Outfoxed

CHAPTER 28

Bridles, broken down, stripped, and dipped, hung overhead on tack hooks, which resembled grappling hooks. Underneath, a plastic bucket caught the dripping oil.

Sister and Doug sat on low three-legged stools, buckets of clear rinse water and buckets of washing water between their feet. With a toothbrush in hand they scrubbed each steel bit until it shone. They ran their fingers over the bits, searching for pitting. Korean steel bits pitted quickly. They weren’t worth the money paid for them. German bits were good but nothing compared to English steel. The English from the nineteenth century onward excelled in creating a smooth, perfectly balanced bit with superior steel, no cheap alloys. The expense, initially steep, panned out over time, for the bit lasted generations.

This held true for English vegetable-dyed leather, too. In order to speed the process most tanners chrome-dyed their leather. Vegetable dyes couldn’t get the consistency of color—Havana brown, tan, or black—that chrome could but the vegetable dye imparted a soft sheen to the leather as well as being better for the leather itself.

Sister, not a wealthy woman but a comfortable one, refused to cut corners on tack or anything relating to the care of her horses. Since she spent little on herself it all worked out.

She had splurged by putting a gas stove in the tack room. Fake logs inside it glowed red and it looked just like an old wood-burning stove. Threw out lots of heat, so much so that usually she had to crack a window.

The day, perfect for cleaning tack, was raw. The temperature, in the low fifties, sounded good but the light rain sent a chill right through you. She was glad she had bought the gas stove.

With only six days until opening hunt, she and Doug worked to make sure each piece of tack was spotless, boots were shined to perfection, pants, coats, hats, everything was dry-cleaned or brushed.

The hounds, too, were subjected to beauty treatments. The central room in the kennel was heated, with a large drain in the middle of the floor. Hounds were taken out of their runs to be scrubbed and have their nails clipped and ears cleaned, and were then allowed to dry off on the benches in the central room before being taken to their runs again.

The runs, scrubbed down each morning with an expensive power washer, were kept scrupulously clean.

As Shaker worked in the kennels, Sister and Doug merrily chattered away.

“Someone’s coming,” Raleigh announced as he heard a car a quarter of a mile away. “I’ll go to the door.”

“Don’t bother. It will be some hunt club member half-hysterical because he or she has lost their boots and they want to know if they can wear field boots. It’s always something.” Golliwog rolled over, turning her head to the side, very coy.

Raleigh jumped to his feet as the silver Jaguar rolled down to the stable. Fontaine dashed toward the tack room. He wasn’t wearing a raincoat.

Once inside the tack room, he shook himself slightly.

“Please,” Golly complained as a raindrop landed on her.

Raleigh circled three times and lay down on the sheepskin thrown in the corner.

“Sit down.” Sister pointed to a tattered wing chair.

“Thank you. Getting everything ready. I knew you’d be here. I didn’t even bother going to the house. How are you, Doug?”

“Fine. Can I get you coffee or anything?” Doug inquired.

A small refrigerator and kitchenette were in the corner.

“No. No.” Fontaine couldn’t ask Doug to leave. After all, both he and Sister were working and he did barge in without calling first. “I’m here to tell you that I had an unfortunate experience with Crawford last night.” He paused; then his tone relaxed. “Unfortunate. Hell, the man really wanted his ass kicked bad. He walked into the office at about nine-thirty. Martha and I were working late. He was sniffing around Martha, as you know that’s sort of on again, and anyway he accused me of impropriety, not just with Martha but with every female since Cleopatra. I passed my hand over his jaw.” Fontaine broke into a grin, an appealing crooked grin.

“In other words, you wouldn’t serve with Crawford if Christ Almighty told you to.” Sister had to laugh.

“Well—yes.”

Doug laughed, too, although he suspected Fontaine had been chasing Cody despite her protests. She’d finished her intensive rehab and was home but she hadn’t called him yet. He wondered if she was okay. Then he wondered if he was okay.

“I appreciate you coming out here on a rainy day to tell me.”

“I’m sorry I can’t accommodate you, Sister. And I found out he’s been trying to get Peter Wheeler’s land. He offered him life estate.”

“That’s no surprise.” Sister knew Crawford would try that.

“He intends to develop it.”

“That’s what he says about you.” Sister shouldn’t have blurted that out but there it was.

“Never. That’s a hunt fixture. If the damned development keeps up we’ll be in the middle of West Virginia riding mountain goats.”

“You called Gordon Smith.” She figured she might as well show her hand.

“I did.” He was surprised that she knew. “I called him to ask if he could help me put together a syndicate to preserve the Wheeler place. He’s only interested in commercial real estate, not residential, and the Wheeler place had no commercial application. I was direct about that. He was helpful. I’d only met him a few times at political fund-raisers but he really was helpful. The impediment, as you know, is this conservation easement clause.”

“I got an earful of that the other night. I assume some members of a syndicate want it and others don’t.”

“Correct.” He watched the oil drip into the bucket. “I’d better go home and do the same. Saturday will be here before I know it.” He asked Doug if he had heard from Cody.

“No.” Doug wanted to say, “Have you?” but kept his mouth shut.

“Betty called to say she’s pleased. She thinks both girls profited from the experience, which I gather was tearful, expensive, and rigorous,” Sister said.

“So they say.” Fontaine sounded noncommittal. He stood up. “I’d better get rolling.”

“This will all work out somehow but I’d avoid Crawford in the hunt field if I were you.”

“No problem. He’ll pop off Czapaka in the first hour. Even if they made a saddle with a Velcro seat and he wore Velcro pants he’d part company with that horse. Beautiful horse. Oh well, overmounted again.”

“Men tend to do that.” Sister let fly a small barb. “In all respects.”

Fontaine laughed. “Oh, but the fun of it.” He walked out into the rain and sprinted to the Jaguar.

“Full of himself,” Raleigh observed.

“God’s gift, he thinks. Going to seed, I think,” Golly commented.

“How long before we hear from Crawford?” Sister smiled as she put a bit into the clear rinse water.

“Um-m, by supper.”

“Wanna bet?”

“How much?” Doug, graceful hands, reached over and flipped a girth off a saddle rack.

“A dollar.”

“I’ll take that bet. What do you think?”

“He’ll call or be here within two hours.”

Doug glanced at the wall clock, a cat with a tail for a pendulum, its eyes rolling in time with the tail. “By three. Okay. You can give me that dollar now.”

“Ha.” She scrubbed an eggbutt-jointed snaffle. “I can feel waves of distrust and disgust coming off your body around Fontaine. Is this a guy thing because the ladies preen when they see him coming?”

“I don’t know if it’s a guy thing. I flat out can’t abide him. He’s pompous, racist in a sly way, and he doesn’t give a shit about anybody or anything other than his own pleasures.”

“Well, that’s about as much as I’ve ever heard you say about anybody—ever. What else?”

“He treats me like a servant. I may work for you, Sister, but I’m not his slave. Fontaine wants to hear not ‘Master’ but ‘Massa.’ No shit.”

“I suppose there is that in him. It’s all smoothed over, of course.” She reached into the bucket, scrubbing under the water. “It’s Cody. I can’t prove anything but it’s the way he looks at her.”

“Damn him!”

“I can understand Crawford’s anger, too, but I know Martha didn’t have anything to do with Fontaine on that level. He was enjoying playing the savior too much to spoil it. Besides, he has too many other women to service. Why in the world would Cody fool around with him . . . if she has?”

“I don’t know if she has.” Doug laid the girth across his knees, scrubbing the underside. “At first I thought maybe he leaned on her, using her parents. He does a lot of business at Franklin Press. Maybe he threatened to take business elsewhere. She feels guilty about what she’s put her parents through over the years. I thought, okay, maybe that’s it.”

“You don’t now?”

“No.”

“It can’t be a sexual attraction.” Sister was incredulous. “She’s not that dumb even if he is handsome.”

“No. He has a hold on her.”

“You think she has slept with him then?”

A sickly look passed over Doug’s handsome features. “Yeah.”

“Oh, Doug, I hope not but if she has, maybe it’s over.”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think she loves you?”

“I don’t know.” His voice dropped.

“Steady on. Whatever is supposed to happen will happen and even if she brings you pain this will lead to the right woman. Maybe not to Cody but to the right woman.” His stricken face brought a swell of sympathy. “Doug, I didn’t know you cared that much. I hope she is the one, truly. If she’s the one you want then I hope it works out.”

“Thanks, boss.” He smiled weakly. “You like her, don’t you?”

“I love her. I’ve known her since the day she was born but I’m afraid for her. She’s been a handful since birth. Betty said she kicked like a mule in the womb. I don’t know what to tell you, Doug. It seems there’s something inside Cody that drives her on like Juno’s fly biting Europa.” She didn’t need to explain mythology to Doug. He loved the Greek myths.

“Maybe people are born like that.”

“I don’t know but I do know you can’t try to satisfy her or anybody. You take care of yourself. You can’t fix Cody.”

“I hope that’s what rehab was about.”

“I do, too.”

“Car!” Raleigh informed them.

“Crawford.” Golly rolled onto her other side.

When Crawford strode through the door Sister couldn’t help but laugh as Doug shook his head.

“How’d you know it would be Crawford?” Raleigh asked in amazement.

“Cats know everything.”