Hounded To Death

CHAPTER 20

“I’ll be glad when cubbing starts.” Sitting on the patio facing west, Gray leaned back against the big pillows in his comfortable wooden chair. Sister’s old house afforded a gorgeous view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Large bug lamps glowed as the sun set behind the mountains, the clouds above reflecting an undergirding of gold. It was Friday, August 22.

“Me, too.” Tootie agreed. Then suddenly her face registered dismay. “I forgot. I’ll be at Princeton.”

“Once you settle in up there, Sister will write you letters of introduction to the neighboring hunts. Most people don’t know it, but New Jersey has some good clubs. Always has.” Gray sipped a refreshing Tom Collins.

Not a heavy drinker, he did enjoy an end-of-the-day drink: gin or vodka mixes in summer and a scotch on the rocks in winter.

Sister carried out a large tray of fresh vegetables cut in thin strips, crackers, and some cheese—Raleigh, Rooster, and Golly following closely, in case she dropped something edible—and set the tray on the outdoor coffee table. She picked up her glass of tonic water with its big wedge of lime and dropped in a chair to the left of Gray.

He reached out his hand and she held it. “I was just telling Tootie that I’ll be glad when cubbing starts.”

Sister beamed, for she loved that he shared her passion for hunting, although perhaps not to her degree. “Sugar, I’m thrilled to hear that.”

He touched his military mustache with his right forefinger, smoothing it first right and then left, a slight grin twitching the carefully groomed mustache upward. “Always like seeing the young entry, and—well, once you’re hunting perhaps all this worry about the summer’s ugly events will fade away.”

“Been that bad, have I?” She squeezed his hand.

“I didn’t say that,” he replied diplomatically.

“Didn’t have to.” She turned to Tootie. “How bad have I been?”

Tootie stalled a minute, then said lightly, “Mildly obsessed.”

Sister leaned back, stretching her long legs onto the wooden footrest that matched the chair. “I know.”

“Here’s a rare moment.” Golly immediately jumped onto Sister’s lap.

“She admits things—sometimes.” Raleigh always defended his beloved human.

“I can count them on the claws of one paw.” Golly held out one razor-sharp claw to make her point, as well as to remind the lowly dogs that she could do serious damage.

“My master used to say, ‘Give Janie enough time and she’ll come round. Push her and you lose her, maybe forever. She doesn’t cotton to force.’ ” Rooster quoted his deceased master, Peter Wheeler, a former lover of Sister’s whom she still loved, really.

“Force? I’d like to see someone push her around. She might be old, but she’s quick as a cat. Well, almost.” Golly, in a revealing moment, praised Sister. It wouldn’t do for a cat to admit too much love for a human.

“I think Peter meant pressure more than physical force,” Raleigh commented soberly.

“You should be a lawyer.” With that Golly flopped on her side, closed her eyes, and pretended not to care a fig for the continuing conversation.

The three people had gone over Hope’s labels yet again—which Sister saw in the print shop—as well as the fact that Mo Schneider’s killer and Grant Fuller’s killer had never been found. They had moved on to the decayed foot that young Twist had retrieved.

“There are a lot of people up there”—Gray held his glass toward the Blue Ridge Mountains, color deepening to flaming scarlet in the clouds as the ridgeline itself turned cobalt blue—“who don’t come down. They live apart from what we euphemistically call civilization. They die in their cabins or out walking. They aren’t found except by vultures, feral dogs, and the like. I expect the foot comes from such a source.”

“I thought the people who lived up there had been run off.” Tootie couldn’t believe how vivid the sunset was, the colors changing every minute.

“You mean during the Depression when the federal government bought up land and built the Skyline Drive?” The stirring of twilight breezes started up, and the first bat darted overhead as Sister spoke.

“Right. Wasn’t it a terrible thing? Whole families torn off the land?” The beautiful girl liked reading history.

“Was.” Gray had heard about it from his parents, aunts and uncles who thankfully lived at the old Lorillard home place and suffered no ill effects from the upheaval. “And some folks died shooting, too. Not all the stories made the history books. In fact, most of them didn’t. We digest a pabulum version of our history. By design, of course.”

“Cynical but true.” Sister nodded.

“However, some people who were forced off their land crept to some other place below the federal lands and made do. In the sixties, people came from other parts and vanished into the ravines and hollows. It’s one of the odd things about our country: We don’t study the thousands—maybe millions—of people who choose not to participate in the Great American Way.” Gray heard a high-pitched bat squeak.

“Which is?” Sister squeezed his hand again, then let go to pet Golly, still pretending to be asleep.

“Grabbing and getting. Been that way since 1607. You think those folks from England sailed over here to be poor?” Gray laughed genially.

“Some came to escape persecution,” Tootie answered.

“Not in 1607. But you’re right, many did who came later. ’Course some of them, once established, relished the joys of persecuting others.” He leaned over to look directly at Tootie. “If I can teach you anything, Tootie, allow me to teach you this: The human animal stays the same. All systems of government and religion try to effect change, and all fail. The best you can do is manage the animal.”

“And some manage better than others,” Sister pointed out. “I think we’ve done pretty well, even with our outstanding flaws.”

“Slavery.” Tootie named what she perceived as some flaws. “Killing off the Indians.”

“Are we back to calling them Indians now?” Sister meant this with genuine curiosity. “It became Native Americans, then it was First Americans. I hope we’re back to Indians, because the word conjures up pictures of bravery, glamour even. First American sounds like an insurance company.”

“You’re not PC.” Gray laughed at her.

“No. And while I’m on this tear, what is that drivel about someone being hearing impaired ? If you can’t hear, you’re deaf. If you can’t see, you’re blind. Use the true word, the word that has power, not some watered-down treacle. I hate euphemisms. Those words are for people who can’t face life.”

“Maybe.” Gray liked engaging in ideas, observations. “Most people don’t live authentic lives, honey. There are so many layers between them and the truth, whether it’s the truth of nature or the truth of power, that even their language is anemic. They aren’t temporizing. At least, I don’t think they are.”

“My dad’s like that.” Tootie loved her father but didn’t always like him.

“Your father?” Sister was surprised.

“What Dad knows is banking. He’s incredible. He’s always getting put in charge of things like the Heart Fund. But he thinks that’s the world. I mean he thinks everything will conform to what he knows. That’s why I disappoint him.”

“Honey.” A rush of emotion flushed Sister’s face. “Your father loves you. He’s not disappointed. Granted, he doesn’t understand your love of hunting and the outdoors; he sees it as a pastime. But he’s proud of you.”

“Then why does he want me to be like him?”

Gray knocked back the rest of his drink. “Because he loves you. That sounds like a contradiction, but he’s happy in his world and wants you to be happy, hence the desire to see you doing what he has done. It will be difficult for him to accept another path for you, should you take it. But he will. Sister is right; your father loves you. He hasn’t abandoned you like Felicity’s parents have done. I don’t think he would, even if you take a different path from what he thinks is best. I know he’s hard on you. I was hard on my kids, especially my son. When he wanted to be a veterinarian specializing in cattle, I didn’t get it. I thought, Here goes my son, every damned advantage I could give him and he wants to spend his life in blood and manure. Actually, I thought of a different word than manure.”

“Then over time you saw he had to be his own man,” Sister added.

“I did, and I’m glad he held out for what he wanted. I have a real man for a son, not a pale imitation of me.”

“You really think in time my father will be glad I became my own woman?” Tootie had assumed she’d spend the rest of her life either avoiding discussions with her father or endlessly explaining herself.

“He will, but don’t expect an overnight conversion.” Gray chuckled. “Men can be hardheaded.”

“God, I think I need a drink!” Sister exclaimed in false shock. “Write the date down: August twenty-second: Gray Lorillard admits men can be hardheaded.”

“Oh, come on, I’m not that bad.” Gray stood up. “I’m going to refresh my drink. What would you like?”

“How about another tonic water with a splash of that gin in the blue bottle?”

He took her upheld glass.

“Isn’t anyone going to eat the vegetables?” Rooster thought food on a plate should be consumed.

“I’m not eating tiny cauliflowers.” Raleigh watched the sunset, too.

Golly opened one eye. “Good. They make you fart.”

“I do not!” Raleigh loathed her sometimes.

“Oh, la!” Golly sassed, rolling on her back so Sister could rub her tummy.

Gray returned. “Have you ever seen anything like that sky? Scarlet, flamingo pink, lavender, purple, and the mountains cobalt blue all the way to the bottom. Look over there, a streak of pure gold. Paradise.”

“Which reminds me.” Sister took a taste: quite nice. “Didn’t see one boar track when Ben and I were out there two weeks ago. Plenty of otters, deer, everything else. Well, it was a long shot going over there to see if the boar were around, but they hunt a huge territory and they like carrion. And I killed two birds with one stone.”

“Which is?” Gray sat down and plucked a tiny sweet carrot off the tray while Rooster watched.

“Checked how much work we need to do in the fixtures.”

“You never stop,” he said, with admiration.

“No master does.” Sister noted Tootie’s empty glass. “Another Coke?”

“No, ma’am. Keeps me awake if I drink too much.”

“Promise me you will learn everything you can at Princeton. Soak it up. Then come back to me and I’ll teach you how to be a master.”

“Promise.” Tootie reached out her hand and Sister took it, a left hand shaking a right.

“You’d better teach her how to make some money,” Gray added dryly.

“Spoken like my dad.” Tootie laughed at him and he laughed at himself.

“How do you like your drink?” Gray asked Sister.

“Very very nice. The hint of gin on the tongue on a languid summer’s night feels lavish.”

“Seize every pleasure.” Gray smiled.

Sister wanted to say she had but didn’t.

“I haven’t harped too much on Hope, the foot, and the rest of it.” She looked up as a giant blue heron flew home for the night. “But I’m not giving up.”

“When you find the body, there won’t be anything left,” Gray joked.

“I’m more concerned with finding the murderer than finding the body.” She paused to listen to the heron’s croak, for high as he was she could hear that distinctive sound. “Tootie, I am going to miss you so much, but in a way I’m glad you’ll be safe at Princeton because who knows what all this is about. You’ll be out of harm’s way.”

“You won’t—” Tootie started to say more, already sorry she’d said that.

“Maybe. But I’m old. If I go, it’s no great loss. If you do, it is.”

“If you go, darling, we’re all lost,” Gray said softly.