Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

CHAPTER 17

A lone red-tailed hawk watched from high up in a pin oak.

Hounds worked diligently below, scuffling and snuffling. High winds postponed Tuesday’s hunt to this Saturday. They were glad to be out. No fool, the hawk knew hounds might stir a mouse, who’d zip out from under leaves. Presto, lunch.

Dragon moved ahead of the pack. The wet leaves had packed down but an enticing delicate hoof stuck out from under a deep layer of decaying leaves. The large, powerful hound nosed over, inhaled deeply, yanked the deer leg out from under. The foreleg, still jointed, dangled from his jaws. Tail upright, he circled the pack, tempting them with his treasure.

Sister fretted over anything that brought a hound’s head up when working. Deer carcasses, what was left of them, lay in all the fixtures, although some more than others.

This fixture, Mousehold Heath, had more than others because the Jardines, a young couple, both worked during the day. Poachers made good use of their absence. The terrible thing about poachers is sometimes they would wound a deer but not be able to track it and kill it, for fear of getting caught. The poor animal suffered for days, weeks even. In other cases poachers were trophy hunters, would take the antlered head, leaving the remains. Of all the misdeeds of irresponsible hunters, this enraged Sister the most. When so many are hungry, to waste food, to not share, to her it was an unforgivable sin.

Well, Dragon’s prancing wasn’t unforgivable, but she hoped he’d pay for it soon and he did. Sybil swept up upon him.

“Leave it,” the strong rider ordered.

He slunk away and that did it. She popped her lash, catching him right on the rump.

Ever the dramatist, Dragon howled. “I’m being murdered!”

His sister, disgusted, walked right by him, nose down. Didn’t look up.

Nor did any other hound. At one time or another, Dragon had offended every four-legged creature out there. He did, however, get back to business.

Rain started. Even with your tie tight around your neck, water would slide down your back. The mercury, hanging at 43°F, intensified the effect.

As it was a Saturday hunt, February 15, everyone endured it.

“We’ve been out here a long time,” complained Twist, one of the second T litter, a year younger than the first.

“Keep trying,” Cora encouraged her. “Sometimes in bad conditions, you’ll hit a line.”

“In this stuff?” wondered Thimble, Twist’s littermate.

“Oh, come on now, Thimble, you’ve hunted in the rain before,” Ardent, older, teased her.

“I don’t remember it raining this hard,” the elegant tricolor replied.

Within five minutes, the rain bumped up from a light steady patter to a barely-can-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face downpour.

Sister would hunt through any weather but she knew few people felt as she did. She was ready to turn back to the trailers when Pickens, a young entry, spoke.

The older hounds checked it out and within a flash, every hound in the pack roared.

Sister was on Lafayette, who surged. He was one of her best horses and best friends. Between them, they had twelve years of friendship, as she had bought him when he was a two-year-old.

The footing would deteriorate rapidly but at this moment it wasn’t too bad. As the rain soaked in, it would get ugly.

She couldn’t see Betty or Sybil. The only reason she could see Shaker at all was his scarlet jacket. If anyone behind her had a mind to turn back, the incredible music changed their mind.

“Whoeee!” Shaker called out. He then blew “Gone Away,” which is a bit different than calling hounds to a line. However, the rain rolled into the bell of the horn so this call sputtered.

He kept calling. Hounds kept speaking. An obstacle would loom in the rain just in time for one to see it. The pack, then the people, threaded through an old wooded patch—huge trees whose bark turned dark with the rain. The sight would frighten anyone with an active imagination.

The red-tailed hawk returned to his nest. Most animals had the brains to seek cover. Not the foxhunters. Even Thimble—running hard, scent strong—became oblivious to the lashing rain.

Way ahead, the fox ducked down into a creek with deep banks. A tree, half its huge root system hanging out over the creek, contained a half-hidden entrance to the den. Within a minute, she was snug in the back of this cavern. Plus she had other entrances and exits.

Hounds reached the creekbed, threw up for a moment.

“You can do it,” Shaker urged them.

Much as they didn’t really like each other, Diana and her brother worked well together. In tandem, the two worked past the line, returned to where the scent last held.

“She jumped in.” Dragon looked down and as he did so, his sister had launched herself into the swiftly running creek.

He followed her, both of them swimming against the current. The entire rest of the pack poured over the bank. The drumming of the rain now had the counterpoint of the separate splashes of hounds.

Diana reached the thick tree roots. She could hold on with both front legs, her nose pressed to the roots. “She’s in here!”

Other hounds joined her but when the current would carry them downstream, they’d swim back. Cora wisely found a place where she could scramble up. Everyone but Diana followed. They all worked around the wide trunk at its base.

“Found another den opening!” Twist cried out.

Thimble, Twist, Taz, Pookah rushed to it. Digging wasn’t much use, so Trooper stuck his head into the small opening.

“Do you know how stupid you are?” a squeaky voice sassed.

“Huh?” Trooper was surprised.

“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Do I need to repeat myself?”

Diana finally gave up her post, clambering up with the others. She, too, cocked her head at the den opening.

“The vixen sassed me,” Trooper informed her. “Rude. So rude.”

“Stupid!” The fox was now enjoying this. “I’m high and dry and you all are wetter than muskrats.”

On the opposite side of the bank, Shaker put his horn to his lips, playing the three long notes. “Come on. Come on. Well done.”

“Nothing much we can do,” Cora counseled.

Last to follow the others back into the creek, Trooper threatened, “You’re lucky we’re leaving.”

“Don’t let me keep you.” She emitted that foxy puff of air, a laugh.

Trooper now felt insult added to injury. He did join the others though, and Shaker turned back.

It took everyone twenty minutes to pick their way back to the trailers because the surface on some of the hillsides began to give way, and horses slipped. Other spots proved fine—better drainage perhaps.

Back at the trailers, as always, people wiped down their horses. Because of the unremitting downpour, they put them on the trailers, haybags in place.

“This is so heavy,” Sister said as Betty helped pull off the Master’s sodden jacket, heavy even when dry.

Sister grabbed one of the terry-cloth towels she kept in the trailer tack room where the three women crowded together, tried to dry off. Tootie shivered.

Betty, ever maternal, ordered, “Honey, take off what you can. I always bring a gear bag with extra clothes in our sizes. I even have a pair of jeans.”

Through chattering teeth, Tootie began to peel off layers of soaked clothes. “I didn’t think it was supposed to get this cold.”

“Rain in the low forties. Always a killer.” Sister wiped down her torso, grabbed a sweater from her gear bag, slipping it over her head.

“You’re not going to keep your breeches and boots on, are you?” Betty sternly intoned.

“Well,” said Sister.

“Take them off,” Betty ordered. “You have jeans in your bag. Just put them on. The Jardines aren’t going to care that the Senior Master shows up for the breakfast in jeans. Come on, you’ll catch your death.”

Tootie took the clothes that Betty handed to her as she was fussing at Sister. “Catch your death,” said Tootie. “A strange phrase. Makes death sound like a baseball.”

Sister sat on the little carpet covering the lower ledge in the cramped quarters, taking the socks Betty offered her. “Warm socks. Listen to that rain!”

The aluminum trailer amplified the hard rain.

“Maybe we need water wings.” Now in dry clothing, Betty inspected Tootie. “Umm, the jeans are a tiny bit big on you, but not so bad that you could fit another person in there.” She rummaged around in her bag. “Here, use this belt.”

Finally dry, warming up thanks to dry tweed jackets, the trio looked at one another.

Sister thought for a moment. “Rain comes from Zeus, right?”

“Lightning bolts and thunder sure do.” Betty pulled down Big Ray’s old golf umbrella from a ledge above the hanger rod. “Sister, this thing has to be thirty years old.”

“If it keeps us reasonably dry while we make a run for it, fine. I never saw any reason to throw it out.”

“All these years, I never really paid attention. Just looked like an umbrella tucked up there with your helmets.” Betty then burst out laughing. “Ray was a terrible golfer.”

“If he’d changed his pants, he would have improved his game.” Sister could still hear her first husband cursing after a misdirected shot.

Tootie hugged herself; her tweed jacket was thin.

“He wore these corduroy pants with embroidered crossed golf clubs,” Sister reminisced with the others. “I swear that ruined his game.”

Sister and Betty laughed, remembering Ray. Betty opened the door to peek out, then quickly shut it when rain blew into her face.

“Can you see anything?” Tootie asked.

“Obviously not.”

“Well, we have to try. Everyone else is in the same boat.” Sister pushed open the door but the wind pushed it back.

Putting her shoulder to the door, she forced it open, nearly tumbling out onto the now soaked ground. With difficulty, she held the door as the other two hopped down. Betty quickly put the umbrella over their heads as the wind slammed the door shut and Sister made sure the latch caught. She was already wet.

The huge umbrella blew inside out as they hurried toward the Jardines’ small house, other people also braving the mess to get there. Once inside, everyone sighed, shook water off. Betty didn’t leave the umbrella open but leaned it against the umbrella stand, more or less ruffled.

Bobby greeted his wife; everyone was talking. The Jardines—young, happy with each other and their tight little house—buzzed everywhere at once. Jim put more logs on the fire in the kitchen and in the living room.

Everyone gravitated toward anything hot.

After a half hour, the food worked its magic, as did the drinks. Scattered throughout the living room on furniture, on the floor, chat filled the entire house.

Back to back on a large hassock, Phil and Mercer talked to those close to them. Sister, being Senior Master and a lady of some years, was offered a seat on the sofa by Walter, who stood up.

Walter said to Sister, Phil, and Mercer, “Shaker was smart to stuff the hound trailer with straw. They’re as warm as we are.”

Sister nodded, then said to Phil, “How about if I get those two horses Monday, weather permitting?”

“Sure.”

Leaning against Phil’s large frame, Mercer bragged to Sybil, Tedi, and Edward how he had written a letter to The Blood Horse about the gambling issue in Kentucky and how he squarely placed the blame on unscrupulous Indiana people paying off equally unscrupulous folks in Kentucky.

Phil turned his head. “Mercer, those boys play rough. Like the hound with the deer leg, leave it.”

Mercer didn’t reply but shrugged.

Sister remarked to Mercer, “Phil has a point. Excuse me while I find my whipper-in.”

“See you next hunt.” Phil smiled as Sister walked through the people, many slightly damp as she was herself.

“Betty.”

“Mmm.” Betty swallowed quickly. “Got me with my mouth full. These biscuits are light as feathers.”

Sister held up her hands palms outward. “Don’t tempt me. You know breads are my downfall.”

“You’ve been the same weight since I’ve known you and that’s over thirty years. I’m the one that has to worry.” Cheerfully Betty picked on herself because she had once gotten heavy and worked hard to lose it.

“Will you drive the rig back to the farm?”

“Yeah, sure. Where are you going?”

“Riding with Shaker and the party wagon.” She cited the hound conveyance. “Need to review some things with him. Breeding ideas. Stuff like that.”

Once back at Roughneck Farm, Sister in the kennels with Shaker, Betty and Tootie in the stable checked everyone over, as did Sister and Shaker. After finishing chores in the kennel, Sister ran to the stable for the rain continued.

“Hey. Everyone okay?” Sister called as she slid through the small opening in the big double doors.

The swirling rain even managed to fly through that small opening.

Betty noticed. “If this keeps up there will be flooding.”

“You’re right about that and then tonight it will all freeze. Boy, I hate that.” Sister watched Tootie put a heavy blanket on Lafayette. She noticed Tootie checking the big clock inside the barn. “Date?”

Tootie smiled. “No, but I wanted to drop off my paper for Dr. Hinson and she said she’d be working a little late today, but it is already five-thirty.”

Sister looked into each stall, water buckets were filled, and a nighttime flake of hay had been tossed in just in case someone got the midnight munchies. “Come on, we’ll take you over. Everything looks fine in here.”

“Good idea,” Betty agreed. “I can pick up that wonderful paste she mixes up. Stuff heals surface wounds in no time. I put it on those thorn scratches I got a week ago and all gone.” She held up her hand. “Thorns cut right through my glove, too.”

Sister inspected. “Penny never stops thinking of ways to make life better for horses. As for you, well, she’ll be happy about that, too, but not as happy as if it were a horse.”

The three of them laughing, they shut off the lights, walked through the tack room and paused for a moment.

“Let’s go in my old yellow Bronco. A lot easier to see in this weather,” Betty suggested sensibly.

Making a dash for it they scrambled into the large SUV, Tootie in the second row of seats.

The clinic, about twelve miles from Roughneck Farm, would take longer to reach in this weather. Betty, a conservative driver, sometimes drove Sister crazy because she always thought Betty drove too slowly. Today, she was glad of it and actually kept her mouth shut.

Twenty-five minutes later the large curved Westlake Equine Clinic sign appeared in the Bronco’s headlights.

Pulling into the parking lot, Tootie exclaimed, “Good. She’s still here. The truck’s here and the lights are on.”

“We’ll wait for you.” Sister, damp for half the day, was beginning to feel it.

“I need my magic cream,” Betty said as she cut the motor.

Sighing, Sister replied, “Well, if you two are going to get wet again I might as well join you.”

Even though the three of them wore Barbour coats, best for horsemen, the lashing rain found its way down the back of the collar, hit their faces, and a bit dribbled onto their fronts, a trickle sliding down their hunt shirts. And the rain was so cold, a few degrees above sleet.

Tootie, the fastest, reached the door, holding it open for the others.

The front office was empty, tidy and clean as always. A light shone out of an office in the hallway, polished except for some muddy bootprints that looked as though the wearer had slid on the floor.

“Dr. Hinson,” Tootie called, pulling her paper from under her coat.

“Are you writing a term paper?” Betty asked.

“I’m practicing.” Tootie smiled. “It’s my bloodline research on the Turn-To line.”

“Penny,” Sister called, then said in a lowered voice, “Maybe she’s in the bathroom.”

After waiting five minutes, Tootie pushed open the low door separating the public space from the large receptionist’s area, her desk, computer, files on the other side of the divider. That area, too, was neat and clean.

Tootie walked down the hall and entered the door with the light—Dr. Hinson’s own office.

“Dr. Hinson?”

Sister and Betty, each of whom had gratefully sunk into a waiting-room chair, stood up as they heard Tootie running down the hall.

The young woman’s face registered shock. “She’s dead!”

Both Sister and Betty shot down the hall behind Tootie. As they entered the roomy office, Sister noticed nothing amiss except for Penny Hinson, head on the computer keyboard, arms reaching toward her computer.

A single hole in her back, slight powder burns on her shirt, bore testimony to how she was killed.

Hands on her face, Tootie sobbed.

Sister put her arms around the young woman, as did Betty. The two older women looked at each other and Sister released Tootie. She picked up the office phone and dialed 911.

After reporting this dreadful discovery, Betty walked Tootie out to the lobby. Sister followed.

Sheriff Ben Sidell was close by, as he kept his horse at After All Farm. He reached them in fifteen minutes. He’d called his team immediately, but upon opening the clinic door he was glad they’d be behind him. He wanted to get statements as quickly as possible, so Sister and Betty could get the distraught Tootie home.

They each recounted what had transpired.

Tootie cried, “She never hurt anyone.”

In a gentle voice, the sheriff counseled her. “Tootie, sometimes terrible things happen to very good people. This could be a robbery. My team and I will have to go over everything. She was a special person with a gift for healing, and you made her happy because you hoped to follow in her footsteps.”

Tootie nodded as Ben touched her shoulder.

Sister leaned toward him. “I used the phone in her office. If you take fingerprints mine will be on it. The papers on the floor are an exercise Penny wanted Tootie to do. She dropped them when she saw the body. Betty and I left everything as we found it.”

Betty added, “There were muddy prints into her office and in the office. We walked all over them adding our muddy prints.”

Ben smiled tightly and nodded. “I’ll take that into account. You all can go now. I know where to find you.”

Tootie, face puffy from crying, whispered, “I will follow in her footsteps, Sheriff. I will.”

“I know you will,” he replied with feeling.