Hotspur

CHAPTER 10

As Sister settled in for the night, Athena started hunting. Bubo virginianus, great horned owl, her scientific and English name, cared little what she was called.

She was the queen of the night, and all other creatures need listen to her. If anyone challenged her supremacy she’d fly away as though in a huff, her wingspan seeming to cast a shadow even at night. Athena would then turn and silently strike the offender from behind; her balled-up talons could crack a skull. She feared no one. All feared her.

At two feet tall and nearly five pounds in weight, she could vanish in the blink of one of her golden eyes. How such a large creature could do this mystified other creatures. Like the goddess to whom she was sacred, Athena could appear and disappear at will.

Her cry, easily identified, was a deep, musical hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo. Sometimes she would vary the sequence and send out three low hoos. But her cry was distinctive and bore little resemblance to the barred owl’s or the long-eared owl’s, other hoo singers. Humans close to nature could tell the difference. Country people knew her song and her value to them. Athena rid them of raiders, rodents. Her worth was beyond rubies.

Other owls admired her and many wished they had her song. The short-eared owl emitted a little squeak. The barn owl, thick in these parts and also a friend to farmers, hissed or snapped her bill.

The only owl not intimidated by Athena’s sonorous voice was the screech owl, who would sing to her heart’s content and the misery of all around her. Only ten inches high, this reddish or gray little thing could crank out a volume that was most impressive. And she hardly limited herself to a bloodcurdling screech that scared the urine right out of city folks visiting the country. No, she could purr, trill, pitch high, then run down the scale to a lower register. When feeling marvelous—“mahvalous,” as she might say—she even provided tremolo.

Her sturdy ego meant that she, too, had no fear. In fact, a sly delight filled her when “visitors,” meaning city folk, shivered at her concert. She’d then fly close to them, putting on a display of fierceness that usually made one of these two-legged twits cry, “Rabies.”

As if she would ever get rabies. Puh-lease!

Already full from hunting, the screech owl sat in the old orchard by Roughneck Farm and hollered to her heart’s content. The hounds couldn’t shut her up.

Shaker and Doug, secure in air-conditioning in their separate quarters, could hear an occasional high note.

Bitsy, as she was known, rather hoped she could entice the hounds to sing with her. Sometimes one would lift his head and start a note, one or two others would follow or honor, the correct term, and within a minute the entire kennel would join her in ribald chorus.

They were really saying, “Bitsy, shut up, for God’s sake.” But the little brown owl thought she was the diva and they were her chorus in this great opera of life.

“Bitsy, do shut up.”

Bitsy complied this time as this request came from Athena, who had landed on a branch opposite her. The screech owl knew in her heart that Athena was jealous— after all, the other owls never challenged her in song contests—but Athena was Athena, so Bitsy shut up. “Hello. I didn’t hear you.”

“Of course not, you idiot. You make such a racket.” Athena fluffed out her feathers, appearing even more grand.

“It’s such a beautiful night. And I have dined on delicious mice this evening. Full of corn they were, raiding the barns. So sweet and crunchy.”

“Me too,” Athena replied. She smoothed out her feathers. “Come with me.”

Bitsy, thrilled to be asked to accompany the queen herself, spread her strong little wings and lifted off, flying just to Athena’s right.

Both birds noiselessly soared through the sky, passing through the fragrant orchard where the apples hung gathering sweetness for a fall harvest. Beneath them a large pasture bisected by the dusty farm road appeared, the grasses swaying in the light breeze. They climbed upward, heading north over copses hugging the creek beds below. Within ten minutes of leisurely flying they passed over the fearsome tree on Hangman’s Ridge, then descended to the low, narrow fertile valley that ran east to west. A two-lane paved road, Soldier Road, ran through this valley. Sister owned the land south of Soldier Road. Foxglove Farm, the land north of Soldier Road, had been in the Chandler family since 1803.

The animals knew where the human boundaries were, but they looked at the land in geological terms. The long, thin valley, cultivated fields, on which Soldier Road was built, was the pinkie finger of a tiny glacier splinter that had veered off from the main push so long ago, humans weren’t even around here to write about it.

Parked along the side of the road, facing west, not two miles from Roger’s Corner, Ralph Assumptio sat in his Toyota Land Cruiser. The motor was cut off.

Athena and Bitsy landed in a poplar by Broad Creek. Steep and fed by runoff from the Blue Ridge Mountains, the creek crossed the road below Hangman’s Ridge at a diagonal. During hard, persistent rains, it often jumped its bed, spreading muddy waters over the low areas and in the worst of rains rising to drown the roadbed.

Ralph, his head in his hands, elbows on the steering wheel, was sobbing his heart out.

“It’s never good when a man cries,” Bitsy murmured.

“Mmm.” Athena’s gorgeous eyes opened wider, movement in the creek bed making her alert.

Inky, having eaten an early supper, was on her way to play at the kennels. Her den was by the walnut at cornfield’s edge, a mile from the kennel if one could fly. Inky liked chatting with Diana and she liked sitting under the apple trees, too.

She noticed the Land Cruiser. SUVs reminded her of large hercules beetles. Curiosity aroused, she walked closer, then stopped when she saw the two owls in the poplar. She softly padded over to them instead. She could hear Ralph’s sobs.

“Does he need help?” the glossy young fox asked.

“Not that we can supply,” Athena said.

“Should we wait until he leaves, just to make sure?” Inky, a kindhearted animal, wondered.

“Let’s examine the situation.” Athena puffed out her chest. “A man, alone, is pulled off to the side of the road, a road not heavily traveled except on the way to work and when they come home. He’s not drunk and he’s not sick. I can always smell sickness.” This was uttered with great authority.

“Wife left him,” Bitsy said.

“Could be, but he’s reputed to have a good marriage,” Athena said.

“And it’s not money. Ralph’s smart that way,” Inky said.

Indeed, Ralph was smart that way. He had graduated from Hamilton College in New York, then come back to Virginia to the university’s Darden School of Business. He took a job at the local John Deere dealership and wound up buying it in his mid-thirties. Now in his forties, he owned dealerships throughout Virginia. He was rumored to have a silent partner, but no one knew who that might be. Some people thought the silent partner concept was jealousy, because Ralph came up on his own. A small percentage of people can’t stand to be shown up by anyone. Ralph was a handy target for the stupid or lazy. He let them talk while he kept working— and making money.

“Maybe he’s received some kind of bad news, a friend is ill or someone that he loved died.” Bitsy turned her head nearly upside down thinking about it.

“Nola,” Athena said.

“Ah, all the men his age loved her, didn’t they? That’s what I hear.” And Bitsy heard quite a lot sitting in trees or on a crossbeam in a hayloft.

Ralph coughed, snuffled loudly, coughed again, and wiped his eyes. He spit out the open car window. He wiped his eyes again, then reached into the glove compartment, pulling out a white aspirin bottle. He popped three into his mouth, swallowing them without water. He turned on the engine and drove off.

“Been almost a week since she was found. Why is he crying now?” Inky thought it strange.

“Maybe it’s just hitting him,” Bitsy opined.

“No,” Athena crisply replied. “It’s worse than that.”

They sat there for another fifteen minutes chatting, then the two owls flew toward the Chandler barn.

Inky crossed the road, trotted up Hangman’s Ridge, and walked along the flat ridge toward the huge old tree, well over three hundred years old.

A whisper drew her eyes to the tree.

Inky thought she saw a ghost, a man in his mid-thirties dressed in fine clothes although his neck had been unnaturally stretched and his tongue hung out.

“ ‘For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.’ Romans, chapter twelve, verse nine.” His anguish was palpable.

Inky knew spirits existed. Just like Hamlet told Horatio, there were more things in heaven and earth than we knew, but that didn’t mean she wanted any part of them.

She raced back toward her den, deciding not to visit Diana tonight. A whippoorwill disturbed by her passing let out its characteristic call.

She dashed into her den, snuggling in the fresh hay she’d lined there.

“How sad humans are,” she thought to herself. “They hurt others and they hurt themselves and their misery flows down through the centuries. Maybe there really is original sin for them.” She closed her eyes and prayed to God, who, for her, looked like a beautiful gray fox. “Thank you, dear God, thank you for making me a fox.”