The Tell-Tale Horse

CHAPTER 27

Had Sister known her enemy had been in front of her all the time, the day might have been different. Some things are so unthinkable one doesn’t see them, even though they’re as close as the nose on your face. Not only do individuals suffer from these blind spots, entire nations do as well.

The lulling lap and spray of the water off the three-story waterwheel at Mill Ruins was beautiful, spellbinding. Century after century, people in the western world took this sound for granted. Only in the twentieth century did it finally subside, along with the clack of wagon wheels and shod hooves on cobblestone streets, vendors shouting their wares as they toddled down country roads, the constant swish of large overhead fans in the South, the ringing of church bells to signify the hour. A few places preserved these sounds so tourists could imagine themselves in another time.

Time without end people kill one another. If sounds and sights change, this dolorous fact does not.

It was Saturday, March 8, and twenty couple of hounds waited on the party wagon. The mercury at quarter to nine read 48 degrees, the barometer falling, good sign.

March, a breakheart month, raises the average person’s hopes for spring. Daffodils, early ones, display their yellow heads, and crocuses cover lawns or dot woods tucked back where old foundations remain from prior centuries. Buds swell a tiny bit on the trees, the red glow apparent to those who study nature.

Then a snowstorm or a freezing rain will pound down as Old Man Winter once more reminds all creatures that he is not ready to relinquish his grasp.

Foxhunters liked that, of course. Better to keep that scent on the ground, for the warmth would lift it up over hound noses. But even the most dedicated foxhunter eventually longed for spring, the cascade of white apple blossoms, pale pink cherry blossoms, and deep magenta crab apple blossoms, the fragrance filling entire counties. Redbud bloomed along with peaches and pears, tulips held sway for a while, and the world rejoiced in new life.

Even Sister, who inevitably passed through a period of mourning after the season ended, discovered rejuvenation in her garden at last.

Today the field swelled with the regulars and visitors too. Tedi and Edward brought guests from Marlborough Hunt in Maryland. The Merrimans and Cabel, parked side by side, burst with good spirits. The Custis Hall girls turned out in full force along with Charlotte Norton and Bunny Taliaferro. Charlotte joked that if she was a golf widow in the summer her husband could be a foxhunt widower in winter.

Gray was repenting his promise to ride with his brother on a steeplechaser fresh off the circuit. Even before he mounted up, Gray noticed the nervousness of the rangy bay.

“You’re crazy to ride these horses right off the circuit, Sam.”

“It’s the only way I’m going to know how he’ll go in company. I know how he goes alone and he’s a good horse, Gray. Just a little up.”

As the brothers bickered, Lorraine Rasmussen chatted with Felicity on Parson. Sister had mentioned to Lorraine that Parson was a suitable and kind horse but that Felicity couldn’t afford him once out of school.

Henry Xavier ignored Ronnie Haslip’s taunts that his diet wasn’t working. It was, but slowly.

Donnie Sweigart surprised everyone by showing up on a horse lent him by Ronnie Haslip. Donnie borrowed clothes from Shaker, since they were the same size; he even found a pair of boots that would fit. He looked quite nice.

He’d fallen for Sybil Fawkes and knew the only way he was going to be in her vicinity was if he learned to foxhunt. He could ride some and Bobby Franklin, bearing that in mind, knew he’d have to keep an eye on him. If nothing else, Donnie had guts.

Sybil noticed. She walked over on Bombardier. “Donnie, did you discover the hardest part of foxhunting is tying your stock tie?”

He smiled shyly. “Did. Pricked my fingers too.”

“I wish I could hold out hope that it gets easier but I’m forever fiddling with it, folding the ends over the wide center knot, pressing the stockpin through.” She glanced over to see where Shaker was in his preparation, for she had a job to do. “I’m delighted to see you out here.”

“If nothing else, I’ll provide amusement.”

“There will be plenty of that. Always is.” She reached down and touched his shoulder with her gloved hand. “Takes courage to foxhunt, and we all know you have that. Hope I’ll see you after the hunt.”

“Sure thing.” Donnie was floating on air.

Back at Ronnie’s trailer, a crop snaked out from the open tack room as Ronnie neatly stung Xavier’s bottom. “Could show a movie on that butt.”

“You spend too much time looking at men’s asses,” Xavier growled.

Ronnie feigned a falsetto. “What a big hairy-chested man you are.”

Xavier never could keep a straight face around his boyhood friend. “Hey, at least one of us is.”

“Remember when RayRay sprouted his first chest hair right between his pecs, and we threw him on the ground and yanked it out?” Ronnie laughed.

Xavier smiled as he swung up on Picasso, built to carry weight. “I think of RayRay every day.”

Over at the Harper trailer parked next to the Merriman trailer, Cabel and Ilona watched Vajay and Mandy chatting with Kasmir.

“He’s cool as a cuke.” Ilona noted Vajay’s demeanor. “You’d never know he was under suspicion of murder.”

“If I were Mandy, I’d—” Cabel stopped herself. “Look.”

Ben Sidell, on his trusty Nonni, had ridden up to the three and passed a few pleasantries. Since nothing seemed untoward, the girlfriends sighed in disappointment.

Sister pulled out her grandfather’s pocket watch. It was seven minutes to the first cast. “Seven minutes. I’ll go on over and say a few words, along with Walter. That will hurry up the laggards.”

Betty waited on the ground, holding Outlaw’s reins. Her job would be to open the doors to the party wagon and then swing up on her horse. She and Sybil took turns performing this duty.

Sister on Lafayette rode over to Walter on his wonderful Clemson.

“Good morning, Master.” He tipped his derby.

“Good morning, Master.” She touched her crop to her cap.

“What saint’s day?”

“A mess.” She smiled at the tall blond man whom she had grown to love. “Senan, an Irish abbot who died in 544; Felix of Dunwich, bishop of East Anglia, who died in 647. His task was to Christianize the East Angles, a work still in progress.” She paused, then added, “John of God, who founded the Hospitalers and lived from 1495 to 1550. There’s one more, but I forget.”

“I don’t know how you remember what you do.”

“I have a funny head for dates and numbers. Hey, it’s International Women’s Day.”

“I celebrate women every day,” he joked.

“Well, come on, let’s do the shake-and-howdy. I want to cast these hounds.”

Walter said nothing because she was always eager to get on terms with her fox. So they rode over, called the crowd together, guests were introduced, the field master was pointed out—Sister herself—Bobby was noted as hilltoppers’ master, and without further ado Sister turned to Shaker and called out, “Hounds, please.”

Betty flipped up the long latch, pulled open the aluminum door, and out bounded twenty couple of excited foxhounds.

“I’m ready!” Trinity announced to the world.

Cora disciplined her. “Will you kindly shut up.”

Trinity hung her head for a moment.

Asa simply said, “Youth.”

Diddy, Darby, Dreamboat, Dana, Delight, and Doughboy stood on their hind legs but they didn’t babble. Pookah and Pansy came out today, the excitement doubled in the first-year entry.

Calming, Shaker lowered his voice. “Steady now, relax.”

Showboat, Shaker’s horse, ears pricked forward, exhaled out of his nostrils as two downy woodpeckers flew out of the mill.

What in the devil are woodpeckers doing in there? Sister thought to herself.

Only they knew, but a stream of invective flew between the birds as they battled about something.

Shaker led the pack past the mill, the spray becoming a heavy mist, moistening faces, intensifying scent. A huge door allowed entry into the first floor, a small door with a small outdoor landing was at the second story, and a third wooden door opened over the very top of the waterwheel. If the wheel needed repairs, it was stopped and the workmen could use whichever door was closest.

Foxes had lived at the mill since it was built, but that didn’t mean they’d give you a run. There was no way to bolt them from the lair, but often the pack could get one fox returning home for a bracing go.

At the rear of the first flight, the Custis Hall girls rode through the mist and fog rising from the millrace.

“Fog creeps me out,” Val whispered.

“Because you got lost in it,” Felicity mentioned.

“So did everybody else,” Val whispered, a bit louder.

“Not everyone else, just us,” Tootie corrected her, as they rode over the bridge spanning the millrace.

They emerged from the fog and took a simple coop into the first large pasture off the farm road. Hounds, on hearing, “Lieu in,” the old Norman words in use for over a thousand years, fanned over the pasture, the dew thick and cool.

No fox scent rose up from the earth. They reached the back fence line, took the jump there, and moved into the woods.

For thirty minutes hounds worked, the field walking along: nothing. Then they came into an area called Shootrough, one hundred acres, that used to be really rough but which Walter had cleaned up and planted with millet, winter wheat, switchgrass, and South American maize at the edges. The ground nesters flocked in, as did the foxes.

Dana found the line first. “Red dog fox.”

Other hounds ran over, putting their noses down. Cora opened on the line, and in a flash the entire pack was flying through the wheat and millet, the long stems swishing, the slight westerly breeze bending and raising the thin stalks as well.

A stout timber jump led into true rough ground, covered in brambles, pigweed, and poke. A little path cut through that got them down to the creek, below where Sister thought the fox would jump in to foil scent. But he didn’t. He turned back, running right on the farm road by the north side of Shootrough. The entire field viewed him as they emerged on the road. Having a good head start on the hounds, he hadn’t yet considered evasive action.

As Lafayette thundered down the road, clods of red clay flying up behind him, Sister noticed ice crystals on the north side of the road just catching the sunlight as the sun rose high enough to reach them from the east.

The fox plunged into the woods on the right, a small patch off the farm road at the end of Shootrough, the larger woods being to the left. He ran over moss and through hollowed-out logs and then came back onto the road, where he ran right between Cabel and Ilona, who stopped and stayed put as did everyone else, once Cabel shouted, “Hold hard!”

Within minutes the pack ran through the horses.

Diddy stopped for one second, then ran on. When she came alongside Tinsel, she said, “I caught the scent again.”

“We all caught it,” Tinsel replied, nose to ground, wondering what had happened to Diddy’s wits.

“No, the perfume on Faye Spencer’s leg.”

“Nothing we can do about it now,” Tinsel rightly answered.

This time the big red dog fox did use the creek, running through it and climbing out a hundred yards upstream.

Hounds lost scent where he jumped in, but Cora took some hounds on one side and Asa kept the others on the takeoff side as they worked in both directions until finally Tinsel, again demonstrating her fine nose, hollered “Here.”

That fast they were all on again, threading through the woods as fast as they could, till they finally lost him at an outcropping of huge squared boulders, very strange-looking.

Gingerly, Trudy dropped down on the other side to see if there was a den—but nothing.

Once again the fox proved to all he had magic. Poof! He was gone, his scent with him.