Read Hotspur for Free Online Page B

needle me.”
    â€œOh, if you aren’t hallucinating, then what are you
doing when you, for no reason, leap straight into the air,
twist around, race to a tree, climb up, drop down, and do
it all over again? You’re mental.”
    â€œSpoken like the unimaginative canine you are.”
Golly raised her chin, half closing her eyes.
“I’m being visited
by The Muse on those occasions.”
    â€œI’m going to throw up,”
Cora said, and made a gagging sound.
    â€œWorms!”
Golly triumphantly decreed.
    Diana, thoroughly enjoying the hostilities, said,
“Just
got wormed Monday.”
    â€œWell, I walked down here in the heat of the day to
give you girls some news, but since you’re insulting me I
think I’ll go hiss at the puppies, teach them who’s boss
around here.”
    â€œYou can tell me.”
Diana lowered her voice and her head, her dirt-encrusted nose touching the fence.
    â€œYou’re a sensible girl,”
the cat replied.
    In truth, Diana was sensible and also quite sweet. She loved everybody.
    Cora, upright now, walked over.
“Well?”
    â€œWho said I was talking to you?”
Golly opened her eyes wide.
    â€œOh come on, Golliwog, you know we’re dying to
hear it,”
Cora coaxed, buttering her up.
    The luxurious calico leaned forward, her nose on the chain-link fence now.
“It was Nola. The family dentist
identified her not an hour ago.”
    Cora thought for a moment.
“This will stir up a hornet’s nest.”
    â€œIf only we had known her . . . we hear and smell
things.”
Diana frowned.
“We might have been able to
help find out something useful.”
    â€œThe last hound that knew Nola Bancroft would have
been Archie’s grandmother. She lived to be eighteen, you
know,”
Cora said.
“It was a long, long time ago.”
    â€œYou’d think if any of us had known about the murder, or if any of the horses over at After All Farm knew,
they would have told. We’d know. We pass those things
down,”
Diana said.
    â€œUndomesticated.”
Cora meant that undomesticated animals might have witnessed something at the time.
    â€œWho lives that long?”
Diana wondered.
    â€œTurtles. That snapping turtle at After All Farm, the
huge one in the back pond, he’s got to be forty years old,
I swear it,”
Cora said.
    â€œAmphibians aren’t terribly smart, you know. Their
brain moves at about the same speed they do,”
Golly said with a laugh. Then she thought again.
“But they do
remember everything.”
    â€œHow old is Athena?”
Diana asked, thinking of the great horned owl.
“They live a long time, don’t they?”
    â€œDon’t know,”
the cat and hound said in unison.
    Diana lay down, her head on her paws, her face now level with Golly’s face, almost.
“Why does it matter? To
us, I mean?”
    â€œBecause it really will stir up a hornet’s nest, Diana.
People start buzzing. Old dirt will get turned over, and I
promise you, ladies, I promise you, this will all come
back to the Jefferson Hunt Club. Sooner or later, everything in this part of the world does,”
Cora said.
    â€œThink Sister knows that?”
Diana asked. She loved Sister.
    â€œShe knows. Sister has lived almost six hound lifetimes. Think of what she knows,”
Cora said, shaking her head in wonder.
    â€œWell, exactly how do you think this will affect us?
Will people not pay their dues or something like that?”
Diana asked.
    â€œNo. People drop out when it’s a bad season. No hunt
club has control over the weather, but people act as
though they do, the fair-weather hunters, I mean.”
Cora observed human behavior closely.
“Or when there’s a
club blowup, which happens about every seven years.
Archie always said humans do things in seven-year cycles. They just don’t recognize it.”
    â€œCrawford Howard.”
Golly curled her