Outfoxed

CHAPTER 29

Crawford, narrow-eyed, waited for an invitation from the silver-haired master to sit down. Once he heard that he unzipped his raincoat, the latest, most expensive Gore-Tex model, hanging it on a coatrack by the door.

“Crawford, hand me that sponge as long as you’re standing up?” Sister asked.

He handed her a long, natural sponge before easing himself into the chair Fontaine had just vacated. “Knees. Football.”

Sister pointed to her entire body. “Bones. Life.”

Doug laughed.

“Just wait.” Sister waggled her forefinger at him.

“I hurt now.”

“Where?”

“Where I broke my shoulder blade.”

“Okay. That counts. You can join the aches-and-pains club.” She dipped the fresh sponge into the clear rinse water. “Crawford, I’m all ears.”

“I’m sure you are. I passed Fontaine on Soldier Road. That mouth of his is an inexhaustible motor. He is a person entirely lacking in self-control.” Crawford realized he was going on in the wrong vein. He crossed his arms over his chest. “What did he say?”

“He had words with you, etc. . . .” Crawford glanced from Sister to Doug and before he could say anything she added, “He’s not going to repeat what you say.” She paused and with a malicious little grin said, “But I might.”

At that moment, too self-important, brimming with wounded pride, Crawford sputtered, “I don’t care who you tell. He’s damned lucky I didn’t call the sheriff.”

The blow to his jaw, turning an interesting shade of reddish blue, bore testimony to Fontaine’s aim.

“Did you ice it down?” Doug politely asked.

“Yes. He caught me off guard. If he’d given me fair warning I could have defended myself,” said the man who couldn’t. Crawford, reared in suburban luxury, had never been in a fistfight in his life.

“Fontaine was born with an unfortunate infirmity of temper.” A wry smile played over Sister’s lips as she dipped the clean sponge in a white jar labeled SADDLE BUTTER. A friend sent Sister the tack conditioner from out west and she found it the best stuff she’d ever used.

“What do you mean?”

Crawford evidenced little appreciation for the subtleties of the English language.

“Hothead. Fontaine’s always been a hothead.”

“Oh.”

Sister held out the brow band at arm’s length. “Doug, we dipped this at the beginning of the summer. It still looks good. I’ll just wipe it down with the butter.”

He reached over, rubbing the leather between thumb and forefinger. “Yes. Fine.”

Sister pointed to the tack dripping oil into the bucket. “I need a couple of warmish days before opening hunt or I’m going to soak up all that oil on my breeches. I should have done this at the beginning of September but I never found the time. Time speeds by me like light.” She put the plain, flat hunting bridle back together as she talked.

The deep rich brown of the English leather bore no adornment, no lines cut into the sides, no raised portions, just excellent flat leather. An old friend had made her this bridle before he died. It was his last gift to her—that and a lifetime of friendship. As her hands flew over the supple yet strong leather, she felt the edges which he had minutely beveled.

“Sister, I’ll cut to the chase.” Crawford liked to use expressions he heard bandied about in his business. These were generally sports allusions or sexual allusions designed to make the speaker appear manly and in control. Usually whoever mouthed such stuff was neither, although Crawford was, in a business sense anyway. “I believe Fontaine should be removed from Jefferson Hunt.”

“He has committed no crime which reflects badly upon the hunt.”

“Not true. He simply hasn’t been caught. He is an adulterer and he’s violent.”

“Oh, Crawford.” Sister wrapped the thin chin strap around the bridle in a figure eight. “There’d be no one left were those the criteria. You yourself would fail the test.”

“I never went to bed with Tiffany. Not until I separated from Martha. You may not believe me but it’s the truth.”

The drip, drip of the oil punctuated the silence as Sister thought of a neutral response. “That showed admirable restraint. However, I can’t toss people out of the hunt for being human. Sexual escapades are a common and often amusing human frailty. Besides, Crawford, we have to have something to talk about, otherwise conversation descends to the weather or worse, politics.”

“You are a tolerant woman.”

Before he could continue she shot back, “Masters need to be.”

“Why? Your word is law.”

“My word is law until each year when the board of governors of the club elects their master.”

“As long as you live, you’ll be elected master. You know that.”

“Crawford, if I could afford a private pack I would have one. Believe me. A subscription pack is an invitation for endless political maneuvering and there’s enough maneuvering being a master as it is. Dealing with landowners, for example. Making certain one complies with all Masters of Foxhounds rulings and bylaws. And remember, the MFHA sits in Leesburg. We, in Virginia and Maryland, are right under their noses. You do it right or you get the boot.”

“But you can still remove a member.”

“No, I can’t. Only the master of a private pack can remove someone from the roster. I can remove a member from the field.”

“You could petition the board.” He glowered, which made him look like a middle-aged child angry about having to go to bed.

“No. Fontaine has endangered no one in the field. He has shown respect to master and staff. Whatever his quarrel with you, it’s between the two of you.”

“But it’s over the joint-mastership!” Crawford exploded.

“No.” Her voice was firm. “The joint-mastership allows you two to compete openly. You’re like oil and water. And kindly remember, I do not have to appoint a joint-master.”

“You can’t appoint one. You have to ask the board’s approval.” With that statement Crawford betrayed the fact that he would use the bylaws of the club not only to dislodge Fontaine but to try and force himself on Sister if he gained enough board support. If he could remove Sister he would, but he knew that was impossible. Crawford hadn’t a clue as to what Sister did as master other than she was responsible for hiring and firing staff and maintaining territory. He wanted a position of power and respect in this community. It took him a while but he learned that money wasn’t enough in Virginia. It helped but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to lord it over people. What better position than joint-master? And when Sister went to her reward he had enough money to bribe everyone. He’d be sole master.

Crawford had half learned his lesson about money. The other half would come back to haunt him, namely that even poor people can’t always be bribed. Many Virginians still believed in honor, quaint as that concept might be in the twenty-first century.

“You are exactly right. But I don’t have to recommend anyone.”

“The board can suggest you take a joint-master.”

“They can but they won’t,” she replied with the confidence of a person who knows how things get done.

“You’ve got to end this impasse. What if you died during opening hunt?”

“I’d die happy.”

“But the club would be thrown into chaos. You need an understudy—an understudy with a fat checkbook. I can supply this club with a great many things, including building a separate kennel for the half-grown hounds. I know you don’t like to turn them out with the big boys and the puppy kennel gets overcrowded.”

Her patience wearing thin, Sister stood up, putting her hands in the small of her back. “Crawford. If you are that rich, if you love hunting as much as you say you do, if you love Jefferson Hunt as much as you say you do, you know what—you’d spend the money for the love of the sport. We’d name the goddamn kennel after you.”

As Sister rarely swore to someone not close to her, Doug’s eyes widened, his shoulders stiffened. He knew that Crawford didn’t know she was really, truly pissed off.

He snarled. “Only a fool spends money without getting something out of it.”

“Which proves my point. You don’t love foxhunting as much as you love being important. You want joint-M.F.H. behind your name. It’s a bargain for you, Crawford. To be a master, to be a huntsman, to be a whipper-in, you have to love it. You have to eat, sleep, and breathe hunting, knowing all the while that most people don’t understand what you’re doing or why you’re doing it. People outside of Virginia, I mean.”

“Maryland,” Doug laconically added.

“Well, yes. And parts of Pennsylvania.” Sister was loath to credit anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line.

“Red Rock, Nevada.” Doug, his green eyes alight, smiled.

“Doug, I know that. Anyway, Crawford, Americans live in cities now. The old ways are lost to them. They think we ride about shooting fox with guns. They think we’re all rich snobs. They haven’t a clue. So you have to love it because you aren’t going to get respect outside of Virginia.” She glanced at Doug. “And a few other important spots.”

“I know that. I don’t need a lecture on the reality of foxhunting.”

Doug stood up. “You need one on manners, Mr. Howard. It won’t do to worrit Sister.” He used the old form of “worry.”

Crawford cut him off. “If you want to mix with white people, then you ought to learn how to use the King’s English. Don’t say birfday. Birthday. Ask not ax. You people can’t learn to talk.”

“Crawford. That’s quite enough.” Sister, enraged, choked out the words.

Doug, who cared little what a wimp thought of him, growled like one of the hounds. “Mr. Howard, if you trouble Sister anymore, I’ll decorate the other side of your jaw and for the record, if you become joint-master I will resign as first whipper-in.”

“I wouldn’t have you anyway.” Crawford looked to Sister. “Damned half-breed doesn’t know his place. You dote on him. You dote on him as though he were your son. It’s understandable but he’s not your son.”

“Crawford”—her tone deepened, her speech slowed—“I will overlook your desire to be master in any way you can manage. Ambition is a curious thing. I cannot overlook your attitude and insult to Doug. And you’re absolutely right, he is like a son to me. Now I suggest you leave us. I also suggest you take the opportunity to review this conversation. Furthermore, however you feel about Fontaine, Doug, and myself, I expect you to behave like a gentleman at opening hunt. Good day, sir.”

“Get your ass outta here.” Raleigh, an imposing presence, stood next to Sister, his mouth slightly ajar.

Crawford snatched his expensive rain gear off the coat-rack, slamming the door on his way out.

“Really.” Golly fluffed her fur, then stood up, stretched, turned in a circle, and lay down again.

As Crawford started his motor, Sister sat back down, then stood up again, tossing the bucket of wash water down the industrial sink, filling it again.

“Money and the demons it incubates,” was all she said as she and Doug returned to their task.