frost visible on the bare patches, the aroma of fox intensified. They opened, the others honored, and off they ran.

By the time the intrepid band returned to the trailers they'd been rewarded with some excellent hound work and three bracing runs in the bargain.

Sister felt these were the days that make your pack. Any pack looks great on a good day. It's the trying days that reveal how they work together, how much drive and intelligence they display. She loved her pack of hounds beyond measure.

Valentina, Tootie, and Felicity, wreathed in smiles, walked by Sister before they dismounted.

“Good evening, Master.”

“Good evening, girls.”

“Thank you for the day.”

“You know I'm happy when you hunt with me.” She smiled as they rode to the big Custis Hall van where Bunny, her horse untacked, waited.

Pleased that the three young women correctly addressed her, saying “Good evening, Master” even though it was twelve noon, she made a note to give them each a different classic hunting book for Christmas.

Betty rode up. “I was in the back of the beyond.”

As she dismounted Sister said, “How was it?”

“Cold. Heard Sybil viewed the fox away.”

She's improving so much as a whipper-in. It's good to see that, isn't it, considering the ups and downs of her life.”

“Hell, Jane, in this group anyone over thirty is riding the roller coaster.” Betty undid the noseband of Outlaw's bridle, slipping off the martingale.

“Make it forty. Some of our group are slow learners.” Sister laughed.

“And some don't learn at all.” Betty looped the martingale through the breastplate.

“Scary, isn't it?” Sister considered Betty one of her best friends. She wanted to talk to her about Professor Kennedy's murder because Betty had a good mind, but Ben told her to keep quiet until he released the I. D., which would most likely be next Monday or Tuesday.

“Well, it is until you consider it makes the rest of us look smart.” She tossed the cooler over Outlaw's back, keeping the saddle on although loosening the girth.

Both Sister and Betty kept their saddles on until the horses were back to the barn. They thought it kept their backs warm. Once in the wash stall they'd be cleaned with warm water, wiped down, put in a stall to eat without pinning their ears at another horse in the field. When dry, on would go the winter rugs and they'd be turned out to walk around, visit with friends, and be horses. The closer a creature can be to its natural state, the happier it is. Unfortunately people haven't learned this about horses, but then, they haven't learned it about themselves. At least Sister and Betty agreed on that and had many a deep conversation on the neurosis, self-inflicted, of the human animal.

As the two friends reviewed the day's hunt, the three girls returned to Sister's trailer, having taken care of their own horses.

“Sister,” Valentina said, “we'll miss you over Christmas vacation. But we'll be back in time for New Year's Hunt.”

“You'll be here for the hunt ball?”

“I will,” Tootie smiled.

“Me, too,” Valentina agreed. “Then I fly home.”

“Ditto,” Felicity said.

“Well, you know if anything goes wrong and you're stuck at the airport, call; Shaker or I will pick you up. I don't want you all stranded. The school shuts down on Christmas so you can't go back to the dorm.”

“Me, too, kids.” Betty scribbled down her cell number on the back of her business card. “You never know with that small airport. The weather can turn in a heartbeat.”

“Thanks.” They really were glad.

Tootie hung back as the other two walked away. “Sister, if my parents will let me, can I stay with you after the hunt ball? Until Thursday, then I'll fly home, too.” She waited a minute. “I, well, I'm happier here than home but I'll go home. I know I have to do it.”

“Honey, of course you can. You ask your parents and then if you'll give me their number, I'll talk to them. You know, parents always want the best for their children, but sometimes they can forget that you have to find your own way. Is it something like that?”

Tootie nodded. “Dad wants me to be an investment banker,” she said in a rare burst of emotion. “I'd die.”

“Don't do that. I'll invite your parents to come stay here if they'd like, sometime when it's convenient. I'd like to get to know them, and maybe, Tootie, if they see what you love, they'll begin to understand.”

Tootie threw her arms around the tall woman. “You are the best!”

After she walked away, Betty said, “I can see both sides of the story, can't you?”

“H-m-m.”

“That girl is brilliant. Her father translates that into money, prestige, comfort. She belongs in the country even though she wasn't raised in the country. She belongs with animals just like you and I do. We're born that way, you know.”

“I do. You're a good mother, Betty, you never pushed your kids. Yes, you made them do homework and all that, but you allowed them to be themselves.”

“Christmas is hard, Janie.”

“Betty, you
are
a good mother. Cody blew up her life. You didn't. As for Jennifer, she's a fabulous kid and having her and Sari back for Christmas vacation will be a joy. I love having kids in the house. I expect Sari and Lorraine will be here more than they'll be at Alice's. Well, they'll spend some time with Alice.”

“Wonder if Shaker will marry Lorraine?”

“He will, but he has to approach this in his own way. He's so cautious now.” Sister patted Keepsake on the neck as she led him first into the trailer.

The tailgate was light since Thursday's field was small.

Soon, Sister and Betty followed the hound party wagon down the winding dirt road to the paved road on the way home.

“What's wrong?” Betty flatly asked.

“Preoccupied.”

“Jane Arnold.”

Sister glanced at Betty, then back at the road since she was driving the rig. “Betty, Ben Sidel has asked me to keep quiet until Monday, as in not speak to anyone. And I will talk to you then, but I have to honor my promise. I am preoccupied. Something is very, very wrong at Custis Hall. Al Perez's death will lead us to something, if I only knew what.”

“You think other people will be killed?”

“I do.”

Betty grimaced. “Good God. What's worth killing over?”

“Motive, means, opportunity. We know the means. We know the window of opportunity for Al's murder. We lack the motive.”

“Money or sex.”

“Betty, that sounds good, but as I get older I think there are a lot more motives.”

“Like what?”

“Prestige, not losing one's status. Religious fanaticism or political fanaticism. Even economic fanaticism. People will kill when a new technology displaces them or if they think a current one is evil. I mean what about that American physician in 2004 going over to England and encouraging the antivivisectionists to kill the doctors engaging in experiments? People will kill for anything that makes sense to them. Doesn't have to make sense to us.”

“Vivisection is wrong. Just flat wrong.”

“I totally agree, but I'm not going to a lab and blowing up people in white lab coats. You can make change out of the barrel of a gun—thank you, Chairman Mao, another fat hypocrite for you—but it doesn't stick. Sooner or later, when the people have the ability, they sabotage or organize against the change. Or they try to turn back the clock. The only way change can work is with consensus, and that takes time, talking to people, listening to people, respecting the differences. It's the longer route, the seemingly harder route, but, ultimately, the successful route, and Betty, there is no other way. We have all of history to prove that point.”

“Well,” Betty thought a long time, “you're right. But who is going to listen to two middle-aged country women?”

“One middle-aged country woman. This girl is old.”

“Bullshit.”

“You say the nicest things to me.”