“You know, I never heard the names of the men who died,” Sister said.
“We’re trying to find next of kin.”
“Sam Lorillard might know. He used to be one of them,” Sister suggested.
“You can tell us, Sheriff. My folks have been here since the earth was cooling and Sister, too. We might know.”
“Anthony Tolliver and Mitchell Banachek.”
“Dear God,” Sister exclaimed, “what a sad end for Anthony. I can’t believe it.”
As they stared at her, she added,“We went from grade school through high school together. I adored him.”
“Awful.” Georgia frowned.
“An awful waste.” Sister sighed, remembering a high-spirited, green-eyed kid with gangly limbs.
“Do you know his people?” Ben inquired.
“They’ve all passed away. He was an only child. If there’s distant kin in other parts, I never heard of them.”
“Mmm, well—” Ben folded his arms across his chest. “—another expense for the county.”
Georgia’s eyes widened. “You mean to bury him?” When Ben nodded in affirmation, she blurted out, “Can’t the medical school use his body?”
“I’ll inquire,” Ben replied.
“Don’t. I’ll take care of this. Let me know when I can claim the body.”
“Sister, that’s extremely generous.”
“Let’s hope he’s in a better place now.” She paused, then said, “There but for the grace of God. We’re lucky. Anthony wasn’t.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I look over schoolmates and friends, as I’m sure you all do, and most people stayed on track. Some surprise you by becoming a great success, and others, like Anthony, surprise you by becoming a great failure. He had everything going for him. I’m sorry you didn’t know him then.”
“I’ll get everything squared away for you.” Ben glanced at the floor, then up into her luminous eyes.
“Sister, could he have cured himself? I mean, do you believe in rehabilitation?” Georgia asked earnestly.
“Actually, I don’t.” She paused for a moment. “But I do believe in redemption.”
“What’s the difference?” Georgia asked as she checked out work gloves, lead ropes, and a big can of Hooflex for a customer.
“Rehabilitation comes from outside the person. That’s why it doesn’t work,” Sister clarified. “People are forced into programs whether they’re alcoholic or in a crumbling marriage or whatever. You know what I mean. There’s a huge industry in America now for the purpose of getting people to improve themselves or stop destructive habits. Redemption comes from within. If you want to save yourself, you can and you will. Of course, prayer helps.”
“Put that way, I see your point.” Ben inclined his head slightly.
“To change the subject—” Sister waited until the customer had left the store. “—if you find that Mitch, too, drank or ate poison, then we might have someone who thinks they’re cleaning up the town by killing the drunks.”
“That’s terrible!” Georgia’s hand flew to her mouth.
Ben quietly replied,“The thought had occurred to me.”
“Well, if it turns out that way, I give you fair warning. If I find that sorry son of a bitch, I’ll kill him myself.”
Georgia and Ben were surprised at the comment, the steely tone in Sister’s voice.
She even surprised herself.
CHAPTER 9
Bitsy, the soul of extroversion, flew out of the turreted stable at Beveridge Hundred, an estate first farmed in the mid–eighteenth century. Like all Piedmont estates back in those early days, the folks bending their backs to the task of clearing and plowing lived in a log cabin. Even then, many were second-or third-generation Americans, although they thought of themselves as English. Few owned slaves. That trade exploded in the colonies at the turn of the seventeenth to eighteenth century.
Colonists, even in Puritan Massachusetts, needed hands, strong backs, stout legs. And so the Boston traders constructed the unholy triangle of rum, tobacco, and slaves, picking up one at one port, selling it at the next. The Africans suffered in those New England winters. Penny-wise New Englanders quickly discerned that owning slaves wasn’t profitable. However, this did not prevent the sea captains disembarking from New London, Boston, or Newport from doing business with the Portuguese, then dumping their human cargo only in southern ports. A bargain with the devil had been struck, enriching the captain, his investors, and theplanter. As years passed, those morally upright people living in the great mansions built with slave money along the cobblestone streets of Boston contracted a specific form of amnesia: they forgot where that money originated.
The Cullhains kept good records. By 1781, the end of the Revolutionary War, the sons and daughters of the first owners of Beveridge Hundred had done so well they could afford twenty-five slaves: wealth indeed. By 1820, during a boom cycle, the number swelled to 159 souls. By the standards of the day, they treated their people—as they thought of them—well.
Thanks to God’s beneficence, by 1865, Beveridge Hundred had not been burned to the ground by Yankees. Half of the slaves, now freed, left. Half remained. Their descendants lived around Beveridge Hundred, taking Cullhain as their surname. The white Cullhains remained as well, their daughters marrying into some of the great Virginia families and some of the not-so-great Virginia families.
Xavier had married a descendant of the Cullhains, Dee, descended on her maternal side. When the insurance business grew, X bought the old place from Dee’s great aunt and uncle, who could no longer keep it up.
Year after year, X poured money into the plantation, gradually lifting it up, if not all the way back to its former glory. Some years he had more money than others, but it was a sure bet the funds would be spent on Beveridge Hundred.
Bitsy found this place a rich trove of gossip as well as mice. The little owl would fly over from Sister Jane’s barn, ready to hear all from the resident owclass="underline" a chatty barn owl.
Xavier liked Bitsy and the resident barn owl, who was much larger than Bitsy. He’d put out sweet corn for her and watch her while she ate it.
The first trailer, the party wagon, rolled down the snow-packed lane.
“Ah, time to pull me boots on.” He chucked her some more corn.
“You’ve got another fortyfive minutes.”
Xavier smiled as Bitsy chirped and burped—at least that’s what he heard. He hoped she would not emit one of her famous shrieks. The barn owl clucked: an endurable sound.
The hunt promptly took off at ten, with a field of fortyfive people.
Bitsy shadowed it for a time on her way back home. The foxes gave short runs and then returned to their dens. Treacherous footing kept the foxes close to their dens and kept Sister, Shaker, and the hounds moving slowly, too. Freezing and thawing had coated the fencerows in ice.
After two hours of this torture, Sister called it a day. Still on horseback they carefully walked back to the trailers; Sister fell in with Edward, Tedi, Xavier, Crawford, Walter, and Marty.
“… recovered completely.” Walter beamed.
He hadn’t been talking about a patient, but rather Bessie, a young vixen he and Sister had rescued last year. She’d had to have her front paw amputated after an infection had destroyed much of the bone. She’d become a quiet house pet, even learning to go outside to go to the bathroom. Walter wasdevoted to Bessie, though her habit of burying food tried his patience.
“Can you breed her?” Xavier asked.