Some people never had that fire, not even in their twenties. They never slept with the wrong person or with too many people, never did anything silly, dangerous, or ill advised. To hear tell, every man and woman running for office in the United States had lived life as a blooming saint.
How else do you learn except by being foolish?
She pondered these things while hurrying along the outskirts of town, passing a trailer park, before breaking free into the open country, true home. The fields, sodden, cast a gray pallor. The trees stood out black and silver, green if a conifer, against the deep blue sky. She noticed a thin outline over the Blue Ridge, powder blue since the snow hadn’t melted that high up. The line looked as though drawn by a metallic gray pencil. Snow clouds would soon enough be sliding down the Blue Ridge, catching a little updraft from the valley below to move ever eastward. These clouds weren’t moving fast.
Sister turned on the truck radio. The weather report on NPR said snow would be starting in the valley in the early afternoon, turning to rain by the time it reached Richmond. The precip, as they dubbed it, would last a day, possibly longer, as it was a stalled front.
Sister believed national characteristics had been formed by weather. An Italian couldn’t be more different from a Swede.
Her character had been formed by the four distinct, ravishing seasons of central Virginia. Expect the unexpected, the weather had taught her. She’d also learned to plan ahead; violent snowstorms or those exotic green-black thunderstorms could knock power out for days.
She pulled in at the kennels, then drove back out, following Shaker’s tracks. They turned down the farm lane, past the orchard, then headed to the wide-open fields that lapped up on Hangman’s Ridge, already swathed in low clouds. A sprinkle of snow dotted her windshield.
She cut the motor, pulled on her heavy jacket, and stepped outside.
The tinyclick, click, clickof icy little bits struck the windshield.
Little snows turn into big snows, meaning little ice bits, tiny flakes, often turn into big flakes, big storms. She peered upwards. Oh, yes, this was going to hang around.
She listened intently. She heard the three long blasts on the horn. The air, heavy, changed sound. He was probably a half-mile off to her right, near the ridge.
She heard a splatter, and three hounds appeared.
“Darby, Doughboy, and Dreamboat.Goodhounds. Were you going back to the kennel?” If she punished these young ones, it would do more harm than good. When one young entry digs out, it’s sure the others will follow, thinking the whole thing is a romp.
“We saw a bear!”Darby, wide-eyed, reported.
“Big!”Doughboy repented leaving the kennel without the humans and without the pack.
“All right, kennel up.” She dropped the tailgate, and the three gracefully leapt up. She marveled at the power of their hindquarters. In her territory, a hound with a weak rear end wouldn’t last three seasons.
She shut the tailgate, hearing the latch catch, then climbed back in the cab and opened the sliding-glass window so she could talk to the three hounds. This kept them interested. She didn’t want anyone jumping out.
Back at the kennel Raleigh and Rooster greeted them, having come out through the dog door in the house.
“Hi,”the two house pets called.
“Boys, you can help,” she called the two to her. “Walk along with me and be my whippers-in.”
Raleigh loved this task. He accompanied most hound walks. He quickly moved to the right side of the three, leaving Rooster the left, an easier side since it bordered the kennels.
Rooster sternly said,“You creeps shouldn’t leave thekennels.”
“Rassle dug out. No one said stop.”Dreamboat defended them.
“You’re supposed to know better.”Raleigh lowered his head, now eye to eye with Dreamboat.“You’ll never makethe grade acting like a dumb puppy. Do you want to bepart of this pack or not?”
“We do!”The three whimpered as Sister opened the gate into the draw yard.
“Then you’d better behave,”Rooster warned.
Sister shut the gate behind them. She put out a bucket of warm water. It would be a few hours before it would freeze. She didn’t want to put the hounds back in their firstyear boys’ yard. They’d go back out the hole.
She, Raleigh, and Rooster walked back to the truck to head out and find Shaker when she heard the horn closer now, then, faintly, his light voice,“Come along, lads, come along.”
She trotted out to the farm lane, her boots squishing with each step, the snow turning from bits to tiny flakes. She could just make out Shaker down by the orchard.
“Got three ‘Ds.’ ”
“Good. I’ve got Rassle and Ribot.”
Within minutes, they had joined up. Rassle and Ribot got a tongue-lashing from Rooster and Raleigh.
Shaker put the two boys in the draw yard with the others, then he and Sister walked back into their yard.
She bent over.“Wall’s fine. Not crushed.”
“Dug under it. That’s a lot of work. You know, we’ve had enough of a thaw that they could do it.” He stood up, peering upwards. “Well, from the looks of it, that’s over. Ground’s tightening up as we stand here. I’ll fix this with stone.” He sighed. “They get bored sometimes,but boy, they really had to work to get under your concrete barrier.”
Sister folded her arms across her chest.“Well, I hate to say it, but we’re going to have to hot-wire the bottom here. Keep it hot for a week or two and see if that does the trick. If it does, then we can turn it off.”
“Yeah.”
Neither Sister nor Shaker liked using a hot wire with such young hounds, but Rassle, full of piss and vinegar, was going to have to learn the hard way. If he didn’t learn fast, the others would start digging. Monkey see, monkey do.
“Why don’t I fill this back up while you get on down to the hardware store?”
“I can fill it up. Easy if I use the front-end loader.”
“Shaker, I think you’re a better judge of what kind of wire we need than I am, but I don’t think we need one of those boxes that works off the sun. Not much sun in the winter.”
“Have to, boss. Can’t run a wire into the kennels. The boys will chew it right up, and you’ll have Virginia-fried foxhound.”
“Ah, I forgot about that.”
“They’ve got better solar collectors than they used to.” He headed back out of the kennels over to the equipment shed. There were always two dump truck loads of crushed rock, plus one load of number-five stone behind the equipment shed. If potholes in the road were promptly filled, the road lasted a lot longer.
Shaker filled the front-end loader with stone, drove back to the boys’ yard, and dumped it in the hole. Sister stomped it tight with a heavy tamper.
“Boss, this is no job for a lady.”
“Who said I was a lady?”
CHAPTER 18
Only a handful of riders followed hounds on Tuesday, January 20, at the old fixture called Mud Fence, so named because in the eighteenth century, the enclosures were red clay and mud.
The snow continued, light and powdery—which was unusual since snow in this part of the country is generally heavy and sticky. This dreadful viscous snow then stuck to horses’ hooves, turned slick as an eel under tire wheels. This snow felt like a bracing morning in the Rockies. The cold, however, could cut right to the bone.
The moon, one day shy of full, often presaged how much game would be moving around. According to the moon cycle, this should have been a decent enough morning.
However, the foxes at Mud Fence proved lazy as sin.
Shaker cast hounds into the westerly stiff breeze. Hounds worked diligently. Doughboy, Darby, and Dreamboat settled with the pack, and Sister kept her eye on the youngsters. Shamed by their great escape, they yearned to redeem themselves.