Fox Tracks (30 page)

After hot showers, Sister, Gray, and Tootie sat in the den. Sister had bought a DVD of
The African Queen
, which Tootie had never seen. Sister liked to unwind after a hunt and was looking forward to watching the movie, which she hadn’t seen for forty or so years.

She’d found out that Crawford was okay. His wife, Marty, told Sam, who told Gray. Sam drove out, drove the horses back, leaving his car there. He wouldn’t be getting it for a few days. He was lucky to get the horses back. Marty had driven the hound truck. Tariq drove with her so his Saab was at Old Paradise as well.

Sam drove the young teacher back to his lodgings at school after they both put the horses up. Marty lent him her four-wheel-drive Lexus.

On the coffee table in front of Sister rested six packs of American Smokes. From a distance, they looked fine. Close examination would reveal the card slipped inside the cellophane. Betty had given them the cards after the hunt breakfast. Sister and Tootie slipped the graphics in at the kitchen table.

Two pair of socks on, his heavy robe wrapped around him, Gray slumped in the sofa. “I don’t know why I’m so tired,” he said.

“Long hunt, hard riding, and the cold can beat you up.” Sister sat next to him while Golly curled around next to the cigarettes. “I’m tired, too.”

Tootie sat in the club chair. “I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face at the end.”

On the coffee table by the doctored cigarette packs, Golly looked over at the two dogs.
“Why don’t you start smoking?”

“For what reason?”
Rooster asked.

Raleigh sat up, now peering over at the cat.
“Why should we smoke?”

“It will improve your mood.”
The cat smiled.

“You’re the one who needs help,”
Rooster replied.

“Just a suggestion.”
Golly half closed her eyes but what she was thinking was if they smoked maybe they’d die soon.

S
now fell throughout Sunday. A storm of such intensity hadn’t been forecast. Roads became impassable. Even the interstates had sections closed, especially crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains or in the Alleghenies.

Sister was glad to have Tootie’s help, and they trudged their way to the barn, as Shaker did the same to the kennels. Sister couldn’t plow out the farm roads because the snow just kept falling. When it slowed down, she’d take a crack at it.

The hounds tucked up in the kennels. A few stayed in their outdoor condos, stuffed with straw. At a human’s appearance, a head would peek out from the heavy canvas, which covered the hound-sized opening, only to duck back in.

Wearing their heavy blankets, the horses were turned out to play by Sister and Tootie. It’s never good for a horse to stand hours in a stall, and “stall rest” is one of the dreaded phrases from a veterinarian’s lips. Even the best of horses, laid up for a time, could
become sour or destructive. An early warning signal was banging a feed bucket against the wall.

Fortunately, the horses walked through the snow, kicking up snow for the fun of it.

“Tootie, wouldn’t you like to be a horse just for a day?” Sister asked as they slipped the halters and flipped the lead ropes over their shoulders. Like the horses, they kicked up snow as they walked back to the barn.

“A Thoroughbred, deep heart girth, wide nostrils, long and powerful hindquarters, and a well-developed stifle. I’d love it,” the young woman answered as they pushed through the two feet of snow, with more coming down.

The
rat-tat-tat
on the Blue Spruces by the barn bore evidence to the storm.

“Studying conformation, are you?” asked Sister. “You know, my mother had the best eye for a horse of anyone I ever knew. Well, let me amend that—Mother, Kenny Wheeler, the late Jean Beegle, and the very alive Joan Hamilton. It’s like they have X-ray vision. Well, I digress. Sorry.”

Tootie smiled. “I like listening to you.”

“You’re kind. God, I don’t want to turn into one of those people who live in the past and the past is always better than the present. In some ways it was, any past, any century, but in other ways not. I believe the present is pretty good. Remember that when you’re in the dentist’s chair.”

They both laughed.

“Your mother”—Tootie slid open the barn door, which they’d had to shovel snow from—“her turnout was really perfect.”

Sister had a few photographs of her mother in lovely frames throughout the house. With one exception, Mother at the beach, they all showed the gracious lady on horseback.

“Proper attire for every occasion,” said Sister, following Tootie into the barn. “I liked hunting kit, obviously, but she even loved the rest of it, tea dresses, afternoon gloves versus evening gloves. The right shoes. When to wear high heels and when not. Colors. Tootie, when I was young, you couldn’t wear white before Memorial Day. It just wasn’t done.”

“A lot to remember, but your mother must have remembered everything.”

“That she did.” Sister walked along the center aisle, placing the halters and attached lead shanks on the brass hook on the side of each door. “Can’t let Lafayette grab his halter. For whatever reason, that horse lives to destroy leather. He’s happy with his gel pad though, now that I had another one sent. I’ll never be able to take the one in the kitchen from Golly. She’d tear down the house.” Sister paused, then laughed. “How could I miss what’s under my nose? Golly and Lafayette are good friends. They egg each other on to demolish whatever they can.”

Also hanging up halters and shanks, Tootie asked, “Did your mother love animals?”

“Good Lord, mother picked up every stray, every unwanted animal she ever saw or even heard about. She’d get in the station wagon, had wooden sides, and off we’d go. My poor father put up with it. Well, he loved her. We all did. Especially the rescued animals.” Sister laughed.

Just as Bitsy was looking down, Tootie looked up. She said, “My mother isn’t hard-hearted, exactly, but she never wants anything to be trouble.”

“A lot of people are like that. Inanimate objects have more value than living things.”

“Odd, isn’t it?”

“I know what I was going to say before I went off on a trip
down Memory Lane. Mother used to say, ‘Movement is the best of conformation.’ Remember that.”

“I will.”

As they threw down three flakes of hay for later, when they’d bring the horses back into the barn, they heard the outside tackroom door open and close. The door into the center aisle opened.

Gray shoved his gloved hands into his pockets. “You’ve got puppies.”

Sister was confused. “I haven’t bred anyone.”

“A stray crawled into the hound trailer, the side door was open, and she had four puppies in that deep straw. I put out food and water for her.”

“Great day.” Sister stood, then moved toward the ladder up to the hayloft. “And I was just talking about my mother, Sister Teresa to all abandoned animals.”

“Do you have an empty stall?” asked Gray. “I think we should move her into the barn and put down an old blanket.” He looked up as Sister threw down a plastic garbage bag from a storage area in the loft. It was filled with blankets in need of repair.

“Bombs away.” She then said, “Tootie, pick out the best blanket from the bag and get that back stall ready. I’ll go help bring mom and the puppies in.”

Walking through the snow with Gray, heads down, Sister asked, “Is she mean?”

Gray shielded his eyes. “I don’t think so, but we haven’t handled her puppies yet.”

The aluminum trailer afforded protection from the storm. The straw helped with the cold, but the barn would be better.

Sister knelt to pet the dog’s head, a mix, but some boxer was in there. “What a good girl you are. Four beautiful puppies.”

The exhausted dog wagged her tail.

“Why don’t you carry the puppies and I’ll carry her?” said Gray. “She’s tired and I don’t know if she’ll follow us, although she’ll probably follow her babies.”

“Yeah, but we don’t want to expose them to the storm. Let me run into the kennel. I’ve got some old towels there. We can wrap the puppies and I’ll carry them inside my coat.” Sister left and was back in ten minutes because the slow going just ate up time.

Gray gently lifted the mother up and she offered no resistance as Sister carried the puppies in a towel.

Together they made their way back to the barn, carefully depositing their burdens in the now fixed-up stall. Tootie put a water bucket in there with a plate of kibble. She added more wood shavings to the stall floor so they were deep. Two blankets had been arranged in the corner. Gray laid the mother down as Sister placed the puppies at her side.

Tootie knelt down to stroke her head. “She needs a name.”

“We’ll think of one.” Gray smiled. “She should be fine in here. How smart of her to find the hound trailer.”

“I bet she’s been at the edge of this farm for a while, but clever enough for us not to find her,” Sister remarked.

Back in the kitchen, they watched the Weather Channel, which promised the storm would abate in early evening.

Gray called his brother. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow and we’ll fetch your car,” said Gray. “The Land Cruiser can go through anything, even this snow.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Sam. “Tariq’s car is there, too. I know my old Outlander can make it, but I don’t think his car has four-wheel drive. Might. There was so much going on I didn’t pay attention.”

“I can imagine,” Gray replied. “As I recall he drives an old Saab. Front-wheel drive. He might make it out if he stays in our
tracks. Well, the first thing is, this storm has to stop. The big roads will get plowed out first, so we might have a hell of a time getting back to Old Paradise.”

“Isn’t going to be that easy getting here to the house either.”

“No problem, Brother. You’re going to drive the old tractor down the drive and cut big deep tracks for me. I told you we should buy a snow plow.”

“I don’t have enough to pay for my half. Besides, Gray, how often do we get a snow like this?”

“Yeah, yeah. First thing tomorrow morning, your ass better be in that tractor seat.” Gray laughed, then hung up.

The quiet day restored their energy. Being cut off lets the mind go free and the body repair. Even the nighttime chores were fun, as the snows turned deep blue with the fading light.

All was well, even for a stray dog and her four newborn puppies.

The humans sat in the den after supper, Tootie on her laptop, Sister doing needlepoint, and Gray rereading Schumpeter. Gray closed the book for a moment, reached over on the coffee table, and slipped a cigarette out of the pack.

He read the fine print on the cigarette. “Camel.”

“I looked everywhere for soft packs and those were the only ones I could find.”

Tootie looked up from her research on equine veterinary history. “We had to buy a carton because Sister knew we’d destroy some packs.”

“Why is that?” Gray lit the unfiltered Camel, surprised at how it tasted. It had been decades since he’d smoked a Camel.

Wasn’t bad.

“We had to carefully unglue each pack, then turn it inside out so it would be white.”

“Janie!” He laughed. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to fold white paper?” He picked up the pack. “How many packs did you ruin before you got it right?”

“Eight,” Sister replied.

“We wanted to have more to give out, but it was too hard,” Tootie said. “But the American Smokes graphic looks really good.”

He looked up at the pack again. “Does.” Took a few more puffs. “Damn, these burn fast.”

“Less tobacco than the old days,” said Sister. “All the popular and discount brands are cheating on content.”

Snubbing out the cigarette, Gray blew smoke from his nostrils. “Pisses me off.”

“Pisses me off when you smoke in the house,”
Golly complained from the desk.

“What are you reading on your computer? You’ve been as quiet as a mouse,” Sister asked Tootie.

“There are no mice in this house,”
Golly grandly announced.
“I patrol the place. I am a first-class mouser.”

“Smoking opium,”
Raleigh, a snoot full of tobacco smoke, said.

“I’m reading history,” said Tootie. “The first vet school in England was established in 1791. We didn’t have one in our country until 1879 and we didn’t have a four-year program until 1903. Iowa State both times.”

“So who treated horses?” Gray was puzzled.

“Blacksmiths,” Tootie answered.

“That explains it.” Gray drummed his fingers on the arm of the sofa.

Sister looked up from her needlepoint. “Explains what, sugar?”

“Blacksmiths still think they can treat horses. And they never seem to get along with vets.”

“Some of that, to be sure.” Sister returned to her task. “My favorite is the new horse owner who had just read an explanation of
some medical condition or hoof problem. They then tell the vet or the blacksmith what to do, based on their research.” She looked at Tootie. “The Internet really creates havoc. Everyone is an instant expert.”

“That’s a fact.” Tootie smiled.

“Then again, think how much you learned about tobacco and taxes from the Internet,” Gray added sensibly to the conversation.

Sister dropped her hands in her lap. “Up in smoke.”

“Smoke gets in your eyes,” Gray fired back.

“Smoke and mirrors,” Tootie chimed in.

“Holy smoke,”
Raleigh said, but they didn’t get it.

“We’d better get back out into the world tomorrow.” Sister laughed. “We’re getting loopy.”

G
ray drove slowly through the snow, heading out toward Old Paradise with his brother, Tootie, and Tariq in the car. “Plowing is done by independent contractors for the most part.”

The Land Cruiser could go through most anything, so he gladly played taxi.

“Remember thirty years ago, something like that, when we had that odd snowstorm in October?” Sam said from the backseat. “So many branches fell down because leaves hadn’t fallen yet.”

“What about the Easter blizzard in, um, 1969?” Gray recalled.

“I wasn’t born yet.” Tootie teased them.