And smelled like Thanksgiving when I stuck my head in the back door. Isabel was bringing a ham and Nadine and Minnie were each roasting a turkey, but April always makes her succulent smoked oyster dressing and she was just putting the big pans in the oven, enough for fifty people.
April is Andrew’s second wife and considerably younger than he, closer to my age, in fact, than his. She got her BA. after A.K. was born and teaches sixth grade at Cotton Grove’s middle school.
“Need any help?” I asked.
“Oh, Deborah!” She rushed over to hug me. “You could have been killed. Pete Grimes.” She shook her head. “Have you heard how Merrilee’s taking it?”
“I think she’s retained Zack Young, but when Dwight called me last night, he said he’s pretty sure they’ll find that Dick Sutterly was killed with a bullet from Pete’s gun.”
“Thank goodness he didn’t shoot you.”
I looked around the kitchen. “You sure there’s nothing I can do?”
“No, everything’s done except I may mix up a little crabapple relish. And maybe make another gallon of tea. If you want coffee, here’s a mug. They’ve got the pot plugged in down at the dog pen.”
“Holler if you change your mind about needing help,” I told her and went on down the slope where at least six pickups were parked, half with dog cages in the back.
Bert, Robert’s four-year-old grandson, came running to meet me holding a beagle pup so young it didn’t yet have its eyes open.
“Better bring him on back, little man,” called Robert. “His mama’s getting worried.”
I swung Bert and the puppy both up in my arms. “I haven’t had any sugar all week,” I said, kissing him under his chin till he was giggling all over.
Haywood’s granddaughter Kim is three and she wanted me to pick her up, too, so she could tell me all about a new litter of piglets that Seth’s Jessica had taken her to see that morning.
Jess and A.K. and Adam’s twin, Zach, were inside the quarter-acre training pen distributing fresh branches over the logs and pipes so the rabbits would have enough bolt spaces, and they all had plenty to say about my close call. As did Daddy when I saw him. The younger children were racing up and down along the outside perimeter with Blue and Ladybelle and a couple of other pet dogs, squealing with excitement and waiting for the fun to begin.
Reese and Annie Sue drove up and the kidding started before he even got out of her car good.
“Hey, Reese,” Zach called. “Heard you got hold of a deer yesterday.”
“Naw,” said A.K. “I heard it was the other way ’round.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Reese. “Y’all have fun. Get it out of your system.”
“Let me buy you a cup of coffee,” I said, taking pity on his bruised and stitched face.
“Hell, from what I hear, I ought to be buying you one.” He looked me up and down. “Gotta say though, you’re looking pretty good this morning for an old lady that spent time scrunched up in a wrecked car.”
“Old lady?”
He ducked my punch and slipped through the door ahead of me.
The boys got together a few years ago and salvaged enough building scraps to put up a one-room shack right beside the training yard, complete with a big picture window, a small potbellied woodstove, and several cast-off chairs, including an old rump-sprung recliner that Isabel was going to make Haywood take to the dump. Now Daddy can sit out there with them and watch the training sessions even when it’s cold and rainy.
The fire was welcome today, and so was the coffee Haywood poured for Reese and me. Adam was sitting in there with a mug between his hands, looking like something the dogs had dragged around in the mud.
I grinned. “Best man, huh?”
“Don’t say it,” he groaned.
Reese laughed and went outside.
As I stood watching through the picture window, Haywood said in the lowest, most confidential tone he could muster, “Uh, say, Adam? Me’n Isabel, we was wondering if you could use this?”
There was a rustle of paper, then Adam said, “Huh? Ten thousand dollars? What’s this for?”
Haywood’s whisper was like everybody else’s normal level and I heard the awkwardness in his voice. “Well, I knowed you was worried about something and if it’s just money, well, shootfire! I got lucky Thursday. You can pay me back when it’s convenient.”
I didn’t wait to hear Adam’s reply. My eyes were stinging as I took my coffee out into the crisp morning air. We might be going to have a real winter after all.
“Cold weather feels good, don’t it, shug?” asked Daddy. He’d already asked me twice was I sure Pete hadn’t seriously hurt me? Once again, I promised him that I was just fine. He had on a fleece-lined brown jacket and the beige felt Stetson that he wears in winter, and he was watching Andrew buckle a training collar around the neck of a pup he’d paid twelve hundred for.
Some people think an electronic training collar is a cruel device and I suppose it is if wrongly used. On the other hand, if you’re out in the woods and your dogs won’t come when you call or whistle, they can follow a rabbit trail halfway across the county and wind up footsore and lost. It’s sad to see a couple of slab-sided hunting dogs wandering the back roads in winter. They give you such a hopeful look when your car passes, as if wondering if this car, this time, will finally hold their owner. Yet if you stop to try and read their tags, they skitter away and often can’t be caught.
Daddy and my brothers believe a few mild electric shocks are worth preventing that.
This little dog had already caught the whiff of rabbits and was wiggling with anticipation. Daddy led her inside, got her settled, then gave the command to seek. She found the scent immediately and started yipping and singing. The other dogs in the cages started barking, too. Rabbits were zinging every which way, and the grandbabies were tumbling all over each other, laughing and pointing as a rabbit sailed right over the young dog’s head.
Daddy let her run till she was almost tired enough to stop on her own, then gave a sharp call. When she didn’t break off the chase, he gave her a quick zap at the same split second that he called again. She yelped once and instantly went to him for praise and petting.
He repeated the drill twice more and by the third try, she broke off the chase as soon as he called out to her the first time.
“She’s gonna be a good’un,” Daddy said, pleased. He rubbed her ears and praised her some more before A.K. carried her back to her box in Daddy’s pickup.
The process was repeated with three more dogs, then Andrew decided one of his rabbit dogs needed reinforcement about ignoring deer scents.
“Where’s that piece of deerskin?” he called.
“You don’t need it, Uncle Andrew,” said Jessica. “Just turn Reese in and let him run around the pen.”
Reese rolled his eyes at me. “I’m gonna hear about that damn buck till the day I die, ain’t I?”
“Till the day I die, at least,” I promised, squeezing his shoulder.
Eventually, four or five young littermates were put in the pen to get used to the smell of rabbits. Supervision of the little kids was turned over to some of the nieces and nephews as we joined Daddy inside the shack.
It was a bit crowded: Robert, Andrew, Haywood, Seth, Will, Adam, Zach and me. Young Bert was perched sleepily on Daddy’s lap.
“You want me to take him out?” asked Jessica.
“No, let him stay. You can stay, too, if you keep what’s said here in the family.”
Jess nodded solemnly and sat down on the arm of Seth’s chair.
Daddy looked around the small room. “Who’s missing?”
“Herman,” said Haywood, “and I reckon I can tell him what happens.”
“I wish Frank and Benjamin and Jack was here, too,” said Daddy, “but they ain’t.”
His eyes traveled around and met each of ours in turn. “Now, y’all know how things been changing around here. What some of y’all don’t know is that G. Hooks Talbert’s planning to develop all that land across the creek. He’s bought out Leo Pleasant, he’s bought Adam’s—”