“You’re something, Sister.”
“Know something? So are you.”
CHAPTER 41
“What’s the difference?” Xavier angrily countered Marty Howard.
“The difference is your life, the quality of your life,” she fired right back, secure in the righteousness of her cause.
“Marty, I like you. Understand that. I do.” Picasso’s reins were draped over his shoulder. “But I’m going to do as I damn well please. I’m smoking and that’s that. And don’t give me crap about filtered cigarettes or low tar. All that crap. All you do is inhale the tiny fibers from the filters or whatever they treat the tobacco with. I’m better off smoking straight cigarettes. The others are for wimps anyway.” Defiantly, he blew a puff of blue smoke.
“Then at least smoke good tobacco.” Crawford emerged from the trailer’s tack room. “Addictive personalities. You know. If they don’t do drugs, they turn to God. Forgive the cynicism. If they drink and give it up, they smoke. You’re an addictive personality.” He handed Xavier a pack of Dunhill Reds. Same cigarettes he bought for Sam, now lurking on the other side of the trailer since he didn’t want to get into a run-in with Xavier.
“Thanks.” X didn’t think he was an addictive personality.
“How could you?” Marty felt undermined.
“Honey, people will live as they see fit, and you can’t improve them. Besides, I’d rather have him or Sam smoothed out by nicotine than not, wouldn’t you? Life is too short to put up with other people’s irritations. Seems to me our efforts should be directed toward steering young people away from smoking. I don’t think you can do much to change older ones. X is my witness.”
“Lung cancer is hardly an irritation,” she snapped.
“His lungs.” Crawford shrugged.
“What’s Sam got to do with this?” Xavier was now irritated, edgy.
“I buy him a carton of Dunhill Reds each week. A bonus. Keeps him happy. Rather have him smoking than drinking.”
Xavier opened his mouth to say once a drunk, always a drunk, but he shut it, then opened it again.“I’m smoking again to lose weight.”
“There are better ways.” Marty was persistent.
“Tried them all.” He paused. “Although last night Sister mentioned HGH. I went home and looked it up on the Internet. Might work. I’m not going to the gym. Christ, I hardly have a minute to myself now. Foxhunting is my solace, and if I have time for only one sport, this is it.”
Crawford, familiar with strategies to stay young, had his HGH flown in from England, and no one was the wiser for it.“Xavier, get a stationary bike and ride it while you watch the news. Better than nothing. And try the Atkins Diet. I’m serious.”
A rustle from the kennel alerted them to the hounds walking out in an orderly manner.
“Damn.” Crawford tightened his girth.
As Crawford and Marty hurried to pull themselves together with Sam’s help, Xavier walked Picasso back to his trailer, mounting block by the side, and heaved up just as Clay and Izzy rode by.
“Didn’t hear you grunt that time,” Clay said.
“Shut up,” said X.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“If I hear one more lecture from Marty Howard about cigarettes or women’s rights or sugar or Free Tibet, I’ll spit in her face, so help me God.”
“Umm,” Izzy murmured as if in agreement, furtively looking for Dalton. She caught his eye. He smiled, then looked away.
Ronnie rode up.“If you all don’t want to ride in the back of the field, hurry up.”
“X is having a snit.”
“I’m not having a snit!” He breathed deeply, petted Picasso, and said, voice low, “I’m tired of being middle-aged and fat.”
“Nothing we can do about the middle-aged part, but fat, that’s fixable.” Ronnie walked on toward the kennels.
“Come on.” Clay rode next to Xavier. Izzy rode a little behind them.
This Saturday’s fixture was Roughneck Farm. Apart from being full of foxes, Sister and Shaker enjoyed hunting from home because they could luxuriate in an extra hour of sleep. Also, they could load up the pack with the young entry, since, if someone did take a notion, the young ones knew the way back to the kennel. This year’s class had made great progress since September’s opening day of cubbing. The fact that it had been a moist fall greatly helped them enter properly.
Sister figured the day would be start and stop, hunt and peck, since last night was a full moon. Contented, stuffed, most foxes were curled up in their dens, a tidy pile of bones and fur outside the opening. Inky had buried her debris, not an unusual habit, though most foxes kept their own open garbage pit.
A field of fifty-nine showed up, formal attire creating a timeless tableaux of elegance. Bobby counted twenty-three Hilltoppers. He asked Ben Sidell if he would mind riding tail along with Sari Rasmussen, who volunteered for gate duty today. Jennifer rode tail with First Flight. Sister liked having someone to close the back door, as she put it. Also, if the field straggled; it wasn’t good. They might turn a fox or, if the pack turned, hounds would have to run through horses. So Sari pushed up the Hilltoppers while Jennifer pushed up First Flight. Much as the girls liked being in First Flight, as close to the front as they could get without offending the adults, these days doing tail duty led to squeals of laughter back in the barn when they recounted what occurred. The tail rider sees everything: the misdeeds, the bobble in the saddle, the split britches, the bad fences.
When the field walks out, a hierarchy lines up behind the field master. For the Jefferson Hunt, this meant that Tedi and Edward rode in the master’s pocket. As the oldest members with colors, they were entitled to pride of place. Also, they rode divine horses, so they could keep up. As the hunt unfolded, this hierarchy altered. Whoever could really ride, whoever was well mounted, could move up without censure, although few ever passedthe Bancrofts. Occasionally Tedi would pull back if she sensed someone behind her who was antsy or who couldn’t control his or her horse.
During joint meets, the visiting master, if that master did not hunt hounds, rode with Sister. Guests then rode forward as Jefferson members graciously fell back for them. Again, once the hunt unfolded, if some guests weren’t well mounted, the Jefferson Hunt members could pass them without being considered rude.
The American way of hunting, most particularly in the South, involved manners, hospitality, and strict attention to the pleasure of one’s guests. Hunts in other parts of the country could be equally as welcoming, but the southern hunts believed they performed these services better than anyone. And of course, the Virginia hunts took it as an article of faith that they towered over all other hunts, a fact not lost on other states, nor especially admired.
Many was the time that Sister repented being a Virginia master when she hunted, say, in Kentucky. So keen were those masters to show their mettle that they gleefully rode out in twelve-degree snowstorms, taking three-or four-foot stone fences.
The“By God, I’ll show these Virginia snobs” attitude meant that the Virginians had to ride quite well in order to survive. Yet it was all in good fun. There is not a sport as companionable as foxhunting.
Sister looked over her shoulder at the line of well-turned-out riders snaking behind her as they briskly walked toward the peach orchard next to the farm road.
She remembered hunting in Ireland one fall after she and Ray had been married four years. The Irish rode right over them. She never forgot her first hedgerow jump with the yawning ditch on the other side. That night she thanked God for two things: One, she was an American. Two, she had rented a superb horse who took care of her.
Clay and Xavier whispered between themselves as hounds were not yet cast. Ronnie, riding just ahead, paid no attention. He’d listened to Xavier’s wails of frustration over his poundage every day. Just because X was his best friend didn’t mean there weren’t times when X bored him to tears. He always thought that Dee was a saint, and he envied X his partner in life. Funny, too, for of all the original fourfriends, X, average-looking, would have seemed to be the last one to attract a marvelous woman.