“We should take the trunk pieces back to the Institute. Use a front-end loader and stack them up. Let them dry. This is good hardwood. A chunk of this will burn a long, long time,” Harry suggested.
“Good point,” Mary agreed.
“We’ll walk. Jason, you take the ATV. You know where the tractor is. By the time you get back here, one of us will have found a spot out of the way.”
As he motored off, Arlene then said, “Really, it should be dumped out in the open so hounds and people can get around it.”
“I’ll go west,” Harry volunteered.
“East.” Arlene picked her direction.
“South.” Susan nodded.
“North.” Mary checked her watch. “Let’s synchronize and be back here in a half hour.”
“Mary, will it take Jason that long?” Susan asked.
“Might. The kennel people are using the tractor. With luck, they will have gotten most of their work done, but he’ll need to talk them out of it and bring it back if there’s a question.”
Arlene then questioned Mary. “But what about the equipment in the shed?”
“Not all of that is available to us.”
“Right.” Harry agreed with Mary, checking her watch. “Four-thirty.”
“Four-thirty.” Arlene looked at hers.
Susan checked her Fitbit. “Right.”
Off they went. Each woman headed for where she remembered an open space. Some were true meadows, others smaller but open areas. The trick was not to clog up an area where rabbits might congregate. This wasn’t as easy a task as it appeared to be.
A half hour later all reconvened, discussing what they’d found.
“The bit of a level at the bottom of the ridge, below the high trail, it’s more or less out of the way.” Arlene pushed for her spot.
Mary, who hunted the Ashland Bassets and knew Aldie well, countered. “It is out of the way, but the creek runs close by. The creek area will hold scent.”
Arlene didn’t refute this, as she respected Mary’s acumen. Mary had hunted hounds longer than Arlene had, so she deferred to what in effect was a senior master.
“If Jason drags this thing down the main path, there’s a turnaround, a kind of dead end. No water close by, but the wind whips through there,” Harry spoke.
“Possible.” Mary looked west. “Susan?” Mary looked at Susan, whose work boots were caked with heavy mud.
“I found open areas but they’re grassy, bush by the edges. Bunnies are edge feeders,” Susan wisely noted. “I can’t say that I found anything suitable.”
“You know where we cross the creek down there? Once across, if you go about one hundred yards, there’s scrub. It’s not really so flat, but the roots could be dragged there. They’re so big, if anyone moved into that area, full of burrs, too, they’d see it,” Harry said.
They batted things back and forth, finally deciding that Harry’s spot sounded the most promising. Mary, who had walked north, kept encountering a series of low ridges, sort of like terraces, and the creek below would hold scent on the side facing the creek. The scent could literally bounce back. Scent, tricky always, moved with the wind, held on rich soil.
People who hunt, whether on horseback or on foot, enjoy watching hound-work, seeing the beautiful country as they ride or walk through, but they need not learn about scent. The huntsman must. Any huntsman, to which Mary could testify, looks great on a good scenting day. And huntsmen can hold their heads up on a terrible day, say, a drought or high winds.
It’s the in-between days that are the true test of a huntsman and his or her pack.
They decided Harry’s turnaround would do it. This lively discussion ate up another half hour. Still no Jason.
They sat on the rolled-over big trunk pieces.
More time slipped by.
“Does he have a cellphone?” Susan asked.
“He does. I’ve seen it in his pocket. He has a leather case.” Arlene figured everyone had a cellphone these days. “Does anyone have the number?”
None did.
“Let me call Amy. She’s down there at the kennels.” Mary dialed Amy, who immediately picked up. Mary asked if she had seen Jason.
“Yeah. He took our tractor about half an hour ago and said he’d be right back. Clare told him he’d better be back. We need that tractor, too. Where the hell is he?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Mary replied, then clicked off. “Maybe he had tractor trouble.”
“Why don’t we walk back? We’ll probably meet him on the way,” Arlene suggested. “If the tractor has acted up, we can all walk back together.”
“But we’ve got to move the roots.” Mary was adamant.
“We’ll have to do it later,” Susan sensibly replied.
“We have to get this done.”
“Mary, the light will fade soon enough. It’s Sunday and we all need to go home. Come on.” Harry sounded firm, then whistled for the dogs, who had been checking out every smell they could.
They dumped their chain saws into a wagon, which Harry pulled. Then Susan took a turn, then Mary, then Arlene. The Institute was a good mile away, probably more, but they didn’t want to think about it. They were tired and the mud on their work boots just dragged them down.
Finally, a quarter of a mile from the Institute, sitting on the path, was the old Ford tractor.
Harry climbed up, fired it up. “Nothing wrong with this baby.”
“Well, he can’t be far.” Mary was irritated.
He wasn’t.
Susan had walked up a small rise by the roadside. “Girls!”
Harry, knowing Susan, ran to her immediately, as did Tucker and Pirate, close on her heels. “Oh no.”
Now all four women were running. Tucker reached Jason first, followed by Pirate.
Flat on his back, eyes upward, Jason lay there, his throat slit ear to ear.
10
April 15, 2018
Sunday, 6:20 P.M.
All four women had been questioned but were asked to stay where they were as the other two groups were also questioned, as well as the people at the kennels. Everyone was ordered to stay put.
No reasons were forthcoming, but Harry figured the authorities were aiming to prevent any collusion. No one could warn anyone if the killer was one of a work party. And who would know what Jason’s movements would have been, where Jason was? Then again, one never knows of people’s secret lives. A slim possibility existed that he had been followed, the perpetrator covered by the topography and some evergreen trees.
She knew if anyone in the other two groups had blood on them, that would sink their ship. But no one did. Then she told herself the killer could have changed clothes. She decided to study whoever she could, once allowed back at the Institute. If someone looked as though he or she wore a complete change of clothing, well, maybe. Then she realized she hadn’t truly studied what each person wore. Above all, she felt terrible for Clare.
“Blood has a metallic smell, doesn’t it?” Pirate leaned on Tucker.
“Does. Human blood is strong.” Tucker nudged next to Harry. She knew Harry was upset.
“Ladies, I’m sorry to keep you here so long, but we can’t be too careful in a situation like this,” the slim sheriff advised them. “You all have been most cooperative.”