Free Riding Shotgun by Rita Mae Brown Page B

I was the one who died?”
    Binky squinted. The light hurt his eyes. “I wouldn’t want to know.”
    “That I died?” Harleyetta peevishly replied.
    “How you died. I wouldn’t want to know.” He may have been hungover but Binky was crystal clear about what he felt.
    “Binky,” she whispered, “I feel like a liar.”
    “Come on, Harley. It’s time to move off. You’re massaging your emotions. That’s one thing about women I really can’t stand.”
    “Then live without them.”
    “I could live just fine without women. Don’t flatter yourself. It’s none of your business.”
    “But it is. I was in the E.R. that night,” Harleyetta whimpered.
    “You’ll be in it this morning if you don’t shut up because I’ll knock you clean off Gypsy. Now come on.”
    With wounded eyes she followed him to Cig.
    “Come on, gang,” Cig called again, standing up in her stirrups.
    The group of thirty trotted over to Cig. Roger stayed in the back with the hounds, their eyes upturned to him as he sat on Sidekick, his huge chestnut. Carol Easter, Agnes Clark, and Jane Fogleman stayed with the hounds, too, as they were whipping in today. This was Carol’s first time as a whipper-in, and she nervously coiled and uncoiled the sturdy leather thong on the whip. Not that mild-mannered Carol would actually whip a hound. She wouldn’t, nor would most whippers-in. The hunting whips had a thin colorful nylon cracker at the end of the braided leather thong, which when expertly snapped out in the air emitted a rifle-shot noise. That usually did the trick. Of course, you had to practice or the cracker ended up in your face, on the horse, or worse, entangled in the branch of a tree. That had happened to Florence Moeser back in 1952, yanked her right off her horse. Said something about hunt clubs that noone ever forgot, and the story was passed along to each new member of the Jefferson Hunt—usually by Florence herself. In her eighties, she had lost none of her sense of humor even if she was a little stiff in the saddle.
    Cig’s alto voice carried well. “Roger’s going to cast along the farm road first. We’ll probably wind up down by the James. Archie Griswald just plowed under his riverside cornfield so stay to the side of it. He left the other corn standing, which was good of him, so if you run into him at the feed store or in town do thank him for his kindness. Roger, did I forget anything?”
    “New coop, in-and-out, when we cross over into George Lawrence’s, right there on the other side of Tinker’s Creek.”
    “Oh, right. Now don’t fret,” Cig consoled them. “New coops always look bigger than they are. It’s a two stride in-and-out. Every horse and rider can do it. This means you, Roberta.”
    Roberta blushed, but the attention from Cig gave her some courage.
    Laura and Hunter, being young, never could fathom why middle-aged people who came to riding as adults feared jumping in-and-outs, two jumps placed with only one or two strides between them. Usually this configuration occurred between two fence lines as it did on George Lawrence’s property. All you had to do was stay in your jumping position—eyes up, hands down—and let the horse do the work. Now if you had a horse that wanted to run out or refuse the jump, well, then you had to do the work.
    When Go To was four, green and full of himself, Laura had to hold like mad on the side to which he wanted to run out—hold with all her might with her lower leg and check, release, and check again on the opposing rein. Finally, after one hairy hunt season, Go To decided it was easier to obey Laura than to exercise his own will. Then again, Laura had talent to spare, so Go To came along much faster than if someone else had been working with him.
    “All right then. Let’s escape the twentieth century.”
    The group laughed as Roger blew a few clear, piercingblasts on his horn. He stayed at the front of his pack. Carol was ahead on the left, Jane on the right,