“Yeah, this will be really good.” Delight supported her brother.
Cora, tempted by the aroma, ordered,“No. We’ve got to stay on our fox.”
“Won’t the humans want some of this?” Diddy inquired.
Tinsel, a year older than the“Ds,” hunting for the third year, sniffed.“Look how high they are on their horses. Do you know how long it will take scent to reach them even if the air warms? Diddy, we’ve got to leave this. And if an exceptionally well-nosed human gets a whiff they won’t like it.”
“It smells so good,” Delight said with a backward look, and followed Cora.
Shaker called out,“Hark to ’em.”
They moved on, catching up with Dragon, Dasher, and Cora.
Running hard, Tinsel said to Diddy,“Humans don’t like that kind of food.”
“No!” Diddy pitied their undeveloped palates.
Scent grew hotter as they moved forward, so conversation stopped.
Galloping past the charming church, Sister noticed that truck tracks indented the road. The Widemans must have come to inspect their little church. She hoped restoration would follow. A faint hint of an abandoned deer carcass or something assailed her nostrils, then disappeared as she hurried on.
A sprinkle hit her cheeks; the raindrops felt cold. She looked up at the sky. The clouds were so low she felt she could touch them as mist filtered down through the forest.
They burst out of the woods, over a stout new coop, still unpainted, which spooked some of the horses.
She felt sorry about that but there just hadn’t been time to paint, plus one had to wait for the temperatures to rise above the forties.
Still running straight, the fox fired across the pasture, dipped under an old fence line, and shot into Beveridge Hundred, where he made for an old granary, built of stone. He waited a moment, shook himself, then placidly slipped into his den.
Hounds raced to the granary but were too large to squeeze under the ragged edge of the old wooden door, the once-bright blue faded to a chalky baby blue.
“Let me in!” Dragon howled.
The fox paid no mind to the uproar outside the door.
Shaker chose not to open the door. He knew the fox had to be in his den, but he didn’t know if any farm equipment was still in the granary. If so, his hounds could get torn by tines in their excitement or smack into old tools, which would fall on them.
Hound welfare came first for Shaker.
The rain accelerated from a fine mist to a light drizzle.
“Boss?” he asked Sister after he’d blown “gone to ground.”
“Time to pick them up, I think.”
Walter, back in the field, pulled the collar of his coat up, as did others. The rawness of the weather cut to the bone.
Within fifteen minutes all returned to the trailers. Despite the drizzle increasing in tempo, the tailgate was crowded.
As he put on his Barbour coat in the dressing room of his trailer, Crawford swore.“I will get that son of a bitch huntsman. Who the hell does he think he is? Who is paying his salary? I put more money into this than anyone!” Marty had sense enough not to argue with him.
Anselma Wideman returned in her truck. She’d seen them off.
“Sister, why don’t you all come into the house?”
“Thank you, but as you can see, the food’s about demolished. Thank you, though.”
“Well, if you’re worried about the mud, don’t be. I’ve got one of those big standing bootjacks. They can pull off their boots and walk around in their socks.”
Sister smiled.“Grab something before it’s all gone.”
“I just might do that.” The pretty forty-year-old cut the motor, slid into her Barbour jacket. As she stepped outside she clapped an oilskin hat on her head. “You must be cold.”
Sister walked next to her toward the tailgate.“You get used to it. Where’s Harvey today? I was hoping we’d see him to thank him. It’s wonderful to be back here. So many memories. All of them happy. It’s a beautiful, beautiful place and you all are doing so much to bring it back to life.”
“We have Beveridge Hundred as our example.”
“The Cullhains never give up.” Sister motioned toward the family that had owned Beveridge Hundred for centuries, in flush times and lean. As farming grew tougher and tougher their little profits dwindled, but they struggled to keep the place together, not selling off any land.
“This area is full of remarkable people, people who don’t bend to hardship,” Anselma said admiringly, her black eyes soft and warm.
“Well, Anselma, all God’s chillun’ got problems. It’s what you do with them.”
“True enough.”
“Where is Harvey, by the way?”
“I forgot that, didn’t I? He’s in Baltimore. Family business, so he killed two birds with one stone.”
“I saw truck tracks back to St. John’s. Thought maybe he drove back for inspiration.”
“He may have. There are so many outbuildings at Little Dalby I’m working my way outward. Eventually I’ll get to St. John’s myself.”
“Well, this place is being reborn.”
“You know, Sister, I am, too.”
“Every day.” Sister smiled.
“Beg pardon?”
“Every day. One is reborn with the sun. And today that fox gave us such a run, I feel like I’m thirty.”
They laughed and on reaching the tailgate joined the others.
It wasn’t until three days later, Tuesday, that Sister recalled her conversation with Anselma and realized she’d fumbled the ball.
C H A P T E R 2 3
“Balls.” Bill leaned back in the leather club chair, putting his feet on the leather hassock. “He’s so full of it.”
Amy shrugged,“That’s what he said.”
“He’s always crying poor. It’s a professional hazard.” Bill would have none of it. “There’s money in the budget for centrifuges. For Christ’s sake, Amy, every school budget has a layer of fat in it. Think of it as high cholesterol.” He glanced down at his own expanding belly, the corners of his mouth turned down. “When did you see him, anyway?”
“I stopped by his office at eight-thirty. Before my first class.”
“I’m sure he was toiling away.” Bill’s voice dripped sarcasm.
“He was.”
Alpha Rawnsley opened the door to the teachers’ lounge, inhaling the seasoned oak crackling in the fireplace. “Solace!” She closed the door behind her, took in Amy’s face. “Perhaps not.”
“Oh, Alpha, I’m just mad at Knute, that’s all. He says there isn’t money in the budget to replace the four centrifuges that broke.”
“Crying poor.” Bill nestled farther into the comfortable old chair, made so by decades of teacher bottoms.
“He can be strict,” Alpha wryly replied as she poured herself a sherry from the decanter.
As each of them had taught their last class of the day, they repaired to the lounge. It was their version of stopping by the bar to have one with the boys before going home. The difference was the Custis Hall faculty thought of it as collegiality.
“Anal,” Bill said.
“That may be so, but Custis Hall remains in the black. You have to give him and Charlotte credit for that. And once the alumnae fund reaches its target, they’ll both relax.”
“If I have to wait that long for four centrifuges, I’d better leave.” Amy decided a spot of sherry would do her a world of good, too.
Outside the paned, leaded-glass windows a few snowflakes announced more to come.
Alpha smiled.“To the first snow.” She handed Bill a sherry.
They toasted the true beginning of winter.
“You know what else he’s obsessing about?”
“Amy, he has a laundry list.” Bill giggled, which made the two women laugh.
“Professor Kennedy’s bill. He must have droned on and on for a good twenty minutes about all the time she was here because she charges by the hour. He anticipates her report, which, his words, ‘Will be a pulp novel larger than the Cedars of Lebanon.’ He’s not exactly sliding into the holiday mood.”