Given the cacophony and the strange hounds, Betty stayed outside the circle of hounds, as did Sybil on the other side.
Jason, breathing hard, rode up.
Betty said not one word.
Finally, Crawford rode up, Bobby hiding his laughter behind his gloved hand.
Crawford glared at his hounds, glared at Jason, and was about to bark at his own wife until he noticed she had a hound with her. Marty was the only one who did her job.
Sister smiled as her hounds watched Shaker for a sign.
The only ripple of discontent came from Dragon, who raised his hackles at a large, handsome dog hound.
“Dragon,” Shaker quietly called his name.
Dragon turned his face from the offending hound and walked over to his huntsman.
“Come along.” The hounds clustered around Shaker, but so did the black and tans.
“Where’s your horn?” Jason asked.
“Threw it away.” Red-faced, Crawford spat, now at the edge of the combined pack.
“Well, you’d better call your hounds out.” Jason stated the obvious.
“I know that!” Crawford, enraged, slunk down in his saddle, then bellowed, “Come on.”
Not one hound turned his or her head.
Crawford dismounted, so Czpaka walked over to Walter, HoJo, and Clemson. Crawford grabbed a hound roughly by the collar.
Sister, lifting her feet out of her stirrup irons, swung her right leg over, dismounting effortlessly.
“Don’t touch a hound like that!”
Crawford wheeled. “It’s my goddamn hound and I’ll do as I please.”
“You don’t deserve these hounds.”
“She’s got that right.” A beautiful black and tan bitch agreed.
Sister walked right up to Crawford as Shaker, still as a mouse, had all the hounds around him. “If you so much as touch one of my hounds, I will knock the stuffing right out of you!”
Crawford, vanity wounded and ego aflame, moved toward her. “Don’t tell me what to do, you old bitch!” He pushed little Diddy out of the way with his knee.
“Ouch,” Diddy cried.
Sister stepped forward with her left leg, her hands fast. She followed with a hard left, then a hard right, her whole weight in the punches.
Blood spurted from Crawford’s mouth. He spit out teeth as he staggered.
He rose and threw a wild punch.
Sister ducked and came up, swinging both fists as hard as she could into his gut.
He doubled over, then sank to his knees.
Walter, mesmerized by the sight, walked toward them, three horses in tow.
Shaker, pack still with him, moved toward her.
Both men were encumbered.
Jason leaped off his horse and ran between the two antagonists. “Crawford, we’d better leave.”
“I’ll sue your sorry ass,” Crawford cursed as he spurted blood.
“You just do that.” Sister was ready to belt him again.
Walter reached her and placed his hand on her right shoulder.
Crawford, helped up by Jason, cried, “Furthermore, you’re trying to lure my hounds away from me.”
“Smoking opium,” Cora said as all hounds laughed.
“I’ll sue you. I’ll see you bankrupt,” Crawford threatened.
Jason, loud enough for those close to hear, sensibly said, “Crawford, what do you think will happen when you testify that you were beaten up by a woman in her seventies?”
This had the desired effect.
Marty prudently turned her horse. “Come along, hounds.”
“We want to stay with them,” a large fellow replied.
Jason handed Czpaka to Crawford and held his hands together so the bloodied man could mount up. Czpaka, sense of humor intact, took a step as Crawford tried to put his right leg over the saddle. Jason had to run alongside propping up Crawford until he was finally in the saddle.
No sooner was Crawford mounted then down the main drive to Paradise, churning old snow and mud as she roared, came Margaret DuCharme. She skidded to a halt and got out, slamming the door of her little Forester.
Margaret pointed her finger at Jason and Crawford. “What are you doing on my land?”
Crawford looked down at her. “It’s not your land.”
Jason groaned, then turned on the charm, smiling broadly at Margaret. “We’d like to know the foxes, human and otherwise.”
Voice controlled, ice cold and loud enough for the entire field to hear, Margaret replied, “I will see you both dead before I let my parents sell Paradise.”
“Alfred wants to sell.” Crawford, rattled, had just let the cat out of the bag: he knew too much.
“We’ll see about that.”
Walter, Clemson and HoJo with him, walked over to Margaret. “It was one of the best runs of the season.” He smiled. “Thank you for allowing Jefferson Hunt on Paradise. Can I help you with anything?”
She liked Walter and replied quietly, “Thanks, Walter. Get these trespassers out of here, please, before I really lose it.”
“His hounds will follow ours. We’ll get them and him out.” Walter said this so Shaker could hear, too.
She half-whispered, “I’ll see Jason in hell. I really will.”
“You buy Jason’s ticket. I’ll buy Crawford’s.” Sister regained her composure.
Two egotistical men, pride wounded in different areas, seethed on their horses.
Marty, hound tagging along, rode up to Margaret. “I am truly sorry.”
“Marty, I can’t understand how someone as lovely and sensitive as yourself could marry such a…” Words failed her. Margaret threw up her hands, and Marty knew this wasn’t the time to defend Crawford, no matter how much she loved him.
Useless as tits on a boar hog, Crawford and Jason couldn’t extricate their hounds from the Jefferson Hunt hounds.
Another motor was heard in the distance: a big, booming diesel.
Sam Lorillard, in the passenger seat, eyes wide open, involuntarily smacked his forehead with his hand as Rory stopped the truck and trailer.
Sam emerged stiffly. Rory cut the throbbing motor and walked around to the back. He opened the trailer door.
They couldn’t get the black and tans to load.
Sister, on foot, Rickyroo’s reins now in hand, called out to Shaker, “Help them, or this will get even worse.” She then directed Betty and Sybiclass="underline" “You, too, if you don’t mind.”
Diddy leaped onto the new trailer.
“Diddy, out,” Shaker gently chided the eager little girl. “Hold up,” he instructed his hounds, who quizzically looked at him and at Sister, then Betty, then Sybil.
“Kennel up.” Sam called the black and tans to him as Sybil and Betty quietly, with no fanfare, moved at the edges of the hounds who didn’t break.
Sister breathed a prayer of relief the black and tans didn’t bolt but loaded up.
“Told you this would be a good hunt,” Pamela bragged.
“Not over yet,” Val replied.
Watching this was Ben Sidell. Nonni, his gentle teacher, took it all in as she stood next to Bobby’s big draft cross.
“Ben, I’m old enough to know when hounds won’t hunt for a man. Those hounds will never hunt for Crawford—not even if he feeds them calves’ liver daily,” Bobby drawled.
Sam, soaking up the tension, clambered back into the truck as soon as the black and tans were loaded.
The big trailer also carried the horses. Crawford, Jason, and Marty dismounted and walked their horses onto the trailer.
It was against state law to ride in the trailer, but under the circumstances, Jason urged them to do so. They’d get out of Paradise more quickly, and the ride back to his SUV wasn’t that far.
“I’ll get you for this!” Crawford shouted to Sister as Rory slammed and bolted the door.
Sister didn’t reply.
Shaker, back up on HoJo, apologized: “I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you fast enough, Boss.”
“Maybe we both belong in the ring.” She half smiled, referring to their boxing prowess.
“Hell of a combination.” He smiled broadly.
“Was, wasn’t it?” She couldn’t help but feel pride, even though she knew that worm Crawford would churn up mud.