“Not true, of course.”
“You’re very kind, Gray, and then, then Peter Wheeler began to slow down. Peter and I had had an affair stretching throughout my forties. I stuck close to him. No affair. I mean, that was over, but I suppose I wasn’t emotionally available, even if someone had wanted me.”
“Actually, I think you scare the hell out of most men.”
“I do?”
“You’re six feet tall, probably taller when you were young, as I recall. You ride like a bat out of hell. You go through snow, rain, hail, sun, bogs, over stonewalls and big-ass coops. You come back smiling. You don’t have an ounce of fat on you, at least not that I can see. And you’re the master.”
Her eyes opened wide.“That’s fine with me. I wouldn’t want a man who wanted a weak woman.”
He laughed.“Touchdown.”
“Now may I ask you a personal question?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What do you think Sam’s chances are of staying clean?”
“Good. No, better than good. The deaths of Tony and Mitch have scared him. That could have been him. He was that out of control.”
“The thieving?”
“He stole to feed his habit. I believe he’ll stay straight. If he doesn’t—” Gray threw up his hands. “—I have done all I can do. No more.”
“I see.”
“What do you think Sam’s chances are?” he asked her.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been close to him for years. I hope he pulls it together. He’s a good horseman, and those are hard to find. And, before he fell by the wayside, he was a good man as well.”
As Gray rose to go, being a Virginian, he knew not to ask if he could help do the dishes. Although that is considered helpful outside the South, especially among those who are not wealthy, in the South, you don’t ask unless you’re at a Yankee’s house. What you do, knowing hardly anyone has the money for servants anymore, while preserving the fiction, is to later send to your hostess flowers or something else she likes. Or you can ask her to dinner.
“Your cat has returned to her evil ways.” He laughed at Golly.
Sister clapped her hands.“You get down from there.”“Ha, ha.”Golly laughed, giving up her post just as Raleigh and Rooster hurried in, hearing Sister clap her hands.
“What’s up! We’re ready.”The Doberman’s ears lifted up.
“Yeah, I’d like a ride in the truck.”Rooster lived for rides, and he knew the county better than most humans who drove it.
“All right, boys. Just a bad cat.”
Disappointed, they sat down as Golly, bursting with pride, rubbed right up on Raleigh’s chest. The Doberman looked the other way.
When Gray drove out of the stableyard, Sister sat down for a moment before doing the dishes.
“Whooee.”Golly added her two cents.
The two dogs stared at their human. She looked into their beautiful eyes.“Boys, he makes me feel—” She shrugged. “—can’t explain it.”
“Yahoo!”Golly sat and purred.“Time for the beautyparlor, a facial, and hey, maybe a boob lift.”
“Golly, you are insufferable,”Rooster moaned.
“Yeah, just think if you had a boob lift, the doctor wouldhave to hoist up eight of them,”Raleigh teased.
The calico swatted Raleigh, rubbed against Sister’s leg as she stood up, then sauntered off.
Sister watched her.“What gets into her?”
“You don’t want to know,”the dogs replied.
CHAPTER 11
Picking her way through the sodden earth, Inky had ample time to consider the fabled January thaw. Without fail, this warm-up occurred soon after the New Year, unlocking ice on the ponds and at the edges of creek beds. Frozen pipes and hoses suddenly spouted leaks, which meant plumbers raked in the bucks.
Shrubs bent low under snow would pop up, releasing dried berries still on the bough. And, of course, the footing was awful.
Inky had den fever, so she crossed Soldier Road to visit Grace, a small red fox living at Foxglove Farm.
Cindy Chandler, owner of this lovely place, had created two ponds, each at a different level, with a water wheel turning water from the upper pond to the lower. Underneath, buried below the frost line, was a pipe that carried the water back to the upper pond. The small insulated pump house served as a winter nest for one groundhog and many field mice, so both Grace and Inky found it most enticing. The field mice screamed bloody murder the second they smelled Inky and Grace. The groundhog, slovenly creature that he was and dreadfully fat, just rolled over and snored more loudly.
The two friends wearied of terrorizing the mice, so they trotted up the low long hill to the stable, a tidy affair with a prominent weathervane in the shape of a running fox.
The girls cleaned out the gleanings, some with molasses coating. Then they visited the Holstein cow and her calf, now as big as she was. These two, Clytemnestra and Orestes, wreaked havoc on Cindy’s fences and occasionally the gardens, too. Cly, as she was called, bored easily. As she had a pea brain, she craved excitement as well as clover. She’d lower her head, smashing through any fence in her path. Orestes, a tiny bell around his neck, would follow.
Finally, Cindy gave up, opened gates, and let her roam. The gardens, off limits, were patrolled by Cindy herself, with a cattle prod or her German shepherd.
Winter curtailed the naughty cow’s depredations. She and Orestes elected to remain close to their shed since it was filled with fresh hay and some special flakes of alfalfa, too. Cly was spoiled rotten. Humans chastised Cindy for babying the huge animal, but Cindy justified this by saying Cly behaved better if she had alfalfa and sweets.
Even the other animals told Cly she was so bad she ought to be hamburger. She’d lower her head, toss it about, let out a “Moo,” and then go about her business.
The foxes slipped under the shed overhang. The cow had bedded down in the straw, Orestes next to her.
“How are you, Cly? I haven’t seen you in some time,” Inky politely inquired.
“Good. What about you?”
“Pretty good, thank you. There’s been so much snow, Idon’t imagine too much has been going on around here.”
“Cindy’s planning a potting shed. That’s the news.”She flicked her long tail, which happened to hit her son in the nose.
“Mother,”he grumbled.
“Well, don’t sleep so close to me.”
After more desultory conversation, the two foxes left for Sister’s stable. Sister left out fruit candies, which Inky craved. Moving in a straight line, as the crow flies, Sister’s stable was only three and a half miles from Cindy’s stable.
“Little shapes like the fruit. Grape is a tiny bunch ofgrapes, and it’s purple. Cherry is a little red cherry. Theyfit exactly right in your mouth.”Inky anticipated her treats.
“Wish I could get Cindy to put out candy. She puts outcorn, and I do like it, but I have a sweet tooth.”Grace also liked to fish. She would sit motionless at the edge of one of the ponds for hours. Quick as a flash, she’d nab one.
The two foxes ducked under fences, finally coming into the large floodplain along Broad Creek. Built up along this floodplain was Soldier Road. The road, used since before the Revolutionary War, had originally been an Indian footpath leading to the Tidewater. Back during the Depression, when the federal government created work, the state built up the road through the floodplain. Even being twenty feet above, with culverts underneath, the road would flood at least once a decade. Modern-day people had to wait for floodwaters to recede, just as their ancestors had.
The two foxes moved four feet in from the creek itself.
“That’s strange.”Grace stopped at a spot that had been dug: small holes, not more than seven inches deep. Inky peered into the shallow holes.“Cowbane. Wasn’tthis where the cowbane was?”