He shot her a baleful stare.“Who’s hurting?” He spoke softly to the hounds, “Good hounds, good hounds, pack into me now.”
“More?”Ruthie, sleek and fit, was as eager as Sister.
“Yes,”Cora happily told her.
“Yay!”the young entry cheered.
“All right, now. No babbling,”Asa gruffly instructed them, although he was as thrilled as they were. A good hound always wants to hunt.“Discipline, young ’uns. Discipline’s what makes a great foxhound and a great fox.You’re a Jefferson hound, you know, not some raggle-taggle trash.”
They obediently quieted, but Ribot, Ruthie, and Rassle couldn’t help themselves. As they walked to the next cast, they’d jump up to look over the pack, to see Shaker.
“Jack-in-the-boxes.” Tedi, alongside Sister, smiled.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Sister had tears in her eyes from the run, from happiness.
“Yes.” Tedi rode a few paces, then said, “Pity so few people feel that way.”
Sister, without rancor, replied,“Their own damn fault for the most part.”
“I agree,” Tedi said, thinking back to the joy she and Edward shared when both their daughters were alive, the family following the hounds, the pace like lightning. She’d had her share of happiness and her share of sorrow, and she thanked God for both. She knew Sister did, too.
Tedi wondered if this was a function of age or intelligence. She set aside age: she knew far too many immature, selfish, querulous old people. They’d been bloody bores as young people and had grown worse with the years.
Some people figured out the secret to happiness. Others didn’t. The problem with the ones who didn’t was they got in the way of the ones who did. Like psychic vampires, they’d swoop down on the happy. Eventually, one learns to dispense with their entreaties, manipulations, and excuses.
Tedi thought Nola, had she lived, might have become panicked in middle age as younger beauties challenged her fiefdom. Whether Nola could have gotten through it, she didn’t know. She wondered, too, how young Ray would have matured. He had had an uncommon sweetness to him, far sweeter and softer emotionally than her own eldest daughter. Tedi loved Sister for many reasons, not the least because Sister was lovable. But what bound them like a steel cable was the shared loss of their children.
Hounds found another line on the southwestern side of Old Orchard, down by the remains of a railroad spur bridge, the railroad long defunct. This run, although brief, took them over hills like camel humps. When folks made it back to the trailers, they were tired but exhilarated.
Tedi, Isabelle, and Ronnie had brought a tailgate. Despite the cold, people grabbed sandwiches, hot coffee or tea, and Ronnie’s signature brownies, chewy with tiny bits of bitter chocolate scattered throughout.
Sam, quiet and withdrawn, took a sandwich back to the tack room of Crawford’s large trailer. He sat on an overturned bucket, sandwich in one hand, while dipping the bit of Nike’s bridle in a bucket of warm water with the other hand.
He was surprised when X’s large bulk loomed on the other side of the door window.
X opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him.“You’re one lucky bastard.” Sam kept at his task. X continued, “I know you were drunk, drove off the road, and once again your brother saved your black ass.”
Sam glared up at him.“You know a lot, don’t you?” “Cars passed you until you were hauled out. No one told Crawford. You’re lucky.”
“And are you going to tell Crawford?”
“No.” X folded his arms across his broad chest. “No, I’m not.”
“White of you.”
X leaned down.“Listen, you worthless piece of shit. You’ll fuck up again. You’ll do yourself in. Why should I get my hands dirty?”
“That why you came back here? To tell me this?”
“No, actually. I came back here to tell you that I think you know more about what’s going on than you’re telling. For all I know, you killed those winos and Donnie. I know Donnie was in AA but couldn’t go thirty days without a drink. I know a lot more than you think I know.”
“Let me tell you what I know.” Sam stood up, hung the bridle over its hook, put the sandwich on the saddle seat. “I know that you and Clay Berry are old friends, right ball and left ball. I know that Clay will receive a six-figure check from the insurance company. And I wouldn’t be surprised to discover you two split that check.”
X grabbed Sam by the throat, choking the wind out of the small, wiry man.“I could kill you. Wouldn’t bother me.” He released Sam, whose hands fluttered up to his bruised neck. “You aren’t worth a jail term. Tell you this, you keep your mouth shut, so shut I don’t even want you to say hello to Dee. Don’t even look at her. You hear?”
Sam nodded in affirmation and coughed, his windpipe searing with pain.
As X opened the door, Sam whispered hoarsely,“She’s too good for you.”
X spun around.“For once we agree. She would have never—” He stopped; he couldn’t say it. “—if I’d paid attention to her as I should have. She would never have looked at you.”
“I did you a favor,” Sam replied.
“Oh?”
“I woke you up to what a self-centered bastard you are.”
X took a menacing step toward Sam, who grabbed a crop.“I did wake up. I worship that woman. Worship her. I’ll never make that mistake again. She’s the most important thing in my life. You keep well clear of her.” X turned, stepped outside on the plastic mounting block as Sam closed the door. He’d lost his taste for the sandwich.
That evening Sister and Gray dined out. Gray decided he couldn’t wait until Saturday. They talked about everything under the sun. He had his perfect Manhattan; she had Earl Grey tea.
They wound up back at Roughneck Farm in bed. Afterwards, they sat up, covers pulled around their shoulders. Even with the fire in the fireplace, the cold sneaked inside. Outdoors it was bitterly cold, a full moon bathing the world in silver.
“My nose is running.” Sister wiped her nose with a Kleenex.
“Well, you better catch it,”Golly, snuggled on the foot of the bed now that they were done, smarted off.
“Think it’s the dust?” he said.
“Probably.” She leaned against him, sliding down so her head was on his shoulder.
He wrapped his arm around her.“I feel like a teenager.” “Act like one, too.” They laughed, and she asked, “Okay, give me hell if I’m rude, but isn’t it true that all men will have prostate troubles sooner or later?”
“It is. Why, do you want to know if I have to get up five times in the night to go to the bathroom and not much happens?”
“Actually, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Took care of it. Well, I mean I’ll continue to take care of it. But all is well.”
“I know that.” She giggled. “Want my medical history?”
“Well.” He hugged her. “I suppose at our ages that’s germane.”
“Broken right leg, three places, clean through, 1962.
Fractured ribs, too many times to count, starting in the fourth grade. Broken toes, but that’s no big deal, wrap them in vet wrap. Can’t do anything else. Two discs, L4 and L5, are crumbling—enough to make me stiff if I’ve been sitting in one position too long. Other than childhood diseases and the occasional flu and cold, that’s it.”
“Impressive.”
“You could play dice with my bone chips.”
“Broken wrist, college basketball. Hmm, tore my anterior cruciate, left leg, must be eleven years ago. Fixed it. I’d say we’ve both been lucky. I take that back. We’re active, so we haven’t rusted out.”
“What’s the point of having a body if you don’t use it?” Sister smiled as Golly walked over her to rest on her lap.
“I know you’ve missed me,”the cat purred.