Fox Tracks (6 page)

The three men laughed.

Art checked his watch. “We’ve got one more pickup. Tariq, thanks for the tip.”

As they left, Tariq settled in his comfortable desk chair, leaned his elbows on the desktop, and admired the steeple on the campus chapel, noticing clouds piling up behind the mountains.

Donny and Art walked to the small moving van, a square-box Chevy Topkick from the late nineties. Art said, “Margaret went to school here. She got a scholarship.”

“She’s made the most of it. I bet being a sports doctor she makes good money.”

“You know, I make more than she does and I don’t pay as many taxes.” He laughed.

“Yeah, but you have to worry about getting caught.”

Both men laughed as Art drove west from Custis Hall to Walter Lungrun’s place, Mill Ruins. They did not go in the main entrance, a long gravel driveway that led to the huge mill where a two-story waterwheel still turned.

Instead, Art turned down a rarely used rutted farm road. “It’s Lungrun’s operating day. He wouldn’t notice the tracks anyway. No one uses this road. Well, hardly.”

The truck hit a deep rut sending Donny, not wearing his seat-belt, upward. “Jesus.”

“Yep. Sometimes in the spring or summer, maybe Lungrun drives back here. He’s got that Wrangler.”

“Well, let’s hope no one comes back here. Anyway, it’s supposed to snow. That should cover our tracks.”

“Place used to be full of people. Shootrough was what they called it because it was full of high grasses. Everyone would come in the fall, expensive shotguns. Walking through here, the quail would fly up—I bet there were hundreds of them. A lot of farms had shooting places then, but this one was special, more natural and full of game.”

“Can’t much do it now. The laws against shooting hawks and falcons means the big birds have about wiped out the ground nesters. Not that I’m a big fan of shooting anything but deer. Still. Seems too barren.”

They drove up to a large metal-sided building, color faded, roof good, windows still intact.

They stepped from the warm truck into the cold.

Art, with conviction, said, “No broken windows after all these years. You know nobody comes back here.”

“Sometimes the hunt does,” said Donny, “but no one goes in the building. Well, let’s get the stuff out of here.”

Art slipped his key into the big metal lock and opened a side door. The two men then carried twelve-by-twelve-inch cartons over the concrete floor from the building. The truck’s back door was rolled up and they loaded the cartons onto the bed of the box.

Donny pulled himself inside the truck’s rear compartment as Art continued bringing cartons. Donny walked to the back, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a beeper, like one would use to open a car or truck door. Pressing its button, he heard a click and a beep. A flat door, what looked like the back of the truck, opened, revealing a three-foot-wide space spanning the width of the truck.

Donny rapidly packed the cartons into this space. Art brought out the last ones, then climbed aboard dragging a small metal step-ladder over to Donny. He handed him cartons as Donny stacked them all the way to the top of the hidden space.

“They’re tight as a tick,” Donny remarked from the top of the ladder.

“Yeah, but let’s use the cords.” Art stooped to retrieve long, flat, heavy woven plastic cords, which the two men fastened into recessed large eyelet screws inside the hidden door. They tightened three bands of the plastic, further securing the boxes.

Once finished, Donny pressed the beeper and the false back closed. He handed the beeper to Art.

Back in the truck, Art leaned over Donny and opened the glove compartment where he placed the beeper, which had a long black ribbon attached.

“Cut the motor on, Art. It’s colder than a witch’s tit.”

“How would you know?” Art sassed him. “You haven’t been to bed with any witches.”

“How do you know?”

Art cut on the motor and the mid-sized truck engine rumbled to life. “You’re right. Sometimes I wonder about you.”

“Well, Art, every time I open that door inside the box, I think, damn, you did a good job,” said Donny. “You can do just about anything with a car or truck. I never wonder about you.”

“Hey, that’s my line of work, but building a false bottom or back or compartment is pretty easy. The trick is hiding the seams, fooling or diverting the eye.”

They bounced back down the awful road.

Once out on the decent two-lane highway, Donny asked, “When do you want to deliver this?”

“Let me call and double check, but I figure middle of the night Sunday.”

“I’m good with that.” Donny unzipped his heavy jacket as the truck heater worked its magic. “People are saying you’re running the still again.”

“Mmm. Don’t worry about it.”

“If there’s enough talk, Ben Sidell might have someone stop you on the road.”

“Donny, don’t worry about it. No cop is going to find the hidden compartment and I know every byway so we can avoid the weigh stations. Haven’t gotten caught yet.”

“Right.”

“And you’re making money. Good money.” Art reached for the round can on the seat of the truck for a dab of chew. “What are you going to do with all that money?”

Donny smiled broadly. “I got plans.”

Art smiled back. “Me, too.”

S
nows had been light that winter. The last day in January felt cold and damp. Leaves hadn’t mashed down enough to turn into humus. Dried leaves even this old sent off a distinctive odor.

Atop her trusted thirteen-year-old gray Thoroughbred, Lafayette, Sister Jane watched as the hounds soldiered through the wind devil, a tiny tornado spinning upward for perhaps two minutes, then vanishing as quickly as it came. There was a cold, low-pressure front coming in, the ground was tight, the day held promise. A wide allée in hardwoods on the eastern edge of Old Paradise provided a little protection from the increasing wind. The heavens looked as though they might unzip at any moment.

Sister Jane led First Flight, those riders who flew the fastest taking the jumps. Bobby Franklin led Second Flight, and he was welcome to it in Sister’s mind. She thought this group harder to lead than her own because the ability of the riders and their mounts varied. A good rider might be back there with a green horse, the best place to bring along the animal. Those members smart enough
to have bought a made hunter, one who knew the sport, themselves not made at all, also filled the Second Flight ranks. An experienced horse took care of them so the rider could learn much faster. Hunting could be complex, especially for green riders on green horses, a mixture not conducive to confidence.

Organizing a hunt was like producing an elaborate Broadway show, only you didn’t know if your star, the fox, would show up.

Today, he sure appeared, and right on time. When hounds cast at ten o’clock, a glossy, medium-bodied, red, dog fox shot out from the sagging barn at Old Paradise, a once great estate. The dog fox headed straight for the sun.

When he broke covert, Sister sighed with relief. Hunting forced human, hound, and horse to focus intently. The cares of the day vanished, providing the energy and hope to successfully address them in one’s own good time.

Shaker Crown, Huntsman, urged the pack on. Sleek Diana took the lead, a most intelligent hound. Shaker barely had time to get the horn to his lips, for the pace was scorching. He blew “Gone Away” more for the humans than the hounds.

On her beloved quarter horse, Outlaw, Betty Franklin whipped-in on the right while Sybil Hawkes, another long-serving staff member, covered the left on her Thoroughbred, Bombardier.

The grounds at Old Paradise demanded cool judgment. The terrain varied from sweet rolling pastures to thick hardwoods, and then there were sudden drops into crevices. These invariably led to or fed little streams into one of two bold creeks. Every time it rained, the crossings deepened or filled up, the latter more dangerous than the former. Years ago, Sister and Keepsake, another one of her horses, sunk in almost up to the animal’s flanks. You don’t soon forget such an experience. Had the water been any deeper there would have been nothing to forget. She would have most likely drowned. Both she and Keepsake knew it.

The wind played tricks on you here because Old Paradise backed up smack to the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. While it might be 42°F and calm in Charlottesville, out here twenty miles west, the mercury could suddenly plummet like a crazed bobsled competitor.

The wind, fifteen miles an hour at this moment, was already creating havoc. It switched directions and spun up wind devils. It slowed, then gusted.

The scent from the dog fox blew away from him to the left so the hounds followed that line, even though the fox could clearly be seen thirty yards to the hounds’ right. But hounds knew their business. Foxhounds hunt by nose, not sight. Blessed with tremendous drive, the Jefferson Hunt pack would not surrender that line until the last molecule of
eau de vulpus
disappeared.

Once the fox blasted into the eastern woods, the line of scent returned to the fox’s heels since the wind couldn’t sweep over the forest floor, though it sure could bend the tops of the trees.

The hounds lost the scent. They cast themselves again. Sister held up and waited. Although a Tuesday, the field was large: thirty people, about half of them in Second Flight.

An eerie silence was broken by the moans of the trees. Branches rubbing on their neighbors created long strange creaks.

A hound of wisdom, Cora trotted over to the younger Diana.
“It has to be here somewhere.”

“I know, but the bear scent is overpowering.”
Diana’s brown eyes nearly watered from the pungent signature of the bear. The younger “T” hounds patiently worked about a forty-foot area. These two litters, a year apart, were a new cross for Sister, who bred American foxhounds, a task she loved—but then if an animal had four feet Sister loved it, no matter what.

Tattoo was from the second litter, a youngster with a broad chest. He put his nose down, lifted it and uttered a little yelp.

His sister, Tootsie, joined him. She studied the scent. Her response was a clear signal.

“We got him!”

The other hounds moved toward the two young ones but they harbored some doubt.

Cora ran over, Diana by her side.
“Tattoo isn’t smart about bears yet. Better make sure.”

A bit faster, Diana reached Tattoo and Tootsie first. She put her nose to the ground, inhaled deeply, her long nose warming the scent as it traveled to her brain.

“Yes!”
she bellowed.

Cora seconded Diana’s cry. The whole pack flew behind them, singing as a choir.

Right behind his hounds, Shaker encouraged them with rounds of “Yip, yip.”

Betty could be momentarily glimpsed in her brown tweed bye-day jacket, as Tuesday hunts did not require a formal kit, then she disappeared down a slope. Being a saucy, confident fellow, the fox cut right toward her. He evidenced no fear of Betty or Outlaw. What’s one human and a horse?

“Tallyho!” Betty yelled.

The red fox lifted his head at her cry, picked up some speed, launching himself off the steep bank of the creek. Betty knew the best crossing was a good football-field’s length down the creek. No time for that.

“Outlaw, let’s do it.”

Without hesitation, the sturdy horse gathered himself at the bank’s edge to leap straight down about four feet. The cold water splashed up on Betty, some running into her boots. The footing—good, not rocky, as she’d looked for that—held up. They half walked, half swam in the deep spots to the creek’s other side, where an otter slide made getting out a whole lot easier than getting in.

“You are the best horse in the world.” An invigorated Betty patted him on the neck as both horse and rider tried to keep the fox in view.

“I know,”
Outlaw replied.

In the field behind her, Sister galloped down to the easy crossing. A four-foot jump down into water could dislodge some riders, even strong ones like her. Not every horse in the field was as bold or handy as Outlaw.

Once on the other side of the creek, Sister stopped for a moment. Even with all the splashing behind her, she heard the hounds and kicked on. The easternmost forest of Old Paradise must have been where the glacier tired of pushing all that good topsoil down from Canada. Old rock outcroppings, some twenty feet high, appeared like a giant’s cast-aside dominoes. They didn’t seem to have evolved from the land but seemed to have simply been dumped in the spot. A few had shapes that could be mistaken for goblins. At least some of the horses thought so.

Kasmir Barbhaiya, a wealthy Indian gentleman who had moved to Virginia, proved his leg on this day when his extraordinarily beautiful Thoroughbred, a big fellow at seventeen hands, literally jumped sideways—all four feet off the ground. His leg never moved, his grip remained steady.

“It’s a monster!”
the deep bay warned the horses behind him.

Naturally, a few believed him so they shied from the odd stone formations.

Three riders parted company from their mounts, who did not have the good grace to stand and wait for their riders to remount.

Two scared horses thundered by the other riders, causing human cries of “Loose horse!”

Sister heard them and thought to herself,
Loose rider
. Not that she herself hadn’t now and again provided entertainment for others
over her long life by, for example, popping off, sliding face-first in mud, or taking a fence while her horse did not. The list could go on and on.

Sister’s mother told her when she was a little thing on a lead line that you don’t become a rider until you fall off at least seven times. Mother had seen many a spectacular crash, quietly proud that her daughter took it in stride: no excuses, no tears. Mrs. Oberbeck did not believe in raising wimps. She used to shout at Jane, “Leg. Leg, Janie!”

The two horses who’d dumped their riders came up, blowing hard, by Lafayette.

“You’ll not get by me, you field peons,”
the talented gray snorted.