Jason leaned toward Harry. “Heard you’ve got a lot of miles on your Volvo station wagon. Let me sell you a Highlander. Great car for snow. I’ll give you a preacher’s price.”
Harry’s eyebrows raised. “What denomination?”
Those around her laughed, then Arlene smiled. “He would sell you one, too. Actually, I think Jason could sell ice to Eskimos.”
None of the people from the northern hunts rebelled. Everyone had endured a tough winter and knew what was coming: yet another storm to dump inches of snow everywhere.
Jason remarked, “Well, I can work for maybe two hours. Maryland will be later. I am so tired of winter.”
“We all are,” Liz Reeser said, and everyone agreed. “Okay, those who are staying. Two groups. Work until about noon. Clear what you can and then let’s all pack up and go. We aren’t going to get lucky with this storm.”
Jason folded his arms across his chest. He looked out the windows. “It’s the wind I worry about. Well, ladies, let’s go.”
Susan, Liz, Jason, Harry, and Mary Reed comprised one work party. Clare, the other Liz, Mag Walker—all from Hermit’s Hollow Beagles, who had driven down early this morning—made up another with Arlene and Jessica Anderson. They headed toward the first creek crossing, which wasn’t far from the stone building. Branches were down; some had fallen into the creek.
The mound could be seen to their right.
“The mound looks clear.” Susan pulled a branch out of the water. “You’d think because it’s higher, the winds would have done more damage there than here.”
Mary said, “Well, sometimes the wind almost funnels down here. I think it’s worse.”
“Maybe the wind wants to leave the arms and legs alone.” Jason half smiled. “Every now and then some historian from a university wants to dig up there. What good does it do to find arm and leg bones? You don’t know who they once belonged to. Just let everything be.”
“I agree.” Harry slipped a pair of sharp clippers into a leather pouch on her belt.
Jason, cut branch in hand, said to Harry, “Highlander’s perfect in snow, mud, sleet, rain. Think about it. Preacher’s price.”
She smiled at him. “I will.”
The two groups labored intensely and by noon returned to the stone building.
Arlene Billeaud and Jessica Anderson, from the other group, came into view. Jessica hailed from New York, a northern hunt, but was staying with Mary Reed in Warrenton. The two groups waved at one another.
“How’d you do?” Arlene asked.
“Pretty good. Got the big stuff off the trails. Most of the limbs, too, but the wind is really picking up. We’ve quit in time,” Susan offered.
“We’ve done all we can do but we’ll have to come back and lop off the hanging branches.” Mary noted a necessary chore. A branch coming down during a hunt couldn’t be risked.
The sky was darkening. Amy Burke Walker looked up. “Maybe this is starting early. We’d all better pack up.”
When Harry and Susan reached their cabin and opened the door, the two dogs shot out, ran around in circles.
Pewter, on the bed, rolled over. “Dogs are stupid.”
The dogs, free, didn’t hear it. Not that her opinion would change anything.
As the two women packed up Susan’s station wagon, Harry left to retrieve their kits from the bathroom in the stone building, where she ran into Jason in the hall.
“I guess I’ll see you next weekend. We’ll need to come back.”
“We will.” He stepped outside, Harry beside him.
A sapling was bent over the mound area.
Harry inquired, “How many died?”
“There’s a cenotaph on the road, not in the direction you’re going. If I remember, it was placed there by the First Massachusetts Cavalry twenty-eight years after their defeat. Out of two hundred and ninety-four troopers in combat, one hundred ninety-eight were counted as casualties, many wounded but enough killed for it to be infamous.”
“That many?”
“If I remember it correctly, yes. Out here, far from much help, no wonder they were carried to this stone building, and I guess surgeons were commandeered from the Confederate men. Probably local women came in to help, too.”
“You know what I think about? How seeing what metal does to the human body—grapeshot, stuff like that—seeing that, how it affected those women who came in to nurse. I remember reading how many sat by bedsides to write letters home for the wounded. Those women must have gotten close, gotten to care about the men, whether they were Yankees or our boys. When you think of it, really they were kids.”
Jason nodded. “What’s the saying: Old men make the wars, young men fight them? That’s why we have Hounds for Heroes. Nothing changes. All right, gear’s in the truck. You and Susan have a safe journey.” He climbed up, as Clare was already in the truck, turned the key, a satisfying rumble announcing a true eight-cylinder engine. Driving off, they both waved.
Susan slid in her bedroll, followed by the comforter. It’s one thing to work outside in the cold; it’s another thing to be cold inside.
“Drinks?” Harry asked.
“In the cooler in the front. You can put your feet on it.”
“Okay. Ran into Jason when I was picking up my Dopp kit.”
“Saw you two talking at his truck.” Susan wiggled her fingers in her gloves.
“Like you, an amateur historian, I guess. But we were talking about how civilians must have felt as they nursed the wounded, the wounded of both sides.”
Susan breathed in, the air tingling in her lungs. “I guess if you read about that terrible war when you’re in school in Montana, it might not affect you. We live with it. See battlefields every day. What astonishes me is that the estimate of those enlisted was seven hundred and fifty thousand. Harry, if we had that percent of men in combat with our current population, that would number about eight million, give or take. It’s incomprehensible.”
“Is. I always thought the state should have funded former governor Doug Wilder’s museum of slavery. Didn’t.”
“Yeah, well, Ned”—she named her husband, a representative in the House of Delegates—“can talk about that. For one thing, it wasn’t a good time financially. Biz is picking up.”
“Depends on the biz.” Harry walked back into the cabin for her PLP, paranoid last peek.
Nothing left, everything tidied up, the fire put out, she closed the door. “Remind me to bring a picture to hang on the wall. A beagle or a basset, I know.” She grinned.
Both women leaned on the wagon for a moment, looking around. “Didn’t get to the tree branch that crashed right through that kennel roof.” Susan pointed it out.
“Next weekend. I’m assuming we’ll be back next weekend, kennel repairs and lopping off the low hangers. We’re running out of time.” She peered at the kennel maybe one hundred fifty yards away. “Can you think of the force? That branch crashed straight through the roof.”
“Where are the cats?” Harry asked.
“On the seat where you folded up your comforter. You didn’t think they’d stay in the back, did you?”
“Well, I do have everything fixed up, plus they can look out your back station wagon window, which is big.”
Susan smiled. “When are you going to figure out that your animals do exactly as they please? No one has ever accused you of being a disciplinarian.”
“Well—” Harry whistled for the dogs, who were seemingly in conversation by the front door to the stone house.
The beagle had walked toward them.
Pirate whispered, “It’s that dog we can see through.”
Tucker called out, “Who are you?”
“Ruffy.” The dog came near, then sat down.
“Do you have a safe place to bunk up?” Tucker was curious.