Outfoxed Page 23

“Then I’m making one for myself.”

  As the older woman buttered the bread she chatted and listened.

  Doug knocked on the back door, then came inside. “Horses are fine, Mrs. Buruss. I’ve turned your trailer around.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s a great trailer,” he said admiringly.

  “Only the best. You know how he was.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.” His handsome face radiated honesty.

  “There isn’t anything else you can say. Thank you, Doug.”

  “Did Sister tell you? We found the rope. We think it’s the rope.”

  Sister turned her silver head to face Doug. “I was getting to that.”

  Both Sister and Doug explained how they’d found the rope, where they’d found the rope, and what it looked like.

  “Sounds like Fontaine’s King’s rope.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Four hundred and sixty people crammed into the pre-Revolutionary Episcopal Church. Built in 1749, laid brick with white lintels, the unadorned structure sheltered by ancient spruces and hickories exuded an inviting presence. It didn’t take a particularly active imagination to envision colonists tying up their horses, doffing their tricornes, or adjusting their Sunday hats if female, to cross the threshold into the vestry.

  Every member of Jefferson Hunt attended, many genuinely sorrowful. Crawford, not at all sorrowful, escorted Martha. He walked to the grave site in the churchyard as well, just to make sure the walnut casket would be lowered into the ground.

  Martha, keeping her misery in check, wiped her eyes from time to time. Crawford kept his eyes down much of the time.

  The Franklins sat together. Jennifer held a lace handkerchief to her eyes, not to dab tears but to hide the laughter. Dean Offendahl, one of her high school boyfriends, in the choir, would wink at her. Betty, outraged, headed straight for Dean once the service was over. A funeral might be a good place to fall in love but it wasn’t a good place to flirt. Jennifer, unaware of her mother’s mission, walked with Cody and Bobby to chat with Sister, Doug, and Shaker. Together they walked out to the parking lot, a light northerly wind mussing everyone’s hair.

  They stopped out of respect as the funeral director ushered Sorrel and the kids into the black limousine. Fontaine’s sister from Morgantown, West Virginia, and her family followed in the next black limo.

  “She’s holding up remarkably well,” Betty quietly remarked.

  “You’d think she’d be glad to get rid of him,” Cody said in a low voice.

  Doug firmly said, “Cody.”

  She shrugged.

  Sister walked over next to her. “If love were logical, you would be one hundred percent correct but love isn’t logical. If it were, no one in their right mind would marry. For all his faults, she loved him. She loved him from the day she met him in college.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “I suspect you have mixed emotions yourself.”

  This terse sentence from Sister cut to the bone. Cody wondered if Sister knew about her affair. Unlike most people, Sister Jane did not feel compelled to tell people what she knew. A slight chill bumped down Cody’s spine.

  “Would you like to ride with me?” Doug offered, hoping for the chance to talk to Cody alone before the gathering at the Buruss home.

  Cody agreed and once the door was closed she blurted out, “God, I’d give anything for a drink right now.”

  “No.”

  “I won’t, I won’t. But funerals make me shaky.”

  “Cody, did you ever notice a special rope in Fontaine’s stable?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “From out west. King’s ropes, I think. Stiff. Used to rope steers and calves.”

  “No.”

  “Think hard. Maybe he hung it in the tack room or inside his trailer. You’d notice it, as it’s different from the stuff you buy at the co-op.”

  “No. I’d show up three times a week, saddle up Keepsake, and that was that. In and out.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Alone in bed that night, Sister scribbled on a yellow legal pad. She was reconstructing everything she could remember from the time she first saw Fontaine until he vanished. Next to her was her red leather-bound hunt diary. After each hunt she wrote the events in her diary. Reading about hunts years later delighted her.

  She and Raymond used to sit in bed together writing in their respective hunt diaries. He’d fuss at her because she’d use a fountain pen and he was afraid she’d spill ink on the sheets. She never did.

  Outside the night was crystal clear as only a November night can be.

  Golly rested on the pillow next to her. Sister thought of it as Raymond’s pillow. Raleigh curled up in front of the fireplace in the bedroom, the aroma of cured hardwoods filling the room.

  The more she thought about opening hunt, the more disturbed she became. Why kill Fontaine in the hunt field? Surely it would have been easier to kill him somewhere else.

  The risk in killing a human being when near to a hundred mounted followers as well as foot followers bespoke either boldness or frenzy. Granted, the foot followers remained on Hangman’s Ridge with Peter Wheeler. Foot followers almost always camped out at the Hangman’s Ridge fixture because of the vistas and because they could eat their breakfasts, drink coffee or roped coffee, and catch up with old friends.

  The killer knew all this, of course, but what puzzled her was why take such a chance? It was a hell of a chance. Wouldn’t it have been easier to lure Fontaine onto a back country road and shoot him? Or poison him?

  On one level she was furious, white-hot with rage, that someone would commit a crime in her hunt field.

  On another level, she was frightened. The swiftness of the murder, the cool appraisal of the situation, and then the lightning strike, pointed to an exceptionally courageous person.

  She’d listened to the arguments and theories from friends. It had to be a foxhunter, one who really knew the sport. Well, that was obvious. Others said it was planned but impromptu, which is what she, Shaker, and Doug pieced together once down in the slippery ravine.

  Still, there was an element of elegant revenge. The killer picked the hunt field for an emotional charge. The hunt field meant the world to Fontaine but it must also have meant something for the killer or for the killer and Fontaine together.

  She also thought it would decimate her hunt field. What a pity, for the season had promised to be a great one, one of those magical seasons that rolls around every fifteen to twenty years.

  She’d canceled Tuesday’s hunt since the funeral was Wednesday. Tomorrow the regulars would be out. Saturday would tell the tale because it was an especially good fixture, Beveridge Hundred.

  She turned out the light but couldn’t sleep. Every time she’d turn Golly would grumble. Finally, she clicked on the light to read Anna Karenina. Tolstoy was a bit of a hunting man. Not so good a hunting man as Turgenev, Balzac, or Trollope but still she liked reading those authors who understood and appreciated hunting. Then, too, Anna Karenina, complex, shifting, profound, never loosened its grip on her, not from the first day she’d picked it up at age seventeen. Of course, then she hated Karenin. Now she understood him perfectly.

  In the stable, snug under their blankets, the horses dozed. Gunsmoke woke with a start. He usually lay flat out and snored. He whinnied.

  Lafayette awakened. “Okay?”

  “Yeah. I keep feeling that rope hitting me.”

  “I wouldn’t think to look for a rope over a jump. Not when hounds are running,” Lafayette said.

  “It was high.”

  “When did Fontaine leave the field?”

  “He pulled off for a toot after helping Lottie Fisher. He’d pull the stuff out of his jacket, sniff, wait a minute, and then rejoin everyone. People thought he was going to the bathroom. Course, sometimes he did.”

  “No one called him over?”

  “Not exactly. He sat for a minute
to catch his breath, too. Hard run. Anyway, I saw Rickyroo in the distance. Doug was ahead of the main pack; then I heard the pack split. Off to the right and behind us I heard hoofbeats. Fontaine turned my head away because he started moving toward the main pack. The horse and rider were behind in the woods but moving fast. I wonder if that person beckoned him? He headed toward the split pack after that. You could really hear them, too. No one called out to him. I hear better than he does. Did. I could hear the horse in front of me but now way ahead—and the woods were thick. Fontaine was following. I’m certain of that.”

  “Weird.” Lafayette’s eyes were closing.

  “I remember one thing before I hit that rope. Behind the fence line, back in the woods, a horse snorted.”

  CHAPTER 45

  There’s a ghoulish streak in humankind. An airplane crashes in a field. People rush to witness the disaster and be horrified by body parts strewn over a mile or so. Traffic slows at a car accident not simply because a police officer demands it but because drivers and passengers can’t resist straining to catch sight of blood and maybe even guts.

  Perhaps it’s a fascination with death or a secret relief that this time it’s not you. Whatever, people are strange in a way other animals are not.

  More people arrived at the Beveridge Hundred fixture than had gone to opening hunt. Sister, Shaker, Doug, Betty, and Cody were given their .22 revolvers back Friday night, the evening before the hunt. None of them had fired the shot that killed Fontaine. In fact, none of the guns had been fired at all.

  Since Fontaine was killed by a .38, Sheriff Sidell had tested Shaker’s .38, as well as Betty’s and Cody’s, since they were carrying that caliber in a holster under their coats. Those guns hadn’t been fired either.

  After a short acknowledgment of Fontaine’s passing, Sister Jane nodded to Shaker, who cast hounds into an old house ruin at the rear of the big house. Beveridge Hundred, one of the first plantations built after Europeans pushed into the piedmont, had weathered the fluctuations of finance and wars over the centuries. Outbuildings crumbled during bad times, some were rebuilt during the good times, but the big house was kept running come hell or high water—and both had come to Beveridge Hundred.

  Hounds poked around the old outbuilding, fanning out until Diana said, “Here.”

  As she was a young hound, normally other hounds would wait for a tried-and-true hound to second the find but Diana had earned the respect of Cora and Archie. They honored her find and within minutes the hounds, huntsman, whips, and field rolled over the sweeping river-bottom meadows of the three-hundred-year-old estate.

  The fox executed a large, loopy figure eight, then ran the same territory again in a circle. Sister figured they were on a gray, a distant relative of Butch and family, no doubt.

  The loop became tighter and on the third run, now at speed, the fox ducked under a timbered farm bridge to his den. Hounds raced to the den, dug, howled, and celebrated their prowess. The gray was already at another exit just in case the huntsman didn’t call the hounds off.

  Shaker dismounted, praised his hounds, and blew triumphantly on his horn.

  “I put the fox to ground,” Dragon bragged.

  “We all put the fox to ground.” Archie acidly bumped the younger hound, who stumbled.

  “I was first. I am the fastest hound in this pack.”

  “And the most foolish,” Dasher chided his brother.

  The argument progressed no further, for the air, sparkling, and the temperature in the mid-forties suggested another fox might be found if they didn’t tarry.

  Shaker trotted the pack a quarter of a mile away and then cast them back toward the big house. They picked up a line, then dropped it. Picked another and dropped it. Scenting became spotty until a solid squatty hound stopped in his tracks. “Hey, what’s this?”

  Archie inspected. “Not deer. I vaguely remember this.”

  “Bear,” Cora said definitively.

  “Ah, well, you know the fox scent is evaporating and I don’t recall us ever being given a lecture about bear, now, do you?” Archie had a twinkle in his kind, brown eyes.

  “Well, then!” Cora’s stern waggled a moment and she was off, the whole pack behind her gleefully chasing a bear, gleefully bending the rules because even hounds need to cut a shine now and then.

  Doug rode ahead as first whipper-in. Betty rode on the left and Cody on the right. Territory was wide open, rolling hayfields and corn stubble.

  The jumps, mostly post and rail or stacked logs, had sunk over the years so even the most timid negotiated them.

  On and on they ran under a climbing November sun, pale gold. A thin line of cedars obscured the next field but they soon charged through that, around the edge of freshly planted winter oats and into a manicured woods. Virginians called cleaned-up woods “parked out.”

  A roar and a shout from Doug did not halt hounds. Shaker pushed his horse harder while Betty rode into him. Sister realized something was unusual. She held up her hand to stop. Behind her those who couldn’t control their horses bumped into those who could, which sent curses into the air, looks of reproach, and a few apologies.

  A black bear, displeased at the attention, stood on her hind legs. She would have broken the neck of any hound who jumped her or torn the life right out of any who attacked.

  “Scum!” she bellowed.

  Diana, not a coward but not a fool, stopped, as did most of the other hounds.

  “Leave it!” Doug shouted while struggling to keep Rickyroo under control.

  “I’m out of here!” Rickyroo reared up.

  Doug hung on for dear life as Betty and Outlaw rode up. Outlaw, a brave fellow, had no desire to stay in close proximity to the bear but he held his ground as Betty cracked her whip.

  “I’ll kill every damn one of you!” the bear threatened.

  “Oh my God.” Ricky, utterly terrified, bucked, reared, shimmied sideways, and eventually dislodged Doug, who landed flat on his back.

  The bear thought this interesting and she lumbered toward Doug, who rolled over, trying to get to his feet.

  Hounds gathered by the fallen whip.

  “Back off. Back off. We didn’t know we were that close!” Archie snarled.

  “By the time I’m finished with you you’ll never hunt bear again.” Her fangs glistened and she snapped her jaws rapidly open and shut, making a clicking sound.

  Shaker pulled his .38 but the bear, on all fours, headed toward Doug and he was afraid to fire. He fired overhead, which frightened the hounds, who associated the sound with stop-this-instant. The hounds moved to Shaker except for Archie, Cora, Diana, and Dragon.

  Betty squeezed Outlaw hard and the sturdy quarter horse leapt past the fray and came behind Doug as he managed to get to his feet.

  “Back off!” Archie growled as the bear stood up again, ready to swipe the horse.

  Doug grabbed Betty’s outstretched arm and using Outlaw’s motion, he put both feet together and bounced once on the ground to swing up behind Betty.

  Diana, Cora, and Dragon circled the bear, hoping to confuse her, but she was intelligent as well as angry. She lunged for the horse burdened by two riders and Archie sprang up, grabbing her paw. Cora, Diana, and Dragon struck from behind. Distracted, the bear forgot about Betty, Doug, and Outlaw. She took her free paw and smashed down on Archie’s head. He didn’t loosen his grip. She bashed him again then threw him off like an old rag doll.

  The three other hounds let go as the bear ran off. Shaker, once certain that Doug and Betty were all right, hurried to his anchor hound.

  Archie lay on his side, blood pouring from his mouth.

  Cora lifted her head and howled, a cry of pure anguish, for she loved old Archie. The other hounds followed their strike hound.

  Shaker knelt down, joined by Doug.

  “Oh, Archie.” Shaker felt for the hound’s pulse.

  Tears rolled down Betty’s face. She’d had no tears for Fontaine when she rode up on him after being called in b
y Shaker. Perhaps it was shock or perhaps in her mind Fontaine wasn’t worth her tears but Archie was.

  Shaker lifted the hound, carrying him back to his horse. Archie’s broken neck dangled. Hounds ceased crying and obediently followed the huntsman, although the air was filled with sorrow.

  Archie was draped in front of Shaker’s saddle. He mounted up, holding the hound with his right hand while he held the reins with his left.

  He rode up to Sister, who was about five hundred yards away but in the cleared-out woods. She and the field had witnessed everything.

  “Ma’am.” He could barely speak.

  Sister’s eyes clouded. “I think we’ll call it a day, Shaker.”

  A field member offered Doug his horse, which was proper. Anytime a staff member loses a horse, a member of the field should always dismount and offer theirs. Although most old-line foxhunters know this, few do it, since staff ride hard.

  “Thanks. I’ll walk back to the trailers.” Doug touched his cap.

  As he walked back, head hanging, Doug wiped away his own tears. It wasn’t until Beveridge Hundred came into view that he realized he hadn’t seen Cody. She’d been clearly in sight even as they barreled through the line of cedars. He’d lost sight of her at the field of winter oats but then there’s no reason one whip should see another.

  However, the pack ran tight. He didn’t think anyone had straggled off.

  He asked around as he passed trailers and people untacking their horses. No, she wasn’t back yet.

  He walked over to Sister. “Cody’s not back.”

  Sister glanced around. She’d been so distraught over Archie’s death she hadn’t counted her whips or her field.

  “Ask Shaker to blow her in.”

  Doug walked fast now to the hound trailer. Shaker had placed Archie on the front seat of the truck, a towel under him and an old horse blanket over him. Although the hound was dead Shaker somehow felt he had to be covered.

  “Cody’s not back. Sister wants you to blow for her.”

  Shaker strode to a small rise, held the horn to his lips, and blew three long, long blasts. It didn’t bring Cody but it brought Jennifer.