Outfoxed

On October twelfth, silhouetted against a bloodred sunset, a cloaked figure carrying a scythe was seen by three people. A gray fox also observed the reaper. A stiff breeze kicked up from the west, sending a sudden swirl of fallen, golden leaves spiraling upward. When they fell to earth the figure was gone. "Did you see that?" Jane Arnold, known as "Sister Jane," asked. "See what?" the rugged man next to her replied. "On Hangman's Ridge, I swear I saw the Grim Reaper." She pointed to her left, the deep green ridge rising softly from the meadows, a lone, massive tree commanding the middle of it. "Sister"--Shaker Crown put his hands on his hips, shaking his head--"dipping into the flask again." "Balls." She smiled at him. It was an alluring smile and one that still carried a sensual message to men that even her seventy years couldn't erase. "No, ma'am, I didn't see anything. Tell you what I do see. Fontaine Buruss hasn't kept his word." "Damn him." Jane briskly walked along the grassy farm path to a three-board fence up ahead. A coop, a jump resembling a chicken coop, was smashed to pieces. "Lucky no cows are out." Shaker took off his lad's cap, running his fingers through his auburn curls. "Fontaine." He shrugged. No other words were necessary. "There are days when I think I'm a candidate for sainthood," she said, laughing. Shaker put his arm around her small waist. "You know, boss, I say that to myself every day." "Devil." She hugged him in return. "Well, let's stop the gap. Come back tomorrow morning and fix it right." She glanced toward the west. "Much as I love fall, I mourn the fading light." "Yes ma'am." He vaulted over the splintered wood, heading for a dense forest at the edge of the pasture. Within minutes Shaker returned, dragging a tree branch with a diameter the size of a strong man's forearm. Jane put her hand on the fence post and swung over the destroyed jump, both feet up in the air at once. She'd broken a few bones over the years, felt the arthritis, but a life of hard physical labor kept her young. If she'd wanted to vault the coop like Shaker, a man thirty years her junior, she could have. "Bullhead." She chided him because he didn't ask for help and the tree branch, blown down in yesterday's storm, was still heavy with sap. The two kicked out the broken boards in the coop, placed them in the middle, then maneuvered the tree branch over the top of the coop. "That will hold them tonight. Glad it's your fence line." He rubbed the sap off his hands. "Me, too. Otherwise we'd be out here until midnight. Feels like a storm coming up, too." "Yesterday's was bad enough." "It's been strange weather." "You say that every year." "No, I don't," she contradicted him as they turned for home. They'd parked the farm truck at the edge of Hangman's Ridge. With the wind in their faces picking up, the truck seemed far away. Once inside the old GMC, Sister shivered. "Someone walked over my grave." Shaker gave her a sharp look. "Don't say that." "It's an expression." "I don't like it." She burrowed down in her seat as he drove. She wanted to say more about whatever she'd seen on the top of Hangman's Ridge but thought she'd better shut up. They pulled into the kennel just as a weary Doug Kinser walked in, a gorgeous hound trailing behind him. "Archie!" Sister's voice carried reproach as she stepped out of the truck. "That's not like Arch."Brown, Rita Mae is the author of 'Outfoxed', published 2005 under ISBN 9780345484253 and ISBN 0345484258.