Full Cry. The Hunt Ball

3. FULL CRY

CHAPTER 1

A bloodred cardinal sparkled against the snow-covered ground. He’d dropped from his perch to snatch a few bits of millet still visible by the red chokeberry shrubs scattered at the edge of the field. The snow base, six inches, obscured most of the seeds that the flaming bird liked to eat, but light winds kept a few delicacies dropping, including some still-succulent chokeberry seeds.

Low gunmetal gray clouds, dense as fog in some spots, hung over the fresh white snow. In the center of this lovely thirty-acre hayfield on Orchard Hill Farm stood a lone sentinel, a 130-foot sugar maple. Surrounding the hayfield were forests of hardwoods and pine.

Two whitetail deer bolted over the three-board fence. Deer season ran from mid-November to January 2 in this part of Virginia. Those benighted humans who had yet to reach their legal bag limit might be found squatting in the snow on this December 27, a cold Saturday.

Bolting across the field in the direction opposite the deer came two sleek foxhounds. At first the cardinal, now joined by his mate, did not notice the hounds. The millet was too tasty. But when the birds heard the ruckus, they raised their crests and fluttered up to the oak branches as the hounds sped by.

Before the birds could drop back to their feast, four more hounds raced past, snow whirling up behind their paws like iridescent confetti.

In the distance, a hunting horn blew three long blasts, the signal for hounds to return.

Jane Arnold, Master of Foxhounds for the Jefferson Hunt Club, checked her advance just inside the forest at the westernmost border of the hayfield. The snowfall increased, huge flakes sticking to the horse’s coat for a moment, to her eyelashes. She felt the cool, moist pat of flakes on her red cheeks. As she exhaled, a stream of breath also came from her mount, a lovely bold thoroughbred, Rickyroo.

Behind her, steam rising from their mounts’ hindquarters and flanks, were fifty-four riders. Ahead was the huntsman, Shaker Crown, a wiry man in his middle forties, again lifting the hunting horn to his lips. The bulk of the pack, twenty couple—hounds are always counted in twos or couples—obediently awaited their next order.

Sister cast her bright eyes over the treetops. Chickadees, wrens, and one woodpecker peered down at her. No foxes had just charged through here. Different birds had different responses to a predator like a fox. These creatures would have been disturbed, moved about. Crows, ravens, and starlings, on the other hand, would have lifted up in a flock and screamed bloody murder. They loathed being disturbed and despised foxes to the marrow of their light bones.

On Sister’s left, a lone figure remained poised at the fence line. If Shaker moved forward, then the whipper-in, Betty Franklin, would take the old tiger trap jump and keep well to the left. Betty, a wise hunter, knew not to press on too far ahead. The splinter of the pack, which had broken now, veered to the right, and the second whipper-in, Sybil Hawkes, was already in pursuit well away across the hayfield.

Whether Sybil could turn the three couple of hounds troubled Sister. A pack should stay together—easier said than done. Sister blamed herself for this incident. It takes years and years, decades really, to build a level pack of hounds. She had included too many firstyear entry—the hound equivalent of a first grader—in today’s hunt.

Firstyear entry sat in the kennels for Christmas Hunt, which had been last Saturday. Christmas Hunt, the third of the High Holy Days of hunting, overflows with people and excitement. Both she and her huntsman, whom Sister adored, felt the Christmas Hunt would have been too much for the youngsters. Today she should have taken only one couple, not the four included in this pack. Shaker had mentioned this to her, but she had waved him off, saying that the field wouldn’t be that large today, as many riders would still be recuperating from the rigors of Christmas. There had been over one hundred people for Christmas Hunt, but she had half that today, still a good number of folks.

The hounds loved hunting in the snow. For the young entry this was their first big snow, and they just couldn’t contain themselves.

She sat on Rickyroo who sensed her irritation. Sister felt a perfect ass. She’d hunted all her life, and, at seventy-two, it was a full life. How could she now be so damned stupid?

Luckily, most people behind her knew little about the art of foxhunting, and it was an art not a science. They loved the pageantry, the danger, the running and jumping, its music. A few even loved the hounds themselves. Out of that field of fifty-four people, perhaps eight or nine really understood foxhunting. And that was fine by Sister. As long as people respected nature, protected the environment, and paid homage to the fox—a genius wrapped in fur—she was happy. Foxhunting was like baseball: a person needn’t know the difference between a sinker and a slider when it crossed home plate in order to enjoy the game. So long as people knew the basics and behaved themselves on horseback, she was pleased. She knewbetter than to expect anyone to behave when off a horse.

She observed Shaker. Every sense that man possessed was working overtime, as were hers. She drew in a cold draught of air, hoping for a hint of information. She listened intently and could hear, a third of a mile off, the three couple of hounds speaking for all they were worth. Perhaps they hit a fresh line of scent. In this snow, the scent would have to be fresh, just laid from the fox’s paws. The rest of the pack watched Shaker. If scent were burning, surely Cora or Diana, Dasher or Ardent would have told them. But then the youngsters had broken off back in the woods. Had the pack missed the line? With an anchor hound like the four-year-old Diana, now in her third season, this was unlikely. Young though she was, this particular hound was following in the paw prints of one of the greatest anchor hounds Sister had ever known, Archie, gone to his reward and remembered with love every single day.

Odd how talent appears in certain hounds, horses, and humans. Diana definitely had it. She now faced the sound of the splinter group, stern level, head lifted, nose in the air. Something was up.

Behind Sister, Dr. Walter Lungrun gratefully caught his breath. The run up to this point had been longer than he realized, and he needed a break. Wealthy Crawford Howard, convivial as well as scheming, passed his flask around. It was accepted with broad smiles from friend and foe alike. Crawford subscribed to the policy that a man should keep his friends close and his enemies closer still. His wife, Marty, an attractive and intelligent woman, also passed around her flask. Crawford’s potion was a mixture of blended scotch, Cointreau, a dash of bitters, with a few drops of fresh lemon juice. Liberally consumed, it hit like a sledgehammer.

Tedi and Edward Bancroft, impeccably turned out and true foxhunters, both in their seventh decade, listened keenly. Their daughter, Sybil, in her midforties, was the second whipper-in. She had her work cut out for her. They knew she was a bold rider, so they had no worries there. But Sybil, in her second year as an honorary whipper-in (as opposed to a professional) fretted over every mistake. Sybil’s parents and two sons would buoy her up after each hunt since she was terribly hard on herself.

Betty Franklin loved whipping-in, but she knew there were moments when Great God Almighty couldn’t control a hound with a notion. She was considerably more relaxed about her duties than Sybil.

Also passing around handblown glass flasks, silver caps engraved with their initials, were Henry Xavier (called Xavier or X), Clay Berry, and Ronnie Haslip—men in their middle forties. These high-spirited fellows had been childhood friends of Ray Arnold Jr. Sister’s son, born in 1960, had been killed in 1974 in a harvesting accident. The boys had been close, the Four Musketeers.

Sister had watched her son’s best friends grow up, graduate from college. Two had married, all succeeded in business. They were very dear to her.

After about five minutes, Shaker tapped his hat with his horn, leaned down, and spoke encouragingly to Cora, his strike hound. She rose up on her hind legs to get closer to this man she worshipped. Then he said,“Come long,” and his pack obediently followed as he rode out of the forest, taking the second tiger trap jump as Betty Franklin took the first. If the pack and the huntsman were a clock, the strike hound being at twelve, Betty stayed at ten o’clock, Sybil at two, the huntsman at six.

Sister, thirty yards behind Shaker, sailed over the tiger trap. Most of the other riders easily followed, but a few horses balked at the sight of the upright logs, leaning together just like a trap. The snow didn’t help the nervous; resting along the crevices, it created an obstacle that appeared new and different.

As riders passed the sugar maple, Cora began waving her stern. The other hounds became interested.

Dragon, a hotheaded but talented third-year hound and the brother to Diana, bellowed,“It’s her! It’s her!”

The thick odor of a vixen lifted off the snow.

Cora, older, and steady even though she was the strike hound, paused a moment.“Yes, it is a vixen, but something’s not quite right.”

Diana, her older brother, Dasher, and Asa and Ardent also paused. At nine, the oldest hound in the pack, Delia, mother of the D litters, usually brought up the rear. While her youthful speed had diminished, her knowledge was invaluable. Delia, too, put her nose to the snow.

The other hounds looked at her, even her brash son, Dragon.“It’s a vixen all right, but it is extremely peculiar,” Delia advised.

“Well, maybe she ate something strange,”Dragon impatiently spoke.“Our job is to chase foxes, and it doesn’tmatter if they’re peculiar or not. I say we give this field another run for their money.”

Cora lifted her head to again look at Shaker.“Well, it isa vixen and whatever is wrong with the line, I guess we’llfind out.”

With the hounds opening, their vibrant voices filled the air with a music as lush to the ear of a foxhunter as the Brandenburg Concertos are to a musician.

No matter how many times she heard her pack in full cry, it always made the hair stand up on the back of Sister’s neck.

They glided across the hayfield, soared over the stone jumps on the other side, plunged into the woods as they headed for a deep creek that fed the apple orchards for which Orchard Hill was known.

The cardinal once again left off the millet and flew back up into the oak tree.

“Bother,”he grumbled to his mate.

“Maybe they’ll turn up more seed,”his shrewd helpmate answered.

The hounds, running close together, passed under the oak, followed by Shaker, then Sister and the field.

They ran flat out for twenty minutes, everyone sweating despite the cold. The baying of the pack now joined the baying of the splinter group.

It sounded queer.

Shaker squeezed Showboat. A true huntsman’s horse, Showboat would die before he’d join the rest of the field. He would be first and that was that.

“What in the goddamned hell!” Shaker shouted. He put his horn to his lips, blowing three long blasts. “Leave him! Leave him!”

The hounds stared up at Shaker. The vixen scent was so strong it made their eyes water, but they weren’t crawling over a vixen.

Betty rode up as did Sybil, each staying back a bit so as to contain the pack just in case. Each woman’s face registered disbelief. Betty put her gloved hand to her mouth to stifle a whoop of hilarity.

Sister rode up. There, curled into a ball, was deer hunter Donnie Sweigert. His expensive rifle with the one-thousand-dollar scope was clutched to his chest. His camouflage overalls and coat were encrusted with snow, slobber, and a drop or two of hound markings. She wondered where Donnie found the money for his expensive gear. He was a driver for Berry Storage.

Shaker kept calling back his pack, but they didn’t want to separate from the terrified Donnie.

“What’ll I do?” the cowering man hollered.

Shaker gruffly replied,“Put your head between your legs and kiss your ass good-bye, you blistering idiot!” He spoke sharply to his hounds now. “Leave him! Leave him!”

Shaker turned Showboat back toward the hayfield. The hounds, reluctant at first to leave this human drenched in vixen scent, did part from their odd treasure.

Dragon couldn’t resist a parting shot at Donnie.“Andyou think we’re dumb animals.”

Sister, as master, couldn’t tell Donnie that she thought covering his human scent with fox scent remarkably stupid. She needed to be a diplomat. “Don, are you in one piece?”

“Yes.” He unsteadily rose to his feet.

The fox scent, like a sweet skunk, was so overpowering even the members of the field could smell Donnie.

“Would you like help getting back to your truck?” She winked at Walter Lungrun. “Walter will take you back. And he’s a doctor, so if anything should be wrong, he’ll fix you right up.”

“I’m fine.” Donnie was still recovering from his fright.

“No one bit you. They would never bite anyone, Don, but, well, you have to admit, the situation is unique.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He sighed.

“Tell you what.” She smiled, and what an incandescent welcoming smile it was. “If you want to, come hunt Monday morning at my place back by the peach orchard. Maybe that will make up for our spoiling your sport today.”

He brightened.“Thank you, Sister.”

“And Don, don’t cover your scent with vixen, hear? Just stay on the backside of the wind. I’m sure you’ll get a big one.”

“Uh, yes, ma’am.”

With that, Sister followed Shaker and the hounds back to the hayfield, back to the tiger trap jumps.

“Edward, take the field a moment, will you?”

Tall, elegant Edward Bancroft touched the top of his hunt cap with his crop.

Sister rode up to Shaker, tears in his eyes from laughing.

“Oh, God, that man is dumb as a sack of hammers.”

She laughed, too.“Donnie Sweigert isn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but to make amends I’m letting him hunt the peach orchard Monday morning. He’ll forgoeau de vulpus.”

At this they both laughed so loudly a few of the hounds laughed out loud, too. That only made the humans laugh harder. The hounds took this as a cue to sing.

“All right, all right.” Shaker wiped his eyes as the hounds ended their impromptu carol.

“We’ve had a pretty good day, all things considered. Let’s lift these hounds and go home.”

“Yes, boss.” He touched his cap with his horn.

Later at the breakfast held at Orchard Hill’s lovely 1809 white clapboard house, the mirth increased with each person’s retelling of the situation.

Clay Berry told everyone that come Monday morning he’d present Donnie with a bottle of cologne. He’d also give Donnie a fixture card so he could stay away from fox hunts.

“Do you really think humans can disguise their scent? Would a deer have been fooled?” Jennifer Franklin, Betty’s teenage daughter, asked Walter. She had a crush on Walter, as did every woman in the hunt club.

“I don’t know.” Walter smiled. “You’ll have to ask Sister that one.”

He motioned for Sister to join them. Walter was a well-built man; he’d played halfback at Cornell, and even during the grueling hours of medical school and his internship, he had worked out religiously. Sister stood next to him. At six feet, she was almost as tall as he. She’d lost an inch or so with age.

Those meeting Jane Arnold for the first time assumed she was in her middle fifties. Lean, strong, her silver hair close cropped because she couldn’t stand “hat head” from her hunt cap, she had an imposing yet feminine presence.

Walter repeated the question. She thought a moment, then replied as she touched Jennifer’s shoulder. “I expect a deer or any of us can be fooled for a little while, but sooner or later your real odor will rise on up, and then you’ll be standing like truth before Jesus.”

On weekends Jennifer Franklin, a senior in high school, and her best friend, Sari Rasmussen, cleaned and tacked up the horses for Sister, Shaker, and Betty. When the hunt was over, the girls would cool down the horses, wash them if necessary, clean all the tack. When the horses were completely dry, they’d put on their blankets and turn them out, an eagerly anticipated moment for the horses.

The two attractive girls would then attack five pairs of boots, which included their own two. However, this Saturday their high school was having a special late-afternoon basketball tournament, so Sister had given the two girls time off.

During weekday hunts, Betty saw to the horses while Sister and Shaker fed the hounds after a hard hunt. This gave them time to check each hound, making sure no one was too sore or had gotten torn by thorns or hateful barbed wire. If anyone sustained an injury, he or she would be taken to the small medical room, lifted on the stainless steel table and washed, stitched if necessary, or medicated. The hardy hounds rarely suffered diseases, but they did bruise footpads, rip ears, cut flanks.

When Betty finished with the horses, Sister would usually be finished with the hounds. Then the two women would stand in the stable aisle cleaning their tack, the bucket of warm water loosening stiffened, cold fingers as well as softening up the orange glycerin soap.

While the ladies performed this convivial task, Shaker used a power washer on the kennels. Sister would clean his boots when she cleaned hers during the weekdays.

The familiar routine was comforting, but the hunt club really did need at least one more employee. While wealthy members like Crawford would build show grounds because it was flashy, they didn’t throw their money in the till for a worker. An employee lacked the social cachet of a building, and the slender budget left no room for another pair of hands. Since Sister and Shaker performed most all of the work, their days were long: sunup to past sundown.

Sister and Betty stood side by side, cleaning their bridles. They were almost finished.

“Read the paper this morning?” Betty asked.

“I don’t get to it until supper. What have I missed?”

“Oh, those antique furniture and silver gangs are at it again. TheRichmond Times-Dispatchhad an article about how they’re moving through the west end.”

“Every couple of years that happens in Richmond. Smart thieves,” Sister said.

“Well, what I found interesting was these rings work full-time. They move through Richmond, Charlotte, Washington, even the smaller cities like Staunton or ritzy places like Middleburg. Apart from knowing real George II silver from silver plate or a Sheraton from a Biedermeier, they’re obviously well organized.”

“I get the Sotheby’s catalogues. Some of those pieces sell for the gross national product of Namibia.”

Betty laughed.“I’ve always wondered why people become criminals. Seems to me if they put all that energy into a legitimate career, they’d make enough money.”

“I wonder. I can understand a thirteen-year-old kid in the slums not wanting to work for McDonald’s when he or she can realize a couple of thousand a month dealing and delivering drugs. But a furniture gang? I know what you mean. The same effort could just as well produce profit in an honest trade.”

“Well, maybe there’s more profit than we realize. Guess there’s a chain of people to make it all work, too, like crooked antique dealers.”

“Hmm. It’s one thing to steal money, but family silver, furniture—so much emotion tied up in those things. Like all those little silver plates and big trays we won in horse shows when we were young.”

“Or my great-grandmother’s tea service.”

“Are you going to lock your doors?”

“Oh, they won’t come out here.”

“Hope not, but still, glad I’ve got my Doberman,” Sister said.

The phone rang. As Sister hung up her tack on the red bridle hook, she picked it up. Betty reached up next to her, putting up her hunting bridle with the flat brow and nosebands, its simple eggbutt-jointed snaffle gleaming from rubbing.

“Hello, Ronnie, I’d thought you’d had enough of me today.”

He laughed.“It’s all over town, hell, all over the county about Donnie Sweigert being, uh, quarry. Guess his nearest and dearest will take to calling him fox urine.”

“Bet they shorten that.”

“Bet they do, too.” He laughed harder.

Ronnie, a man who, besides being fashionable, needed to be the first to know everything, enlivened every hunt. Usually discreet, he could let it rip and surprise everyone.

“What can I do for you? I hope you aren’t calling about the board meeting. It’s not for three more weeks, and I haven’t even thought of my agenda. Well, except for more money.”

“Oh, that.” His voice registered sympathy. “I say we get each hunt club member to buy a lottery ticket for a dollar each week. If they win, they give half to the hunt club.”

“Ronnie, that’s a great idea!” Betty leaned close to the earpiece of the phone upon hearing Sister’s enthusiasm. Sister put her arm around Betty’s waist. A fabulous thing about being a woman was touching, hugging, being close to other women without worrying about repercussions. Men misunderstood affection for sexual interest, and it caused no end of difficulty.

“I was joking.”

“But it’s a great idea, I mean it. Oh, please propose it at the board meeting. And Betty’s right here next to me. I’ll tell her all about it so you have two passionate supporters.”

“Really? I mean, really?” His tone rose.

“I mean it. You are so creative.”

“Actually, that’s not why I called.” He breathed in, a moment of anticipation and preparation. “You are not going to believe this. I just heard it from Marty Howard at the Subaru dealership. She was picking up her Outback, and I was dropping mine off for its sixty-thousand-mile service.”

“I’m waiting… .”

“I’m setting the stage.” He loved to tease a story. “Anyway, we chatted. I so like Marty, and I will never know why she puts up with that man, but that’s another story, so—waiting with bated breath?”

“Yes. So is Betty, whose ear is also jammed to the phone.”

“Ah, a larger audience. Well, here it is. Ta da!” He sang the “ta da.” “Ready?”

“Ronnie, I’ll slap you the minute I next see you.”

“I might like it. Well, my dear master, Crawford Howard has hired Sam Lorillard to train his steeplechasers.” The silence was so long Ronnie raised his voice. “Sister, did you hear me?”

“I’m trying to fathom the information.”

“Can you believe it?”

“No.”

Betty shook her head.“Me, neither,” she said into the mouthpiece.

“Isn’t this gossip too good to be true?”

“I’ll say.” Sister released her hold on Betty’s waist.

Betty reached for the phone.“May I?”

“Of course.” Sister then pressed her ear to the earpiece as the women reversed positions, Betty’s arm around Sister’s thin waist. “Ronnie, it’s the Big Betts here.”

“Cleavage.”

“As if you cared.”

“I do care. I’m a highly attuned aesthetic being.” He was proud of Betty losing twenty-five pounds last season, and she was working hard on the last ten. “Knowing you, you’ll pepper me with questions.”

“Right. Since I haven’t heard a breath of this, and I know you didn’t either or I’d already know, shall I assume Crawford didn’t talk to any of the gang?”

“Yes.”

“Did Marty say how he hired Sam?”

“She did. We must have talked twenty minutes. The landscape business always slows down to nothing in winter, so she had all kinds of time. Anyway, madam, what she said was, and I quote, ‘Crawford called trainers in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, all the big names. They swore that Sam had oo-scoobs of talent.’ ”

“Did she really say ‘oo-scoobs’?”

“Yes.”

Betty replied,“I thought only Southerners used that expression.”

“She’s acclimating. Anyway, I asked her if she knew about Sam’s history.” He paused. “She said she knew he’s fought his battles, hit the bottom, but he’s recovered.”

“Recovered?” Sister spoke into the phone.

“His brother, Gray, who made all that money in Washington, D.C., put him in a drying-out center. He was there for a month.”

“So that’s why we haven’t seen him passed out on a luggage cart down at the train station?” Betty mentioned one of the favorite hangouts of the county’s incorrigible alcoholics. The downtown mall was another.

“How long has he been dry?” Sister again spoke into the mouthpiece.

“Do you want the phone back?” Betty asked.

“Actually, you ask better questions than I do.”

“According to Marty, Sam has been sober four months. She said that they extensively interviewed him. They also spent two hours with Gray, and they’re satisfied that Sam’s the man for the job. Crawford intends to get into chasing in a big, big way.”

Betty took a long time.“Well, I hope it all works out.”

“But you don’t think for a skinny minute that it will, do you?” Ronnie sounded almost eager.

“Uh, no.”

Sister took the phone back,“What do you think?”

“I think there’s going to be hell to pay.”

Sister sighed, then brightened.“In that case, let’s hope Crawford’s bank account is as big as we think it is.”

After they hung up the phone, Sister and Betty just looked at each other for a moment.

Betty finally said,“Heisgood with a horse, that Sam.”

“And with a woman.”

They said in unison:“Jesus.”

CHAPTER 2

Heavy snow forced Sister to drive slowly to the Augusta Cooperative, usually just called the co-op. Since the Weather Channel predicted this storm was going to hang around for two days, she figured she’d better stock up on pet food, laying mash, and kerosene for the lamps, in case the power cut. She also took the precaution of putting the generator in the cellar. Shaker did likewise for the kennel, as well as for his attractive cottage, also on the property of Sister’s Roughneck Farm. Inthese parts, such a structure was called a dependency.

Last year, Sister broke down and bought a new truck for her personal use. The truck used to haul the horses and hounds, an F350 Dually, could pull a house off its foundation, but those Dually wheels proved clunky for everyday use. Installed in her new red half-ton truck was a cell phone with a speaker so she didn’t have to use her hands.

“Shaker.”

“Yes, boss.”

“I’m on my way to the co-op. Need anything?”

“Mmm, late thirties, early forties maybe, good sense of humor, must like hounds and horses and be in good shape.”

“Get out.” She laughed.

“Mmm, pick up some Espilac if they have any,” he said, referring to a milk replacer for nursing puppies. “And if you want extra corn oil for kibble, might could use some.”

“Okay. I’ll drop it in the feed room at the kennel. Oh, hair color preference?”

“Bay or chestnut.”

“I’ll keep my eyes wide open, brother.”

Ending the call, she maintained a steady fifty miles an hour. The snowplows kept the main arteries clear, and even the secondary roads remained in good shape. If the storm kept up, the volume of snow would overwhelm the state plows, the dirt roads would become difficult to negotiate, and even the major highways would be treacherous. Sister knew that as soon as he hung up the phone, Shaker would pull on his down jacket, tighten the scarf around his throat, jam that old lumberjack hat on his head, and crank up the huge old tractor with the snowplow. He’d keep their farm road open, not an easy task; it was a mile from the state road back to the farm, and there were the kennels and the farm roads to clear out, plus the road through the orchard. Apart from being a fine huntsman, Shaker was a hard worker who could think for himself.

She pulled into the co-op’s macadam parking lot, trucks lined up, backs to ramp. The ramps, raised two feet above the bed of a pickup, made it easy for the co-op workers to toss in heavy bags of feed, seed, whatever people needed. Huge delivery trucks fit the ramps perfectly. A man could take a dolly and roll straight into the cavernous storage area.

Each section of the co-op had its own building. The fertilizer section off to the side even housed a shed for delivery and spreading trucks. The special seed section was to the right of the fertilizer building. Catty-corner to both these buildings stood the main brick building, which contained animal food, gardening supplies, and work clothes.

As Sister pushed open the door to the main section, she saw many people she knew, all doing the same thing as she.

Alice Ramy, owner of a farm not far from Sister’s, rolled her cart over. “Heard you chased an interested quarry today. I always did think Donnie Sweigert’s elevator didn’t go all the way to the top.”

“Poor fellow. He was stiff with fear.” Sister laughed. “He thought the hounds would tear him apart.”

“Would we miss him?” Alice tartly remarked.

“I reckon we would. Now Alice, all souls are equal before God.”

They both laughed, then rolled down separate aisles to wrap up their shopping before the storm worsened.

As Sister reached for milk replacer, another cart whizzed by her before stopping.

“Jane Arnold,” a deep voice called.

She turned to look into the liquid brown eyes of Gray Lorillard, a man of African American descent. Gray was the name of his maternal family, and everyone had always teased him about it when he was a kid. Few teased him these days; he was a powerful, wealthy tax lawyer and partner in a top-notch Washington, D.C., firm.

“Gray, how good to see you. We hardly ever do see you. Home for Christmas?”

He leaned on his cart.“I retired.”

“I hadn’t heard that. How wonderful.”

“Well, I turned sixty-five last August, and I said, ‘I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life.’ I want to farm. Took me this long to wrap things up. Kept the apartment in D.C., still do consulting, but Sister, I am so glad to be back.”

“Will you be at the old home place?” She referred to the Lorillard farm, which abutted the eastern side of After All, the Bancrofts’ enormous estate.

He looked her directly in the eyes.“Have you seen it?” “I drive by.” She tactfully did not mention its state of disrepair.

“Sam didn’t even change the lightbulbs when they blew out.” He breathed in, lowering his voice. “I won’t be living there with him, though I think he’s beat the bottle this time. God, I hope so.”

“I’m amazed he’s still alive,” Sister honestly replied.

“Me, too.” He smiled, his features softening. “I expect this storm will have us all holed up. But it has to end sometime.” He hesitated a moment. “When it does, may I take you to lunch at the club? We can catch up.”

“I hope it ends tomorrow.” She smiled.

All the way home, Sister thought about the Lorillards: Sam, Gray, and Elizabeth, each with different destinies. Elizabeth, the middle child, married well, a Chicago magazine magnate. She sat on the city council of the expensive suburb in which she lived, Lake Forest. She evidenced no interest in the home place, Virginia, or, more pointedly, Sam. Gray, a good athlete and horseman, won an academic scholarship to Syracuse, going on to New York University Law School. Sam, also a good athlete and horseman, won a scholarship to Michigan, finished up, then returned to attend the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He couldn’t stay away from the horses, which everyone understood, but he couldn’t stay away from women either. These disruptions and his ever-escalating drinking seemed intertwined.

Sister had ridden with Gray and Sam when they were young. It baffled her how someone like Sam could throw away his life as he did. Not being an addictive personality, she failed to understand willful self-destruction.

The Lorillards’ tidy and tight farmhouse had fallen down about Sam’s ears. Until four months ago, one often found him down at the old train station, sitting on the baggage carts knocking back Thunderbird with the other drunks.

It pained Sister to see those men. One, Anthony Tolliver, had been the first boy she ever danced with and loved. They remained friends until he lost the battle with the bottle. Anthony, well born, lost everything. On those times when she did see him, he would smile, happy for her presence. The fumes from him made her eyes water. She alternated among disgust, anger, and pity. Bad as he was, Anthony could bring back wonderful childhood memories. She couldn’t understand why he couldn’t get control of his drinking.

Sister had lived long enough to know you couldn’t save someone from himself. You can open a door, but he still must walk through it. It sounded as though Sam had at long last walked through the door his brother opened for him.

At the kennels, she unloaded the corn oil. Shaker walked in. As he took off his cap, snow fell to the floor in white clumps.

“Thanks for plowing the road.”

“I’ll give it another sweep before the sun goes down.”

“Four-thirty. We’re just on the other side of the solstice. I miss the light.” Sister stacked the Espilac on the shelf.

“Me, too.” He shook the remaining snow from his cap as he stamped his boots.

“Ran into Gray Lorillard. Said he’s retired and just moved back.”

“Ah, that will be a good thing. Maybe he’ll start hunting again.”

“Hope so. I think he went out with Middleburg Hunt when he worked in D.C. Anyway, we’re having lunch once the storm is over. I’ll get the scoop.”

“Where’s my girlfriend?”

She snapped her fingers.“I knew I forgot something. Next trip.”

CHAPTER 3

Early Sunday morning, the snow continued to fall. With a six-inch base of snow remaining on the ground from the week before, its depth now measured nearly two feet. Branches of walnuts, black gums, and the gnarled apple trees, coated with snow, took on a soft appearance. The younger pine boughs were bent low with its weight. The older pines appeared wrapped in shawls.

The silence pleased Inky, snuggled in her den at the edge of the old cornfield. This, the easternmost part of Sister Jane’s big farm, provided a safe haven for the two-year-old gray fox in her prime. Some grays are quite dark, but not many. Inky was black and uncommonly intelligent. Of course, being a fox meant she was extraordinarily intelligent compared to other mammals.

Even red foxes, haughty about the grays, conceded that Inky was special. She could connect with most mammals, even humans, and had a rare understanding of their emotions. The other foxes readily outsmarted hounds, humans, horses, even bobcats—trickier and tougher than the three “H’s,” as the foxes thought of the foxhunting crew. Foxes, reds and grays, thanks to their sense of smell, could pick up fear, sickness, even sexual attraction among other species. But Inky delved deeper. Young though she was, even reds listened when she spoke.

Her den, disguised under the ancient walnut tree, was also hidden by rocky outcroppings, some of the rocks as big as boulders. On high ground with many entrances and exits, not far from Broad Creek—which divided Roughneck Farm from After All Farm—this location offered quick access to fresh running water and all the leftover corn bits Inky could glean. Even better, the field mice haunted the cornfield. There was nothing like a fresh field mouse for a hot, tasty meal.

Inky’s littermate, Comet, had stupidly taken over a gopher den on Foxglove Farm across Soldier Road, about three and a half miles from Inky’s. Set smack in the middle of a wildflower field, at first this looked like a good thing. However, last fall Cindy Chandler, the owner of Foxglove, had decided to plow under the stalks, fertilize and then re-seed with more wildflowers, as well as plant one side of the field with three rows of Italian sunflowers to bring in the birds. Comet, appalled that his den had been exposed, moved to the woods. He should have listened to his sister, who told him not to nest in an open field.

At fourteen inches high, thirty inches long, and weighing a sleek ten pounds, Inky was the picture of health. Her tail, a source of pride, was especially luxurious now that she was enrobed in her rich dense winter coat.

A low rumble alerted her to a human visitor. She stuck her black nose out of the den, a snowflake falling on it. Sister Jane, on her four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicle, pulled up the low farm road, following Shaker’s plowing.

The ATV negotiated the snow and most anything else. Sister cut the motor and flipped up one bungee cord, which held a flake of straw. Putting that under her left arm, with her right hand she unhooked a second bungee cord, which held down a small plastic container of dog food.

She trudged up the rise to the walnut tree. The cold and snow stung her rosy cheeks.

An old cowboy hat kept the snow out of her eyes. As she approached Inky’s den, she whistled. She didn’t want to frighten the fox, who, if asleep, might not have heard her.

Inky, who had popped back into her den, stuck her head out.

“Good morning, Inky.” Sister dearly loved her foxes, but none so much as this one.

“Morning.”Inky chortled, a low sound in her throat.

“Here’s some straw in case you need to sweeten your bedding. I’m going to put the kibble right by your main entrance here. It’s in this plastic canister, which will keep some of the snow away, and Inky, I liberally drenched it in corn oil. You love that.”

A round hole, paw sized, had been cut from the bottom of the canister so Inky could pull out food.

“Thank you.”

Sometimes when Sister walked alone, no hounds, no house dogs, Inky would walk with her, ten or fifteen yards to the side. They’d reached an accord, these two females, one born of affection and solitude.

Inky didn’t much mind the Doberman, Raleigh, but that damned Rooster, the harrier, felt compelled to put his nose to the ground and follow her scent, talking all the while. As a hound, Rooster couldn’t help but show off. Much as he irritated Inky, she knew old Rooster had suffered sadness in his life. His master, Peter Wheeler, a handsome, vital man in his eighties, had died two years ago, bequeathing Rooster to Jane—once his lover—and his entire estate to the Jefferson Hunt Club. Sister lavished care on Rooster, but he still missed his “Pappy,” as he thought of Peter.

The one Inky really detested was Golliwog, the calico cat, whose airs plucked Inky’s last nerve. As a rule, felines feel they are the crown of creation. Golly took this hauteur to extremes. Sometimes when Inky would visit the kennels to chat with Diana, a particular favorite, Golliwog would saunter by, nose in the air, always no hello. Then she’d buzz around the corner toward Shaker’s dependency and emit an earsplitting shriek,“Fox at the kennels!”This would rouse the entire pack, who would then rouse Shaker. Inky would skedaddle out of there. Golly was a royal pain.

Sister breathed in, the air heavy, the sky darkest pewter. Inky put her entire head out of her den. Corn oil smelled wonderful. She wasn’t going to emerge totally though.

“You know, New Year’s Hunt is Thursday.” Wanting to reach down and pet the glossy head, Sister restrained herself. “Oh, what a hunt that always is. It’s the last of the High Holy Days, so everyone will be decked out in their finest, regardless of the temperature. The horses will be braided. Some of the field will be so hung over they’ll glow green.” She laughed. “But if they don’t make it, they are tormented until the next New Year’s Hunt by everyone else who pulled themselves together to brave all. Inky, I don’t know why people drink like they do. A glass of champagne or a good single malt scotch now and then, just one, mind you, but anything more,” she shook her head, “damned foolishness. Course, if people want to destroy their bodies, that’s their business, so long as they don’t destroy mine. I look at you and Athena,” she mentioned the huge horned owl who showed little fear of humans because she inspired fear in them, “and our other friends, and you all don’t wreck your bodies. I can’t decide if the human is genetically flawed or has created a society where the pressures are so fierce many folks can’t endure them without a little chemical help. Or maybe it’s both.”

“You all worry about death too much,”the prescient creature said, but it sounded like a soft yap.

Sister couldn’t understand, but she was a country girl, acutely attuned to animals. “Well, sugar, I’m off to feed the reds down by Broad Creek. And I am hunting on New Year’s, weather be damned. The snow will be over by tonight, the roads will be passable, and Tedi and Edward will plow out a fieldso everyone can park. The ground will stay frozen, too. That can be difficult.” She smiled at the beautiful orange–light hazel eyes looking up at her. “We’ll cast down by the covered bridge, so I don’t know which way we’ll go. Anyway, I don’t think you’ll be much bothered. Andthen, dear Inky, the dilettantes will hang up their spurs, winter will deepen, and the balls-to-the-wall gang will stay out. Or should I say the ovaries-to-the-wall? Oh, how I love those January, February, and early March hunts.”

“Sister, you’re looking well, and I wish you a HappyNew Year.”

“Bye-bye, babydoll.” Sister turned, her tracks already half covered in snow, and returned to her bright red ATV.

Inky hopped out, reaching her paw in the canister hole to retrieve the delicious treat.

Sister drove back to the other end of the cornfield, where a rutted road ran into the farm road. It wasn’t plowed out. She would have a long walk to the red fox den. She shouldered a large canister. The two reds, Charlene and Target, lived together and produced many wonderful cubs, most of whom survived, thanks to the care bestowed upon them by Sister and Shaker.

She wormed the foxes on her fixtures once they were old enough—about four months—to ingest wormer. She would stuff freshly killed chickens or sprinkle it over kibble. She and Shaker wormed their foxes on the same schedule as the hounds, once a month, on the first except for whelping season.

When possible, the foxes were trapped and administered a rabies shot—no easy task. Trapping the same fox later for the booster wasn’t easy either, but they tried.

Sister and other Masters of Foxhounds did all in their power to ensure a healthy fox population, but most especially they struggled to break the rabies cycles, which spiked about every seven years. Luckily, foxes didn’t prove to be the vast reservoir of the rabies virus that skunks, silver-haired bats, and raccoons were, but they still came down with this horrible disease. Thanks to Sister’s efforts, the rabies incidence in foxes dropped. Townspeople never thanked foxhunters for their battle against rabies, a battle that benefited them and their pets, but then again, they didn’t know about it. It wasn’t in the nature of foxhunters to advertise.

The French had invented an oral rabies vaccine not yet available in the United States. Sister hoped it would come to the States soon because it would greatly help her and other foxhunters protect foxes. Trapping took skill and some sense. A fox will bite. If she could instead put a pill in chicken or ground meat, it would make Sister’s mission much easier.

The mile walk to Target’s den in the woods winded her. Pushing through the snow sucked up a lot of energy. She placed the canister by the den. Most likely neither Target nor Charlene would pop out and show themselves, but nevertheless they had a decent relationship with their human.

Rarely do a female fox and her mate cohabit. The male may help raise cubs, but he usually has his own place. Still, for whatever reason, these two got along famously, and Target lived with Charlene.

Sister mused on this. When one reads books about foxes or other wildlife, the information is usually correct. But in nature, as in human society, there are always exceptions that prove the rule. In truth, humans knew much less about foxes than about other animals. Considered vermin by state governments, they weren’t studied. The sheer adaptability of foxes—their high intelligence and omnivorous appetite— meant the fox could change quickly, do whatever it had to do to survive. Then, too, foxes didn’t read books about their supposed behavior. They were free to do as they pleased without fretting over breaking the norm.

“All right, you two,” Sister called to the reds, “this will get you through the next week. I’ll be coming your way Thursday. You might consider showing yourselves.”

“Maybe,”Target, huge at sixteen pounds, barked.

Sister turned back. The snow was even thicker now, heavier, and she’d have to stick to the last cut cornrow to find her way.

Sister’s senses, sharper and deeper, connected her to her quarry as well as her horses and hounds; in a profound sense, she was closer to certain species of animals, closer than she was to most people.

Some believed that those who exhibited this unusual closeness had experienced a childhood trauma and that such animal lovers are unable to love or trust other people. But Jane Arnold grew up in a loving home in central Virginia. Her friends were the bedrock of her life. In 1974, when her son died at fourteen, and, in 1991, when Big Ray, her husband, died of emphysema, her many friends and the animals pulled her through.

Her son, Ray Jr., also called“Rayray” by the Musketeers, would have been in his forties now. Odd to think of him as middle-aged. His friends had grown older, but Ray Jr. stayed a teenager. She thought of her son every day. Sorrow had long ago burned off. What remained was a love that lifted her up. She did not talk about this. After all, most people are wrapped up in their own lives. She didn’t begrudge anyone his or her self-interest. And to speak of love beyond the grave, how might one discuss such a thing?

A grave claims the body, but love will triumph over it. Love is the force of life, and of life after life.

Sister brushed off the ATV’s seat, climbed on, turned the key, and headed back to the farm. She’d fed the foxes closest to the farm on the eastern side. Shaker was feeding those on the western side. The people who lived on hunt fixtures, those locations where the club chased foxes, would be out today or tomorrow withfood for their foxes. Even the people who didn’t ride took care of their foxes. If someone couldn’t do it, all they need do was call Sister and she’d make arrangements for the welfare of those foxes.

She parked her ATV in the equipment shed. Smoke hung low over Shaker’s chimney. She walked over and knocked on the door.

“’Mon in,” he called.

She stepped inside.“What do you think?”

They’d worked together for two decades. He knew what she was asking.

“I think we’ll have a good New Year’s Day. But you might want to cancel Tuesday and make it up later.”

“I’ve been turning that over in my mind. I’ll put it on the huntline,” she said, referring to the club’s phone number, which people call to get messages about the day’s activities.

“I don’t think the back roads will be plowed out, and Tuesday’s hunt is over at Chapel Cross. That’s a haul under the best of circumstances. Guess I’ll call the Vajays.”

The Vajays, a wealthy family originally from northern India, were enthusiastic supporters of the Jefferson Hunt. They owned Chapel Cross and would need to be informed of the change in plans.

“Take off your coat, boss. I’ll make coffee.”

“Oh Shaker, thanks, but I’d prefer a hot chocolate. You and I haven’t had a minute to catch up. Christmas makes us all nuts. Thank God we don’t do Boxing Day.”

Boxing Day, December 26, was a big hunt day for some American clubs and for all the clubs in Great Britain.

“Got a white Christmas this year, though. Made everyone happy.”

“Yes.” She hung her coat on a wall peg, opened the outside front door, and shook off her cowboy hat. After she closed the door, she stamped her boots, untying and removing them. Her stocking feet felt the coolness of the uneven-width heart pine floorboards.

“Someone needs to darn her socks.” Shaker pointed to a hole in her left sock.

She sighed.“I haven’t bought new clothes in years. Jeans, hunt clothing, but no real clothes. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I actually like clothes.”

“No time to shop.” He put on a pot of hot water. She joined him in the small kitchen.

Shaker, a tidy person, liked to entertain. His wife, who had left him four years earlier, had always pulled social events together. When they were together, the dependency was regularly filled with people and laughter. But Mindy, much as she admired her husband, found the long hours of a huntsman and his total dedication to the hounds displeasing. She needed more attention and more money. She left him for a well-off man in Fauquier County. By all reports, she was happy. She was also driving a BMW 540i.

Shaker put out a box of cookies. They sat down.

Sister reached for a sugar cookie.“Before I forget, neither Alice nor Lorraine is particularly a strong woman. Once the snow stops, we ought to go over there tomorrow and see what needs to be done. You can fire up Alice’s tractor and plow. I’ll feed the chickens and dig out the house.”

Alice Ramy studied at Virginia Tech three days a week. She rented and shared her farm with Lorraine Rasmussen and her daughter, Sari—a good arrangement for all.

“Sure. Call and see if they need anything. We can bring it over.”

“Okay.” She drank her hot chocolate, happy that Shaker hadn’t figured out her hidden agenda concerning Lorraine Rasmussen.

She loved the concreteness of men, particularly Shaker. However, they often missed subtle emotional signs. He was lonely. A good man, he would never be rich or even middle class. But Shaker loved what he did, and he was good at it. That counted for a lot in life.

With the right kind of setting and a little help from friends, Shaker might discover Lorraine Rasmussen and vice versa.

CHAPTER 4

The snow still fell in the Sunday twilight, shrouding the imposing stone pillars to Beasley Hall. The tusks of the two exquisitely rendered bronze boars, now covered in white, glowed even fiercer in the bluish light.

These boars had cost $25,000 apiece when Crawford Howard purchased them eleven years ago. An arrival from Indiana, Crawford made a fortune building strip malls throughout his home state. Upon visiting Monticello in his early thirties, he’d fallen in love with central Virginia. Once he made enough to feel truly secure, he moved to the area and promptly became a member of the Jefferson Hunt. This was complicated somewhat by the fact that he couldn’t ride the hair of a horse. Determination and ego kept him taking lessons foryears until he finally edged up from the Hilltoppers to First Flight. Not everyone in First Flight welcomed his graduation, for, although he could usually keep the horse between his legs, he knew precious little about foxhunting.

A man of many vanities, he endured liposuction, a face-lift, and hair plugs. Yet, Crawford had good qualities. Highly intelligent, he was not bound by the Virginia Code: a complex ritual of behavior rivaling the eighteenth-century courts of Europe. Upon reflection, Virginia was still in the eighteenth century. Of all the southern states, Virginia and South Carolina were the strongest in their labyrinthine codes. Crawford thought outside the code, and sometimes even his good ideas and insights ruffled feathers. Sister Jane, herself a product of the code, squelched her distaste and listened to him. Being a good leader, Sister knew you used the material at hand.

At first Crawford couldn’t stand Jane Arnold. She could ride like a demon. He hated being physically shown up by a woman, especially one nearly twenty-five years older than himself. She circled around problems and people instead of striking straight to the heart of the issue, which drove him crazy. Unless she was dealing with someone extremely close to her, Sister took her time, stepped lightly, and tried to help antagonists save face. In time, he learned to respect her methods just as she learned to respect his.

This gave rise to Crawford’s greatest vanity; he desperately wanted to be joint-master. It was apparent to all that Sister must take on a joint-master to train for the day when she would be riding with the Lord. She was dragging her heels.

Crawford thought Jane Arnold did not wish to share power. Well, yes and no. She needed the right person, one whom the other members—all of them strong people and opinionated—would respect. She also wanted a true hunting master.

Putting MFH behind a man or woman’s name could turn him or her into an insufferable grandee. Crawford could be plenty insufferable as it was.

His wealth was a crowbar. Sooner or later he would pry open the old girl. He was counting on it. It fed his drive, shored up his patience, propelled him to build an expensive showgrounds with a grandstand on acres donated by the Bancrofts, who had even more money than Crawford, which irked him. In a flash of brilliance, he named the grandstand in honor of Raymond Sr., and the ring—a beautiful thing with perfect footing—after Ray Jr.

He didn’t think of this himself. His wife, Marty, helped him. The idle town gossips said she was with him because of his money. Anyone who doesn’t comprehend the importance of money is a born fool, but Marty, during a public affair of Crawford’s and their separation, had acted with dignity. In the end, this meant more to Crawford than anything else. She could have stuck him up, kept them in court for years, and curdled whatever joy might be possible with someone else. She did not upbraid him for his affair. In fact, she never mentioned it. The Virginians, in their overweening pride, felt that Marty Howard acted as “a lady of quality”—which is to say, as a Virginian. Martywasa lady of quality. Apparently, they breed them in Indiana as well as Virginia.

Marty actually loved Crawford. She knew underneath his terrible need for show and power, and his fear of losing his sex appeal, beat the heart of a good man. His ways might offend, but he truly was on the side of the angels. She had loved him from the day they met at the University of Indiana in Bloomington.

Without recognizing it, Crawford gave clues to his inner life. When Sister Jane first beheld the imposing, ferocious boars atop the equally imposing pillars, she said to Crawford,“The Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III, had just such boars as his emblem.”

Before she could continue, Crawford jumped in,“1483 to 1485. Yes, he’s a bit of a hero of mine because I believe he was faithful to the crown. When his brother, King Edward, died, the Woodvilles tried to take over England. They were commoners—grasping, greedy—but, well, Edward had to have her. And by God, she was queen. Civil war seemed unavoidable, even though Richard was named protector until the eldest son, just a boy, could inherit. He was an able administrator, a good warlord. From his estate at Middleham in Yorkshire, he was forever driving back the Scots. He was a strong king, but so many suspicions were planted against him, many by the Woodvilles and their supporters.”

Sister, upon hearing this, was not surprised that Crawford knew history. She smiled.“I always thought his biggest mistake was not in killing the princes in the Tower, if indeed he did, but in dispensing with the Earl of Warwick, his cousin. Richard Neville was more than a cousin, he was Richard III’s right arm.”

This discussion and recognition built the first bridge between Sister and Crawford. Impressed that she read history and had a real sense of the swing of power, he wondered whether perhaps there was more to her than a hard-riding, handsome old broad.

For her part, Sister sensed that Crawford was a kind of Richard III, a man of tremendous ability and loyalty whose ambition was not naturally destructive. Like Richard, Crawford lacked the outward conviviality of Edward IV, whom Richard succeeded and mourned.

As years rolled by, Sister made a point now and then to invite Crawford for coffee, just the two of them. She would also have Crawford and Marty to small dinners, carefully selecting her guests, never more than eight.

In time, older hunt club members did their best to get along with Crawford because of Sister’s example. And he did siphon money into the treasury, for which every single member was grateful, even Bobby Franklin, the president, and Bobby couldn’t abide the man.

Bobby Franklin would say, sotto voce, that one of the happiest days of his life was when Crawford moved up from the Hilltoppers to First Flight. Poor Bobby. As Master of Hilltoppers, he had to handle green horses, green riders, or, the worst of the worst: a green horse dealing with a green rider. Bobby’s sympathies rested with the horse. By the time people made it to First Flight, Bobby, a font of hunting lore, had drummed the basics into their heads.

Crawford looked out the window from his beautiful living room decorated by Colefax and Fowler. The decorating bill for the living room alone amounted to $275,000. Naturally, his estate had been featured in decorating magazines on both sides of the Atlantic.

In Virginia, money whispers. For Crawford, it shouted. He couldn’t help it. Marty tempered him a bit, but his need for display usually won out.

“Well, the goddamned Weather Channel has it wrong yet again.” He tapped his manicured forefinger against the cold windowpane.

Marty walked over.“Here.”

He gratefully took the brandy snifter and sipped the warming, delicious cognac.“Rituals of pleasure.”

She smiled.“Perfect coffee in the morning; a strong cup of tea at four in the afternoon; and brandy at twilight in the winter, a cool Tom Collins in the summer.”

“Hot kisses at bedtime.” He wrapped one arm around her waist. “Bet Tuesday’s hunt will be canceled. I was sorry that Sorrel Buruss canceled tonight’s cocktail party, but only you and I could have gotten there.”

He had recently bought a Hummer II and thought he could drive up Everest with it. His daily driver was a metallic red Mercedes S500. Crawford eschewed the other Mercedes: M’s, C’s, and E’s. A real Mercedes was an S or an SL, and that was that. Marty sensibly drove a Subaru Outback and was quite happy with it, even though Crawford wanted to buy her a Toyota Land Cruiser.

“Hot kisses? I’ll drink to that.” Marty touched her glass to his and took a sip.

“Hard to believe it’s almost the New Year. Honey, I’ve been thinking. I swore when we moved here I would retire—”

“Managing your investments is a full-time job.”

“It’s not enough for me.”

“Darling, you’re on the Board of Governors of the Jefferson Hunt Club, the board for Mercy Hospital, the national board for Save Our Farmland. You do so much even I lose track, and I’m pretty good with details.” She flattered him. “And let’s not forget that you are treasurer for the Republican Party in this county and, I expect, sweetie, will be tapped for that job for the state.”

“I don’t think they’ll put a non-Richmonder in that slot,” he replied.

“Oh, yes, they will. You’re smarter than all of them, and you have great connections out of the state. But,” she sighed a mock sigh, “I know you. What are you planning now? What world will you conquer?”

“First things first: I will be joint-master this year. The hunt selects the master on Valentine’s Day. A funny little tradition. Most hunts do it May first, unless they’re private packs, of course. February’s Board of Governors meeting is February eighteenth, so Sister Jane will have to make her decision by January’s board meeting, the twenty-first.”

“You’ll be a wonderful master.” Marty kept to herself that she thought immediate chances of this honor were slim.

He stared out the window. The snow, a white curtain, obscured even the English boxwoods lining the curving front walkway to the columned portico.

“This has been some kind of winter.” He took another sip. “Let’s sit by the fire. I like to look at you in the firelight.”

She kissed his cheek. They walked to the overstuffed sofa, squeezing side by side as the flames, orange, red, a hint of blue, cast warmth.

“Honey, how do you think Sam Lorillard is working out?”

He put his snifter down, stretched his hands. His joints hurt.“So far, so good. Too early to really tell.”

“Fairy thinks there will be trouble in the hunt field with Sam.”

Fairy Partlow kept the Howards’ foxhunters in tune. In her late twenties, she had proven surprisingly capable and reliable.

He exhaled through his nostrils.“Reminds me. I forgot to give the club money for Sam to ride as a groom. I’ll check with Sister.”

“Fairy hasn’t been out in two weeks. Hunting, I mean,” she said.

Fairy rode as a groom, a policy most hunt clubs use to include stable help employed by wealthier members. As a rule, the grooms rode better than their employers and were helpful in the field, as they rode in the rear.

“Well, now that Sam’s here, and I’ve hired Roger Davis to help out with the horses, maybe she can hunt more. But this damned weather has got us all holed up.” He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Hunt field is the best place to bring young chasers. Sam needs to hunt, too.”

Crawford, having talked to old-timers in the steeplechase world, thought he’d stick to the tried-and-true ways of the past, although many a modern owner and trainer no longer did.

Eager to make a bigger mark, he was purchasing young steeplechase and hunter prospects, hence his recent hiring of Sam.

“Fairy says over the years Sam has worked for members of the club and fallen foul of some of them.”

“Oh, these damned Virginians never forget a thing. That’s ancient history.”

“If someone sleeps with your wife, I doubt it ever becomes ancient history,” she quietly said.

His eyebrows rose.“Oh. Who did Sam sleep with?”

“Henry Xavier’s Dee. Ronnie Haslip told me in confidence. That Ronnie knows everyone and everything.”

“Really?”

“And the list goes on, of women I mean.”

“Hmm.” He dropped his chin for a moment, thought, then raised it. “He’s gone through rehab. He goes to AA meetings at least five nights a week. There has to be some forgiveness in the world.” Crawford did believe in forgive but never forget.

“Hopefully.”

“Can’t understand how those women fell for him. He’s a bandy-legged, skinny little thing. Nice color though.”

Caf? au lait was Sam’s coloring.

“He was younger then. Alcohol ravages even the most beautiful. Think of Errol Flynn or William Holden.”

“Mmm. Too far back for me.”

She lightly punched him.“You’ll pay for that.”

“How about now?” He pulled her to him, kissing her.

“What a good idea.”

CHAPTER 5

“Are you doing this to irritate me?”Delia, mother of the D litters, crossly said to Trudy, a racy second-year entry.

“No,”the young hound replied as they walked through the snow. The humans accompanied them on foot this Tuesday morning.

Sister, Shaker, Betty, and Sybil Bancroft—she’d taken back her maiden name—each wearing warm boots, marveled at the beauty of this crisp morning.

The snow did not stop Sunday night as predicted, but floated down throughout Monday, finally ending late Monday night. The road crews in Virginia, more accustomed to dealing with flooding conditions or old macadam roads bubbling up in fierce heat, worked twenty-four hours even in the storm to keep the interstates open. Given that Virginia generally gets far less snow than upstate New York, the state budget allowed for the purchase of only a small number of snowplows. Close to the mountains it snowed more regularly, so the state, and it was a good plan, sold the work out to local people. Anyone with a snowplow attachment to a heavy-duty truck, a bulldozer, or even a big old dump truck could earn some extra money during the storms. The dump trucks followed the plows. As the snow would be scraped up and piled to the side, the dump truck driver would slowly release a load of sand. Sometimes salt would be mixed in with the sand, wreaking havoc on the underbodies of older cars and trucks.

Unless more snow fell, or, worse, the temperature climbed and it rained, the New Year’s Hunt would go off without a hitch. And it would be beautiful, given the snow.

All the hounds that were not in season or were puppies came out on hound walk today. Sister and Shaker wanted to see if anyone was footsore or not moving properly. Both master and huntsman bordered on the fanatical concerning hound care. The Jefferson Hunt pack of American foxhounds enjoyed robust health, shining coats, and clean teeth. Their monthly expenses ran at about $1,500, give or take a few hundred, depending on special events such as a whelping difficulty, which would entail a veterinary bill.

Sister Jane’s kennel standards were so high she was often cited as a model by other hunts. Individuals hoping to start a pack of foxhounds made the journey to see her kennels and hounds. They came from as far as California.

The pack knew they were splendid. Even on hound walk they moved in long fluid strides, brimming with confidence, bright eyes, and cheerful demeanors. This was a happy pack.

However, at this exact moment, Delia wasn’t happy. She feared being left in the kennel for New Year’s Hunt due to her age. While indeed the territory was demanding, her conformation was so good, her lung capacity and heart girth perfect, that she showed no signs of breaking down. Still, she had slowed a little, and Dragon, Dasher, and Diana, her third-year litter, pushed up front. Last year’s litter—now in their first year, Darby, Doughboy, Dreamboat, Dana, Delight, and Diddy—also possessed speed, as well as their mother’s power of endurance.

Trudy, also quite fast, was walking next to Delia. She bumped the older hound by accident, turning around to see what Betty Franklin was laughing about. A young hound didn’t bump into an older hound without repercussion; the older hound took this as a challenge to authority. Kennel fights could be started with less provocation. Fortunately this pack had few of those.

“You mind your manners,”Delia growled.

The other hounds knew not to respond, even Dragon, a real smartass. While Delia was not the head bitch, she was older, and the other hounds knew their place. Cora, the head bitch, lorded it over everyone. She used her power wisely, but no one except for the firstyear entry, who weren’t born yet, would forget the hunt when Dragon disobeyed her: she bumped him so hard he fell on his side, and then she sat right on him. When he struggled to get up, she threw him down again, this time with her jaws on his throat. Dragon deserved it, and he might challenge other hounds, but he had yet to challenge Cora again. That reminder of who was boss kept the rest of the season running smoothly.

Above Cora on the ladder of authority were Shaker and Sister. The hounds respected the two whippers-in, but didn’t necessarily think those two humans were pack leaders. Sometimes it was hard for the pack to remember that Sister and Shaker were humans. To the hounds, they were flawed hounds on two legs, yet possessing special gifts such as better sight during daylight.

The going would be tough on Thursday, so Sister and Shaker closely watched hounds. No one with even a slight crack in his or her pad could go out since they would be crossing icy creeks. Better not to take a chance of cutting open a crack. Any hound who was a bit weedy wouldn’t be going out. On a day like Thursday might be, some slim hounds ran off every bit of extra fat they had, and Sister didn’t want that. If a hound ran off too much weight during the season, it was hard to put it back on until the off-season. She monitored weight daily. All her hounds enjoyed good lung capacity, but Delia, well built, was older, as was Asa and a few others. Steady and true as they were, and therefore worth their weight in gold, Sister was indeed considering keeping them in the kennel on this particular High Holy Day.

A good hound cries, whines, howls when it sees the rest of the pack go to the draw pen. It’s like a quarterback being benched.

Each branch and bough, the sunken lane, the top of the ridge, sparkled with a million tiny rainbows as the sun rose. First the snows were blue, then pink, then orange to scarlet, and finally white, with the rainbows dazzling everyone.

Athena, wings close to her body, dozed in a blue spruce. Her nest wasn’t far, but she didn’t feel like going inside just yet. She opened one golden eye, peering down at the hounds and humans, then she closed it. Athena, over two feet high, occasionally worked with the foxes. As they flushed game on the ground, she’d swoop down and snatch up a mouse. She would sometimes tell the groundlings where mice, rabbits, and other creatures moved about. She didn’t make a habit of it, though. She preferred working alone.

Sometimes Bitsy, the little screech owl, now residing in Sister’s barn, flew alongside her. Athena could tolerate Bitsy only until she let out one of her hideous screeches, which the little bird thought so melodious. Tin ear.

Cora caught a whiff of Athena. No point mentioning it. Owl wasn’t game. And it wouldn’t do to get on the bad side of Athena.

They walked a mile west, then turned back. The return was easier since they didn’t have to break snow.

Asa moved up alongside Delia.“What do you think?”

“They need us,”she answered.“If Sister and Shakerput in too many of the T litter, they’ll be toast. Thoseyoung’uns haven’t settled yet.”

On hearing this, Trident couldn’t help but protest.“We’vedone really, really good.”

“Oh? I recall during cubbing that you wanted to track askunk.”Asa chuckled.

“No fair. My first real hunt.”Trident, handsome, with unusually light eyes, didn’t appreciate the reminder.

The other hounds giggled.

“They love the snow,” Betty said, smiling, upon hearing the low chatter among the pack.

“That they do. Much rather be out in this than those hot September mornings,” Sybil agreed.

“I start at seven, and it’s boiling by eight.” Sister, on the front left corner, chimed in.

“Summer in Virginia can stretch into November sometimes,” Shaker said.

“Not this year.” Betty laughed. “I can’t remember this much snow. In 1969 we had a lot, or maybe we didn’t. Maybe I just remember it because it snowed like blazes on Easter.”

“No one could get to church.” Sybil, too, remembered. She had been in grade school.

“We’ve been lucky this year.” Sister paid a lot of attention to the weather. “This was our fourth year of drought. Without the wet fall and snow to date, I think we’d all be cooked this summer. My well has never run dry and Broad Creek has never run dry, but I think it would have happened this summer without this rain and snow.”

“I remember the first time I traveled out west,” said Sybil. “Mom and Dad sent Nola and me to a dude ranch in Sheridan, Wyoming. Loved it. But that’s where I learned the history of the West is the history of the battle for water. They killed one another for it in the nineteenth century. Drought is a part of their history. Pretty rare here.”

“Westerners kill one another with SUVs instead of six-guns.” Betty laughed.

“That’s California.” Sybil smiled. “Wyoming, they drive trucks just like us.”

“Beautiful place, parts of it.” Sister, like Sybil, loved the West, including the Canadian West. She bore a deep respect for Canadians.

They turned into the kennels. Sister, Betty, and Sybil watched as the hounds bounded into the draw yard, to be separated there into the bitch yards and the dog yards.

“Well?” Betty’s light eyebrows quizzically shot upward.

“Given conditions, I think I’d better leave first entry in the kennels. It’s a lot to handle: all those people. I really shouldn’t have taken out those two couple for Christmas Hunt. I mean, even though the field is behind the hounds— God willing.” They laughed because dumb stuff does happen. “All the excitement is pretty overwhelming for a young hound.”

“Our hounds are high. No doubt about that.” Sybil said this with pride. While a high pack is harder to handle, Sybil believed they showed much better sport, as did everyone else on staff.

This was not a belief shared by every foxhunter. The four types of foxhound—American, English, Crossbred (a cross between the American and English hound), and the Penn-Marydel hound—reflected different philosophies of hunting, as well as adaptation to different climates and terrain.

American hounds possessed high drive, sensitive temperaments, and good noses. They were often racy-looking, although the old American bloodlines might have heavy bones.

Added to the hounds used for mounted hunting were foxhounds for foot hunting or night hunting: Walkers, Triggs, even Redbones and Blueticks could do the job if trained for fox scent. These, too, were wonderful canines, each displaying special characteristics.

Such a wealth of canines created passionate discussions about which hounds are best for what. Foxhunters and all Southerners learned as children that you can criticize a man’s wife and children before you can say word one about his hounds.

Although loath to admit it, Sister, too, fell into that slightly fanatical category. She kept her mouth shut about it, but she was devoted, passionate, even rapturous about the American foxhound, especially those carrying the Bywaters bloodline. This didn’t mean she wouldn’t listen to other hound people, and she had ridden behind packs of other breeds that would have made any master proud. But she loved the American foxhound with her heart and soul.

“Okay, boss,” Shaker called from the draw yard.

The hounds, bellies full, retired to their respective runs for sleep or conversation.

Sister, Betty, and Sybil joined Shaker in the small toasty kennel office. Sister sat on the edge of the desk, Shaker leaned against the refrigerator, Sybil and Betty perched on the old office chairs.

“Coffee?” Shaker offered.

“God, yes.” Betty rose and poured herself a cup from the eternally percolating pot. She blinked, realized she’d forgotten her manners, and handed the cup to Sybil, who laughed at her.

“Okay, this is what I think. First year in the kennels. We can take all the second-year entry, and I’m still debating about our oldest hounds.” Sister thought a moment, then spoke a bit more rapidly. “Unless there’s a big change in the weather or injury, let’s take Delia, Asa, and the few older citizens. I don’t think we’re going to have a four-hour hunt in the snow on Thursday. I really don’t. And this will be their last High Holy Day; they need to retire after this season.”

“I have dibs on Asa.” Sybil held up her hand.

“After cubbing. I’ll need them with me to start our next year’s entry, but he’d be happy to grace your hearth.”

“He’ll hunt,” Shaker mentioned.

“Oh, well, he can hunt to his heart’s content. All the foxes at the farm will hear him coming.”

They would indeed, for Asa had the voice of a basso profundo.

“Do you want me to come over to the kennels?” Sybil inquired.

“No. We’re hunting from your farm. Might as well stay there. We’ll meet you at the party wagon.” Sister called the hound trailer—a refitted horse trailer—the party wagon.

“Hope it’s a good go.” Sybil’s eyes brightened.

“Hope it’s a good year.” Betty laughed.

“If we’re all together, we’re healthy, the hounds are healthy, it’s going to be a banner year.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Shaker held up his coffee mug.

The others followed suit, touching one another’s mugs.

CHAPTER 6

Thursday morning, New Year’s Day, when Sister awoke at her accustomed five-thirty, a low cloud cover hinted more snow was on the way. Darkness enveloped the farm. The thermometer outside Sister’s bedroom window read thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit.

When the sun rose two hours later, the cloud cover remained. This was going to be an interesting day: the ground was hard, icy in spots, and the snow hard packed to about a foot and a half. Sister could smell more moisture coming.

In the winter most Virginia hunts meet at ten. As the earth tipped her axis and more light floods the rolling pastures and woodlands, that time is pushed up to nine, often by mid-February.

New Year’s Hunt, however, begins at eleven: a concession to the rigors of braiding and the struggle to sober up for many. The later time also allowed the earth to warm a bit more, though today’s cloud cover held in some warmth.

Later that morning, parked to the right of the covered bridge at Tedi and Edward Bancroft’s After All Farm, the hounds peered out of the party wagon. They saw some people blowing on fingers as they slipped on polished bridles, while others repaired unruly horse braids or tried for the umpteenth time to force their stock tie pin level across their bright white or ecru stock ties.

The most fashionable of hunters, and this was unrelated to wealth, wore a fourfold tie on formal hunting days. Occasionally, they might wear a shaped tie, but on the High Holy Days, one wouldn’t dream of anything but the fourfold tie. For one thing, it looked better. For another, it kept one’s neck warmer. These good features did not make the tie any easier to work with. Many a foxhunter expanded his or her vocabulary of abuse while fumbling.

The High Holy Days required members and horses to look their best. In the old days of hunting when agricultural labor, indeed all labor, was less costly, people came to every formal hunt with their horses’ manes braided. They usually came with two horses. Their groom kept the second horse at the ready to be switched halfway through the hunt. Then, also, many hunts enjoyed a brief repast while members switched horses. Those days had vanished.

Most foxhunters worked for a living. They prepared their horses themselves, and braiding sucked up time as well as patience. At the Jefferson Hunt Club, braiding was now required only for Opening Hunt, Thanksgiving Hunt, Christmas Hunt, and New Year’s Hunt. Many older hunt clubs wished their members to braid for a meet with another hunt, but few could enforce this. It was seen as a tip of the cap to the visiting hunt, a form of respect and welcome.

With the exception of Tedi, Edward, Sybil, Crawford, Marty, Sister, Betty, and Shaker, everyone present had braided their own horses. As master and huntsman, Sister and Shaker had Lafayette and Hojo braided by Jennifer Franklin, who also did her mother’s horse, Outlaw. Of course she held it over her mother. At seventeen Jennifer could be forgiven.

On New Year’s Hunt, Sister Jane wore her shadbelly: a black swallowtail coat, exactly as one sees in the nineteenth-century prints. The canary points of her vest peeked out underneath the front, perfectly proportioned. Her top hat glistened, the black cord fastened to the hook inside the coat collar in back. Her breeches, a thin buckskin, were much like what Washington himself wore when he hunted. Over the years they had softened to a warm patina: once canary, they were now almost buff.

For years, people could no longer find buckskin. Then Marion Maggiolo, proprietor of Horse Country in Warrenton, found someone in Europe to make them. One pair of breeches could last a lifetime, justifying the stiff price of six hundred and some odd dollars.

For Christmas, the members had all chipped in and bought Sister a new pair of buckskin breeches. Betty drove up with her to Warrenton to be properly fitted, and Sister couldn’t wait for their arrival.

Crawford, of course, flashed about in his impeccably cut scarlet weaselbelly. His properly scarlet hat cord, a devil to find these days, hung from his top hat, the crown of which was about a half inch higher than that worn by a lady. Both top hats slightly and gracefully curved into the brim. Like a red hat cord for a man, a lady’s proper top hat was a deuce to find. Given the difficulty in finding the real thing—it could take years—many women gave up, donning dressage top hats. No one was critical, and although they didn’t look quite as lovely, they still looked good.

Leather gloves were soft canary or butter. Along with leather gloves, a pair of string gloves were under the horse’s girth. These warm gloves helped riders keep the reins from slipping through their fingers if it rained or snowed. Then, if necessary, riders would tuck their leather gloves in their pocket or under their girth and pull out the string gloves, which were brilliant white or cream.

Men with colors wore boots with a tan top. The ladies with colors wore boots with a patent leather black top. Everyone else wore butcher boots, usually with the Spanish cut—meaning the outside part of the boot covering the calf was longer than the inside portion. Butcher boots had no tops. All boots were polished to such a feverish degree that one could see one’s reflection.

The spurs, hammerheads or Prince of Wales, also sparkled, even with cloud cover.

Fabulous as people looked—some wearing hunt caps, a few others in derbies, which were proper with frock coats—the horses trumped them all. Chestnuts gleamed like flame, and bays glowed with a rich patina. Seal brown horses and blood bays, not often seen, caught everyone’s eye. A blood bay is a deep red with black mane and tail. It’s a beautiful color, as is a flea-bitten gray or a dappled gray. A few of these were present, as well as some of those dark brown horses that appear black to the human eye.

Henry Xavier had mounted his paint, Picasso—a large warmblood—to account for his increasing weight. Dr. Walter Lungrun was so resplendent in his tails, black rather than scarlet, that women swooned when they beheld the blond doctor. He was on a new horse he’d purchased in the summer, Rocketman, a big-boned, old-fashioned thoroughbred bay with a zigzag streak down his nose. Clemson, Walter’s tried and true, went out with him on informal days.

The horses were bursting with excitement, for the morning was cool and they liked that. In many ways, they reflected their owners’ skill, status in the hunt field, and, in some cases, dreams. Hunt fields always have those members who are overmounted, members who want desperately to be dashing on a gorgeous horse. Usually they’re dashed to the ground. Sooner or later, such folks realize what kind of horse they truly need. Pretty is as pretty does. If not, they stalk away from foxhunting with grumbles about how dangerous it is and how stupid their horse is. It’s not the horse that’s stupid.

Hunting is dangerous. However, the adrenaline rush, the challenge, the overwhelming majesty of the sport, the sheer beauty of it get in a rider’s blood. Those who foxhunt can’t imagine living without it; even the danger adds spice.

Life itself is dangerous, but millions of Americans in the twenty-first century are so fearful of it that they retreat into cocoons of imagined safety. Small wonder obesity is a problem and psychologists are thriving.

Humans need some danger, need to get their blood up.

It was up at eleven. The field was large even with the cold. Seventy-one riders faced the master.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the hounds and I wish you a Happy New Year. We wish you health, prosperity, and laughter. May you take all your fences in style, may your foxes be straight-necked, and may your horse be one of your best friends.

“Shaker, Betty, Sybil, and I are grateful that so many of you have turned out, looking as though you’ve stepped out of a Snaffles’ drawing, on this cold day. The footing will be dicey, but you’ve ridden through worse.

“Tedi and Edward invite us all to breakfast at the main house after the hunt. Do remember to thank them for continuing the wonderful tradition of New Year’s Hunt here at After All Farm.

“Let’s see what the fox has in store for us.” She looked to Shaker, cap in hand. “Hounds, please.”

He clapped his cap on his head, tails down (for he was staff). Whistling to the pack, he turned along Snake Creek, which flowed under the covered bridge.

Huntsman and hounds rode up the rise, passed the gravesite of Nola Bancroft, Tedi and Edward’s daughter, who had perished in her twenties. She was buried alongside her favorite mount, Peppermint, who, by contrast, lived to thirty-four. This peaceful setting, bound by a stonewall, seemed especially poignant covered in the snow.

Betty, first whipper-in, rode on the left at ten o’clock. Sybil, second whipper-in, rode at two o’clock. The side on which they rode did not reflect their status so much as it reflected where Shaker wanted them on that particular day at the particular fixture. He usually put Betty on the left though.

Sam Lorillard and Gray also rode out today. How exciting to have Gray back in the field. Crawford had requested Sam to ride as a groom, and Sister had given permission.

The edges of Snake Creek were encrusted with ice, offering scant scent unless a fox had just trotted over. Shaker moved along the low ridge parallel to the creek. An eastern meadow about a quarter of a mile down the bridle path held promise of scent. The sun, despite being hidden behind the clouds, might have warmed the eastern meadows and slopes.

Once into the meadow, a large expanse of white beckoned.

Delia advised her friends,“Take care, especially on themeadow’s edge. Our best chance is there because the rabbits will have come out on the edge of the wood and meadows. All foxes like rabbits. Our other chance for scenttoday is if we get into a cutover cornfield. Fox will come infor the gleanings.”

Asa, also wise in his years, agreed.“Indeed, and foxeswill be hungry. I think we’ll have a pretty good day.”

Trudy, in the middle of the pack and still learning the ropes in her second year, inquired,“But Shaker’s beencomplaining about the temperature and the snow. He sayssnow doesn’t hold scent.”

“Shaker is a human, honey. His nose is only good toperch spectacles on. If there’s even a whiff of fox, we’ll find it.”Asa’s voice resonated with such confidence that Trudy put her nose down and went to work.

The hounds diligently worked the meadow for twenty minutes, moving forward, ever forward, but to no avail.

Trudy’s, Trident’s, Tinsel’s, and Trinity’s brows all furrowed.

Delia encouraged them.“Nobody said it would be easytoday, but be patient. I promise you: the foxes have beenout and about.”She said“out and about” with the Tidewater region’s long “o.”

“Yes, ma’am,”the T’s responded.

Cora, as strike hound, moved ten yards ahead. Her mind raced. She’d picked up an old trail, but discarded it. No point yapping about a fading line. Her knowledge and nose were so good Cora could tell when a line would pay off, when it would heat up. She never opened unless she had a good line. Some hounds blabbed if they evenimaginedfox scent. Those hounds were not found in the Jefferson Hunt pack. Cora couldn’t abide a hound that boohooed every time it caught a little scent.

“Mmm.”She wagged her stern.

Dragon noticed. He hurried right over, but dared not push Cora. She’d lay him out right there in front of everybody, and then she’d get him again on the way home in the party wagon. He tempered his aggressiveness. Now he, too, felt his nostrils fill with the faint but intensifying scent of gray dog fox.

Diana trotted up, swinging the pack with her as she intently watched Cora. She could bank on Cora, her mentor.

The hounds, excited but still mute, moved faster, their sterns moving faster as well.

Sister checked her girth.

“Ah, ha, I knew it!”Cora triumphantly said.“A suitor.”

She and the others usually recognized the scent of the fox they chased, but this was a stranger, a gray fox courting a little early, but then foxes display their own logic. The common wisdom is that grays begin mating in mid-January, reds at the end of January. But Cora remembered a time when grays mated in mid-December. Just why, she didn’t know. No great storms followed, which could have boxed them up, nor a drought, which would have affected the food supply then and later. All these events could affect mating.

Perhaps this gray simply fell in love.

Whatever, the scent warmed up.

“Showtime!”Cora spoke.

Dragon spoke, then Asa and Delia. Diana steadied the T’s when she, too, sang out and told them to just stick with the pack, stick together.

The whole pack opened. A chill ran down Sister’s spine; Lafayette’s too, his beautiful gray head turned as he watched the hounds.

Those members with a hangover knew they’d need to hang on: when the pack opened like that, they were about to fly.

A thin strip of woods separated the eastern meadow from a plowed cornfield, the stubble visible through the windblown patches. A slight slope rested on the far side of the cornfield. The hounds had gotten away so fast they were already there.

Sister and Lafayette sped to catch them. She tried to stay about twenty yards behind Shaker, depending on the territory. She didn’t want to crowd the pack, but she wanted members to see the hounds work. To Sister, that was the whole reason to hunt: hound work!

The footing in the cornfield kept horses lurching as the furrows had frozen, buried under the snow.

All were glad once that was behind them. A simple three-foot coop rested in the fence line between the cornfield and the hayfield. The bottom half of the coop, where snow piled up, was white.

“Whoopee.”Lafayette pricked his ears forward as he leapt over.

Lafayette so loved jumping and hunting that Sister rarely had to squeeze her legs.

Everyone cleared the coop.

Hounds could hear their claws crack the thin crust of ice on the snow. In a few places they’d sink in to their elbows, throw snow around, and keep going, paying no heed.

Within minutes, the pack clambered over another coop, rushing into a pine stand, part of Edward’s timber operation. The scent grew stronger.

The silence, noticeable in the pines, only accentuated the music of the hounds. As the field moved in, a few boughs, shaken by the thunder of hooves, dusted the riders underneath with snow.

Sam Lorillard felt a handful slide down his neck.

Crawford tried to push up front, but Czpaka wasn’t that fast a horse. Crawford hated being in the middle of the pack, and hereallyhated seeing Walter Lungrun shoot past him on Rocketman.

Jennifer Franklin and Sari Rasmussen giggled as the dustings from the trees covered their faces. Both girls loved hunting, their only complaint being that not enough boys their own age foxhunted.

On and on the hounds roared, turning sharply left, negotiating a fallen tree, then charging through the pines northward, emerging onto the sunken farm road, three feet down, the road used to service an old stone barn in the eighteenth century. The building’s crumbling walls remained. The field abruptly pulled up as hounds tumbled pell-mell over one another to get inside the ruins.

“He’s gone to ground!”Dragon shouted.“Let’s dig himout.”

“Dream on, you nitwit.”A high-pitched voice called out from inside.

“Uncle Yancy, what are you doing here? Where’s thegray?”Cora recognized the small red fox’s voice. He was not pleased with the visitation.

“You could be on a little red Volkswagen for all I know,Cora, but you haven’t been chasing me.”

Shaker dismounted and blew“Gone to ground.”

The hounds loved hearing that series of notes, but Cora, disgruntled to have been so badly fooled, sat down. Where had that gray gone?

“There’s nothing we can do about it,”Dasher advised.

“Oh, yes, there is,”Cora determinedly replied.“I knowthe difference between Uncle Yancy and a stranger. Somehow we got our wires crossed back there in the pines, andwe were all so excited we didn’t pay proper attention.”

Diana said,“Cora, if you’d switched to Uncle Yancy,you would have known.”She walked over and poked her head into the den.“Uncle Yancy, is he in there with you?”

A dry chuckle floated out of the main entrance.“He leftby the back door not ten minutes ago.”

“Damn you, Yancy!”Dragon frantically began searching for the back door of the den, which happened to be outside the walls of the old barn.

The sound of Dragon’s travails made Yancy laugh even harder. Infuriated, Dragon could hear the fox’s mirth. He ran for the opening where a door used to be to get outside the ruins.

“Dragon, come back here and pretend you’re thrilledabout this,”Cora commanded as Shaker finished the notes on his horn.“We can put up the gray once we’re out ofhere.”

And that they did. As soon as Shaker mounted back up, the hounds moved around the outside of the structure.

“Got ’im!”Asa called as he’d found the correct exit. With that he ran north, ever northward, as the scent was nowhot, hot, hoton the cold snow.

Asa lost the line for a moment when they reached a small frozen tributary of Snake Creek, a silver ribbon of ice. Young Trident put them all right when he crashed across the ice, the water running hard underneath, and picked up the scent on the far bank.

The fox zigzagged west. After fifteen minutes of flat-out flying, the pack, the staff, and the field soared over the stone fence, leading into After All’s westernmost pasture. Within minutes, they’d be on Sister’s farm.

Again the fox turned; grays tend to do that. He was running a big figure eight, but the scent stayed hot. The pack, in full cry, ran so close together they were beautiful to behold.

Back over the stone fence, across a narrow strip, over the old hog’s back jump, which looked formidable in the snow. Lost a few people on that one. On and on, then finally Cora skidded to a halt beneath a pin oak, its brown leaves still clinging to the snow-coated tree. Those leaves wouldn’t be released until spring buds finally pushed them off their seal.

Snow spun out from paws as the hounds abruptly put on their brakes.

“Got you!”Cora stood on her hind legs, her forepaws as high on the tree as she could reach.

“He climbed the tree! He climbed the tree!”Trinity was so excited she leapt up and down as though on a pogo stick.“I never saw a fox do that!”

Asa, thrilled but in control, said,“If we get too close,those grays will climb up neat as a cat. Can you see him up there?”

“Yes!”Trinity spotted a pair of angry eyes staring down.

“Go away,”the gray yelled, just as the snow again began to fall, the clouds now dark gray.

“Who are you?”Diana asked.

“Mickey. You should all just go away. Look at it thisway, you need me to come courting, don’t you? Meansmore foxes next year,”he said raffishly.

Shaker handed Showboat’s reins to Betty. He walked up under the tree. “Hey there, fella. Hell of a run.”

“Yeah, well, you can find your pleasures elsewhere,” Mickey barked.

Shaker lavishly praised his hounds for their excellent work, then mounted back up and called them along. He beamed.

The pack, in high gear, cavorted as they turned back east.

“I’ll find another fox!”Dragon bragged.

“You are so full of it,”Ardent, Asa’s brother, growled.“You aren’t the only hound with a nose, and furthermore,I suspect we’re going back.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t run another fox if we find one,” Dragon sassed.

“True.”Cora would have liked another hard run.“Butwe’ve been out an hour and a half, the footing is deep—slippery in spots—and some of the horses are tiring. Sister’ssmart. She’ll end the day on a high note, and we’ll be back at the trailers in twenty minutes. Plus, it’s snowing again.”

“Ever notice how more people get hurt at the end of ahunt than at the beginning?”young Trudy wondered out loud.

“They’re tired, horses and riders, and sometimes they getso excited they don’t realize it. It’s those last stiff jumpsthat will get them if it’s going to happen. It’s New Year,we’ve got until mid-March to hunt. This is a wise decision.”Asa spoke to Trudy.

“Yancy is a cheat.”Dragon switched subjects.

“No, he’s not.”Cora laughed.“If another fox ducksinto his den for cover, Yancy can hide him. But I’m surprised that Uncle Yancy is at those stone barn ruins. He lives closer in.”

“Oh, Uncle Yancy moves about.”Ardent knew the fox, same age as himself.“Changes his hunting territory andgets away from Aunt Netty.”

Aunt Netty, Yancy’s mate, harbored strong opinions and was not averse to expressing them. Yancy, a dreamy sort, liked to watch Shaker through the cottage windows or simply curl up under the persimmon tree. After the first frost when the persimmon fruit sweetened, Yancy would nibble on the small orange globes.

When the hounds returned to the covered bridge, cars, trucks, and SUVs lined the drive for a half-mile up to the house. Some cautious few parked nose out in case they couldn’t get enough traction. This way they could be pulled with one of Edward’s heavy tractors.

New Year’s breakfast attracted nonriders, too. Upon the riders’ return, After All was already filled with people. The event was hosted by social director Sorrel Buruss, who merrily bubbled with laughter and talk. Having Sorrel run the breakfast meant both Tedi and Edward could hunt.

“Well done.” Shaker patted each hound’s head as the animal hopped into the party wagon. Inside this trailer at the rear, a two-tiered wooden platform had been built. A second platform on a level with the lower one on the rear ran alongside the sidewall. This way hounds would climb up or snuggle under a platform and relax. Like humans, they preferred one hound’s company to another’s, so there were cliques. This platform arrangement allowed them to indulge their friendships. No one wanted to be next to someone who bored him or her silly.

Cora hung back. She liked to go in last, partly because she always wanted to keep hunting and partly because she liked seeing the humans back at their trailers. Some would dismount and be so exhausted their legs shook. Others would nimbly slide off, flip the reins over their horse’s head, and loosen the girth a hole or two. They’d remove the bridle, put on a nice leather halter, and then tie the horse to the side of the trailer, careful not to allow the rope to be over long. That caused mischief. The horse would step over the rope or pull back and pop it. Wool blankets, in stable colors, would be put on the horses. The different colors looked pretty against the snow.

Cora liked horses, although, as they were not predators, she sometimes had to think carefully to appreciate what was on a horse’s mind. She was always grateful when a staff horse informed her what was behind her; their range of vision was almost, but not quite, 360 degrees.

“Cora.”

“Oh, all right.”She grumbled as Shaker tapped her hindquarter.

The other hounds fell silent when the lead bitch entered the trailer.

Asa said,“Happy New Year, Cora. You were wonderfultoday.”

The others spoke in assent.

Henry Xavier, in his trailer tack room, exchanging his scarlet weaselbelly for a tweed coat, commented to Ronnie Haslip, who had already changed and was standing at the open door,“The hounds are singing ‘The Messiah.’ ”

Ronnie, always dapper, smiled.“Damn good work today. I didn’t think we’d do squat out there in that snow, did you?”

“No.” Xavier shook his head.

“Tell you what, I’d put this pack of hounds against any other pack out there.”

“Me, too. I wish Sister pushed herself more. You know, would go to the hound shows and publicize our club more. People don’t know how good Jefferson Hunt is until they cap with us.”

Ronnie nodded in agreement.“When Ray was alive, she did go. She needs the push, and she needs more hands. Remember, she used to have Big Ray, Ray Jr., and then until last year she had Doug Kinzer. It’s probably a little lonesome for her, you know.”

Doug Kinzer, a talented professional whipper-in, had moved up to carrying the horn at Shenandoah Hunt over the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the past, particularly during the days of slavery, many an African American carried the horn. After the War Between the States, people couldn’t feed themselves, much less a pack of hounds. When hunting with a large pack again became feasible, about twenty years after the end of the war, it was often feasible because of Yankee money. For whatever reason, having black hunt staff made the Yankees uncomfortable. Doug, an African American, carried on a long, complex, even contradictory tradition. The last great black huntsman whom folks could remember in these parts was the convivial, talkative Cash Blue. He had hunted hounds for Casanova Hunt Club way back when today’s older members were children.

“If only I didn’t have to pull those long hours, I’d love to go to the shows, wash hounds, stand them up.” Xavier straightened his stock tie.

“Yeah, but not having to pay that extra salary has put the club in the black.” Ronnie, tight and treasurer, appreciated the bottom line.

“Listen, Crawford Howard hemorrhages money when he walks to the john.” Xavier disdained him. “If Sister asked him, he’d come up with the salary. I heard through the grapevine that he offered to do so last year.”

“He did. He made sure we all knew that, but not from his lips.” Ronnie half smiled: Crawford was beginning to learn some of the round-about Virginia way. “He did, but his condition was that he be made joint-master.”

“She has to pick someone soon.” Ronnie folded his arms over his chest.

“Wouldn’t want to be in her boots. She’s between a rock and a hard place.” Xavier had known Jane Arnold all his life. Although he didn’t know it, he loved her. He was devastated when Ray Jr., his best friend, had been killed. Sister was part of his past, present, and future, as she wasfor Ronnie.

“You said a mouthful. Crawford’s got the money, but he’ll alienate the club or at least most of us.”

Xavier stepped down from the tack room, closing the door.“I heard that Shaker said he’d leave. He wouldn’t serve under Crawford even if she kept that blowhard out of the kennels.”

“Heard that, too.” Ronnie straightened the blanket on Xavier’s Picasso.

“Thanks.”

“As I see it, the choices are Crawford, Edward, possibly Sybil, or maybe even Bobby Franklin. Each has pluses and minuses. Clay Berry could do it, he’s making a lot of money these days, but I don’t think Izzy would go along with that. She covets social events, traveling. Being master would take up too much time for her taste. And there’s you, Xavier; there’s you. As head of that nice big old insurance company, you know everybody, and everybody knows you. Some of us even like you.” He slapped his childhood friend on the back.

“Well,” Xavier put his arm around the smaller man’s shoulders, “I would love to be joint-master. Really, I would, but right now the business is demanding. Insurance has been in a slump since September eleven. You can imagine the hit the huge carriers have been taking. Rates are changing, and that impacts even a small guy like me who deals with those carriers. I try to find my people the best rates, and even I’m appalled. I don’t know where this is headed, but I do know these next couple of years, I’ve got to keep my nose to the grindstone.”

“Sorry to hear that. You’d be good.”

“And Dee would love it.” He mentioned his wife by her nickname. “Saw our Explorer, so she’s already here and wondering why I’m not at the house. Come on.”

They walked through the snow, following the line of other hunters.

“Crawford would rile everyone but Jesus, X.” Ronnie called Xavier “X,” as did other old friends. “The pressure financially would be off. Of course, it would be off if Edward or Sybil logged on.”

“Edward is in his midseventies, and he’s glad to pitch in, but he doesn’t want the full-time responsibility. Same for his daughter. Sybil would be good, I think, but her boys are in grade school, and, truth be told, I don’t think she’s recovered from that whole gruesome mess with herex-husband.”

“She still loves him.” Ronnie, for all his paying attention to money, did have a romantic streak.

“Jesus Christ, I hope not. What a rotter.”

“Yep. That leaves Bobby Franklin.”

They neared the front door, festooned with a sumptuous wreath, bright red berries dotting the dark evergreens.

Xavier whispered since people were close,“Bobby’s got some money. Their business has been really good this year. He knows hunting. Wife and daughter know hunting. Great family, except for the daughter in prison, but hey, she’s not the first person in America to go haywire on drugs.”

“True.” Ronnie felt quite sorry for the Franklins. Cody, their oldest girl, once showed such promise.

“He and Betty work like dogs down at the press. That’s why they’re successful, but I don’t see how he’d have the time to be a master.”

The Franklins had weathered the challenge from home printing off computers only because their work was of such high quality. They had invested in a Webb printing press back in the early nineties, which expanded their capabilities, bringing in business throughout the mid-Atlantic region.

“So we’re back to Crawford?” Ronnie thought Crawford would tone down, and he thought Shaker would come around.

“Sister will pull a rabbit out of the hat. You just wait,” Xavier predicted.

“Time’s a flyin’.”

“You just wait.” Xavier smiled, then focused on Sam Lorillard, holding a glass, whom he could see as the front door swung open. “That sorry sack of shit.”

Ronnie’s gaze fell on Sam. “He was in the hunt field behind us. Riding groom.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have to like that either, but you know the rules: you hunt with whoever is out there. Doesn’t mean I have to drink with the son of a bitch.”

“He’s dry now.”

“Oh, bullshit. He’ll be back on the sauce before Valentine’s,” Xavier predicted.

“Well, I hope not.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass. That piece of excrement cost me thousands of dollars; you know that.”

“I know that, Xavier, I do. What he did was terrible, but the past is past. Maybe he can be useful and productive. And maybe he can make amends. He didn’t do right by me either when he worked in my stable. Not that I had it as bad as you did. He cheated you, and he betrayed you.”

“If he dies, that will make amends.” Xavier pressed his full lips together.

Ronnie stood up on his toes to whisper into Xavier’s ear as they walked past the cloakroom. “Why didn’t you say something when Crawford hired him?”

“Because I don’t give a good goddamn what happens to Crawford. In fact, I figured I’d sit back, watch the show, and eat popcorn.”

Inside the Brancrofts’ house, the two men brushed through the crowd as they moved toward the bar.

Dee, who kept her shape even as her husband lost his, spied him. She pushed through the throng.“Honey, I was starting to worry that perhaps you’d bought some real estate.” She used the phrase for hitting the ground.

“Dee, he rides Picasso very, very well,” Ronnie defended his friend. “Now I wish you’d come out. We need a little pulchritude.”

“Liar!” She poked Ronnie in the ribs. Since he was gay, she figured he was teasing about pretty women.

“I love looking at beautiful women. I just don’t want to marry one.” He kissed her on the cheek.

“Hey, you’re my best friend,” Xavier said, shaking his head good-naturedly, “but I tell you, that’s the one thing about you I don’t understand.”

Ronnie flattered him.“When I look at Dee and the life you’ve made together, I don’t know that I understand it, either.”

“Oh, Ronnie, you are sweet.” Dee threw her arms around him, giving him a big hug.

“I saw that!” Betty Franklin yelled from the crowd. “Another Jefferson Hunt affair.”

“Ronnie, take a number and get in line,” said Walter, walking up behind the three, and towering over them.

“Walter, you don’t need a ticket. I’ll take you right now,” Ronnie fired right back at him.

“Three points.” Walter laughed. “Dee, can I freshen your drink?”

“No, I’m going to drag my husband to the bar. I want to hear every detail of the hunt, and hopefully a few misdeeds as well.”

“Crackerjack day.” Walter smiled.

As husband and wife left, Ronnie said,“There’s something about hunting in the snow.”

“Indescribably beautiful,” Walter agreed. “Say, Ron, how about a drink for you? Hi, Sorrel.” Sorrel, in her middle forties and a recent widow, walked over.

“Gentlemen, they’ve gone through two cases of champagne, a case of scotch, two and a half of vodka, and we’re running low on the roasted boar. You’d better hurry to the table.”

“The muffin hounds have struck again.” Ronnie called nonriders muffin hounds, as did everyone else who rode.

“Let’s go.” Walter led the way. The men chatted, touching hands or shoulders of others they met along the way.

Lorraine Rasmussen, slight and shy, stood with her daughter, Sari. The two closely resembled each other.

“Mom, everyone is friendly. Come on.”

“Oh, honey, I don’t ride. I feel—”

“Lorraine!” Sister emerged from the kitchen. It was the only place she could grab a bite. Once people saw her, she never got the food to her mouth.

“Sister, this is so grand.” Lorraine smiled. Her light brown hair, well cut, fell to her shoulders.

“Tedi and Edward never do anything halfway. And, of course, Sorrel is the best social director we’ve ever had. Now come meet people, Lorraine. Most of the people here didn’t hunt today. You can tell. Their shoes are clean, and there’s no blood on their faces.”

“And they’re fat.” Sari giggled.

Sister saw Shaker squeeze through the crowd. Shaker had to attend to the hounds, but today was a High Holy Day. Staff were allowed a spot of socializing before driving hounds and horses back to the kennels and stables.

Today, while not particularly long, had been hard, thanks to heavy footing. Shaker didn’t like hounds or horses standing around too long after a hard hunt.

“Shaker, let’s all get a drink, shall we?” Sister suggested, intercepting Shaker’s escape from socializing.

“Why don’t I get a plate for you, sir?” Sari, polite, knew how hard Shaker worked.

“Thanks, Sari.” He liked the young girl and could see some of her mother in her. Though he knew little of Lorraine, he thought her a polite woman. Looking at her now, he realized she was pretty, too.

“Sari said today was just one of the best,” commented Lorraine. “She said when the hounds ran into the stone ruins, she got goose bumps.”

He smiled at Lorraine.“We got lucky.”

“Nonsense,” said Sister. “You’re a fantastic huntsman.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Excuse me.”

“Sister,” Marty Howard called to her.

As Sister reached Marty, she brushed against Gray Lorillard. A flicker of electricity shot through her.

“The weather fouled our lunch date,” Gray said. “How does January third at the club sound to you?”

“Do I have to wear lipstick?” She laughed.

“Sister, you don’t have to wear anything at all.” Gray smiled. “Twelve.”

“Twelve.”

“Sister,” Marty breathlessly grabbed the master’s hand, “Sam has found me the most exquisite horse. I am so excited. A gelding. I like geldings, and he’s right out of a Stubbs painting.”

“To hunt?”

“Oh, no. Sorry, I’m so excited. No. To run. A timber horse. Oh, I’ve always wanted a timber horse. He’s been calling around, and he just now told me. I’ve been on cloud nine. I’m calling him Cloud Nine!”

“Where is Sam? I can’t wait to hear the details,” she replied.

“Last I saw him was by the fireplace in the living room.

But it will take you half an hour to reach him. We’re packed like sardines.”

Twenty minutes later Sister reached the living room. Sam looked better than he had in years but still had the gaunt thinness of a lifelong alcoholic who forgets to eat. He smiled when he saw the master.

“Happy New Year, Master.”

“Sam, glad to see you in the hunt field. Gray, too. I hope you’ll be out with us more often.”

“Depends on the man.”

Sister smiled.“In your case, it just might depend on the woman. She’s levitating over the timber horse you’ve found.” She paused a moment as she nodded to friends in the crowd. “How’s it going?” Sister asked.

“Pretty good.”

She placed her hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Well, I hope the job works out. Crawford’s a demanding man but, ultimately, a fair one. And I’m happy to have you in the hunt field.”

“Take it no one much likes Crawford,” Sam whispered.

“People who are against something or someone are always more expressive than those who think things are just fine. He has his detractors, but over the years I’ve learned to appreciate his good points. If you need anything, Sam, call or drop by.”

“Thank you. That’s white of you.”

She laughed.“You are bad, Sam Lorillard.”

Sliding back through the crowd, Sister squeezed up behind Clay Berry. His wife, Isabelle, hair shoulder length and honey blonde, didn’t see Sister behind Clay’s broad shoulders. She might have changed her tune had she known Sister was there.

“Not another horse, Clay. You have two perfectly good field horses, and I never see you as it is.”

“Sugar, that’s not true.” His light tenor hit a consoling note.

“The hell it’s not. You disappear during hunt season. I have one month with you when it’s over, and then you’re off to the golf course. I might as well be a widow.”

“Izzy,” he called her by her nickname, “you’re being overly dramatic.”

“I’m starting to think of you as my insignificant other.” She pouted. “And how you can think of another horse when you know I am dying, dying for that new 500SL convertible. I want it in brilliant silver with the ash interior.”

“That car costs a hundred and six thousand dollars with the options you want.”

“I’m worth it,” she coolly replied.

He shifted gears.“How could any man put a price on such a beautiful woman? Of course you’re worth it, baby. However, it is a big hit at this time.”

“Oh, pooh.” She suddenly became flirtatious. “You’re making money hand over fist. My birthday is coming up and,” she rubbed the back of his neck, her lips now very close to his, “you will never regret it. I’ll do anything you want whenever you want it.”

He swallowed.“Honey, let’s talk about this later.”

Sister tried to get beyond these two, but the crush of people was so great, the din of conversation so loud, she was pinned.

Izzy stood on her tiptoes to kiss her husband. She bit his lower lip. In doing so, she saw the master.

“Sister!” She quickly reached around Clay to grab Sister’s hand. “I need you to weaken Clay.”

More power to you, Sister thought to herself. At least you aren’t denying what you are. She then spoke out loud. “Isabelle, I think you can weaken Clay all by yourself.”

“But I’d love to be between two beautiful women.” Clay rolled his eyes heavenward.

Izzy, in a studied breathless voice, crooned,“I must have that 500SL. I mean I amdyingfor that car. It’s the sexiest thing on the road. Sexier than a Ferrari or Porsche Turbo or the redone Maserati. I’m nearing forty. I need a boost.” She now held both of Sister’s hands as the crowd pressed them bosom to bosom, and both ladies were well stacked.

Sister found the situation comical.“It is a spectacular car, and you’d make it even more spectacular. Mercedes-Benz ought to pay you to drive one.”

“You say the sweetest things. I want to grow up to be just like you. You’re so beautiful.” Izzy waxed enthusiastic.

“She’s right.” Clay seconded his wife. “Except for your silver hair, you look just like you did when I was in Pony Club. I don’t know how you do it.”

“She has a painting in her attic,” Izzy recalled the famous plot from Oscar Wilde’sThe Portrait of Dorian Gray.

“Thank you. You’re both outrageous flatterers, but it does my heart good to hear it.”

Clay leaned down, his face serious.“I do mean it. You’re beautiful, Sister.” He smiled then. “And your arms are more muscular than mine, and I work out like a demon.”

She cocked her head a bit sideways while looking up at him.“I don’t know about that, but I do know farm work sure burns the fat off your body.”

“Oh, Clay, guess you’d better buy another hunter, and I’ll take care of it.” Izzy laughed, a pleasing musical laugh.

Walter spied Sister pressed between Clay and Izzy. He pushed his way toward her.

“You can’t have her all to yourselves. It’s my turn.” Walter kissed Izzy on the cheek, which she rather liked, then used his body to make a path for them through the people.

“You’re a hero.”

“You say that to all the boys,” Walter teased her.

Once out of the worst of the press, she took a deep breath.“Well, Walter, it’s been my privilege to watch how a woman works a man for her gain. Whew. I never could do it.”

“You never needed to do it.” His slight grin enhanced his rugged handsomeness.

“Walter, you are a true Virginia gentleman.”

“I mean it. Guile, throwing yourself at a man, deceit, and that sort of thing. It’s not you. You could never do that.”

“Maybe that’s why Ray found other women attractive. I didn’t play the game.”

“Ray found other women attractive because he needed conquests to feel like a man.” Walter, Ray’s natural son, said this with authority.

Both Walter and Sister had learned of this old secret a year ago. Everyone knew but them, and Walter was the spitting image of Ray Arnold Sr.

“It’s all water over the dam, honey. We’re still here, and life is wonderful.”

“Life is wonderful because I have you in my life.” He kissed her tenderly on the cheek. “You’ve given me foxhunting, understanding, and more than I can express.”

“Walter, you’ll make me cry.”

He hugged her.“That would shock everyone here.”

“Have you been drinking?”

He laughed.“No. One cold beer. No, my New Year’s resolution is to tell the people I care about how I feel. I’m overcoming WASP restraint.”

“Is there a class for this? I need to sign up.”

They laughed together, then Walter said,“Did you hear on the news? Found one of the alcoholics dead down at the train station.”

Walter could have said winos, but, being a physician, he looked at alcoholism with a scientist’s eye.

“What a dreadful way to squander a life.” Sister shook her head.

“Yes,” Walter replied. “It’s an insidious disease in that it’s both chemical yet voluntary. In my darker moments I wonder if they aren’t better off dead. Medicine can’t reach them. Perhaps God can reach them.”

Sister considered this sentiment. She truly believed that people could be redeemed.

Xavier bumped into her, back to back.“Pardon me. Oh, Sister, if I’d known it was you, I’d have bumped you harder.”

Walter kissed her again on the cheek and moved away.“Any New Year’s resolutions?”

“Lose forty pounds.” He grimaced. “Damn, I don’t have a spare tire, I’ve got enough to put four Goodyears on a Camaro.”

“It’s all that sitting at work.”

“If only I had your discipline,” he moaned.

“Not sure it’s discipline. I don’t sit at a desk. I’m in the stables, in the kennels, out on the land. I burn it right off. Humans weren’t meant to sit still for hours. Apart from the pounds, think what it does to your back.”

“Damn straight.” He leaned over to her, speaking softly into her ear. “Is Sam Lorillard going to be hunting with us a lot?”

“I don’t know. It’s up to Crawford.”

“I’m not the only one with a big grudge against Sam. Edward’s not overwhelmed with him. Jerry Featherstone either. Ron. Clay. Actually, if you went down the hunt roster, there are a lot of us who gave him a chance over the years. He either seduced our wives, stole money, lied about horses, or smashed up trucks.”

“I know, Xavier, I know. But in the hunt field, all that is left back at the trailers. What you all do or say when we’re not hunting is your business.”

“I’m not going to make a scene in the hunt field, but I might rearrange his face if he looks at me cross-eyed.”

“You don’t think people can change?”

“Hell, yes, they can change. I’m gonna be forty pounds changed. But inside? Their character? No. Sam was born weak, and he’ll die weak. He’ll probably die dead drunk, forgive the pun.”

“I hope not, but I appreciate your feelings. If he’d lightened my wallet, I think I’d turn my back on him, too. I’d like to think I wouldn’t, but I reckon I would.”

The swirl of gossip and laughter and the running feet of the children filled the Bancroft house. A group of men and women, standing in the corner of the dining room, were discussing why the state of Ohio produced great college football teams but rotten pro teams. The discussion was raising the rafters.

Everything Tedi and Edward did, they accomplished with great style. Before leaving with Betty Franklin, Sister thanked her host and hostess as well as Sorrel Buruss.

“Great day. The snow has picked up.” Outside Betty squinted at the deep gray sky.

“If you want to go home with Bobby, go on. You can pick up your car tomorrow or whenever.”

“I don’t mind driving home in the snow. Gives us a chance to be together.” Betty happily stepped into Sister’s red GMC half-ton. “How do you like your other truck now that you’ve had it a year?”

“Like it fine. Nothing pulls like the Ford F350 Dually. But I like this for everyday.”

“You had that truck since the earth was cooling.”

Sister turned on the motor, flipped on the windshield wipers, and waited a moment while the blades flicked off the new-fallen snow.“Nothing about this on the weather report.”

“Why listen? We’re right at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We have our own weather system.” Betty shivered. The heat would kick on once the motor warmed up.

“Got that right.” Putting the truck into four-wheel drive, they carefully rolled down the long driveway. “What did you think today?” asked Sister.

“Hounds worked well together, and you were smart not to bring out the young entry. Even though we finally hit a good line, the patience it took to find it might have been too much, what with all the people.”

“Thanks. I’m pleased. Thought the T kids came right along. They’ve matured early,” Sister said proudly.

“Good voices.”

“Yes.” She changed the subject. “Betty, Xavier and others sure are upset about Sam Lorillard hunting with us today.”

“He’s not high on my list, but he’s no problem out in the field. I just hope the guy can stay the course. His brother spent good money on him. A one-month stay at a detox center complete with counseling dents the budget. The horrible thing is, half the time the people slide right back to their old ways. Look at how hard Bobby and I tried to keep Cody off drugs,” she said, referring to her oldest daughter. “She couldn’t or wouldn’t do it, and by God, she’s paying the price, but so are we.”

“Can she get drugs in jail?”

“Of course she can.” Betty sighed. “She says she isn’t using, but I don’t believe it. She puts on her good face when Bobby or I visit. She tells her sister more than she tells either of us. And you know what, I have cried all the tears about it I can cry. You birth them, raise them, bleed for them, cry for them, and pray for them, but they’re on their own.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget that you might be glad to have Ray Jr. here even if he did drugs.” Betty exhaled through her nostrils. “I don’t think Rayray would have gone that route. Kid always had sense. Some do, some don’t.”

Sister slowed for a curve,“Oh, they’ll all try whatever is out there: marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, the date rape drug. I can’t even keep up with the proliferation of mood-altering substances. I think all kids try it once. I worry more about alcohol than drugs. Our whole society pushes booze and drugs at you. The stuff I like to sniff is the odor of tack, horse sweat, and oats. Don’t even mind the manure. And I like the sweet scent of my hounds, too.”

“Heaven.” Betty put her hands up to the heating vent. “Doesn’t matter what any authority decrees in any century, people will take whatever makes them feel good. You and I have one kind of body chemistry, Cody and Sam have another. And who knows why?”

“Big Ray drank, but he controlled it. He could go months without a drink and then maybe knock back four at a party one night.”

“He was tall though. He could handle it better than a pipsqueak.” She turned to observe Broad Creek, swollen and flowing swiftly under the state bridge on Soldier Road. “Another day of this, and that water will jump the banks.”

“We were lucky we didn’t run into trouble today.”

“I thought of that, too.” Betty turned to look at Sister. “Want to hear something crazy?”

“You’re talking to the right woman.”

“I feel younger, stronger, and better now than I have for years—years. Cruel as this sounds, I think it’s because Cody is put away. She can’t come home and drag me down. She can’t call from Los Angeles or Middleburg or Roger’s Corner.” Betty mentioned the convenience store locatedat the intersection of Soldier Road and White Cat Road. “I’m free. She’s in jail, but I’m free. My energy is my own.”

“I understand that.”

“I didn’t at first. I thought I was a terrible mother. Bobby set me right.” A glow infused her voice. “How did I have the sense to marry that man? He’s not the best-looking guy in the world. When I was young, I thought I was going to marry someone handsome, rich, all that. But he persevered. The more he did, the more I got a look at his good character. He’s a wonderful man, a loving husband, and a loving father. I am one lucky woman.”

“He’s lucky, too.” Sister pulled off Soldier Road onto the dirt state road, considered a tertiary road by the highway department. Snow was deeper here.

“Thank you, Jane. You’re a good-looking woman. I hope you find someone again.”

“I thought about it for a time after Big Ray’d been dead two years or so, but then it faded away.” She turned onto the farm road, snow falling harder now. “I thought I was past that until Walter returned to the hunt club two years ago. Last time I saw Walter, he was on his way to college. Once Walter was hunting with us, I felt so drawn to him. It was physical. Shaker finally told me, bless his heart. Wasn’t easy for Shaker. Maybe I knew without knowing.”

“Everyone knew but you and Walter.”

“That he’s Ray’s natural son?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Stirred me up. Not that Walter is going to sleep with me. The man is in his middle thirties and I’ll be seventy-two this August. Or is it seventy-three?” She giggled for a moment. “Can’t believe it, no matter what the number is. Christ, the years fly by so damned fast I can’t keep track. But I woke up, or my body woke up, or something. You’re sweet to tell me I look good, but Betty, how many men are going to look at me unless they’re eighty? The game’s over for me.”

“It’s New Year’s Day. Want to make a bet?”

“How much?”

“One hundred dollars.”

“Betty!”

“I bet you one hundred dollars that a man does come into your life before December thirty-first. Deal?”

“Easiest one hundred dollars I’ll ever make.” Sister laughed as she pulled into the stable yard.

In the stable, the two women checked their horses. Having left the breakfast early, Sari and Jennifer had gotten all the chores done. The radio hummed, on low for the horses. The news was reported on the hour.

“Hey, did you hear that?” Betty, standing next to the radio, called over to Sister, who was checking water buckets.

“Not paying attention.”

“The first guy, the one they found dead the night of the twenty-seventh, Saturday? Well, he was full of alcohol to the gills, but hemlock as well.”

“What?” Sister paused for a moment.

“He drank hemlock, just like Socrates.”

“On purpose?” Sister was incredulous.

“And this morning they found another one frozen down at the train station. Dead.”

The two women looked at each other. Sister said,“What on earth is going on?”

CHAPTER 7

Clay and Isabelle Berry loved to entertain. Their modern house, built on a ridge, enjoyed sweeping views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Because each of their rooms opened into other rooms or onto a patio, people rarely became bottled up in narrow door openings at their parties.

The floors, polished and gleaming, were hard walnut, stained black. Izzy, as Isabelle preferred to be called since she was named after her mother, Big Isabelle, fell under the spell of minimalism. Every piece of furniture in the house had been built to fit that house. Each piece, a warm beige, complemented the lighter beige walls.

The occasion for this party, January 2, Friday, was Izzy’s thirty-eighth birthday. A few guests, possessed of remarkable stamina, hadn’t stopped drinking since New Year’s Eve.

Tedi, scotch and water in hand, whispered to Sister that these were blonde colors. As Izzy was a determined blonde, she shone to great effect.

The kitchen, stainless steel, gleamed. Overhead pin-pricks of high-intensity light shone down on guests.

The downstairs boasted a regulation-size pool table, itself starkly modern.

Donnie Sweigert, along with three other men, manned the two bars, one in the living room, one downstairs.

A flat-screen TV, built into the wall of the library, glowed. The one in the poolroom did likewise. Both TVs had men and women watching snatches of football reportage. They’d get a pigskin fix, then quickly rejoin the party, only to return periodically or ask another sports fan what he or she thought about the countdown to the Super Bowl.

Sister and Tedi both stared as a commentator narrated clips from the most recent pro football games. The playoffs kept excitement mounting across America.

“Do you think these men are mutants?” Tedi asked.

“How?”

“Look at their necks.” Tedi clinked the cubes in her glass as a close-up of a well-paid fullback beamed from the wall.

Wearing a fabulous electric blue dress, Sister stared.“And that’s just someone for the backfield. Imagine what the defensive guard looks like.”

Clay, who was moving by, a drink held over his head thanks to the press of people, overheard.

“Better nutrition, better dentistry. Remember, a lot of bacteria come in through the mouth. Better workouts, better methods for reducing injuries or healing them when they occur. Better drugs.”

Tedi smiled at her attractive host.“When you played football in high school, you made All State, Clay, and you never looked like that. You had a good college career, too.”

Clay, middle linebacker for the local high school, had been outstanding at the position. He’d won a scholarship to Wake Forest and been a star.

He laughed.“Tedi, you’re very kind. Think how long ago that was. I’ll be forty-four this year. I don’t think I would do half so well at Wake now as I did then. It’s a different game. The training alone is so different.”

“But you never looked like a bull on two legs.”

“Steroids.” He shrugged genially. “Just wasn’t much of an option then. Even if I had taken them, I was too small to make it to the pros. I don’t mind. I came home, built a business, and discovered golf.”

Sister touched his arm.“What is it they say about golf: a good walk ruined?”

He laughed.“The devil plays golf. He’ll give you just enough great drives, good putts, to keep you coming back.”

“So pretty out there, a verdant paradise.” Tedi adored golf, carried a respectable twelve handicap.

“Clay!” Izzy called from the living room.

“The birthday girl.” Clay smiled. “Good hunt yesterday, Sister. Despite the weather, we’re having a terrific season.”

“Thank you, Clay.” She was glad to hear the praise as he left to join Izzy, who was surrounded by women from her college sorority.

Kappa Kappa Gamma songs filled the house.

“Janie, were you in a sorority?” Tedi asked. “I don’t remember. They didn’t have them at Sweet Briar, did they? Didn’t have them at Holyoke.” Tedi didn’t wait for her question to be answered since they both realized Tedi figured out the answer for herself. “Loved Holyoke. Loved it. But you know, I missed you so much. Think of the fun we would have had if we’d gone to the same school.”

“We’d have gotten ourselves thrown out.” Sister grinned.

“Well—true.” Tedi tipped back her head and laughed. “And I never would have met Edward. Imagine going all the way to Massachusetts to meet your future husband, himself a Virginian, who had gone all the way to Amherst. Course I was wretched when neither Nola nor Sybil elected to go to Holyoke. Still can’t believe they did that.”

“That’s the thing about children. Damn if they don’t turn out to have minds of their own.”

The corners of Tedi’s mouth curled up for an instant. “Shocking. But really, Janie, University of Colorado for Nola, and then Sybil, well, she did go to Radcliffe. She applied herself, probably to make up for Nola. God, how many schools did that kid roar through? I miss her. Even now.” Tedi stopped for a moment. “Stop me. Really, what is it about a new year? One casts one’s mind over the years, but the past is the past. You can’t change a thing about it.”

“Historical revisionists certainly are trying.”

“Yes, well, that’s not exactly about the past. That’s about a bid for political power now. Rubbish. Every single bit of it.” Tedi knocked back her scotch. “Sometimes I think I’ve lived too long. I’ve seen it all, done it all, and now am colossally bored by the ignorance and pretensions of the generations behind us. If anything, Nola and Sybil’s generation is tedious, hypocritical, and lacking in fire.”

“Tedi, they’ve only known peace and plenty. That’s like a hound who has only slept on the porch. If they have to run, they’ll be slow at first, but I promise you, they’ll run.”

“You’re always hopeful.”

“I’m an American. They’re Americans. When the you-know-what hits the fan, we do what has to be done, and it doesn’t matter when or where we were born. Doesn’t matter what color we are, what religion or none, what sex or how about having sex. Anyway, you get my drift.”

“I do. I’m still cynical.” She turned her head. “And speaking of that generation, here comes an extremely handsome member of it.” She smiled, holding out her hand as Walter took it, pressing it to his lips, then leaned over to kiss Sister’s cheek.

“You two look radiant.” Walter knew how to talk to women; beautiful would have been very nice but radiant showed imagination. “Sister, that color brings out your eyes.” He stopped, then lowered his voice. “Can’t get out of this.” He smiled big as a dark, intense, attractive man, early forties at most, pushed over to him. “Mrs. Bancroft, Mrs. Arnold, allow me to introduce Dr. Dalton Hill from Toronto. He’s come up from Williamsburg, where he gave a lecture this morning.”

Tedi, who’d looked him over, inquired, “How good of you to make the trip. What is your specialty, Dr. Hill?”

“Endocrinology.” He exuded a self-important air but had good manners, nonetheless. “However, my lecture was on the development of ornamentation in furniture during the eighteenth century.”

“A passion?” Tedi’s eyebrows lifted.

“Indeed.” He inclined his head.

“English and French furniture from the eighteenth century is beautiful,” Sister joined in. “Is there anyone who can make such pieces today?”

“Yes.” His voice was measured. “A few, precious few. It’s not talent, you see, it’s temperament.”

Both women smiled.

Walter said,“I never thought of that, Dr. Hill.”

“Call me Dalton, please.”

“Dalton, you hunt in Canada, don’t you?” asked Walter.

“If you’re going to be here for any time at all, please hunt with us.” Sister extended an invitation.

“You are the master, I believe?” Dalton had been informed of Sister’s status when he asked Bobby Franklin who the tall, striking-looking gray-haired woman was.

“I am, and I’m a lucky woman.”

Ronnie Haslip came by, Xavier and Dee behind him. They swept Walter and Dalton along with them after a few more comments.

“Has an air about him.” Tedi sniffed.

“Winding, are you, Tedi?”

They laughed and headed back to the bar. Tedi ordered another scotch on the rocks, and Sister asked for a tonic water on the rocks with a twist of lime.

Donnie, who had been nipping a little here and there behind the bar, quickly made the drinks.“Ladies.”

“I couldn’t help but notice your rifle and the scope the other day. What a beautiful piece of equipment.” Sister took her drink from him, fished a dollar bill out of the unobtrusive slit in her dress, dropped it in the tip glass.

“Thank you.” He nodded, then said, “I saved and saved. Cost me over two thousand five hundred dollars.” He paused for effect. “I’ll go without food to get the best. Makes a huge difference.”

“Yes, it does,” Sister replied.

“Clay Berry is tight as a tick with his employees.”

Tedi piped up.“I know you went without food.”

They moved back into the crowd, after a few more words with Donnie.

“I suppose I ought to find my husband. It’s ten, and the roads will be dreadful.”

“I ought to move on, too. Thought maybe Gray Lorillard would be here.”

“Do you know he’s rented the dependency over at Chapel Cross, the Vajay’s place? Haven’t they just brought that farm back to life?” Tedi paused. “Alex is here,” she mentioned the husband. “Solange should be here, too. Well, there’re so many people packed in here, I think I’ve missed half of them.”

Tedi put her drink down on a silver tray, half-finished. She’d had enough. “I study how different civilizations deal with wealth. How different people deal with it.” She could say anything to Sister. “The truth is, few people can handle it, whether it was China in the seventeenth century, a great industrial fortune in Germany in the nineteenth, or today, dotcom, that sort of thing.”

“You’ve managed.”

“I was trained since birth, Janie. When you make it in your lifetime, it’s quite savage really. You’re a stranger from your own children who never had to fight for it. I was fortunate in that our money was made with Fulton, with the steamboat fortune. It has been prudently invested and managed ever since. I grew up in a milieu that understood resources and understood restraint. Edward, of course, has more recent wealth. His grandfather developed refrigeration for food processing, transporting foods. But the Bancrofts were and are people of common sense. They kept working, kept producing. But we were all born and raised before the Second World War. Times have changed.”

“Yes, but they always have.”

“Then let’s hope there’s a pendulum. I was flipping through the channels last night before falling asleep, and I caught, for the barest second, a show where people had eaten a lot of food, consumed different colors of food dyes, then threw it all up to see who vomited the best color. That’s just unimaginable to me.”

“Me, too.” Sister leaned on Tedi, so petite. “If you’ve been watching the gross shows, then what do you think of the sex channels? Not that they’re gross, just hard-core.”

“Oh,” Tedi brightened, “I like them.”

They both laughed uproariously as the Kappas sang more lustily.

As Sister, Tedi, and a captured Edward stood outside the house, its windows ablaze, and casting a golden glow over the snow, sounds of merriment seeped from inside.

“Well, dear, win anything?” Tedi figured Edward had played pool.

“Forty dollars. Five bucks a game. Took five dollars from Ronnie. We needed smelling salts to revive him. I swear Ronnie has the first dollar he ever made, probably sewn over his heart.”

“Maybe that’s why he doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Tedi said forthrightly as they walked to their vehicles.

“Now why do you say that?” Sister listened to the crunch of packed snow under her heels.

She hated heels, but she looked so good in them, and they could jack up her six feet to six three if she wanted. She liked that.

“Too damn cheap. If a man dates another man, doesn’t he pay for dinner just as one would with a woman? And then if Ronnie found a partner, I bet he’d watch every penny and drive the other man insane.”

“Well, I think many men keep their finances separate,” Edward remarked. “Not quite like marriage or our version, I should say, because now even middle-class people sign prenuptials.”

“I think of the money at stake when we married, it’s a wonder we didn’t spend a year on prenuptials.”

“I know it’s wise, but it seems so calculating. Doesn’t seem like a good way to start a marriage,” Sister said.

Edward thought a moment.“You and Ray had no agreement concerning finances?”

As she opened the truck door, she answered,“No prenuptial. I didn’t have much. I mean, we were comfortable, but nothing extravagant. Ray was about the same. Everything we had, we made together, and we didn’t think divorce was an option. Look at our generation. How many divorced people do you know?”

“That’s true.” Edward waited as Sister, door open, changed into a pair of L.L.Bean boots.

“I can’t drive in these damned things.” She tossed her heels onto the seat. “Oh, who else did you clean out down there at the pool table?”

Edward puffed out his chest.“That Toronto doctor. Bragged about what a good pool player he was, so I let him have the first one, then I cleaned his clock. A bit of a pill, that one.”

“We thought so, too.” Tedi giggled.

“You drive safely now.” Edward pecked Sister on the cheek.

Tedi playfully kissed Sister, too, then said in her beguiling voice,“Minimalism is for the young.”

Cruising out the driveway, thinking of Tedi’s comment and all the money Izzy had spent to achieve the pared-down look, Sister laughed. She also noted a brilliant silver Mercedes 500SL, which passed her at the entrance gate. Bill Little, one of the men at Brown Mercedes on the Richmond road, carefully navigated the treacherous road. Anenormous yellow ribbon and bow rested on the driver’s seat next to him.

She waved to Bill. He waved back.

On the way home she wondered just what Izzy did to get such a fabulous birthday gift. Then she laughed out loud, imagining she had a pretty good idea. Even as an adolescent, Clay exhibited an intense interest in sex.

Come to think of it, Sister thought to herself, Izzy earned that Mercedes.

CHAPTER 8

“Those High Holy Days take it right out of me.” Sister leaned over the counter at her equine vet’s office. “Wish you’d come on out sometime.”

The assistant, Val, a trail rider, shook her head.“You all are crazy.”

“It helps.” She rolled her fingertips on top of the counter—one, two, three, four—a habit of hers when she was trying to set something in her mind. “If the weather holds, how about if I bring that mare down next Wednesday?”

Val checked the computer screen.“That’s fine. I’ll tell Anne.”

Anne Bonda, the vet, had a flourishing practice, although her clinic was located a little out of the way in Monroe, Virginia.

Sister had delivered many a foal in her time, but Anne had delivered thousands. If something were to go wrong, having the vet attending was far preferable to calling in the middle of a snowy night and asking for help. Yes, it might add a thousand dollars to the vet bill, but a healthy baby was worth it.

Sister bred for stamina, bone, and brain. She pored over thoroughbred pedigrees, studied stallions and their get. She needed the old, staying blood, blood now woefully out of fashion.

Rally, this particular mare, carried Stage Door Johnnie blood, blood for the long haul, and she’d been bred to an extremely beautiful son of Polish Navy, called Prussian Blue, standing in Maryland.

This year she’d bred three mares. Secretary’s Shorthand didn’t catch, a bitter disappointment since she was an old granddaughter of Secretariat. When an ultrasound was done on Shorthand, an embryo couldn’t be observed. Curtains Up, Sister’s other mare, was bred to an interesting, tough horse namedArroamanches. She took. You just never knew with mares.

Driving home, she noticed a line of Princess trees bordering a pasture. The dried fruits hung on the tree along with spring’s fat buds. The force of life may be sleeping, but is ever present. Four months from now, on some warm April day, huge clusters of lavender flowers would cover the tree, bringing a smile to all who beheld such beauty.

Thanks to traffic on Route 29, a highway she hated, she arrived at the Augusta Cooperative an hour later.

She pushed open the glass doors and called to Georgia at the cash register,“Forgot birdseed last week.”

“You just wanted an excuse to see me,” Georgia drolly replied.

“There’s truth to that. This is Gossip Central.”

“We have hot competition in the country club and Roger’s Corner,” Georgia fired back.

“Different kind of gossip,” Sister replied.

Georgia wrinkled her nose.“Not as wild.”

“All those Episcopalians.” She hoisted a twenty-fivepound bag of birdseed on the counter. “I say that being one.”

“You’re the exception that proves the rule.” Georgia, whose lipstick snuck up into the cracks of her upper lip, winked.

“An exceptional exception.” Sheriff Ben Sidell emerged from an aisle. He pushed a big wire cart, filled with a plumbing snake, bags of dog and cat food, a fifty-pound salt block, plus other items tucked between and behind the big ones.

“I didn’t recognize you there for a minute without your uniform and out of your riding clothes,” Sister said.

“Did you notice me with the Hilltoppers yesterday?”

“I did, and I’m so glad you’re sticking to your riding lessons.”

He leaned over the handle of the cart.“I had no idea there was so much to foxhunting. People see riders in their scarlet coats, ‘What a bunch of snobs,’ they think. Not like that at all. I’m trying to hang on my horse, my wonderful Nonni, but every now and then, I’ll notice something, like when the temperature changes, everything changes with it.”

“You’re observant. Professional training,” Sister complimented him. “Strange things happen. For instance, the prevailing wisdom is that only gray foxes climb trees, and yet I have seen a red do it. That isn’t supposed to happen.” She played with the signet ring on her little finger. “Fortunately, for us, foxes don’t read books about how they’re supposed to behave.”

Ben smirked.“Be better off if people threw the books out as well. Everyone spouts watered-down psychology, another form of excusing bad behavior. Every criminal was abused. Well, I’d better stop before I—”

“Don’t. I’m interested. You know more about this than we do. I’ve always thought that some people were born bad. We can’t rehabilitate them.” Georgia looked at him.

Ben ran a hand through his close-cropped black hair.“There is not one doubt in my mind that there is such a thing as a criminal mind. Some people are born psychopaths, sociopaths, or just plain liars. Men born with an extra Y chromosome usually wind up in prison, usually can’t control their violent impulses.”

“Ben,” Sister’s deep, pleasing voice contained a hopeful note, “surely some men in prison really are there because of circumstances, something as mundane as falling in with the wrong crowd as a kid.”

Turning his brown eyes to look into hers, she was startled for a moment at their clarity and depth.“There are. Things happen. People can be in the wrong place at the wrong time or make a stupid decision, but I’m ready to go to bat and say that ninety percent of the men in prison are either of low normal intelligence or truly criminal. You can’t fix them. Can’t fix a child molester.”

“I got a fix for them.” Georgia pushed her eyeglasses on top of her abundant, colored hair.

“Yeah, well, I’m with you, Georgia,” Ben said, “but the laws don’t allow that.”

“What about rapists?” Sister was curious since she had so little contact with or knowledge about criminals or the prison system.

“Much more difficult.” Ben moved his cart back so another customer could pass. “There is an awful lot of debate in law enforcement concerning when rape becomes rape.”

“If she says no, it’s rape.” This seemed perfectly clear to Georgia.

Sister nodded.“But men are raised to believe that when a woman says maybe, it means yes, and when she says no, she means maybe. Whether we like it or not, there are an awful lot of women out there who use sex as a weapon. Sooner or later, some of them pay for that.”

“Yes, but it’s often the wrong woman.” Georgia nailed that one.

“This culture is still so dishonest and foolish about sex,” mused Sister. “I’m surprised we don’t have more damage than we do in the form of rapes and murders. It’s twisted.”

Ben blinked. He hadn’t expected to hear that from Sister, even though he knew she wasn’t a narrow-minded woman. “Twisted?”

“Ben, sex is used to sell everything except caskets. Every single day Americans are fed images of sexual content allied to commercial purpose. Popular music is one long note of masturbation; excuse me for being blunt. At the same time, young people are counseled not to engage in sex. Women are told no, no, no, and young men are given a mixed message. Twisted like a pretzel.”

“Hmm.” Georgia turned this over in her mind. “What you said about criminals, that people are born that way, Sheriff, do you think that’s true about alcoholics?”

“Yes.” Ben replied without hesitation.

Sister joined in.“I say yes, too, but what makes that dicey is no one puts a gun to your head and says ‘Drink.’ There is a matter of choice.”

“Make mine a margarita.” Georgia started whistling a Jimmy Buffet song.

“Interesting question.” Ben watched a customer load up his Volvo. “About drunks.”

“Runs in my family,” Georgia stated flatly.

Sister smiled at Georgia.“I expect it runs in most everyone’s family.”

“The Sidells have contributed their share of alcoholics to the nation,” Ben said ruefully.

Georgia put her pencil back behind her ear.“What do you think about those two guys poisoned down at the train station?”

Ben sighed.“They’ll drink anything. Sterno, rubbing alcohol. I doubt they tasted anything in their bottle—if it was murder, I mean. At this point, we don’t know if their deaths were a mistake or intentional. Those fellas won’t stay at the Salvation Army. And the nights when both men died, it wasbitterly cold, down in the teens. They don’t feel the cold. If they don’t die of alcohol poisoning, they freeze to death. We’ll round them up and throw them in jail, but you’ll recall the weather was filthy. I had on duty every officer because of wrecks. That was a real department test.”

“You know, I never heard the names of the men who died,” Sister said.

“We’re trying to find next of kin.”

“Sam Lorillard might know. He used to be one of them,” Sister suggested.

“You can tell us, Sheriff. My folks have been here since the earth was cooling and Sister, too. We might know.”

“Anthony Tolliver and Mitchell Banachek.”

“Dear God,” Sister exclaimed, “what a sad end for Anthony. I can’t believe it.”

As they stared at her, she added,“We went from grade school through high school together. I adored him.”

“Awful.” Georgia frowned.

“An awful waste.” Sister sighed, remembering a high-spirited, green-eyed kid with gangly limbs.

“Do you know his people?” Ben inquired.

“They’ve all passed away. He was an only child. If there’s distant kin in other parts, I never heard of them.”

“Mmm, well—” Ben folded his arms across his chest. “—another expense for the county.”

Georgia’s eyes widened. “You mean to bury him?” When Ben nodded in affirmation, she blurted out, “Can’t the medical school use his body?”

“I’ll inquire,” Ben replied.

“Don’t. I’ll take care of this. Let me know when I can claim the body.”

“Sister, that’s extremely generous.”

“Let’s hope he’s in a better place now.” She paused, then said, “There but for the grace of God. We’re lucky. Anthony wasn’t.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I look over schoolmates and friends, as I’m sure you all do, and most people stayed on track. Some surprise you by becoming a great success, and others, like Anthony, surprise you by becoming a great failure. He had everything going for him. I’m sorry you didn’t know him then.”

“I’ll get everything squared away for you.” Ben glanced at the floor, then up into her luminous eyes.

“Sister, could he have cured himself? I mean, do you believe in rehabilitation?” Georgia asked earnestly.

“Actually, I don’t.” She paused for a moment. “But I do believe in redemption.”

“What’s the difference?” Georgia asked as she checked out work gloves, lead ropes, and a big can of Hooflex for a customer.

“Rehabilitation comes from outside the person. That’s why it doesn’t work,” Sister clarified. “People are forced into programs whether they’re alcoholic or in a crumbling marriage or whatever. You know what I mean. There’s a huge industry in America now for the purpose of getting people to improve themselves or stop destructive habits. Redemption comes from within. If you want to save yourself, you can and you will. Of course, prayer helps.”

“Put that way, I see your point.” Ben inclined his head slightly.

“To change the subject—” Sister waited until the customer had left the store. “—if you find that Mitch, too, drank or ate poison, then we might have someone who thinks they’re cleaning up the town by killing the drunks.”

“That’s terrible!” Georgia’s hand flew to her mouth.

Ben quietly replied,“The thought had occurred to me.”

“Well, if it turns out that way, I give you fair warning. If I find that sorry son of a bitch, I’ll kill him myself.”

Georgia and Ben were surprised at the comment, the steely tone in Sister’s voice.

She even surprised herself.

CHAPTER 9

Bitsy, the soul of extroversion, flew out of the turreted stable at Beveridge Hundred, an estate first farmed in the mid–eighteenth century. Like all Piedmont estates back in those early days, the folks bending their backs to the task of clearing and plowing lived in a log cabin. Even then, many were second-or third-generation Americans, although they thought of themselves as English. Few owned slaves. That trade exploded in the colonies at the turn of the seventeenth to eighteenth century.

Colonists, even in Puritan Massachusetts, needed hands, strong backs, stout legs. And so the Boston traders constructed the unholy triangle of rum, tobacco, and slaves, picking up one at one port, selling it at the next. The Africans suffered in those New England winters. Penny-wise New Englanders quickly discerned that owning slaves wasn’t profitable. However, this did not prevent the sea captains disembarking from New London, Boston, or Newport from doing business with the Portuguese, then dumping their human cargo only in southern ports. A bargain with the devil had been struck, enriching the captain, his investors, and theplanter. As years passed, those morally upright people living in the great mansions built with slave money along the cobblestone streets of Boston contracted a specific form of amnesia: they forgot where that money originated.

The Cullhains kept good records. By 1781, the end of the Revolutionary War, the sons and daughters of the first owners of Beveridge Hundred had done so well they could afford twenty-five slaves: wealth indeed. By 1820, during a boom cycle, the number swelled to 159 souls. By the standards of the day, they treated their people—as they thought of them—well.

Thanks to God’s beneficence, by 1865, Beveridge Hundred had not been burned to the ground by Yankees. Half of the slaves, now freed, left. Half remained. Their descendants lived around Beveridge Hundred, taking Cullhain as their surname. The white Cullhains remained as well, their daughters marrying into some of the great Virginia families and some of the not-so-great Virginia families.

Xavier had married a descendant of the Cullhains, Dee, descended on her maternal side. When the insurance business grew, X bought the old place from Dee’s great aunt and uncle, who could no longer keep it up.

Year after year, X poured money into the plantation, gradually lifting it up, if not all the way back to its former glory. Some years he had more money than others, but it was a sure bet the funds would be spent on Beveridge Hundred.

Bitsy found this place a rich trove of gossip as well as mice. The little owl would fly over from Sister Jane’s barn, ready to hear all from the resident owl: a chatty barn owl.

Xavier liked Bitsy and the resident barn owl, who was much larger than Bitsy. He’d put out sweet corn for her and watch her while she ate it.

The first trailer, the party wagon, rolled down the snow-packed lane.

“Ah, time to pull me boots on.” He chucked her some more corn.

“You’ve got another fortyfive minutes.”

Xavier smiled as Bitsy chirped and burped—at least that’s what he heard. He hoped she would not emit one of her famous shrieks. The barn owl clucked: an endurable sound.

The hunt promptly took off at ten, with a field of fortyfive people.

Bitsy shadowed it for a time on her way back home. The foxes gave short runs and then returned to their dens. Treacherous footing kept the foxes close to their dens and kept Sister, Shaker, and the hounds moving slowly, too. Freezing and thawing had coated the fencerows in ice.

After two hours of this torture, Sister called it a day. Still on horseback they carefully walked back to the trailers; Sister fell in with Edward, Tedi, Xavier, Crawford, Walter, and Marty.

“… recovered completely.” Walter beamed.

He hadn’t been talking about a patient, but rather Bessie, a young vixen he and Sister had rescued last year. She’d had to have her front paw amputated after an infection had destroyed much of the bone. She’d become a quiet house pet, even learning to go outside to go to the bathroom. Walter wasdevoted to Bessie, though her habit of burying food tried his patience.

“Can you breed her?” Xavier asked.

“That’s up to Sister.” Walter turned to the master.

“If we ever run short of foxes, I suppose we could, but right now the supply is good, and they’re healthy. I don’t remember seeing such shiny coats.”

“Walter, would you like me to send over Fannie and Kristal next Saturday?” She named her cook and head maid. Marty lived well.

“Thank you, Marty, that is so kind of you, but I hired Chef Ted once I knew I was having the big breakfast.”

“Oh, that’s right. The photographer Jim Meads is flying over from Wales. Guess we have to braid.” Crawford sounded as though it would be his fingers that cramped up, not Fairy’s joints. “You’ll be glad to see your old friend, I know.”

“Up to you,” Sister replied. “And I can’t wait to see Jim. He’ll be in the lap of luxury, staying at Beasley Hall.” She wanted Jim to herself, but she knew Marty and Crawford would knock themselves out to entertain him plus buy numerous photographs. She’d host him some other time.

“His photographs are shown all over the world. I mean, even the Prince of Wales sees them. He’s been in some of them, wearing, I can’t remember which hunt’s colors, whether it was the Quorn or the Duke of Beaufort.” Crawford couldn’t wait to be snapped by Mr. Meads.

Edward and Tedi remained silent. Of course they would braid. Why ask?

“My field always looks proper and rises to any occasion,” said Sister. “Jim Meads will be impressed as always when he sees the Jefferson Hunt.”

“And Mill Ruins is a romantic fixture,” Tedi said.

“As is Beveridge Hundred.” Sister smiled at Xavier.

Xavier laughed.“Beveridge Hundred would be a lot more photogenic if I’d paint the outbuildings. Even though it doesn’t last.”

“Nothing lasts anymore since they took the lead out of the damned paint,” Crawford grumbled.

Showoff that he was, every fence on his property was four board—not three board but four board—white. Men toiled, painting throughout each summer. With a half million dollars worth of fencing at Beasley Hall, Crawford aspired to perfection.

Most everyone else used Fence Coat Black, a special mixture from a paint supply in Lexington, Kentucky. Sister shipped it in fifty-five-gallon barrels. The stuff lasted almost eight years if one put on two coats.

However one looked at it, fencing was a necessary expense.

“Where’s Clay today? Or Ron?” Tedi inquired.

“Some kind of Heart Fund do,” Sister said. Both sat on the board for the County Heart Fund.

They rode up on the Hilltoppers.

Bobby Franklin, face ruddy from the cold, said,“Filthy, filthy footing.”

“You’ve still got the horse between your legs,” Sister told him.

“And everything else, too, I hope,” Walter teased.

“Bunch of perverts.” Bobby shook his head.

Ben Sidell, on Nonni, chimed in,“You just figured that out? That’s why I moved here from Ohio. I thought being sheriff in a county full of perverts would be, well, a challenge.”

“And are we disappointing you?” Tedi sweetly inquired.

He laughed.“Mostly there’s good people, but there’s just enough of the other kind to keep me busy.”

“Nonni’s a packer, isn’t she?” Bobby admired the tough mare; being a packer meant she could take care of a green rider.

Nonni knew more than the human atop her, which made her special.

“Thank God,” Ben agreed. “Oh, Sister, you were right, by the way. Sam Lorillard did know Mitch Banachek. The other men down at the railroad station were either too drunk or too afraid to tell us. Whenever they see a squad car, if they can, they walk.”

Crawford, on hearing his trainer’s name, spoke a little too rapidly. “Not in trouble, is he?”

“Not at all, Mr. Howard.” Ben swiveled to look behind him. “Sam was very helpful in locating next of kin to the two men who died down at the train station.”

“Good, good.” Crawford cleared his throat.

No one said anything because Gray Lorillard rode behind them. He’d been at the back of the First Flight, and Crawford hadn’t realized that when he asked Ben about Sam. Of course, he might have asked it anyway, while other riders, had it been their question, would have waited.

Sister slowed for other riders.“Go on—” She then smiled. “—you can ride in front of the master.”

She waited for Gray to come alongside.“Gray, would you mind terribly coming back to my farm for lunch? The girls are with me today, Jennifer and Sari. They can clean your horse and tack. They’ll put your horse in a stall, and, when you’re ready, you can load him right back up again. If we each go home, see to our horses, clean up, we won’t get to the club until three or four. Let’s just eat a relaxed lunch in my kitchen. You can take me to the club on a non-hunting day.”

His teeth shone bright white when he smiled, his military mustache drawing attention to his teeth.“What a good idea. Are you sure the girls won’t mind?”

“No. They are two wonderful kids.”

She checked the hounds at the party wagon, thanked her whippers-in, and quietly told Betty she’d be having a t?te?-t?te with Gray. She then handed her horse over to Jennifer. As she walked by Ben, he motioned her to come over.

“Sister, the results came back on Mitch. Hemlock. Same as Tony.”

She grimaced, imagining their last moments.“Hope it’s some kind of fluke. My throat constricts just thinking about them drinking that poison.”

“You can claim Anthony tomorrow if that suits.” He lowered his voice.

“I’ll have Carl Haslip,” she named one of the local funeral homes run by one of Ronnie’s relatives, “go to the morgue tomorrow. If nothing else, Anthony will have a Christian burial.”

She gingerly walked back to her truck, thinking about the total loss of self-respect those men at the station exhibited. She had noticed how oddly some walked, their legs wide apart in a strange kind of lurching shuffle. She’d realized they had peed themselves so many times that the skin on their legs was burned. Their pants, encrusted, rubbed them raw. When a human sank that low, maybe he wouldn’t even notice hemlock, or maybe he had tired of the slow suicide of alcoholism and had elected a swifter route. Thenshe also recalled their raucous laughter at times when she’d seen them at the downtown mall. Suicide didn’t ring true. Nor could she imagine Anthony Tolliver wanting to kill himself. He’d hang on for one last drink.

CHAPTER 10

“Thou unravished bride of quietness,” Gray quoted Keats. “However, once she was ravished, she babbled incessantly and usually it was a litany of my shortcomings.”

Sister laughed as she poured the Mumm de Cramant. They sat in front of the huge kitchen fireplace.

The coffeepot gurgled. She put the bottle of Cramant back in the ice bucket shaped like a sitting fox, a beautiful Christmas gift from Walter. Back at the counter Sister poured her favorite coffee, Shenandoah Eye Opener.“Cream? Sugar? Honey? I have crumbly brown sugar.”

“Barefoot.”

She brought him a steaming cup of black coffee, putting cream and honey in hers.“Gray, I’d forgotten how funny you can be.”

The deep creases around his eyes lengthened as he smiled.“Well, I might as well laugh at my own expense. Doesn’t cost a cent.”

“I imagine the divorce did, though.”

“Women extract their revenge for love lost, but here I am talking to one. You know, Sister, everyone has his or her story, and everyone can make excuses. It seems to me you can make a life or you can make excuses, but you can’t do both.”

She clicked her champagne glass to his.“Exactly.”

“Actually, I learned a lot. Theresa and I grew apart. Living with another person is like visiting another country; you have to learn a new language, and so does she. It’s obvious, but it wasn’t at the time.” He paused. “You and Raymond managed.”

“We practically killed each other, but we never did stop talking. And Gray, it’s no secret that he had his affairs, and, well, it’s more of a secret, I suppose, because women are better at glossing over these things, but I had mine.”

He perked right up.“Did you now?”

“I did, and I don’t regret a single one.”

“But you still loved Ray?”

“You can love more than one person at a time, and I don’t give a damn what the self-help books say, or the marriage mafia. If I hear the words ‘family values’ one more time, I may explode. All this business of how monogamy creates stability. Perhaps for some it does, but what creates stability is the balance of opposing forces or energies. And that’s Life According to Jane Arnold.”

“You’d forgotten how funny I could be—” He sipped more champagne. “—I’d forgotten how you cut right to the bone, right to the core of an issue. Most people don’t have the guts.”

She smiled.“Thank you, but I don’t know as it’s guts. I live on a farm. I work with animals every day of my life, as well as working in the soil. I believe all these ideas, overblown ideologies—religious or political—serve to drive a wedge between us and nature, between us and what we really are, which is a higher vertebrae, but an animal just the same.”

“Might I conclude that you are not enamored of democracy?”

“Democracy is running the zoo from the monkey cage.”

“What’s the alternative?” he asked.

“An enlightened despot, whether by birth as a king or queen or someone strong enough to accrue power to themselves. That’s the most efficient system, but we live in times that make that impossible. Democracy has become the Holy Grail of the West, of industrialization, and you know why. Because the real worship is not one man, one vote, it’s one man, one dollar. Commerce drives democracy, not vice versa.”

“I’ll have to think about that.” The firelight accentuated his high cheekbones.

“To change the subject, how long have you been divorced? The women in our club are dying to know.”

A boyish grin made him attractive.“Three years. My two children are grown. Mandy, whom we named for Nelson Mandela, back when he was incarcerated, is thirty-one. She’s a tax lawyer in my firm. I never thought she’d follow in her father’s footsteps. Mandy was the cheerleader/prom queen type, but she is a brilliant tax lawyer.” He stopped himself for a second. “I’m bragging.”

“Please do.”

“Brian, now, he is a maverick if ever there was one. He graduated from the University of Missouri, majored in animal husbandry; his specialty is cattle. He went on and got his doctor of veterinary medicine and now has a practice in Grand Junction, Nebraska. I swear he’s the only black cattlevet in the U.S.” Gray laughed. “Thriving practice. He loves his work.”

“Did you love yours?”

He reached for his coffee and took a sip.“This is delicious. Yes, I did, still do. The tax code will never be simplified in our lifetime because it’s not about taxes; it’s about congressmen distributing the pork. If a congressman from Florida can slip a provision into the code that gives some stone crab producers a big break, he will, and he’ll get reelected. The hypocrisy of our taxes is outrageous. People focus on the IRS, the symptom of their pain, instead of focusing on Congress, the source of the sickness. There will never be a good tax lawyer out of work. I like it: it’s war without the guns. I go in to win.”

“I never thought of that.”

“I could tell you stories until sunup.”

“I wouldn’t mind.” She smiled.

He smiled back.“When did Raymond pass?”

“In 1991.”

“That long ago? I remember Sam calling to tell me in a sober moment.”

“You wrote a lovely condolence.”

“I liked Ray.”

“Everyone did. He was a big outgoing man who made everyone feel important. And he wasn’t acting. He loved people.”

“He was good to us. I never felt an ounce of racism from Big Ray.”

She stroked her chin for a second.“Not consciously, but by virtue of when we were born and where we were raised, which is to say the United States, damaging concepts crept into our minds. One has to root them out, stay vigilant. Still, Ray trusted people. What I find among most people concerning race is terrible mistrust. It’s a poison. He never had that poison.” She thought for a flash of Mitch and Tony.

“Yes, it is, but how do you wipe out three hundred years of it?”

“You don’t. At least not in a generation or two. But don’t you think if one dwells on it, then one is trapped?” She hesitated. “Hope I haven’t offended you. I know none of us can escape our gender, our age, our race, and those things affect one. The whole world can be against you,but if you view yourself as your enemies view you, you’ve lost. Grab mane and kick on!”

He leaned forward, the warm cup of coffee in his hands.“You know that’s why I admire you. You tell the truth.

Even if it’s painful, you call it as you see it. You said people liked Ray. People like you, Sister, because you’re honest and strong. And you’re not hard to look at either.”

She laughed again.“Gray!”

He laughed, too.“I know what you mean. The question for me as a political animal has always been: How do I address my oppression without being obsessed by it? I made the right decision for me. I became proficient at my profession, and I supported those leaders and causes that I thought would help our people. I also supported causes that have nothing to do with race. I love the symphony and never minded writing a check each year to the Opera Guild. In fact, how lucky am I to be able to give?”

“I feel the same way, although most of my giving is directed toward the hunt club and the No Kill Animal Shelter. Those are my passions. Well, if there’s a woman candidate who looks good, I’ll support her, but so many of them are more liberal than I am. You know, antiguns and all that.”She threw up her hands. “How can you live out in the country without guns?”

“You can’t.” He leaned back in his chair just as Golliwog sauntered through the kitchen.

“Time for treats.”She hopped on the counter to lick the plates.

“Golly, you get off of there,” Sister commanded.

“Make me.”Golly didn’t jump down until Sister came after her.

“All cats are anarchists.” Gray watched the imposing feline give Sister a baleful glance, as though she were the wronged party and not the other way around.

“Maybe I’d better start flying the black flag over the house.”

“Ever read that stuff? Bakunin?”

“No. I readDas Kapitalin 1968, hoping it would help me understand the riots here and in Paris. Torture. Anyone who is a communist has a far greater capacity for tedium and repression than I do, tedium being the worst of the two.” She freshened his coffee. “Would you like more Cramant?”

“No, thank you. I have to drive Vagabond and myself back to the barn.”

“Good-looking horse.”

“Jumps the moon. I enjoyed hunting with him in Middleburg.”

“Troy Taylor is a fine huntsman, and Jeff Blue and Penny Denege are good masters. And they’ve got Fred Duncan, former huntsman at Warrenton there, too.”

“We’d hunt with Orange Hunt and Piedmont on occasion, and the last year I was there, I capped the limit at Old Dominion. You know, I had fallen into northern Virginia myopia, thinking that hunting stops south with Casanova Hunt and Warrenton. I’d forgotten just how much fun and how challenging hunting with Jefferson Hunt can be.”

“You couldn’t have said anything that would make me happier! We don’t have as much good galloping territory, obviously. We’re sinking down into ravines and clambering up foothills or mountain sides, especially at our westernmost fixtures, but if you can sit tight, there’s good sport.”

“May I ask you a personal question?”

“You can try.”

“Why didn’t you remarry?”

She took a long sip of coffee.“The truth?” When he nodded, she said, “For the first year after Big Ray’s death, I was numb. The second year I could feel, but it was a dull ache. When Ray died, I was fifty-nine. By the time I started to feel that I could be happy again, I was sixty-two. I thought, ‘I’m too old and no one will want me.’ ”

“Not true, of course.”

“You’re very kind, Gray, and then, then Peter Wheeler began to slow down. Peter and I had had an affair stretching throughout my forties. I stuck close to him. No affair. I mean, that was over, but I suppose I wasn’t emotionally available, even if someone had wanted me.”

“Actually, I think you scare the hell out of most men.”

“I do?”

“You’re six feet tall, probably taller when you were young, as I recall. You ride like a bat out of hell. You go through snow, rain, hail, sun, bogs, over stonewalls and big-ass coops. You come back smiling. You don’t have an ounce of fat on you, at least not that I can see. And you’re the master.”

Her eyes opened wide.“That’s fine with me. I wouldn’t want a man who wanted a weak woman.”

He laughed.“Touchdown.”

“Now may I ask you a personal question?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What do you think Sam’s chances are of staying clean?”

“Good. No, better than good. The deaths of Tony and Mitch have scared him. That could have been him. He was that out of control.”

“The thieving?”

“He stole to feed his habit. I believe he’ll stay straight. If he doesn’t—” Gray threw up his hands. “—I have done all I can do. No more.”

“I see.”

“What do you think Sam’s chances are?” he asked her.

“I don’t know. I haven’t been close to him for years. I hope he pulls it together. He’s a good horseman, and those are hard to find. And, before he fell by the wayside, he was a good man as well.”

As Gray rose to go, being a Virginian, he knew not to ask if he could help do the dishes. Although that is considered helpful outside the South, especially among those who are not wealthy, in the South, you don’t ask unless you’re at a Yankee’s house. What you do, knowing hardly anyone has the money for servants anymore, while preserving the fiction, is to later send to your hostess flowers or something else she likes. Or you can ask her to dinner.

“Your cat has returned to her evil ways.” He laughed at Golly.

Sister clapped her hands.“You get down from there.”“Ha, ha.”Golly laughed, giving up her post just as Raleigh and Rooster hurried in, hearing Sister clap her hands.

“What’s up! We’re ready.”The Doberman’s ears lifted up.

“Yeah, I’d like a ride in the truck.”Rooster lived for rides, and he knew the county better than most humans who drove it.

“All right, boys. Just a bad cat.”

Disappointed, they sat down as Golly, bursting with pride, rubbed right up on Raleigh’s chest. The Doberman looked the other way.

When Gray drove out of the stableyard, Sister sat down for a moment before doing the dishes.

“Whooee.”Golly added her two cents.

The two dogs stared at their human. She looked into their beautiful eyes.“Boys, he makes me feel—” She shrugged. “—can’t explain it.”

“Yahoo!”Golly sat and purred.“Time for the beautyparlor, a facial, and hey, maybe a boob lift.”

“Golly, you are insufferable,”Rooster moaned.

“Yeah, just think if you had a boob lift, the doctor wouldhave to hoist up eight of them,”Raleigh teased.

The calico swatted Raleigh, rubbed against Sister’s leg as she stood up, then sauntered off.

Sister watched her.“What gets into her?”

“You don’t want to know,”the dogs replied.

CHAPTER 11

Picking her way through the sodden earth, Inky had ample time to consider the fabled January thaw. Without fail, this warm-up occurred soon after the New Year, unlocking ice on the ponds and at the edges of creek beds. Frozen pipes and hoses suddenly spouted leaks, which meant plumbers raked in the bucks.

Shrubs bent low under snow would pop up, releasing dried berries still on the bough. And, of course, the footing was awful.

Inky had den fever, so she crossed Soldier Road to visit Grace, a small red fox living at Foxglove Farm.

Cindy Chandler, owner of this lovely place, had created two ponds, each at a different level, with a water wheel turning water from the upper pond to the lower. Underneath, buried below the frost line, was a pipe that carried the water back to the upper pond. The small insulated pump house served as a winter nest for one groundhog and many field mice, so both Grace and Inky found it most enticing. The field mice screamed bloody murder the second they smelled Inky and Grace. The groundhog, slovenly creature that he was and dreadfully fat, just rolled over and snored more loudly.

The two friends wearied of terrorizing the mice, so they trotted up the low long hill to the stable, a tidy affair with a prominent weathervane in the shape of a running fox.

The girls cleaned out the gleanings, some with molasses coating. Then they visited the Holstein cow and her calf, now as big as she was. These two, Clytemnestra and Orestes, wreaked havoc on Cindy’s fences and occasionally the gardens, too. Cly, as she was called, bored easily. As she had a pea brain, she craved excitement as well as clover. She’d lower her head, smashing through any fence in her path. Orestes, a tiny bell around his neck, would follow.

Finally, Cindy gave up, opened gates, and let her roam. The gardens, off limits, were patrolled by Cindy herself, with a cattle prod or her German shepherd.

Winter curtailed the naughty cow’s depredations. She and Orestes elected to remain close to their shed since it was filled with fresh hay and some special flakes of alfalfa, too. Cly was spoiled rotten. Humans chastised Cindy for babying the huge animal, but Cindy justified this by saying Cly behaved better if she had alfalfa and sweets.

Even the other animals told Cly she was so bad she ought to be hamburger. She’d lower her head, toss it about, let out a “Moo,” and then go about her business.

The foxes slipped under the shed overhang. The cow had bedded down in the straw, Orestes next to her.

“How are you, Cly? I haven’t seen you in some time,” Inky politely inquired.

“Good. What about you?”

“Pretty good, thank you. There’s been so much snow, Idon’t imagine too much has been going on around here.”

“Cindy’s planning a potting shed. That’s the news.”She flicked her long tail, which happened to hit her son in the nose.

“Mother,”he grumbled.

“Well, don’t sleep so close to me.”

After more desultory conversation, the two foxes left for Sister’s stable. Sister left out fruit candies, which Inky craved. Moving in a straight line, as the crow flies, Sister’s stable was only three and a half miles from Cindy’s stable.

“Little shapes like the fruit. Grape is a tiny bunch ofgrapes, and it’s purple. Cherry is a little red cherry. Theyfit exactly right in your mouth.”Inky anticipated her treats.

“Wish I could get Cindy to put out candy. She puts outcorn, and I do like it, but I have a sweet tooth.”Grace also liked to fish. She would sit motionless at the edge of one of the ponds for hours. Quick as a flash, she’d nab one.

The two foxes ducked under fences, finally coming into the large floodplain along Broad Creek. Built up along this floodplain was Soldier Road. The road, used since before the Revolutionary War, had originally been an Indian footpath leading to the Tidewater. Back during the Depression, when the federal government created work, the state built up the road through the floodplain. Even being twenty feet above, with culverts underneath, the road would flood at least once a decade. Modern-day people had to wait for floodwaters to recede, just as their ancestors had.

The two foxes moved four feet in from the creek itself.

“That’s strange.”Grace stopped at a spot that had been dug: small holes, not more than seven inches deep. Inky peered into the shallow holes.“Cowbane. Wasn’tthis where the cowbane was?”

“Still is. There’re roots all over here. Smells like parsnip.” Grace could only smell the odor of thawing earth as the scent from the tubers had vanished.“This is where Agamemnon died.”

Agamemnon, Clytemnestra’s mate, had died two and a half years ago.

“Bet that was a mess.”Inky wasn’t out and about yet at that time since it had been spring and she had still been a cub.

“Yes, had to get the tractor, the big eighty-horsepowerone, put the chains on him and drag him out. Couldn’tbury him here because of the flooding. What I don’t understand is how could he miss it? I mean, the stems were up,the little umbrella clusters ready to open. We all knowwhat cowbane looks and smells like.”

“Cows just pull up hunks by the roots. Maybe he didn’tknow until it was too late,”Inky said thoughtfully.

“Every part of that plant is poisonous but the roots arethe most lethal. Even a big bull like Agamemnon takes only a few little bites of a tuber and that’s it. Gone.”Grace’s voice carried the note of finality.

“Kill you in fifteen minutes. If you eat a big enough dose.It can kill any of us. I guess that’s why all this is fenced off,and even Clytemnestra is smart enough not to come downhere and eat.”

“That Cly,”Grace shook her head,“she is so dumb. Iknow she can’t help it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if sheforgot. You know when Cindy started to plow the roads inthe snow, Cly ran out and stood in the road, then shecharged the tractor. She’s got a screw loose.”

“Yeah, but she’s not dumb enough to eat what killedAgamemnon,”Inky replied.“I’m surprised Cindy hasn’tput plant poison on this stuff.”

“She does, but it comes back. It’s all over. I guess mosthumans know what it looks like. It’s pretty when it flowers, you know. All these city people and suburban peoplemoving into the country, they don’t know. They think thewhite flowers are pretty.”

“They use ‘country’ as a put-down, those folks. Theydon’t realize how much you have to know to live in thecountry, to hunt, to farm.”Inky shrugged.“I try to look onthe bright side. I mean, they can learn, I guess.”

“Inky, who would dig this up?”Grace’s slender, elegant ears with the black tips swept forward.

“Not an animal. We all know better.”

“Well, someone dug up the cowbane roots.”Grace again examined the shallow holes, moist with the melting snow.

“Had to have done it before the snow. Maybe some human wanted it. You know, some herbalist. Better hopethey wore gloves. Cowbane can make you sick just fromthe stuff that rubs off on your hands.”

The two walked through the culvert to the other side of the road and were now on Roughneck Farm, the high Hangman’s Ridge to their right. They wondered about the little holes a bit more, but soon forgot it as they hurried to the stable where, sure enough, those little sweet fruit candies awaited.

Cowbane is the country term forConium maculatum: hemlock.

CHAPTER 12

The hard freeze forced the graveyard manager, Burke Ismond, to bring out the heavy equipment early in the morning to dig a grave for Anthony Tolliver.

As he’d known Anthony, he mused that, even in death, the town drunk was a pain in the ass.

The Episcopal service was attended by Sister Jane, Tedi and Edward Bancroft, Betty and Bobby Franklin, and Donnie Sweigert and Clay Berry, the latter two feeling they ought to show up because Anthony did, from time to time, work for Berry Storage.

The sky, a hauntingly brilliant blue, only intensified the cold at the gravesite. The temperature, at nineteen degrees Fahrenheit, underscored the coldness of death.

After the simple, dignified service, the mourners walked together back to their respective cars.

“He had a good sense of humor, even when his whole life fell apart,” Bobby spoke. “These things take over a person.” Bobby knew whereof he spoke because of his eldest daughter, Cody.

“Some are born strong; some are born weak. That’s as near as I can figure.” Sister inhaled the bitingly cold air. “Once upon a time he was handsome, full of energy, and a good dancer.”

“Janie, I expect you and I are the only ones left who remember Anthony like that. By the time Edward and I married and we moved back here, Anthony was a lost cause.”

“Must be terrible to die alone and unloved.” Betty thought of his fate.

“Millions do. What was it Hobbes wrote, ‘The life of man is brutish, nasty and short,’ ” Bobby quoted. “Not that I like the idea, mind you. But Anthony didn’t live in Beirut or Sarajevo. He lived right here in central Virginia. I can’t help but think he had more chances than millions of others in devastated places. We’ll never understand what goes on in a brain like his.”

“Just as well.” Donnie Sweigert finally said something.

“Why?” Betty asked.

“ ’Cause if you know how they think, maybe you start to think like they do.” He put his ungloved hands in his pockets. “He was okay. I didn’t have any problems with him. He knew if he was on the job that day, he was sober that day. What he did at night with his paycheck was his business.”

“What surprises me is how long he lived, considering how much he drank. He probably didn’t have any liver left.” Clay remembered how rail thin Anthony was in the last years of his life. “Man must have had an iron constitution to keep going.”

“Guess he did,” Bobby replied.

Clay shook his head.“This sounds awful, but maybe it’s just as well he drank what he drank. He would have died of cirrhosis, no doubt, and it’s an awful death. At least he didn’t linger, and we might take comfort in that.”

“I’d take comfort in it if it had been his idea.” Sister’s voice was firm. “Yes, he was a falling-down drunk much of the time, but he still had a spark of life in him. I know he didn’t commit suicide.”

“Maybe he just grabbed the wrong bottle.” Donnie shrugged. “I feel sorry for him.”

“We all do, and I thank you all for coming here. At least he had a few people to mark his passing.” Sister met each person’s eyes. “Thank you.”

As people gratefully slipped into their vehicles to start their motors and the heaters, Clay remained behind.“Sister, allow me to pay for this. I should have thought of it in the first place, and I apologize.”

“He was an old friend.”

“Well, he worked for me when he could work. Why don’t we split it? I really should do something. I’ve had too much on my mind. I apologize again for not seeing to this when he died.”