Chapter 1 - It Begins
Fall 2009 - Neshoba County, Mississippi
Some tell me that my adventures in this world have detracted from my “Southern-ness”. I say they are wrong. My experiences have awakened me and helped me to embrace and recognize what it means to be truly Southern. The qualities of being Southern are not isolated to race or creed. They are uniform and cross-cultural. Yes, as I lie here watching the curtains undulating in the night’s breeze, I ponder these thoughts.
The sound of a distant car slowly crunching on the gravel road distracts me, and then I hear a fox horn and the rush of horses’ hooves. Southern fox hunting is as dissimilar to English fox hunting as American football is to English football. It is a nighttime event. Upon closer listening, I hear the car sounds fade as the driver meets his or her destination. The horn and hooves appear to be approaching and I listen to the calls and shouts of the approaching hunters. I smile when a long-ago memory surfaces of my mother jumping out of bed at the trumpet of the horn. She would rush to the window, murmuring that they better not ride through the yard and trample her flowers again.
The “Hunter’s Moon” glows large and round as I look through the window. It is so bright that there are soft shadows under the trees on the lawn. Pulling a soft quilt around my shoulders, I begin to sleepily drift off. Just as sleep begins to claim me, the thundering of hooves jars me upright in bed. The sound halts abruptly at my picket fence. The horses outside are impatient and snorting with excitement of the chase. The gate creaks open and heavy footsteps navigate the path to the front of the house. I laugh to myself.
There is a ping, ping, ping as Rem, my friend since childhood, throws small pebbles at my window and yell-whispers, “Evangeline!”
I giggle. It is beyond my comprehension why he is using pebbles when I live alone. The fact that he could just knock on the front door escapes him. I pad down the cool wood steps to the lower floor and quietly open the screen door.
Rem is oblivious and still watching my window for some sign of life. Peering around the corner of the porch I startle him, “Hey Rem, why are you throwing pebbles at my window?”
Rem, startled, replies, “Uh sorry, I thought you might want to come on the hunt with us.”
I laugh, “Alas, No Horse.”
He chuckles and says, “Well you can ride with me like we used to?”
I think back to our youth when we often went on such rides, but during the daytime hours. I hear the hounds urgently barking in the pasture. They have probably treed a raccoon. I secretly hope the crafty little fox escaped seconds after the hunt began. In a moment of abandon, I agree. “Let me go get dressed.”
He looks at my purple PJ’s and says, “You look like you are.”
The hesitation is only momentary before I slip on my flip flops that were abandoned beside the porch swing, and follow him to his rather large Quarter Horse. He swings up onto the horse and reaches down to pull me up behind him in the saddle, just as he did when we rode in this fashion as children. The velvety breeze lifts strands of my unbound hair and caresses my skin as we charge off in the general direction of barking. Once you have learned to ride a horse, you never really lose that feeling of becoming one with the movements of the animal. I smell the wonderful scent of the “night” after the dew has fallen, and of freshly cut fields which are being prepared for the approaching winter. Rem gently urges his horse on, in hushed undertones, until we join his friends. Introductions are made, which I immediately forget. To me, a lover of the night, my surroundings are magical. Lingering fireflies dance in the trees and pasture, to a symphony of frogs, crickets and other night creatures. Both the fireflies and the symphony will disappear after the first freeze, not to return again until the warmth of spring. Shortly after entering the woods we come to a clearing where the hounds are grouped under a tree barking at a rather large raccoon. There is a murmur of disappointment in the ranks.
To my left I see the ruins of the large abandoned antebellum home that I had never noticed before. I guess it is not visible from the road. Shock ripples through my body. I don’t know why, but something distinctly troubles me about this place. Something is on the edge of my memory, but I just can’t grasp it.
Rem feels me stiffen. “You ok?”
I shudder, “Well, yeah…but who owns this place?”
Rem pauses while he ponders and finally replies, “I think it’s old man Thompson’s. They say it’s haunted.” I shudder again.
One of the riders overhears our exchange and remarks, “My dad said the family moved to Jackson after the fire generations ago. They haven’t lived on the property since then but still keep it up.”
Following a shrill whistle, Tanner, a short stocky fellow, advises us he is taking his dogs and “going home”. He flicks his reins and gallops off with his noisy dogs following close behind in general disarray.
There is obviously no fox hunt without a fox. Our small group disbands, and before I know it, I am deposited safely at my gate minus one flip flop lost in the night. Back in bed, I begin to feel the weight of sleep and drift off.
