Hotspur

CHAPTER 33

Plain pews of rich walnut accented the severe yet uplifting architecture of the local Episcopal church. When its first stone was laid in 1702 it was a rough affair. Few Christian people lived this far west, and those who did had little money. The native tribes of Virginia, divided into Iroquois-speaking peoples and Sioux-speaking peoples, warred against one another sporadically. The handful of whites found themselves in the middle, an uneasy place to be.

The small church proved a refuge from the unrelenting hostilities of the New World, a land devoid of familiar English nightingales yet filled with scarlet tanagers. For every animal left behind on England’s shores, there appeared here some new, beautiful creature.

Stone or brick was necessary for buildings of any permanence since the Indians used fire when raiding settlers. The large church bell could be used to sound an alarm. Every farm also had a bell. Upon hearing it, people set free their livestock, hopped on their horses, and galloped to the church.

While it may not have been its most Christian feature, the church, like their homes, was built with a small room with gun slits in the walls. The settlers took aim at attackers through those narrow openings in the stone. A slate roof provided protection from fire.

Over time, truces were made, later broken by both sides. But as the Thirty Years War raged, followed by the English Civil War, the trickle of colonists swelled to a stream, then a river. The hardships of America were more alluring than the hatreds of Europe. A few adventurous souls pushed west toward the fall line.

The fall line was a series of rapids dividing the upland freshwaters from the saltier waters below. Above the fall line rolled the undulating, fertile hills of the Piedmont, which lapped to the very feet of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Very few whites had reached the Blue Ridge. Those who did hung on for dear life. Building churches with rifle slits did not seem a Christian contradiction to them.

The early American experience was one of intense loneliness and backbreaking labor relieved by bouts of paralyzing danger. Church on Sundays meant seeing other people as much as prayer.

Once the Thirty Years War ended, the worst destruction that would befall Europe until the Great War, there was less reason for Europeans to flee. And after Charles II was restored to the English throne, he had the sense not to kill most of those who had overthrown his father, with a few exceptions. Even more Englishmen decided to stay home.

Hands were needed to work in Virginia, South Carolina, New York, and Massachusetts. So as the seventeenth century became the eighteenth, Africans were forcibly hauled onto the shores of the New World in increasing numbers.

The parishioners of this isolated church had argued among themselves over slavery. Many noted that the Bible not only has numerous stories about slaves, it never actually says that one human being should not own another. Reason enough, many said, reason enough. And so an economic monstrosity found theological dress clothes to hide in.

If the Native tribes thought the slaves would turn on their masters during attacks, they discovered these new people fought against them as ferociously as the Europeans.

Slave and master, back to back in the fortress room, would shoot at the raiders, then emerge to clean up the mess, the vertical hierarchy again restored. If anyone perceived the irony in this arrangement, they tactfully kept it to themselves.

By the time of the Revolutionary War, the fortress room attached to the church was no longer needed but, as is the wont of Virginians, they kept it out of tradition.

Ralph Assumptio’s body lay in this room, his casket on a kind of gurney that would be pushed into the sanctuary at the appropriate moment by two burly employees of the funeral parlor, flanked by two honorary pallbearers. The other pallbearers acted as ushers.

Frances sat in the first pew with her two daughters and two sons, grown now with families of their own.

The entire membership of the Jefferson Hunt attended, all 135 people. Sister Jane sat to the right of the Assumptios, three pews behind. The Bancrofts and Sybil Fawkes sat in front of her. Ken, being a pallbearer, remained in the fortress room.

Shaker escorted Sister while Walter sat with Alice Ramy, who had driven all the way back from Blacksburg the minute she’d heard the news. This surprised some people, but Alice really had turned over a new leaf.

The closed casket was brought out. The service for the dead had begun.

For Sari Rasmussen, this was the first time she heard the priest read, “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.”

Sister had heard Psalm 130 more times than she could count, but the profoundness of The Order for the Burial of the Dead never failed to move her. Some people hated funerals and wouldn’t go. Sister called that selfishness. If ever there was a time when a person needed the sight of friends, words of sympathy, this was that time.

What always struck her about the service was the abiding sense of love. Love for the deceased, love for the survivors, love for God. At such a moment, there were those whose faith was shaken. Hers never was, not even when Ray Junior died. She’d heard her own heart crack, but she hadn’t lost her faith. Had not women lost sons since the beginning of time? One bore one’s losses with fortitude. Anything less was an insult to the dead.

Frances and her children may or may not have believed this way, but they held themselves with dignity.

As Sister sat there, she found it sad that Ralph himself could not hear the words intoned by the Episcopal priest, “Depart in peace, thou ransomed soul. May God the Father Almighty, Who created thee; and Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who redeemed thee; and the Holy Ghost, Who sanctified thee, preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth, even for ever-more. Amen.”

She recalled Raymond, at the end, sitting up on a hospital bed that they’d put in the living room so he could receive visitors and see the hounds and horses go by. The large windows afforded him a good view. She remembered every word they’d said to each other.

“I’m dying like an old man,” he rasped.

“Well, dear, you are an old man,” Sister teased him, hoping to keep his spirits up.

“You, of course, are still a nubile lovely.” He coughed as he winked at her. “I don’t mind being old, Janie, I mind dying like a candyass.”

“You haven’t lived like one.”

He coughed again; the muscles in his chest and back ached from the continual spasms. “No. Didn’t live like a saint, either. But I thought I’d die on my feet.”

“Heart attack?”

“War. Or misjudging a fence. That sort of thing.”

“I’m glad you stuck around as long as you have.” She reached for his hand, cool and elegant. “We’ve had a good, long run. We took our fences in style. Maybe we crashed a few, but we were always game, Raymond. You most of all.”

He leaned back on the plumped-up pillow. “Foxhunting is the closest we’ll come to a cavalry charge.”

“Without the bullets and cannonballs.”

“Wouldn’t have minded that as much as this. It’s not fitting for a man to die like this, you know.” He sat up again. “What I’ve always longed for is a release from safety. We’re ruined by uniformity and tameness.” His eyes blazed.

“I know,” she simply said.

He tried to take a breath but couldn’t. “You’ve done a good job breeding the hounds. I forget to tell you the good things you do.”

“I inherited a good pack.”

“We’ve both seen good packs go to ruin in the hands of an idiot, of which there are many. Christ, put MFH behind a man’s name and he thinks he’s God.”

“The fox has a way of humbling us all. Raymond, for what it’s worth, I have been an imperfect wife, but I love you. I have always loved you.”

He smiled. “It all does come down to love, doesn’t it? And even if you’ve only loved for one day, then you’ve lived. Well, I love you. And as we both know, my feet are made of clay. But my love for you has always been true. Like the hunt, it takes me beyond safety, beyond tameness. ” He smiled more broadly. “Apart from this ignominious end, I am a most lucky fellow.”

“Sounds like a Broadway play.” She squeezed his hand.

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Oh, for a straight-necked fox and a curvaceous woman.” He kissed her hand again. “Has to be hunting in heaven. I’ll look up Tom Firr, Thomas Assheton Smith, the other Thomas Smith, Ikey Bell, oh, the list could go on.” He cited famous masters and huntsmen from the past. “And I shall look for Ray, mounted on a small thoroughbred, and we’ll ride together.” He stopped talking because he couldn’t fight back the tears.

Nor could Sister. And as she snapped out of her reverie she discovered her cheeks were wet but her heart was oddly full. As Raymond had said, it’s all about love. And love remembered washed over her with a power beyond reason.

Poor Ralph had no such comfort at his death. As Father Banks continued the service, a still, white-hot anger began to fill Sister.

Did he beg for his life? Knowing Ralph, she thought he probably did not, even if he were terrified.

Did Nola? Or Guy? Sister prayed and prayed mightily for them all.

Three people snatched from life, not one of them feeling a tender hand on their brow, a kind voice offering all the love there was to offer.

Nola, Guy, and Ralph had not walked on water. Each could be foolish and, as Nola and Guy were so young when they died, they had never had the chance to learn wisdom. They never outgrew the behavior that must have infuriated their killer. It’s possible both Nola and Guy would have remained wild, but unlikely. The duties and pains of this life fundamentally change all but the most dedicated to immaturity. And those duties are actually wonderful. It’s duty that makes you who you are. Duty and honor.

Sister never thought of this as bending to the yoke; for her, it was rising to the occasion. Nola and Guy never had the time to recognize their duties, much less fulfill them. At least Ralph did. He made something of himself, proved a good husband and father.

The stupidity of these deaths, the casual evil of them, overwhelmed her.

She sat there, boiling, knowing the killer had to be in the church.

“Whoever he or she is, they’re a consummate actor,” she thought to herself.

As the service ended, the pallbearers, Ken, Ronnie, Xavier, Bobby, Roger, and Kevin McKenna, Ralph’s college roommate, took their places around the polished mahogany casket. In one practiced motion they lifted Ralph on their shoulders and, in step, arms swinging in unison, carried him down the center aisle, then out into the glowing late-September light.

The congregation followed the family at a respectful distance and filed into the cemetery, home to three centuries of the departed.

The service ended with Shaker, standing at the head of the casket as it was lowered into the ground, blowing “Going Home.” This mournful cry, the traditional signal of the end of the hunt, brought everyone to tears.

Afterward, Sybil walked alongside Sister. “Are you going to cancel Tuesday’s hunt?” she asked.

“No. Ralph would be appalled if I did such a thing.”

Shaker, on Sister’s other side, added, “If the fox runs across his grave it will be a good omen.”

“We sure need one,” Sybil said, her eyes doleful.