bright caught her eye.
She slid down the embankment. Tracks were partly covered with snow, but she could make out boot marks. She followed them toward the copse. Once there she saw a glob of congealed blood, fist sized, bright red.
There were no signs of struggle, no feathers either. If Donny had set out a trap she’d see it. No trap.
It was eerie, a hunk of frozen blood. She returned to her truck wondering what the hell was going on.
CHAPTER 10
B en Sidell slouched in the passenger seat of Sister’s red GMC early Monday morning, January 2, St. Basil’s Day. “Take me to Paradise.”
“If I were young, I would,” she sassed back.
He laughed as he unrolled the map on the dash.
These expensive, lovely maps had been donated to the Jefferson Hunt by Francis McGovern, a buoyant member more on the road than home to hunt.
“Apart from the home fixtures, how old are the fixtures adjacent to Paradise?”
“Mill Ruins, Mud Fence, Orchard Hill, Chapel Cross are original fixtures going back to the beginning of the hunt. Course they’re older than 1887, but once the hunt was founded their landowners were part of the fun. What’s happened in certain parts of the county, especially the east because it’s closer to town, is large estates, over time, have been broken up. Newcomers don’t understand foxhunting or they plain don’t like it, and we lose, say, fifty acres, which make the one thousand acres we use to hunt unhuntable for practical purposes because we can’t get around the fifty acres. Even if we do figure out a way around, hounds can’t read. They go through the No Trespassing area and you get an enraged phone call, Sheriff.”
“In time some of the comeheres change their minds.”
“Some.” She nodded. “But there are other people who just don’t get it and never will. They want to live in the country, but they aren’t of the country. Pretty much they look down their noses at us.”
“Do they look down at people like Tedi and Edward Bancroft?”
The Bancrofts had been wealthy since the Industrial Revolution, the family wise in nurturing that wealth.
“The comeheres don’t even know they’re not in the loop. If they see Tedi and Edward at a big party they think they’ve made it. Know what I mean?”
“I think so,” said Ben. Originally from Ohio, he had been hired three years earlier to be sheriff of the county.
“It boils down to this: the arrogant ones only talk to other arrogant ones. They’re ignorant of their social status. They think because they’ve built a McMansion on twenty acres, they’re elite—if you can stand that word. They haven’t a clue that they’re close to the bottom of the barrel. A poor but warm person from an old family has much higher status than they do.”
He smiled wryly. “You’re at the top of the heap.”
“Not in wealth but in other respects, yes. No point in false modesty. And the reality is, if you’re of it, you don’t dwell on it. I mean by that, you take it for granted. Maybe the first lesson new people need to learn is to treat people with respect regardless of their bank balances.”
“Yep.”
She slowed. “Okay, here’s Chapel Cross. Orchard Hill and the other fixtures all fan out from this crossroads, an old tertiary road in highway department terms. Everything you see, I’ll drive slowly, is our territory right up to the Blue Ridge. The top of the mountains divides us from Glenmore Hunt in Augusta County.”
“Why don’t you go up the mountains?”
“Would you?” She laughed. “For one thing, it’s hard going. For another thing, there’s boar up there, and I fear them like death. Lastly, there are folks in those hollows who come to town maybe once a year. They are famous for the purity of their country waters.”
He knew about the distilleries in the hollows but not their location. Most moonshine busts were made when a trucker was pulled over and moonshine was discovered in the rig’s closed bed.
Also, no prudent
She slid down the embankment. Tracks were partly covered with snow, but she could make out boot marks. She followed them toward the copse. Once there she saw a glob of congealed blood, fist sized, bright red.
There were no signs of struggle, no feathers either. If Donny had set out a trap she’d see it. No trap.
It was eerie, a hunk of frozen blood. She returned to her truck wondering what the hell was going on.
CHAPTER 10
B en Sidell slouched in the passenger seat of Sister’s red GMC early Monday morning, January 2, St. Basil’s Day. “Take me to Paradise.”
“If I were young, I would,” she sassed back.
He laughed as he unrolled the map on the dash.
These expensive, lovely maps had been donated to the Jefferson Hunt by Francis McGovern, a buoyant member more on the road than home to hunt.
“Apart from the home fixtures, how old are the fixtures adjacent to Paradise?”
“Mill Ruins, Mud Fence, Orchard Hill, Chapel Cross are original fixtures going back to the beginning of the hunt. Course they’re older than 1887, but once the hunt was founded their landowners were part of the fun. What’s happened in certain parts of the county, especially the east because it’s closer to town, is large estates, over time, have been broken up. Newcomers don’t understand foxhunting or they plain don’t like it, and we lose, say, fifty acres, which make the one thousand acres we use to hunt unhuntable for practical purposes because we can’t get around the fifty acres. Even if we do figure out a way around, hounds can’t read. They go through the No Trespassing area and you get an enraged phone call, Sheriff.”
“In time some of the comeheres change their minds.”
“Some.” She nodded. “But there are other people who just don’t get it and never will. They want to live in the country, but they aren’t of the country. Pretty much they look down their noses at us.”
“Do they look down at people like Tedi and Edward Bancroft?”
The Bancrofts had been wealthy since the Industrial Revolution, the family wise in nurturing that wealth.
“The comeheres don’t even know they’re not in the loop. If they see Tedi and Edward at a big party they think they’ve made it. Know what I mean?”
“I think so,” said Ben. Originally from Ohio, he had been hired three years earlier to be sheriff of the county.
“It boils down to this: the arrogant ones only talk to other arrogant ones. They’re ignorant of their social status. They think because they’ve built a McMansion on twenty acres, they’re elite—if you can stand that word. They haven’t a clue that they’re close to the bottom of the barrel. A poor but warm person from an old family has much higher status than they do.”
He smiled wryly. “You’re at the top of the heap.”
“Not in wealth but in other respects, yes. No point in false modesty. And the reality is, if you’re of it, you don’t dwell on it. I mean by that, you take it for granted. Maybe the first lesson new people need to learn is to treat people with respect regardless of their bank balances.”
“Yep.”
She slowed. “Okay, here’s Chapel Cross. Orchard Hill and the other fixtures all fan out from this crossroads, an old tertiary road in highway department terms. Everything you see, I’ll drive slowly, is our territory right up to the Blue Ridge. The top of the mountains divides us from Glenmore Hunt in Augusta County.”
“Why don’t you go up the mountains?”
“Would you?” She laughed. “For one thing, it’s hard going. For another thing, there’s boar up there, and I fear them like death. Lastly, there are folks in those hollows who come to town maybe once a year. They are famous for the purity of their country waters.”
He knew about the distilleries in the hollows but not their location. Most moonshine busts were made when a trucker was pulled over and moonshine was discovered in the rig’s closed bed.
Also, no prudent
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