Crazy Like A Fox

CHAPTER 5

The routine of hounds and horses varies somewhat due to latitude. The higher latitudes feel the cold earlier. The southern ones relish warmth longer but sooner or later Boreas, the north wind, blows hard on everyone. As to the light, that seems to affect animals and people even more than the cold.

Tootie, Sister, and Shaker, working in the kennels, were sweating. The clock read eleven A.M. The mercury climbed to the mid 70s.

Tootie power washed the feed room. The light spray soaked her shirt. Felt good. Power washing created such cleanliness. She felt real achievement. It was.

Sister checked a hound’s paw. Zane, now in his third year, had snagged a claw.

“I don’t want to stand still.”

“Shaker, give me a hand, will you? He’s antsy.” Sister then spoke to the young hound. “I’m going to clip it at the end, put iodine at the root. You be a good boy.”

“Torture.” Zane dramatized.

Raleigh sat on the floor. All the hounds knew him. He accompanied them on all their walks. So did Rooster, willed to Sister by his late owner, Peter Wheeler. Peter had also willed Sister his land, his house, and the stunning old mill, still running, on the property, Mill Ruins. He loved Sister, loved Jefferson Hunt, and loved Rooster. Having lived a good, full life, he left in peace.

Rooster, next to Raleigh, glared at the young hound. “Suck it up.”

Zane, ears back, eyes wide, winced as Sister clipped the claw nowhere near the quick. The problem was where the claw inserted into the pad, as Zane had pulled the claw so hard.

“This will sting.” Expertly, quickly, she dabbed iodine on the small wound.

“I’m dying.”

Both house dogs looked at him with disgust.

“Can’t wrap this. He’ll chew it off and make it worse.” Shaker stated the obvious.

“Well, let’s keep him up in our recovery room for a few days. See if it begins to heal. If not, he’ll need to go to the vet and she’ll perform her special claw operation.”

“Operation.” Zane’s understanding of human English was good.

“Your liver. The vet will take it out,” Rooster mischievously reported.

“No!” Zane screamed.

Sister leaned toward him, hugging him to her chest. “Honey chile, calm down.” She glanced down at Rooster and Raleigh. “You two are enjoying this far too much.”

“Not me,” Raleigh fibbed.

“He is, too.” Rooster contradicted the sleek Doberman.

The creature deeply enjoying this was splayed on the office desk. Her marvelous ears could hear a rat piss in cotton. Golliwog relished it all. Her long, luxurious tail, a source of vanity, swayed gently. Her big smile revealed pearly white fangs.

“Dogs are such lowlifes.” She sighed.

Tootie rolled up the power washer hose and pushed the large machine, an expensive one, too, back to the equipment closet.

“She start her night classes?” Shaker inquired as she passed the medical room.

“Last week,” Sister replied.

Tootie, a graduate of Custis Hall, a private girls’ secondary school in Staunton, had hunted with The Jefferson Hunt from ninth grade to graduation. From there she matriculated at Princeton along with another classmate, Val Smith. Excellent as her grades were, she hated being away from Jefferson Hunt.

She left Princeton, knocked on Sister’s door, asked for a job. She’d whipped-in her last year at Custis Hall; good, too. Sister, after a long, long talk with Tootie, took her on. Tootie’s day started at dawn with physical labor. The kid loved it. Her parents nearly suffered a stroke. She didn’t budge, so her father, one of the richest African Americans in Chicago, pulled the money plug. Tootie didn’t complain. Her mother, Yvonne Harris, a former model, tried everything she could think of: wheedling, guilt, extravagant promises. Tootie held firm.

In her second year now as staff, she’d matured, topping out at about five foot six. Her best friend and former roommate at Princeton, Val Smith, stood at six feet two inches. Sister once was six feet two inches but she’d shrunk to six feet, half an inch. Tootie felt like a midget. Her mother leaned on Val, too, to bring Tootie around, but all that came of the Harrises’ theatrics was that their daughter wanted nothing to do with them. She didn’t want to hear about money, suitable marriages, wasting her mind. Her father, all ego, said he didn’t care. Her mother did.

Sister and Shaker knew sooner or later the other shoe would drop or wind up in their asses. Both mother and father blamed Sister, the father more so.

Sister had nothing to do with it, but she wasn’t going to turn away a college freshman with no skills other than hunting.

“All right, Zane, come along. My, that’s a pronounced limp.”

“I’m dying.”

The injury was slight, but Shaker loved the young hound, so he scooped him up, all seventy pounds of him, carrying him back to the clean little room with a skylight, fresh water, and a wonderful bed.

Rooster and Raleigh stood at the open door. “American Academy of Dramatic Arts,” they said in unison.

Zane ignored them, placing his head on Shaker’s shoulder, staring at his tormentors from that vantage point.

Sister unclicked the leash that she’d put on. “You’ll be fine. You aren’t the first hound to hang up a claw. Here.” She reached in her pocket, giving him a dried liver bit.

“Hey!” Raleigh nudged her hand.

“Just wait, Greedy-guts,” the tall woman commanded.

Tootie joined them at the room. “How is he?”

“Fine. Needs a few days for it to heal, and I think it will,” Sister answered. “Done?”

“I’m going to ride two sets before the heat comes up more.” Tootie smiled at Sister.

“Good idea.” Sister turned to Shaker. “Let’s all ride two sets. Knock ’em right out.”

Sister rode Lafayette and ponied Rickyroo. Tootie rode Aztec and ponied Matador, while Shaker rode Kilowatt and ponied Hojo. He would still have one horse to work as he did not want to work the horse he hunted yesterday.

The fitness routine, strict, consistent, pleased the horses. Horses and hounds, both, thrive with routine.

Back at the stables, hosing down the horses, Tootie asked, “I can ride Showboat if you’re short on time.”

“Why don’t you ride Matchplay next to Showboat? The youngster will benefit from my old boy,” Shaker suggested.

“Good idea,” Sister called out from the wash stall. “I’ll be in the house if you need me.”

No sooner had she pushed open the mudroom door, Raleigh, Rooster right behind, than a huge furball shot past the two dogs and rocketed into the kitchen once that door was opened.

“Golly, you’re nuts.” Sister chastised the cat who’d left the kennels so obviously.

A familiar voice called out from the mudroom, boots knocking the boot scraper.

“Betty.”

“Came by to sit down with you and do the fixture card.”

“Oh, Betty.” Sister’s voice fell as she looked at her best friend. “Now?”

“No better time. Once we figure it out, we still have to call all the landowners and that can take weeks. People go on vacations; they don’t know when they’ll harvest their corn, hay, wheat. You know how much time it takes, then we’ve got to get it printed up, take it to Freddie Thomas, sit around and stuff envelopes, then send it off before Opening Hunt. I’m in the mood. Thought I’d get you in the mood.” Beholding a less than enthusiastic face, Betty’s voice hit the seduction register. “I brought a big bowl of my avocado, red beet, eggs, shaved turkey, parsley, and cheese salad.”

“All those ingredients just for me?” Sister laughed, already opening the cupboard doors as Betty walked back out to her car.

“Sit close. We’ll get some.” Rooster beamed.

“I’ll get some before you do. I can sit on a chair and even pat a folded napkin,” Golly said.

The dogs stared at the braggart.

Raleigh warned, “You’ll get in trouble.”

“Uh-uh.” The calico licked her paw.

Food on the table, Golliwog sitting just like a proper person in a chair, the cat did get a piece of turkey.

“I hate that cat.” Rooster lay down, paws over his ears.

“Ta Ta.” Golliwog licked her little dish, which Sister had thoughtfully put out.

“Why do you feed her at the table?” Betty must have asked this a thousand times.

“If she has a proper place setting, good china, she acts like a lady.”

“Oh, my God.” Betty rolled her eyes, then exploded into laughter.

“Betty, you wouldn’t believe how Golly manipulates our mother. Shameful it is. Awful to behold.” Raleigh cast his limpid brown eyes at the attractive Betty, perhaps ten pounds overweight.

The impromptu lunch group ate, the humans weakening and tossing bits to the dogs, Sister placing more turkey on the cat’s plate. They talked about hunting, the weather, people, the subjects old friends visit and revisit.

“So she organized her classes around hunting?” Betty savored an avocado slice.

“Well, she did it last year. Tootie, thanks to her board scores and grades, had no trouble getting into UVA from Princeton. She doesn’t want to go full time. If she does it this way, she’s happy.”

“And you said she’s taking organic chemistry?” Betty leaned toward her friend. “As a freshman?”

“Well, she’s half a sophomore. They accepted her first semester grades from Princeton, finally. So far she loves it.”

“More power to her. I would hate it.” Betty pointed a fork at Sister. “And you, a geology major.”

“Like Tootie, I loved what I studied.”

Betty put down the fork, pointed to her forehead. “Box of rocks.”

“Never said I was bright.” Sister laughed. “Or you!”

Table cleared, Betty pulled out paper and pencils. Doing a fixture card on a computer had proved counterproductive for both of them. Maps were spread all over the table. They kept checking them, studying the blue outlines signifying estates, farms, raw land where they had permission to hunt. Red outlines meant no hunting. Fortunately, there were few of those. Couldn’t really do that with computers squatting on top of the topo maps.

Tedious as the chore could be, they compared notes about landowners, those wonderful people who gave the club permission to hunt over their lands, notes about terrain, and wind direction. Two heads bent over large colored maps from the U.S. Geological Survey.

What joy to work with a beloved friend. Neither woman could know that in twenty-four hours their world would be topsy-turvy. Fortunately, both had a good sense of humor. They would need more than that.