Riding Shotgun (35 page)

“You know, Margaret, if I ever get back to my home I’m going to miss you.” Cig felt her chest tighten.

A hard frost, silvery in the pale dawn, cloaked the earth. Everyone at Buckingham had risen before dawn to prepare for the day’s hunt. The ladies from surrounding plantations would be bringing food. Margaret had been cooking an enormous pot of ham and bean soup for two days. Cold meats, cheeses, and sweetcakes were wrapped in moist towels and placed in the summer kitchen. After the chase Margaret and Marie would quickly lay out the food for their famished guests. Much as Margaret wanted to participate she needed to supervise the hunt breakfast.

People arrived with the sun, some coming across the river on John MacKinder’s ferry. Horses would be brought for them by friends on the north side of the James River.

Cig wore her hunting clothes, including the white silk stock tie that she’d borrowed from Fitz, and she’d hung the Indian knife in a leather sheath on her belt.

“It’s going to be a good hunting day, Tom,” she greeted him.

“Aye.” He smiled.

The hunt was to serve two purposes. The first was to
bring people back together to demonstrate that the Deyhles, the deVries, and Devlin Fitzroy had made their peace. The second purpose was to celebrate continued good fortune. Blackpaws had commanded his people to live in peace with the whites. His younger son was banished from the tribe.

William Byrd returned to report that the tribes south of the James River intended to keep their promises. As for hotheads, it seemed that was a function of youth.

Dr. Steinhauser traveled to Jamestown to remove Fitz’s stitches. Fitz was eager to hunt.

When he rode into the Buckingham quad with his black and tans, Cig couldn’t restrain herself. She ran out of the bam to greet him.

He dismounted and kissed her.

“I am the luckiest man in Virginia. A beautiful lady, a fine horse, and a good pack of hounds.”

“In that order?” She hugged him.

“In that order.”

“I’ll be with you in a minute.” She started for the barn.

“I hope you are with me for my entire life.” He smiled but his voice was serious.

She stepped back to him. “Patrick Fitzroy, just try to get rid of me.” Then she kissed him again and ran to the barn while he remounted, wincing as he braced off his left leg.

Cig joined the crowd of people assembling.

“Lionel and Tom, ride with me,” she called, as Lionel had just arrived with his mother.

The two men rode up to her. Kate deVries stayed back with Margaret to help her set the table, warm the soups and prepare the breakfast.

The black and tan hounds gathered around Fitz, looking for a command, their sweet brown eyes eager. He winked at Cig, blew his horn and moved off. She rode in his pocket while Tom and Lionel stayed just behind in hers.

The hounds thrashed about for fifteen minutes and then a huge hound lifted his head, gave a deep cry, and then, nose down, dashed after the scent. The others honored his cry.

The hounds veered sharply right into the woods at the
curve of the river. Cig, without thinking, leaped over a fallen tree trunk to plunge into the woods. Some of the riders fell off at the sharp turn. Those still seated picked their way around the fallen tree. The hounds stopped in the woods, cast themselves and then picked up the scent. They swarmed past Cig then moved west again.

The hounds ran at a blazing pace while the field still wended its way through the woods and muck from the melting snows.

Once out of the woods on the other side, Cig halted to listen for the hounds.

“If the hounds doubled-back we should have seen our fox,” she half mumbled.

“Unless he climbed a tree,” Tom added.

“Or unless there’s more than one fox,” Lionel said.

“There is always that.” Cig smiled at him.

“Damned strange.” Tom noticed a fog developing on the river.

Cig, thinking nothing of it, airily replied, “Means the water temperature is higher than the air temperature.”

The thick mist moved in quickly as they watched it curl around their horses’ legs.

“Can’t hunt in this,” Daniel complained.

“True enough but a bad day hunting is still better than a good day at work.” Cig tried to raise their spirits as everyone had looked forward to the day’s sport.

In the distance she heard the hounds. “Tom, why don’t you take everyone back and I’ll fetch the Huntsman.”

“He’s coming closer,” Tom said.

“He is, but you turn back and I’ll be hard on your heels with the pack. I don’t want people sitting in this fog. You can take a nasty chill.”

Tom stubbornly stayed put.

“Tom.”

“What if they find again?” He wanted to hunt.

“We’ll kill ourselves stepping into a hole or a low tree branch. We can’t take people into this.” She appealed to Lionel “Lionel, please take them back. I’ll be right behind you. I would consider it a very great favor.”

He couldn’t refuse that. He nodded. “As you wish.” Then he called to the field, “Follow me.”

People, disappointed, turned back toward Buckingham.

Cig rode toward the sound of the horn and the hounds.

“Tom, you can be pigheaded.”

“Runs in the family.”

“Fitz!” No answer, so she rode forward. A hound streaked by her, then another. “Fitz!”

“Yes,” he called back. Within seconds he was by her side. “Damned filthy fog.”

“Could have been worse. Could have been a blank day.”

The remaining hounds trotted out on the road.

That quickly, those hounds found scent, surging forward. Fitz blew the return call but they didn’t obey, which infuriated him.

A bark, higher pitched than a hound’s, captured Cig’s attention. In the road in front of her sat Fattail. He had eluded the hounds, doubled-back, and insouciant as ever, called out his challenge.

“Fattail!” She cheered at the sight of him.

“He’s huge,” Fitz said admiringly.

I’ve been chasing this fellow for years.”

“I’ve seen him watching me in the fields,” Tom said.

“Let’s chase him some more, the fog be damned.” Fitz blew on his horn. A few hounds could be heard returning but the others were either out of range or practicing selective hearing.

The merry fox stayed just ahead of the three humans so they could see him in the fog.

“Bold.”

“Bold as brass.” Cig laughed, thrilled to see the familiar beautiful face. She charged in front of Fitz, who didn’t mind.

The sound of the few obedient hounds drew closer. Fattail picked up from a trot to a moderate run. Fitz began to canter. The fog thickened, swirling around him. Cig heard a strange twang, a gurgle following. She turned and looked behind but could see nothing.

A rustle in the forest along the river and an odd bird call like a woodpecker sounded innocent enough.

Fattail barked again—
Move it
There was urgency in his voice.

Both Cig and Fitz heard hoofbeats behind them. Helen, riderless, shot past them.

“Damn, he must have fallen off. I’d better go back.”

Fitz turned to see if he could find Tom. His face whitened. He shouted to Cig, “Run, run, as fast as you can.”

She hestitated a moment. “What about Tom?”

“RUN!”

She spurred Throttle, charging into the silver shroud. She heard Fitz immediately behind her then heard him turn his horse. A loud shout followed, a battle cry.

She wanted to turn back but she feared his fury as much as she feared whoever was chasing them. She looked to Fattail who was running flat-out, his ears back against his head. Throttle’s nostrils were wide open. He reached long with his forelegs straining for ground.

She heard another shout, a cry of pain.

She clutched for breath. Throttle shot forward like a jet. The hoofbeats came closer. She heard a whizzing sound and a
thunk
. She knew better than to look back. She was running for her life.

She put her hands far up on Throttle’s outstretched neck, lying low on the saddle as another whizzing sound sped by her ears. She sat up slightly and felt a sharp pain slide across her back. She doubled down, putting her head alongside Throttle’s neck, crouching as low in the saddle as she could.

Her throat was on fire. Tears filled her eyes from the wind and from stark terror. Another
thunk
, louder, made her wince. Fattail stayed immediately in front of her, flying.

She rode hard, veering right off the river road, following Fattail as he clambered up an embankment, then they were in the woods. She saw a post-and-rail fence before her. Throttle gathered himself, soaring over the fence, Fattail shooting under it.

She burst into the meadow as the mist lifted. There was her hunt field, patiently awaiting her, Grace in charge. Fighting back her sobs, she charged up to them as Hunter
and Laura, seeing her distress, pulled away from the group to meet her.

Cig wanted to say something. She wanted to say that she loved them, that Fitz was right behind her. She pulled up, sliding off the saddle in exhaustion. She took a few steps and then fell facedown in the grass.

Grace turned from her conversation with Binky and saw her. “Good God!”

Dr. Bill Dominquez dismounted and ran over to Cig as Hunter and Laura were already bending over their mother. He knelt down and noticed a deep slash across the back of her jacket. Blood was seeping through.

“Oh, Mom!” Laura threw herself on her mother as Grace, also now on the ground, ran flat-out to help. The entire hunt field was hurrying to her.

Bill took her pulse as Hunter, ashen, tears splashing down his cheeks, asked, “Will she be okay?”

Fattail sat down, observed, then melted back into the October woods.

What’s worse, the antiseptic white of a hospital or the disinfectant odor? Cig focused on the harvest gold floral pattern of the drapes. The only color worse than institutional harvest gold was avocado.

Her back stung. A single IV line ran into her arm but no tube up her nose and as far as she could tell she was not sedated. A shuffle outside her room alerted her to a possible intrusion but whoever it was passed the room.

She sat up, slid her feet out from the covers and padded to the window. She parted the offending curtains and discovered it was blackest night with a thick frost. Satisfied, she walked back to bed. She was in her century. She wasn’t sure how or what had happened but she determined to keep her mouth shut.

Wincing as she lay down on the bed, she curled over on her side and tried to sleep but the sound of Fitz’s voice rang in her ears. Each time she closed her eyes she heard him bellow “RUN” and trembled to think of what had become of him. She prayed that he had galloped through time with her and she’d see him in the morning.

Not for a minute did she believe her sojourn with Tom and Margaret was a dream. It was too vivid. She flicked on a light above her bed then flicked it off for the sheer excitement of it. Tiny iridescent dots danced before her eyes. No wonder people at the end of the twentieth century were hateful. Their eyes hurt from the harsh light and they didn’t even know it.