Fox Tracks

CHAPTER 38

Early March came and, cold though it might be, it lifted spirits because spring couldn’t be far. Hunting season for Jefferson ended mid-March.

Despite the bruising, Sister rode, drove her truck, and fell in love with Zoe and her puppies.

Tuesday’s hunt on March 6 was at a new fixture, Close Shave. It couldn’t have been better. They didn’t really know the territory yet, didn’t know their foxes, but as the foxes ran so did they.

After everyone was put up, Zoe given warm food, Sister shepherded Betty and Tootie outside to her truck.

“We’re going to scare people,” she said.

“I do that anyway,” Betty joked. “Especially without my makeup.”

Tootie sat in the rear of the truck. Betty hopped into the front seat, picking up the dryer. “Will you throw this thing away? You are not going to get it fixed.”

“Put it in your lap,” ordered Sister.

Sister drove near Roger’s Corner, where the small crossroads is. She parked where she’d seen the police cruiser weeks before.

“All right. Now I want you, Betty, to sit in the passenger seat and look serious. Tootie, I want you to stand behind me and hold this.” Sister handed Tootie the box used for the Johnson tracking collars. She kept the door of the driver’s side open, opened the window, stepped outside, and rested the black hair dryer on the windowsill.

Crouching behind the door but clearly visible, Sister pointed the hair dryer at the road. “Tootie, lift the tracking aerial over my head.”

“Are we going to get in trouble for this?” Tootie asked.

“I will take full responsibility. Here comes one. Look serious!”

A car heading for them over the speed limit braked dramatically, then glided by.

“Gotcha!” Sister said.

Those three women at their phony speed trap stayed out there in the cold for an hour, scaring the pants off people who thought they’d get a ticket. In a flash, Tootie had an idea of what Sister was like when she was her age.

Back in the truck, heading home, through her tears of laughter, Betty said, “You are crazy.”

Sister replied, “It’s good to be alive.”

To the Reader:

Tobacco is interwoven with the history of the New World. I found it fascinating. Should you wish to pursue the subject, you might begin with:

http://​archive.​tobacco.​org/​History/​Tobacco_​History.​html

For an overview of government response to tobacco, try:

http://​www.​fda.​gov/​tobacco​products/​guidance​compliance​regulatory​information/​default.​htm

You will find much more if you search using your computer. As this is a work of fiction an extensive bibliography is out of place, but works on tobacco and tobacco families are not difficult to find.

If you took chemistry in high school, you will be able to battle through technical publications and monographs. If you pursued chemistry in college you might find the analysis of varying chemical compositions of the different tobacco types exciting. Even with my limited background in chemistry, I was amazed at how tobacco can be manipulated, for lack of a better word.

At bottom, tobacco helped build the United States. It is worth studying.

All best,

Rita Mae