“You’re a hardworking man. How do you stay so fat?” Crawford laughed at Bobby, who was as round as he was tall.
“Good genes.” Bobby motioned for the waitress to return. “I think I’ll have a cup of coffee, too, but with cream, please.”
“Certainly.” She left and soon returned with the coffees and the Springbank.
Bobby leaned forward.“Crawford, you know I back your candidacy because I think you can preserve and even extend the territory. You can talk to the developers and get bridle paths, you can talk to landowners and explain easements and conservation issues. I admire that in you. But you have a touch of the Yankee and youcan’t just go up to people and spout off.”
“Bullshit. Virginians are the most direct people I’ve ever met. You people say the most incredible things to one another, scathing, blistering talk.”
“When we know one another well—very well. Until then there is the dance of politeness, Craw, and we speak in code. You think you don’t need to learn the code.”
“Wastes time. If I go to the gas station, I’m expected to talk for fifteen minutes to the idiot behind the pump. I haven’t got that kind of time. I have businesses to run and a big farm to manage.”
“No one has time anymore but we make time. Those casual conversations—”
“Casual. Boring. The weather. Who shot John.” Crawford used a southern expression, which made Bobby laugh because he didn’t get it quite right.
“That’s how we knit our community together. It’s not about facts, issues, or how smart you are, Crawford. It’s about respect for people. Respect.”
Crawford shifted in his seat.“Well—”
“A little case in point. When you divorced Marty two years ago you cut her off without a penny. She had to fight through the courts to get any kind of settlement.”
“Any man in a divorce does that.”
“Some do and some don’t. But if you want to present yourself as a community leader, m-m-m”—he wiggled his hand—“better to err on the side of generosity. Look, it’s an old divorce lawyer’s routine, ‘starve the wife’ and she’ll get so worn down and scared she’ll accept far less, but, Craw, you are rich. You could have given her a decent package, walked away, and looked like a prince, especially to women, and brother let me give you the hard facts, women run this show.”
“Hunting?”
“Life.”
He smirked.“The hell they do.”
“I can’t believe you’ve lived here for seven years and you haven’t figured that out about the South and especially Virginia.”
“You have a”—he considered his words—“dynamic wife. You can’t extrapolate from your experience. Generalization.”
“Okay. Let’s say I’m wrong. Women are at the back of the bus. By publicly proclaiming Marty wasn’t going to get a penny more than you thought she deserved you made plenty of enemies. Trotting around that twenty-year-old model after you dumped Marty hardly helped matters and how long did that last … ten minutes? You could have seen her in New York. You didn’t have to bring her here. But worst of all, you opened the door for Fontaine to look like a hero.”
“Oh that.” Crawford’s voice sounded deflated.
“That.”
When Marty was in distress and couldn’t pay the rent on her small apartment because Crawford had thrown her out of the house and she unwisely and meekly left, Fontaine had hired her to be his assistant in his landscape business. Fontaine was a landscape architect and a very good one when he chose to work.
“That.” Bobby’s tone dropped.
“I should have kept my mouth shut.”
“We all have that feeling at one time or another.”
“I accused him of sleeping with her.” Crawford flared up. “He finds his way up more skirts!”
“But not Marty’s. He was too smart for that, even though she is a fine-looking woman. Fine-looking.”
Crawford’s eyes narrowed; then he dropped his gaze into his shot of Springbank. “Live and learn.”
“It’s not too late.”
“I made restitution. I bought Marty a house.”
“Small but pretty. However, you need to mend fences, build bridges, and above all, listen to Sister Jane. She knows more about people and hunting than all of us put together.”
The amber color of the scotch caught the light, golden shafts sinking through the Springbank.
“One other little thing.” Bobby held his coffee cup up for a refill. “You need to apologize first to Sister Jane for heading Fontaine into that coop. You need to offer to rebuild it.”
“That’s Fontaine’s job.”
“Yes, it is, but do you want this goddamned mastership or not?”
“All right. All right.” He quieted while the waitress refilled Bobby’s cup. “What else?” He watched her hips swing as she walked back to the kitchen.
“You need to apologize to Fontaine. A public apology would be best.”
“I will not.”
“Then I suggest you watch your back because Fontaine will get even.”
CHAPTER 3
At five-thirty in the morning the phone rang in Sister Jane’s kitchen.
She picked up the phone, hearing a groan of suffering on the other end.
“Arrgh. Umm. Aah.” The speaker repeated herself, the pain more intense.
“Betty Franklin,” Sister simply said.
“Oh, my dear, did you hear me groan? I feel just terrible.”
“And it’s fifty-three degrees with a soft rain.” Sister described the weather that October 14.
“Aah.” Betty groaned again for effect.
“Are you whipping in today or are you auditioning for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts?”
“You are a heartless bitch.”
“Suffering’s good for you, Betty. Tests the spirit. Enlarges the heart. Sharpens the mind.”
“I’m about as wonderful as I can stand. Even my husband says I’m wonderful.”
“Your husband has imagination.” Sister laughed. “But just so I know what to say at your eulogy, tell me, exactly what are you dying from today?”
“Arthritis in my lower spine, in my toes, in my fingers, and my stomach lining is irritated, although not my bowel, thank heaven. Cody’s up to no good but I don’t know with whom, and Jennifer got a D in math. A D! Naturally my mind hurts, too.” This was said with uncommon good humor.
“This drizzle will stop by the time we cast hounds.”
A long sigh, then,“Six-thirty. Whiskey Ridge.”
“Is Bobby going to make it?”
“No, he’s got to deliver the brochure today. I worked all night Tuesday so it was his turn last night. Looks good.”
“Jennifer?”
“She’ll be there.”
Jennifer Franklin, their younger daughter, a senior in high school given to surprising mood swings, received science credits for foxhunting. Each week she had to write a three-page paper on what she learned about the environment. She’d written about the great variety of oak trees, the life cycle of the fox, and this week she was concentrating on amphibians preparing for hibernation. Three pages sounded like not much work but it turned out to be time-consuming due to research, although Jennifer discovered that she enjoyed it.
As Sister hung up the phone she checked to see if the lights were on in the stable and the kennel. They were.
“Good men,” she thought to herself, for Douglas Kinser and Shaker Crown were already at work.
As professional first whipper-in, meaning Doug was paid, his responsibility was to condition and prepare the master’s horses and the huntsman’s horses for the hunting season. He also walked out hounds, assisted in their training, and rode forward of the huntsman so he could turn hounds back if need be. It helped if the first whipper-in was intelligent. Douglas was. He could intuit what Shaker was doing evenif he was one mile away from the huntsman.
Golliwog reposed on the marble counter, her luxurious tail swaying a bit. Her calico coat, brilliant and gleaming, was a source of no small vanity to the feline. She’d eaten her breakfast and was considering dozing off.