Whiskers In The Dark

8

April 14, 2018

Saturday

“Blastoff Beagles.” Harry laughed at Arlene Billeaud, Master of Beagles. “How did you come up with that name?”

“Oh, I was dating a man who worked for NASA. Nearly married him, but that rocket never landed.” She laughed. “By that time, I’d named my pack Blastoff Beagles.”

Harry laughed, too. “No one will forget the name.”

Harry and Arlene, dragged down by heavy mud on their boots, had been checking creek crossings as the others worked on more repairs at Aldie. Tucker and Pirate, also muddy, walked along. The cats, back on barn duty, were sure to be insufferable once Harry and Susan, who was with the kennel work party, returned.

“You no longer smoke? I remember when I first met you, you did.”

Arlene, mid-fifties and in great shape, shook her head no. “The terrible truth is I miss it. Calmed me and I loved the taste. But I’d had enough friends die of lung cancer by the time I turned fifty. Granted, all were older, from that generation that smoked and drank sociably. Still.”

“Know what you mean. I never smoked myself, but Mom and Dad did, as well as their friends. No one thought a thing about it. Tobacco certainly helped build our state.”

“Imagine Aldie in the old days. People hunting with puffs of smoke trailing them.” Arlene laughed.

Harry, right foot sinking deep into mud on the far side of a creek, the bank less stable than she had thought, picked her foot up with a sucking sound. “Dammit.”

“The fundraiser draws ever closer. I sure hope this dries out. The one good thing is the moisture—even if there’s more hard rain, it should help scent.”

“Moisture is one thing. Snow another.” Harry sighed.

“Ain’t it the truth.” Arlene also got a bit stuck, so Harry, now on firm ground, grabbed her hand and pulled her out.

“Thanks.” Arlene looked down at her mud-covered work boot. “When I was in the Army I remember a saying, really stuck with me. ‘If you’re in trouble, it doesn’t matter what color the hand is that reaches in to pull you out.’ Makes it all so simple, doesn’t it?”

“Does. Which brings me back to tobacco. I remember the big warehouses down by the James. I was in grade school, but we’d go down. Walking along those piles of cured tobacco was a white man with a black man at his shoulder. Those men knew tobacco. The white man was the big boss, the black man, maybe he didn’t have a title but he was number two and had a lot of respect. All gone. All that knowledge gone and those men have no one to pass it along to. I guess what I’m coming back to is wherever you are, whatever time in which you live, you work it out the best you can.”

“I certainly did.” Arlene walked alongside Harry as they headed to check the last creek crossing. “I can’t say women were welcomed in the Army, but they had to take us. We stepped up to the plate. That shut up a lot of naysayers.”

“My father used to say, ‘Do your job and shut up. Your work will speak for you.’ ”

“Smart man.” Arlene walked without a hitch, her artificial leg so much better than those of the past. She paused. “Today Abraham Lincoln was shot at the theater and Alexander II escaped an attempted assassination in 1879.”

“They finally got him, didn’t they?”

Arlene nodded. “Why is it they always kill the person who is trying to help move things forward? What happened? Russia swung so hard after that, shutting down growing liberties and creating a secret police that would kill you as soon as look at you. Assassination never works. Look at Julius Caesar.”

“One genius followed by another.” Harry tested the bank where the water was reduced to a tiny little trickle. “How often did that happen in history?”

“Rarely, but sometimes genius is close. Or great change. I guess I’m thinking of Henry VIII, who caused more suffering than any king before or since, but his daughter made good on all of it and here we are in Virginia, named for the Virgin Queen.”

“Did you learn that much on the job?” Harry smiled.

“Oh, I’m not that studious, but I was surrounded by bright people, knew history. I had a friend in the Agency, Paula Devlin, I swear she knew everything.” The attractive woman smiled. “What do you think?”

Harry pressed down harder with her right toe. “Fortunately, this piddling stream we can jump over. If it were wider and everyone clambering over, the damn bank would just give way and then people would have to wade across. I hate getting my feet wet, don’t you?”

“Worse in the cold and now I only have one.” Arlene shrugged. “Well. Let’s make a loop. Get down on the southernmost path and walk back. I don’t think anything has come down since we’ve been here. The snow was three inches, not much wind. It’s the wind that does the damage when there’s been a lot of rain or snow.”

“Sure does. How did you become interested in beagling?”

A big smile crossed Arlene’s face. “I come from Michigan. No beagle or basset packs there. When I was accepted to the University of Kentucky, my roommate hunted with, as it was then called, Fincastle. So I went out with her and really liked it. Then when I was in the Army for five years I was stationed in England. Hunted with every beagle pack I could. Then with the Agency I was based in Washington and I discovered the Fouts, Orange County, hunted with them, and I’d drive up to Apple Grove Beagles in Unionville, Pennsylvania.” She stopped a moment. “What I loved about Middleburg-Orange Beagles is that I had to bring a child to be admitted. I borrowed everyone’s children I could think of and the parents were usually quite happy for me to take them and wear them out. I always thought the Fouts were so smart to do that, to allow the young up front.”

They both laughed, finally reached the southern footpath, the dogs at their heels. As they approached a rise, the two dogs stopped. The ghost beagle, on the rise, watched them. As the humans passed, the fifteen-inch fellow fell in with Tucker and Pirate. He remained silent but kept up.

A long, low mound, mostly covered with bracken and some trees, hove up on their right.

“Isn’t that where some of the limbs are supposed to be buried?” Harry inquired.

“So they say.”

“God knows how many people are buried in this place.”

Exactly.