Hotspur

CHAPTER 24

A cool jet stream of Canadian air dipped over Virginia in the middle of the night, bringing with it a breath of fall.

At five-thirty in the morning, heavy fog like gray cotton candy wrapped the earth. Sister rose and felt the chill, for she had forgotten to turn on the heat in the upstairs section before going to bed. She threw on her heavy robe, slipped on her sheepskin slippers, and clicked the thermostat to seventy degrees.

The house was divided into zones, each with a separate thermostat. The intention, to save money, never panned out and the need to check all four thermostats irritated Sister.

By the time she reached the kitchen she was wide awake—which could not be said for Golly. Nestled deep in the pillow, she still snored lightly. Both Raleigh and Rooster dutifully followed their master downstairs.

Sister put down kibble for “the boys,” as she called them, then ground coffee beans and soon had a pot percolating. She couldn’t see a thing from the kitchen window. The outdoor thermometer in the window read forty-nine degrees.

She poured coffee into a big mug, then hurried upstairs by the back stairway. She put on two pairs of socks, one thin, one heavier, jeans, and her work shoes with rust and yellow around the laces. Layers worked best in changing weather. She slipped on a thin undershirt, a T-shirt over that, and topped it off with an old navy pullover. Then she was down the stairs and out the back door with Raleigh and Rooster scampering to keep up.

The hounds would fuss if they heard her, so she gave the kennel a wide berth, moving slower than usual because of the fog. Blurry shapes would suddenly appear, then, as she neared, transform into the hay barn or an ornamental pear. She reached the farm road and headed without hesitation toward Hangman’s Ridge, as though drawn there.

Inky, returning to her den at the edge of the cornfield, smelled the approaching human and two dogs, then heard their footfalls on the dirt road. She shadowed them, curious, keeping downwind.

Raleigh wouldn’t chase her, but every now and then Rooster wanted to prove a harrier could hunt a fox as well as a foxhound. Sister would walk out with Rooster and let him hunt rabbits, making a big fuss over him. She’d call him back if he picked up fox scent, which was easy to tell since the fox covered more territory than the rabbit, but if the line was good and he was slow to obey she didn’t get angry at him. Can’t punish a hound for hunting.

Inky enjoyed being a few yards behind everyone. She could turn on a dime and give you a nickel’s change. Even if the wind shifted and Rooster got a whiff of her, she could literally spin and run right under his belly. Hounds were agile as far as dogs go, but the only creature as quick and nimble as the fox was the cat. As they both hunted the same game this made sense. They had developed the same strategies for killing mice, moles, rabbits, and the occasional lazy bird.

A soft whoosh alerted Inky to Athena’s presence. Another swoosh meant Bitsy. They passed low overhead.

Sister looked up but saw nothing through the fog. Rooster opened his mouth, but she swiftly put her hand around his muzzle, putting her finger to her own lips. All her pets knew the sign. Rooster said nothing.

The dampness of the fog made Sister wish she’d put on yet another layer. Rooster lifted his nose, then put it down on the farm road. Comet had passed that way, the dampness holding down scent. But he said nothing, keeping close to Sister.

They reached the base of Hangman’s Ridge in twenty minutes. Mimosa trees near the farm road would appear and disappear in the fog, their beautiful pink-gold blossoms adding color to the gray mist.

The climb to the top, not as steep on this side of the ridge, proved steep enough to make them breathe heavily.

A soft light in the eastern sky, gunmetal gray underlined with dove gray, announced the sun would rise in another thirty to thirty-five minutes, but Sister knew fog this thick would not lift for hours after that. Only when the sun had sufficiently warmed the thick blanket wrapping the meadows, ridges, and mountains would it evaporate, leaving slivers lingering just above the creeks and rivers, tongues of silver gray.

Once on the ridge, Sister paused to catch her breath. Inky ducked off the dirt road, slinking under a clutch of mountain laurel, slick with dew.

The mild breeze on the ridge tousled Sister’s hair. Ahead, the huge outline of the hanging tree took shape, its massive silhouette mute testimony to its centuries of life. What a pity such a magnificent oak had been used to kill.

Hanging, not a pleasant way to die, could at least be quick if the length of rope was correct and the drop proper. But those criminals executed here were strung up to dangle and choke to death, which could take four or five minutes. Occasionally the convict’s windpipe would be broken by the violence of the initial jerk and lift as the horse on which he sat was slapped out from underneath him. Death came with merciful swiftness then.

Lawrence Pollard, the first man ever to be hanged from the tree, had so enraged his enemies, they hauled him up without benefit of a horse in 1702. His executioners believed he had swindled them in land speculation— which he had. By all accounts a dark-haired, handsome man, a smooth talker, an elegant dresser, he seduced the few hardy families who had settled this far west, the Wild West at that time, into putting up money to purchase tens of thousands of acres in what is now Lewisburg, West Virginia.

He did buy thousands of acres in that area, but he also kept a portion of the money for dissolute living in Philadelphia, the largest city in the colonies. Word of his profligacy filtered back to the Tidewater and even there leached out to the farthest borders of civilization, this particular county at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Through guile, the irate investors lured Lawrence back to his death.

The last man hanged in this spot was Gilliam Norris, a Confederate veteran, a brave and well-respected man who lost his mind, killing his mother, father, two sisters, and brother with his service revolver.

In between 1702 and 1875, eighteen men were hanged, all murderers with the exception of Lawrence.

Two shapes in the tree startled Sister until she drew closer and recognized Athena and Bitsy. Neither flew away as she approached them.

The sound of a moan stopped her in her tracks. Both Raleigh and Rooster swept their ears forward.

Inky, behind them, stepped out of the fog.

Sister saw her and said to Rooster, “Leave it.”

But Rooster paid no attention to Inky, as something by the trunk of the tree had his full attention.

“I’m here to find something. I don’t know what it is,” she said as if to reassure the animals, but mainly to calm her own fears.

When the swirling fog momentarily parted in front of her, she thought she saw the form of a man by the tree, disfigured, wearing silk breeches and silk stockings, his neck horribly twisted.

She tried to blink the apparition away. This spot could arouse even the most phlegmatic person’s imagination.

But then she heard a hoarse whisper and recognized a verse from Psalm 42:

“My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? . . . all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. My soul is bereft of peace.”

Raleigh growled, putting himself right in front of Sister.

Shaking, she backed away. She might be crazy as that hoot owl in the tree, but whatever she was seeing looked real enough to her.

As the fog swallowed the form back up, it let out a howl of pure anguish. Wind swept over the ridge with a slashing gust.

Sister turned and ran through the fog, only able to see three feet in front of her in a good patch. She was glad she lived a physically active life. She might be seventy-one years old, but she could run like the devil.

Skidding, slipping, sliding down the ridge, she didn’t stop until she reached the base.

“Goddamn, I swear that really was Lawrence Pollard’s ghost!”

“It was,” Inky said. “I’ve seen him before. There are a couple up there. They can’t go to ground.” She meant they couldn’t go to their den, her concept of home.

Sweat rolled down Sister’s forehead, between her breasts, down the small of her back. She hadn’t been so scared in years.

“His tongue was hanging out.” Rooster, too, was a little shaken by the apparition.

Then Athena and Bitsy swooped by in the fog, and that startled Sister.

“Dammit!”

“Don’t swear at me!” Athena laughed because she’d scared Sister.

To Sister it sounded like “hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo.”

Of course, Bitsy had to let out one of her bloodcurdling shrieks, which nearly caused all of them to have heart attacks.

Bitsy thought she was singing “The Ride of the Valkyries.”

Even Inky’s ruff stood up on end.

“God, that’s awful.” Raleigh blinked.

Sister got hold of herself and started back toward home.

Inky headed for her own den. “Sister, those spirits up there got what they deserved. They can’t hurt you.”

“Why don’t they leave?” Rooster asked.

Athena, her voice ghostly and deep in the fog, answered him. “They can’t let go. They can’t find absolution or redemption. You know there’s a stag like that. It’s not just humans. He leads deer hunters to their death. He sets them up so they shoot each other. Kills two or three a year.”

“They’d better not hurt Sister. Human or stag, I don’t care. I’ll kill them,” Raleigh growled.

“Can’t,” Bitsy shrieked. “They’re already dead.”

Sister jumped at the sound of Bitsy’s voice. “Good God, that bird could wake the dead.” Then she realized what she’d said and she had to laugh.

By the time Sister reached her kitchen, she needed that second cup of coffee. She wondered if she also needed prayer, psychiatry, or a good knock on the head.

Instead, there was a knock on the back door.

She opened the door and was happy to see Shaker’s familiar, placid face.

“Morning, Boss,” he said as he walked in.

At seven in the morning, it was not too early to call.

“Thick as pea soup out there,” she said. She wanted so badly to tell him what she thought she saw.

“Yes it is. Patty’s ready. I called Tony over at Keswick and he said I could bring her by.” Patty was a gyp who was at the right time in her cycle for breeding. The huntsman at Keswick Hunt had a hound, Mischief, whose pedigree and conformation, hopefully, would match up well with Patty.

“Mmm, fine. Here, have a cup of coffee. I make better coffee than you do.”

“You look a little peaked. You all right?”

“Well, I had a scare.”

“I have them every month when my bills come due.”

She smiled. “I have those, too. Next board meeting, I’ll bring up the subject of a raise once again. And you know, if they don’t vote it through I’m going to Crawford.”

“I don’t want his money!”

“If he wants to throw it around, I say we take it. I can handle him.”

“I can’t.”

“You won’t have to—but don’t worry. I’ll get this past the board. It’s been four years since you’ve had a raise, and it’s not right. I’m tired of it. He offered to buy a Dually for the club. Much as we need the truck, this is more important.”

Sister Jane was in charge of hunting and everything to do with the hunting, but the board of governors was in charge of the purse strings and the social direction of the club. It could make for friction.

“That’s not why I came over. Really it was about Patty.” He sipped the delicious coffee, a perfect mixture of blends to start the day.

“Now that we don’t have Doug’s salary to pay, I know I have the ammunition to get this through.” She paused. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“I’m Irish. Of course I believe in ghosts.” He laughed. “I remember the time you thought you saw the Grim Reaper. And he held someone’s claim ticket, didn’t he?”

“But you didn’t believe me at the time, Shaker. You accused me of drinking.”

Sheepishly he put his mug down. “I did.” He glanced out the window. “Too bad we aren’t hunting this morning.”

“We’d need fog lights on our bridles.”

He laughed again. “That we would, but I love casting on a foggy morning.”

“Shaker, I walked up to Hangman’s Ridge this morning. Before sunup. I don’t know why. I felt like something was calling me up there. And I thought I saw a ghost. Actually, I won’t be wishy-washy about it. I did see a ghost. He quoted from Psalms. All about misery. Scared me half to death. Then that damned little screech owl flew by and let out a hoot. I don’t know why my heart is still beating.”

He roared at this. “She’s scarier than the ghost.”

“Ah, so you do think there’s a ghost up there?”

“More’n one. Earth’s full of spirits, I think. Don’t know why, although my mother would say we have to pray them into Purgatory and then up to Heaven.”

“Even the murderers?”

“God’s grace.”

“Yes, I guess forgiveness is His trade. I’m not sure it’s mine. I wish I knew why I felt drawn to that tree. I’ve lived here for forty-eight years, Shaker. I know that old pin oak very well. But until this morning I never felt a call to go there.”

“Maybe it’s a warning, something to prepare you. You know, sometimes I have dreams. I think we get, uh, premonitions.”

“I suppose. Yesterday after hunting I remembered something about the day Nola and Guy disappeared. Nola hunted. We pulled up at the Lorillard graveyard.”

“My second season carrying the horn. Still a little nervous. Not at all anymore.” He winked. Like any good athlete, Shaker always felt a twinge of nerves before an event.

“We’d run hard. Horses were blowing, people, too, and I stepped away from the field to listen for you. Anyway, Nola, Guy, Ralph, Xavier, Ron, Ken, and Sybil formed a small group a bit away from the others. Nola was the center of attention. It’s not that they were coffeehousing, it was just the men’s eyes. Sybil was staring into the graveyard. She knew she was invisible then. Even her husband couldn’t take his eyes off Nola at that moment.

“When Nola disappeared and Guy didn’t show up, my mind was focused on finding them. I didn’t think of what I felt. I certainly didn’t think of that moment at the Lorillard graveyard.”

“And what was it you felt?”

“That Sybil would always be overshadowed by Nola even though she was the better woman. At least I think so.”

“Me too.”

“That Nola had conquered each of those men there, except Ken, I suppose. Maybe she slept with Ralph and Xavier, I don’t know, but she could have had them had she wanted them. Even Ron. If she’d put her mind to it.”

“Could have had Ken, too, I’ll reckon.”

“You think?”

He nodded, then got up and opened the bread box. “I’ll owe you one.” He took out a package of chocolate-covered doughnuts.

“Or two or three.”

“Nola could have had most any man. Maybe not for life, but for a night. She was, I don’t know, I can’t think of the word, like some potion.”

“You, too?”

He smiled, breaking the doughnut in two. “I was a young huntsman. She wouldn’t have looked at me twice.”

“Plenty of other women have. Huntsmen can pretty well have their pick of the litter.” Sister stated one of those hunting facts that everybody knows but few people say out loud. Huntsmen are like rock stars to many female members of the field. It doesn’t seem to work so strongly in reverse. If the huntsman is a female, the male members don’t automatically fawn over her.

He shook his head. “Not me.”

“By the end of the season maybe,” Sister said, teasing him. “But you knew even then, young as you were, twenty-five or so, that Nola could be . . .”

“Cruel. Nola was cruel to men.”

“Well, I don’t know as that’s the right word, but if you knew that about her, you would still have gone to bed with her?”

He straightened his back. “No, ma’am, I would not, but I would have wanted to.”

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s a guy thing. You can know a woman is pure poison and still want her. For some men, they only want her more.”

“Women, a lot of them, anyway, always want the man who will hurt them. The Bad Boy. Maybe it’s the same.”

“Maybe. All I know is when she’d fix me with those blue eyes and start smiling, I could feel the blood in my body burn.”

“She affected women, too. That kind of beauty is erotically charged for both sexes, but to different degrees.”

“Guy kind of had that quality, too. He could have most any woman he wanted. Probably why Fontaine Buruss hated him. Fontaine thought they all belonged to him.”

“Did men dislike him?” Sister asked.

“I think most men didn’t trust him around their women. Or maybe they didn’t trust their women around Guy,” Shaker astutely commented.

“Do you think Guy was sleeping with other women when he was going with Nola?”

“No. Funny, I don’t think he was.”

“What about her?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Ralph Assumptio, for one.”

“Who else?”

“Fontaine.”

“Jesus.” She paused. “Raymond?”

“No.” Shaker would have lied, but it was true. Sister’s husband had not been sleeping with Nola. Raymond had slowed down a bit by then. Got caught too many times and made too many messes.

“That’s a relief.” Sister exhaled. “I would hate to think Raymond was mixed up in this. But he wasn’t, I mean, he wouldn’t.”

“Raymond was a good man. He had a weakness.”

“He did, God bless him.” Sister had spent enough emotion on her deceased husband. She wasn’t going to waste any time dwelling on the negative. “Do you think Ralph, Fontaine, or some jilted lover could have killed Nola?”

“I don’t know. You think you know people, but they can surprise you.”

She waited, lowered her voice. “Sybil?”

“Kill her own sister?” Shaker was genuinely shocked.

“She’d spent her life in Nola’s shadow. And what if Nola decided to make a conquest of Ken?”

“Nola flirted with everyone. And Ken would have to be one of the dumbest men, dumber that snot, to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.”

“Nola?”

“His marriage. He’d just married into the Bancroft family, and his people don’t have doodly-squat.”

“I thought that, too. Well, what about Xavier?”

“She was done with him before first day of cubbing.”

“He held a grudge.”

Shaker shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, you think you know someone and then they fool you.”

“You’re a good huntsman. You trust your instincts. What’s your instinct?”

“That the killer is going to break cover.”

“And?”

He reached for his third doughnut. “I don’t want to accuse a man of murder, but I remember that Ralph Assumptio was courting Frances that fall.” She nodded that she remembered and he continued. “He married her at Christmas, and he wasn’t especially happy at his own wedding.”

“Everyone said he got loaded the night before.”

“More. I think Ralph was still in love with Nola.”

“Their marriage seems happy enough.”

Shaker shrugged. “Who knows?”

“You’re right. Who does know?”

“I’m not saying he killed her. I’m saying I think he was in love with her and I think her body being found has shaken him up.”

“Did Guy know she was sleeping with other men?”

“It would have killed him. I don’t think he knew, but time was coming when he would have found out. Too many of us knew her, I mean. Those of us in our twenties. It was bound to come out sooner or later.”

“Would he have killed her?”

“I don’t know.”

Sister frowned. “Maybe he found out that last day.”

Shaker refilled his and Sister’s coffee cups, then sat back down. “Or maybe Nola really fell in love. It happens. Maybe she said good-bye to whoever else.”

“I remember Guy bumped Ralph going over a jump that day. Caused a fuss.”

“They were fixing to fight sooner or later.”

She reached down to pat Raleigh’s head. “Did you tell Paul Ramy what you thought about Ralph back then?”

Shaker shook his head. “No. First off, I couldn’t prove it. Yes, I saw Nola kiss Ralph, oh, spring of ’81, something like that. But that doesn’t mean I could prove she slept with him. At the time I didn’t think it served any purpose other than to upset Paul, who was already upset.”

“Upset him because his son’s girl wasn’t faithful?”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded in agreement.

“Well, have you told Ben Sidell?”

“I did. He’s okay, Sidell.”

“Yes, I think so, too. Why didn’t you tell me?”

He put down his coffee mug. “When have we had time to talk? We’ve been working nonstop to get ready for cubbing, and now we’re cubbing and,” he paused, “I don’t like saying things I can’t prove, things that could hurt people, even to you, and I know you won’t talk.”

“I understand. Oh, before I forget, Jennifer Franklin and her friend Sari Rasmussen are going to work here on weekends, and I expect they’ll show up after school sometimes, too, now that Jennifer’s got her driver’s license. Do you want them to work any of your horses?”

“No. Too hot for them. Especially Showboat.”

“Okay.” She looked out the window. “Fog hasn’t lifted a bit. Well, let’s clean the kennels.” They stood up and took their cups to the sink.

“You know, when Nola first disappeared I figured she was cutting a shine,” Shaker said. “Either she ran off with Guy or she dumped him and ran off with the Prince of Wales. I didn’t worry until a week passed.”

“I did. I figured she’d at least call her mother or sister to laugh about what she’d done,” Sister replied.

“Women like Nola provoke people.”

“This sounds suspiciously like blaming the victim.”

His melodic tenor voice rose. “No. Anyone who lives above the rules gets pulled down eventually. Might take a long time, but people will take their revenge.”

“You’re right.” She washed the cups while he leaned on the counter. “Oh, to change subjects, you know Sari’s mother, Lorraine, is a very attractive woman. She’s been divorced for two years.”

“And?”

“Just some information,” she said, smiling.

“Cupid.”