Outfoxed. Hotspur

1. OUTFOXED

CHAPTER 1

On October twelfth, silhouetted against a bloodred sunset, a cloaked figure carrying a scythe was seen by three people. A gray fox also observed the reaper.

A stiff breeze kicked up from the west, sending a sudden swirl of fallen, golden leaves spiraling upward. When they fell to earth the figure was gone.

“Did you see that?” Jane Arnold, known as “Sister Jane,” asked.

“See what?” the rugged man next to her replied.

“On Hangman’s Ridge, I swear I saw the Grim Reaper.” She pointed to her left, the deep green ridge rising softly from the meadows, a lone, massive tree commanding the middle of it.

“Sister”—Shaker Crown put his hands on his hips, shaking his head—“dipping into the flask again.”

“Balls.” She smiled at him.

It was an alluring smile and one that still carried a sensual message to men that even her seventy years couldn’t erase.

“No, ma’am, I didn’t see anything. Tell you what I do see. Fontaine Buruss hasn’t kept his word.”

“Damn him.” Jane briskly walked along the grassy farm path to a three-board fence up ahead.

A coop, a jump resembling a chicken coop, was smashed to pieces.

“Lucky no cows are out.” Shaker took off his lad’s cap, running his fingers through his auburn curls. “Fontaine.” He shrugged. No other words were necessary.

“There are days when I think I’m a candidate for sainthood,” she said, laughing.

Shaker put his arm around her small waist.“You know, boss, I say that to myself every day.”

“Devil.” She hugged him in return. “Well, let’s stop the gap. Come back tomorrow morning and fix it right.” She glanced toward the west. “Much as I love fall, I mourn the fading light.”

“Yes ma’am.” He vaulted over the splintered wood, heading for a dense forest at the edge of the pasture.

Within minutes Shaker returned, dragging a tree branch with a diameter the size of a strong man’s forearm.

Jane put her hand on the fence post and swung over the destroyed jump, both feet up in the air at once. She’d broken a few bones over the years, felt the arthritis, but a life of hard physical labor kept her young. If she’d wanted to vault the coop like Shaker, a man thirty years her junior, she could have.

“Bullhead.” She chided him because he didn’t ask for help and the tree branch, blown down in yesterday’s storm, was still heavy with sap.

The two kicked out the broken boards in the coop, placed them in the middle, then maneuvered the tree branch over the top of the coop.

“That will hold them tonight. Glad it’s your fence line.” He rubbed the sap off his hands.

“Me, too. Otherwise we’d be out here until midnight. Feels like a storm coming up, too.”

“Yesterday’s was bad enough.”

“It’s been strange weather.”

“You say that every year.”

“No, I don’t,” she contradicted him as they turned for home.

They’d parked the farm truck at the edge of Hangman’s Ridge. With the wind in their faces picking up, the truck seemed far away. Once inside the old GMC, Sister shivered.

“Someone walked over my grave.”

Shaker gave her a sharp look.“Don’t say that.”

“It’s an expression.”

“I don’t like it.”

She burrowed down in her seat as he drove. She wanted to say more about whatever she’d seen on the top of Hangman’s Ridge but thought she’d better shut up. They pulled into the kennel just as a weary Doug Kinser walked in, a gorgeous hound trailing behind him.

“Archie!” Sister’s voice carried reproach as she stepped out of the truck.

“That’s not like Arch.” Shaker stared hard at Archie, who stared sweetly back.

“Good work, Doug,” Sister complimented the young man, a man so incredibly beautiful that Zeus would have made him a cupbearer on Mount Olympus.

As Douglas led Archie, the hound, to the male side of the kennel, he said,“Sitting in front of a fox den. He wouldn’t budge. He was pretty funny. He knows to come when he’s called, but it’s hard to fault a hound who hunts and dens his fox.”

Sister walked over to Archie, one of her favorites.“Arch, did you try to dig that fox out?”

“No. I was waiting him out,”a determined Archie answered.

“Softhearted women ruin good packs of hounds,” Shaker said.

“So do hard-hearted men. Especially bullheaded ones. Good night.”

“Night, boss.” Shaker tipped his cap to her as she set off on the half-mile walk to her house. He knew better than to offer her a ride. He walked into the central section of the foxhound kennel, the feeding room. The housing for the hounds was built around this square and neatly divided in halfby a concrete wall. Males to the left. Bitches to the right. Outbuildings off this core kennel housed sick hounds, segregated for their own good. Another building was the nursery, a place for bitches or gyps, as they were known, to birth and raise their puppies.

“Where was he this time?”

“Sitting down on the other side of Hangman’s Ridge. Just sitting there looking up at the hanging tree.”

“On the ridge or at the bottom?”

“At the bottom.”

“See any tracks?”

“No.”

“See anything on the ridge?”

“Uh”—Doug lowered his eyes, a brief flash of embarrassment—“yeah. Someone up there with an old scythe over their shoulder. Couldn’t see their face. Had on a cloak, kind of, with a hood.”

“Like Death?”

“Well—like the drawings, I guess. I called Archie to me and bent down to check him over and when I stood up, whoever it was was gone.”

Shaker opened the heavy metal gate, turning Archie into the sleeping area where the other dog hounds, burrowed in straw, raised their heads then lowered them. They’d hunted hard that day and were curled up for the night. “Sister said she saw him, too.”

An audible sigh of relief escaped Doug’s lips.

“Thought you were hallucinating?” Shaker laughed.

“Was pretty weird.”

“Certainly sounds like it. I didn’t see a thing. Now I wished I’d seen him or whoever.”

“Gave me the creeps.”

Shaker glanced around the kennel. Everything was in order.“Let’s clean the tack. I hate getting up in the morning to dirty tack.”

About a quarter of a mile on the north side of Hangman’s Ridge, running parallel to it, was Soldier Road, so named because during the Revolutionary War, the recruits hurried down the road to gather at the town square.

Along that road, at sunset, Fontaine Buruss was driving his sleek Jaguar back into town. He’d conveniently forgotten that he’d promised to repair the coop he’d banged up during the morning’s hunt. His mind was focused on meeting a lady for mutual pleasure. If he timed it exactly right, he’d be home in time for dinner.

A cloaked figure, scythe on his shoulder, beckoned to him as he drove along the ridge. With his right hand he waved Fontaine toward him.

Fontaine slowed, then sped up.

When he reached his affairette of the month, the beautiful and much younger Cody Jean Franklin, the first thing he said to her was,“That goddamned Crawford Howard tried to scare me today. First he ran me into a coop on Sister Jane’s land”—he paused, remembering he’d not fixed it—“and then the silly ass, dressed as the angel of death, waved me to him from Hangman’s Ridge.”

“How do you know it was Crawford Howard?”

“Who else would do that? He hates me. What did he think he’d do? Scare me to death?”

“Did you see his face?” Cody sensibly asked.

“No, the hood was over the face but it was Crawford all right. I’d bet my life on it.” He started to fume and was ready to say he’d get even with that Yankee son of a bitch but then he noticed the time, considered his purpose in being there. “I brought you a present.” He reached into his tweed coat pocket, retrieving two small packages.

She opened the larger package. A Navy SEAL watch with a rubber wristband and a yellow face was inside.“Thank you, Fontaine. I can sure use this.” The other package, a tiny glass vial of cocaine, she put on the coffee table.

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. She kissed him back. He knew he’d make dinner right on time.

Carrying a bobwhite in his mouth, Butch, the patriarch of the gray fox clan, crawled into his burrow, dropping the freshly killed ground bird.

He, too, had been by Hangman’s Ridge, right along the fence line but in the woods. He’d watched Sister Jane and Shaker. He thought Archie was on the other side of the ridge. He’d observed the usually reliable hound get fixated at the red fox den that morning. In fact, he’d had an enjoyable morning watching the Jefferson Hunt get turned around backward while chasing three different red foxes. Better the reds than himself. He had hunting to do and he’d been out too late that night anyway. He should have been in his den by the time he heard the huntsman’s horn. Still, the sight of all those humans bouncing around, falling off puce-faced, was too good to pass up. He sat on a moss-covered boulder by the creek and watched. He saw Fontaine, headed off by Crawford Howard, crash into the jump. Fontaine shook his fist at Crawford, who rode off as though nothing had happened. Then he had the delightful prospect of watching Fontaine, who had no sense of direction, ride around in circles in the forest. He only found the others because the hunt doubled back.

His mate and two half-grown children tore into the bobwhite. He’d eaten so much corn while hunting that he couldn’t stomach another bite.

Inky, his black daughter, a wing under her paw, smiled. She was a most unusual creature and not just because of her color. She was smarter than the rest of the family and there were times when that intelligence was unsettling.

“The reds were out in full force today. I suppose they felt it their duty to humiliate the Jefferson Hunt,”Butch said, laughing.

“They usually do,”his mate, Mary Vey, replied.

“Three hit the ground today. Not a bad day at all. And I saw Death on the way home.”

“Someone killed hunting?” Comet, his strong son, asked.

“No, it’s been years since that’s happened. On Hangman’s Ridge, the Reaper stood in the sunset, right by the hanging tree where I suppose he’s claimed plenty of men in the past. He wasn’t looking my way, so I think I’m safe.”

“Anyone else see him?” Comet wondered.

“Sister Jane did. I saw her look straight at him and I expect that tenacious hound, sounded like Archie, on the other side of the ridge saw him, too. Don’t know who else if anyone.”

“I wonder if she really saw him?” Mary Vey, hearing a rustle at the main entrance, sniffed. The badger from over in the hollow was passing by.

“Oh, she saw him. The question is, did it register? Humans discount anything that doesn’t fit into their version of reality,”he said.“But Sister, well, I expect Sister really saw him and knows she saw him.”

“I wonder if her time has come.”

That night as Sister Jane drew the down comforter around her—her cat, Golliwog, on her left side; her Doberman, Raleigh, on her right—she wondered the same thing.

CHAPTER 2

“Crashed it all to hell. Slid off his horse, then stood there sputtering, shaking his fist at me. What an inspiring sight.” Crawford Howard sucked on his briarwood Dunhill pipe as he gleefully recounted his run-in, literally, with Fontaine Buruss.

“So that’s why he was so behind.” Bobby Franklin, who looked like a defrocked friar, picked up an ice-cold shrimp, dipping it in sauce. Bobby was president of Jefferson Hunt, which put him in charge of organizing events, of politicking. Jane Arnold, as master, was in charge of everything connected to hunting. The master also made up any financial shortfalls.

“He’s been campaigning nonstop behind my back and I damned well won’t have it.” Crawford calmly ate a shrimp himself.

“Craw, this is political. Of course he’s campaigning behind your back and you might wish to start pressing the flesh yourself, and I don’t mean just handing out money. You need to talk to people. Make them feel important and most especially important to you.”

Crawford stopped chewing. He’d put on twenty pounds since youth, but he was in good shape. Medium height, blue eyes, and a pleasant voice, he was not an unattractive man. He wisely treated his receding hairline as a fact of nature and cut his hair very short, which always makes a man look better in such circumstances. He sported a carefully trimmed short beard and mustache. And he was rich, disgustingly rich.

“I’ve shoveled money into the Jefferson Hunt Club for years. I should think that would signify the importance I attach to the club.” He reached for his iced tea. His gold ring bearing the family crest reflected the dim light.

“You’ve been a contributor any master would pray for.” Bobby paused, thinking about the sacrifices Sister Jane had made to keep the club going when her husband died unexpectedly ten years ago. “But people … you need to make people feel important. Fontaine is awfully good at that.”

“Useless blowhard. They can’t keep him in mattresses or mistresses.”

“And he’s Virginia born and bred.”

“Not that again.” Crawford put his glass down.

Bobby, also from the soil of the great, grand, and even haughty state of Virginia, declined to explain further. Crawford was in no mood to consider that the place of his birth was a drawback to his cherished goal, to become joint-master of the local hunt, a goal that in England often led to the House of Commons, if a man was clever. In America the initials M.F.H. behind a man’s name or a woman’s defined a form of power almost feudal in its scope even to those who didn’t ride to hounds. Not to know that M.F.H. meant “Master of Foxhounds” signified that a person was beyond the pale, especially in Virginia and Maryland, still intense rivals over anything to do with horses, hounds, or foxes.

Crawford, after taking a deep breath, continued:“Bobby, only old people care about bloodlines. What matters is a vision for the future and the future is development. I understand that better than Fontaine. I’m a businessman. He couldn’t find a dollar bill if it was taped to the bottom of his boot. And his trust fund is heading south.” Crawford said this with satisfaction. “He can’t carry the burden of a mastership.”

“If people financially back him, he can.”

Crawford froze. This idea had not once entered his mind.“Never!”

“Why do you think he’s working as hard as he is, Crawford? For God’s sake, you’d better wake up. You don’t have this mastership in the bag.”

“It’s up to Sister Jane.” Crawford felt Sister Jane comprehended money. And he was correct.

“Sister Jane will decide what’s best for this club but she can’t ignore the wishes of the members, and if there’s a huge groundswell for Fontaine, you’re in trouble.” Bobby deplored the fact that Sister Jane had to find a joint-master, but she wanted to ensure the club’s future and she heard the clock ticking. Healthy and vibrant as she was, she couldn’t live forever.

Crawford, sobered by this unwelcome news, appetite fading, pushed his iced shrimp away from him.

The waitress at the country club quietly came to his side.“Were they not up to your standard, Mr. Howard?”

“No. They were fine.”

“Might I bring you something else?”

“A cup of black coffee and a shot of Springbank, ’58.”

The country club, old and elegant, kept casks of fine single malts in the cellar. They also maintained special bourbons from Kentucky, small batches brewed by master brewers, for the discriminating palate.“Bobby, allow me to treat you to the best scotch in the world.”

“No thanks, Craw, I’ve got to work late tonight. Princess and I have ten thousand copies of a four-color brochure to finish.”

Princess was Princess Beanbag, Bobby’s nickname for his wife, Betty, also a partner in business. Their print shop didn’t make them rich but it paid the bills and had put one wayward daughter, Cody Jean, through the University of Virginia. Jennifer, the other daughter, was in public high school.

“You’re a hardworking man. How do you stay so fat?” Crawford laughed at Bobby, who was as round as he was tall.

“Good genes.” Bobby motioned for the waitress to return. “I think I’ll have a cup of coffee, too, but with cream, please.”

“Certainly.” She left and soon returned with the coffees and the Springbank.

Bobby leaned forward.“Crawford, you know I back your candidacy because I think you can preserve and even extend the territory. You can talk to the developers and get bridle paths, you can talk to landowners and explain easements and conservation issues. I admire that in you. But you have a touch of the Yankee and youcan’t just go up to people and spout off.”

“Bullshit. Virginians are the most direct people I’ve ever met. You people say the most incredible things to one another, scathing, blistering talk.”

“When we know one another well—very well. Until then there is the dance of politeness, Craw, and we speak in code. You think you don’t need to learn the code.”

“Wastes time. If I go to the gas station, I’m expected to talk for fifteen minutes to the idiot behind the pump. I haven’t got that kind of time. I have businesses to run and a big farm to manage.”

“No one has time anymore but we make time. Those casual conversations—”

“Casual. Boring. The weather. Who shot John.” Crawford used a southern expression, which made Bobby laugh because he didn’t get it quite right.

“That’s how we knit our community together. It’s not about facts, issues, or how smart you are, Crawford. It’s about respect for people. Respect.”

Crawford shifted in his seat.“Well—”

“A little case in point. When you divorced Marty two years ago you cut her off without a penny. She had to fight through the courts to get any kind of settlement.”

“Any man in a divorce does that.”

“Some do and some don’t. But if you want to present yourself as a community leader, m-m-m”—he wiggled his hand—“better to err on the side of generosity. Look, it’s an old divorce lawyer’s routine, ‘starve the wife’ and she’ll get so worn down and scared she’ll accept far less, but, Craw, you are rich. You could have given her a decent package, walked away, and looked like a prince, especially to women, and brother let me give you the hard facts, women run this show.”

“Hunting?”

“Life.”

He smirked.“The hell they do.”

“I can’t believe you’ve lived here for seven years and you haven’t figured that out about the South and especially Virginia.”

“You have a”—he considered his words—“dynamic wife. You can’t extrapolate from your experience. Generalization.”

“Okay. Let’s say I’m wrong. Women are at the back of the bus. By publicly proclaiming Marty wasn’t going to get a penny more than you thought she deserved you made plenty of enemies. Trotting around that twenty-year-old model after you dumped Marty hardly helped matters and how long did that last … ten minutes? You could have seen her in New York. You didn’t have to bring her here. But worst of all, you opened the door for Fontaine to look like a hero.”

“Oh that.” Crawford’s voice sounded deflated.

“That.”

When Marty was in distress and couldn’t pay the rent on her small apartment because Crawford had thrown her out of the house and she unwisely and meekly left, Fontaine had hired her to be his assistant in his landscape business. Fontaine was a landscape architect and a very good one when he chose to work.

“That.” Bobby’s tone dropped.

“I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“We all have that feeling at one time or another.”

“I accused him of sleeping with her.” Crawford flared up. “He finds his way up more skirts!”

“But not Marty’s. He was too smart for that, even though she is a fine-looking woman. Fine-looking.”

Crawford’s eyes narrowed; then he dropped his gaze into his shot of Springbank. “Live and learn.”

“It’s not too late.”

“I made restitution. I bought Marty a house.”

“Small but pretty. However, you need to mend fences, build bridges, and above all, listen to Sister Jane. She knows more about people and hunting than all of us put together.”

The amber color of the scotch caught the light, golden shafts sinking through the Springbank.

“One other little thing.” Bobby held his coffee cup up for a refill. “You need to apologize first to Sister Jane for heading Fontaine into that coop. You need to offer to rebuild it.”

“That’s Fontaine’s job.”

“Yes, it is, but do you want this goddamned mastership or not?”

“All right. All right.” He quieted while the waitress refilled Bobby’s cup. “What else?” He watched her hips swing as she walked back to the kitchen.

“You need to apologize to Fontaine. A public apology would be best.”

“I will not.”

“Then I suggest you watch your back because Fontaine will get even.”

CHAPTER 3

At five-thirty in the morning the phone rang in Sister Jane’s kitchen.

She picked up the phone, hearing a groan of suffering on the other end.

“Arrgh. Umm. Aah.” The speaker repeated herself, the pain more intense.

“Betty Franklin,” Sister simply said.

“Oh, my dear, did you hear me groan? I feel just terrible.”

“And it’s fifty-three degrees with a soft rain.” Sister described the weather that October 14.

“Aah.” Betty groaned again for effect.

“Are you whipping in today or are you auditioning for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts?”

“You are a heartless bitch.”

“Suffering’s good for you, Betty. Tests the spirit. Enlarges the heart. Sharpens the mind.”

“I’m about as wonderful as I can stand. Even my husband says I’m wonderful.”

“Your husband has imagination.” Sister laughed. “But just so I know what to say at your eulogy, tell me, exactly what are you dying from today?”

“Arthritis in my lower spine, in my toes, in my fingers, and my stomach lining is irritated, although not my bowel, thank heaven. Cody’s up to no good but I don’t know with whom, and Jennifer got a D in math. A D! Naturally my mind hurts, too.” This was said with uncommon good humor.

“This drizzle will stop by the time we cast hounds.”

A long sigh, then,“Six-thirty. Whiskey Ridge.”

“Is Bobby going to make it?”

“No, he’s got to deliver the brochure today. I worked all night Tuesday so it was his turn last night. Looks good.”

“Jennifer?”

“She’ll be there.”

Jennifer Franklin, their younger daughter, a senior in high school given to surprising mood swings, received science credits for foxhunting. Each week she had to write a three-page paper on what she learned about the environment. She’d written about the great variety of oak trees, the life cycle of the fox, and this week she was concentrating on amphibians preparing for hibernation. Three pages sounded like not much work but it turned out to be time-consuming due to research, although Jennifer discovered that she enjoyed it.

As Sister hung up the phone she checked to see if the lights were on in the stable and the kennel. They were.

“Good men,” she thought to herself, for Douglas Kinser and Shaker Crown were already at work.

As professional first whipper-in, meaning Doug was paid, his responsibility was to condition and prepare the master’s horses and the huntsman’s horses for the hunting season. He also walked out hounds, assisted in their training, and rode forward of the huntsman so he could turn hounds back if need be. It helped if the first whipper-in was intelligent. Douglas was. He could intuit what Shaker was doing evenif he was one mile away from the huntsman.

Golliwog reposed on the marble counter, her luxurious tail swaying a bit. Her calico coat, brilliant and gleaming, was a source of no small vanity to the feline. She’d eaten her breakfast and was considering dozing off.

Raleigh, also full, wanted to accompany Sister. He parked by the kitchen door, ears up, alert.

“Catch cold on a day like this,” Golly laconically said.

“Lazy.”

“Sensible.” Golly rolled over, showing Raleigh her back. She disliked being contradicted.

Sister allowed her members great latitude in dress during cubbing, but she herself remained impeccably turned out. She wore mustard-colored breeches, brown field boots with a ribbed rubber sole, useful on a day like this, a shirt and man’s tie, an old but beautifully cut tweed jacket, and a brown cap, tails down. She opened the door and Raleigh dashed out with her.

Golly lifted her head, watching them trot to the barn.“Silly. Neither one has sense enough to come in from the rain and Sister wastes time hunting foxes. I wouldn’t give you a nickel for the whole race of foxes. Liars and thieves, every single one of them.” Having expressed her opinion, she closed her eyes in contentment.

Sister ducked under the stable overhang and shook off the water, as did Raleigh. She walked into the center aisle of the barn, the soft light from the incandescent bulbs casting a glow over the horses and Douglas, too.

Raleigh joyfully raced up and down the center aisle, informing the horses of his presence. They weren’t impressed. They liked Raleigh, but this morning he was just too bouncy.

“Ma’am. You might wear your long Barbour today. Don’t want you getting the shivers before opening hunt.”

“Douglas, you’ll make someone a wonderful mother someday.” She laughed at him but went into the tack room and grabbed her coat along with a pair of string gloves. She loved Douglas. Teasing him made them both happy. He’d grown from a skinny kid with green eyes, beat up just about every day at school, into a broad-shouldered, curly-haired, beautiful young man with bronze skin. Douglas’s mother was white and his father black. He took the best from both.

Sister’s son, Raymond, died in a freak harvesting accident in 1974. He was fourteen years old and there wasn’t a day when she didn’t hear his voice, remember his infectious smile, and wish he was with her.

She spoke rarely of her son. One lives with one’s losses. The shock of it and then the subsequent grief had kept her numb for a year and then after that she was flat. She couldn’t think of another word but “flat.” Three years passed before she thought there might be joy in life but three things sustained her during those three years: her husband, Big Raymond; her friends; and her foxhunting. The former two provided love, the latter, structure and a sense of something far greater than human endeavor.

What was odd about Ray Junior’s death was it occurred in a year of the black fox. When Big Ray died in 1991, there was also a black fox. He made mention of it, gasping for breath with emphysema.

“Janie, black fox years are watershed years for us. Mother—”

He couldn’t finish his sentence but the black fox superstition was one of his mother’s cherished beliefs, right up there with transubstantiation. She said that great upheavals or the death of a family member were always heralded by a black fox. Mother Arnold declared that her grandmother, in her prime during the War between the States, swore that in 1860 the whole state of Virginia was full of black foxes. People had never seen so many.

Sister knew there was a black fox kit, half-grown, in the den near Broad Creek, running through her property. Given the apparition she’d seen the day before yesterday and this fact, she couldn’t suppress an involuntary shiver.

“I told you you’d get the shivers. Put a sweater on.”

“I’m not cold. But you know, Doug, I saw the damnedest thing and I can’t get it out of my mind. When Shaker and I walked back to the coop that Fontaine obliterated, I thought I saw the Grim Reaper on Hangman’s Ridge right by that haunted tree. Of course, in retrospect I realize I was probably hallucinating, I was so hungry, but still, the man was as clear as day and I looked away and looked back and he was gone.”

“Me, too.”

“You, too, what?” She sat on a tack trunk for a moment as Douglas exchanged the regular English leather reins for rubber ones.

“When I tracked down Archie, he was staring right up at the ridge and I saw whatever it was, too. I told Shaker. Don’t think he believed me.”

“Didn’t believe me either.”

He held the reins, the bridle hanging from the tack hook.“It’s a bad sign, Sister.”

“I know, but for whom?”

He shrugged.“Not us, I hope.”

She smiled.“You’re young. You’ll live a long, good life.”

“You seem young.” He laughed.

“Flattery, young man, will get you everywhere.” She stood up, slapped her knees as she rose, then called out to her horse, Lafayette, standing patiently in his stall.

“Lafayette, it’s going to be slick as an eel today.”

“I can handle it,” he bragged.“I can handle anything.”

She smiled as he whinnied, walking into his stall to rub his ears and chat with him.

“Blowhard.”Rickyroo, a hot thoroughbred in the adjoining stall, snorted.

Both Lafayette and Rickyroo were thoroughbreds but Lafayette at nine showed more common sense than Rickyroo at five, although Ricky would probably be a pistol at nine, still.

“Do you want to take the field or whip today?” Doug asked her.

“Take the field. After what happened Tuesday, I think I’d better be right there. Not that Bobby Franklin isn’t a good field master—he is. We’re lucky to have him on Tuesdays. Anyway, he was ahead, as he should have been, right behind the hounds, so this little contretemps happened behind him. No one was riding tail that day either.” It was common practice to have a staff person or trusted person ride at the rear of the field to pick up stragglers, loose horses, loose people.

“I heard that Fontaine is spending money in every store owned by a club member.”

“Fontaine is one of the most consistently underrated men you’ll ever meet. That’s the pity of it. He could have amounted to something.”

“Being master of Jefferson Hunt amounts to something.”

“Yes, it does, but I meant out there in the world. He’s a good-looking man, so talented in his field, but the money he inherited made a bum out of him in a way. Pulled his fangs.”

“Seems to do that to people.”

“I’m beginning to think if you want to destroy your children, let them inherit a lot of money.”

“Not my problem.” Douglas laughed.

“Money brings tremendous responsibility and worry. People think if they have a lot of money they won’t have any troubles. Well, any problem that can be fixed by money isn’t a problem.” She smiled. “Who knows, maybe you’ll wind up rich.”

Doug threw a white saddle pad on Lafayette.“I learn something from you every day. I’m going to remember that.”

“Scrape and save now. Learn everything you can from everybody. I promise you, you’ll use every single bit of it in this life.” She walked outside Lafayette’s stall, took her saddle and saddle pad off the saddle rack, and put them on his back. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’mdispensing advice like a sob sister. You know, I think that damned whatever I saw and you saw has gotten under my skin. I’m afraid, Doug. You know I believe in fate, but it’s something else. Something vague.”

“I feel it, too.”

“Oh, well,” she sighed, “it’s going to be a wild morning. They’ll be popping off like toast and blaming me for going out on such a day.”

“Not like the old days.”

“No. The days of a master inviting only certain people to ride during cubbing season—long gone. You’ve got to invite them all, which makes it a holy horror because most of those folks haven’t a clue as to what we’re doing or why. Furthermore, I am considering cutting their tongues out. Actually, they’ve gotten much better about babbling in the hunt field. I’m being a crank.”

“No, just being a master.” He laughed.

Cubbing, a six-week to two-month period before formal hunting, existed to teach young hounds the whys and wherefores of hunting. It also served the same purpose for green horses and now, against most masters’ better judgment, green people. The most interesting part of cubbing, though, was it also taught the young foxes what was expected of them, how hounds ran, the calls of the horn, and where to look for cover if they couldn’t get back to their home den.

As older hounds brought along the young ones, so older foxes passed on their tricks to their children.

Douglas and Sister faced each other, checking out their gear.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

CHAPTER 4

As the drizzle turned into a steady rain Sister had ample time to repent her enthusiasm. The hack to the other side of Whiskey Ridge, twenty minutes, soaked her back because she hadn’t fastened tight the collar of her raincoat.

Carefully, Sister, Shaker, and Doug crossed Soldier Road, picking up the gravel road leading to the abandoned tobacco barn where they would first cast hounds.

The hounds, anchored by Cora, a mature female, behaved beautifully. Sister worried that the cooler temperature might encourage the young hounds to consider unplanned excursions but they didn’t. Even Dragon, by nature wild and flashy, kept to the middle of the pack.

The few trailers parked by the side of the road testified to the fact that only the diehards would cub on this early morning.

Betty Franklin huddled in her trailer with Outlaw, her dependable, handsome quarter horse.

Jennifer, in the trailer tack room, called out,“Mom, I can’t find my heavy socks.”

“They’re hanging on the end of my nose,” Betty replied.

“Oh, Mom,” Jennifer grumbled.

Betty heard her rummaging around. So did Jennifer’s horse, Magellan.

“That kid can’t get organized. We go through this every time.” Magellan sighed.

“It’s because they wear clothes. They can never find them. Really, they should go naked,” Outlaw said.

“They’d get pretty cold.” Magellan laughed.“And it’s bad enough to see some of them fully clothed. I’m not sure I could stand seeing all that hairless flesh.”

“Found them!” A note of triumph blared from Jennifer.

“Where were they?” Betty asked.

“In the bottom of the feed bucket.”

“That’s an excellent place for them, my dear.”

Jennifer chose not to reply.

The staff and hounds gathered at the tobacco barn, black in the rain, as Betty and Jennifer emerged.

The only other people there were Marty Howard and Cody Jean Franklin.

Cody, on her own now, had bought an ancient two-horse trailer, paint peeling, and an equally ancient truck but both were serviceable. She made it to the meets on time. And she was glad to see her mother and sister.

Marty, borrowing Fontaine’s aluminum rig, not only wore a dark brown oilskin raincoat, she wore brown Gore-Tex pants as well, neatly tucked into her high rubber boots.

“Sister, I know this isn’t proper but …”

Sister waved her off.“It’s cubbing and it’s raining and let me know if the pants work.” To herself she thought that Marty would be like an olive in a Greek salad; the material was too slick. “Since there are so few of us and aren’t we surprised,” Sister laughed, “if Cody or Jennifer would like to whip, you are certainly invited to do so.”

“Yay.” Jennifer trotted over to Shaker for her orders.

“I’ll stay with you,” Cody said, for she often whipped-in and thought she’d enjoy riding with the master.

Douglas tipped his hat to the ladies, paused a second longer in Cody’s direction, and then moved a hundred yards to the north, as Shaker directed him to do. Shaker placed Jennifer behind him and Betty to his right.

“Ma’am.” Shaker, proper even in the rain, cradled his hat in his lap. A huntsman shouldn’t put his cap on his head until the master gives the signal to cast hounds.

“Oh, Shaker. I’m sorry. Of course we can move off.”

He nodded at the master, clapped his hat on his wet auburn curls, and said to his hounds,“Hounds ready?”

“Yes!” came the tumultuous reply.

“All right then, let’s be off.” Shaker didn’t blow his horn. As long as the hounds could hear his voice he kept his horn in his coat front between the second and third buttons. Besides, Sister loathed a noisy huntsman and whips. The quickest way to draw a reprimand from her was to blather.

The hounds moved ahead of Shaker. They lingered at the tobacco barn for an instant, a rich source of fox scent but it was fading fast.

“Come along now.”

Obediently they trotted across the meadow, slick to the edge of the woods. He urged them into the covert as he waited outside.

“He’s been here!” Dragon triumphantly barked.

Archie, older and pessimistic by nature, therefore the perfect anchor hound, sharply said,“Of course he’s been here, you twit. But he was here at three this morning. Before you run a cold scent look for a fresh one.”

“Besides, you’ve picked this up under a rotted log, Dragon. It will be washed away within two paces,” Cora, ever steady, gently said.

“Cora, can we really do anything today?” Diana, a gorgeous female, firstyear entry, inquired of the leader.

Cora lifted her nose a moment.“Chances are we won’t get much. Pick up and put down kind of day. Scent for twenty yards and then nothing, but we must try. A good hound always tries.”

Diana put her sensitive nose down, moving away from the rotted log.

As they moved slowly, their tails, called sterns, were held upright.

Douglas, a bit ahead, peered down over the western side of Whiskey Ridge to the creek below, swollen with rain, high and swiftly rolling. Crossing it would be difficult.

Jennifer, inexperienced, impatient, pushed the hounds up too much from the rear.

Sister and Cody rode up to her. Cody was on Motorboat, happy to be out.

“Jennifer, let them work. They aren’t strung out.” Sister pointed to the pack carefully making good the ground, working well together.

“I’m sorry.”

“Honey, that’s how we learn.” Sister stopped and waited as Jennifer moved on at a walk. She listened intently, hearing only the patter of raindrops on leaves beginning to turn colors. She heard Lafayette’s and Motorboat’s breathing.

Cody, a fine rider, sat the thoroughbred–quarter horse cross with that grace so peculiar to her. She knew better than to talk when hounds were cast.

Sister turned to her and smiled as if to say,“That kind of day and I’m glad you’re here.”

Sister especially enjoyed the people who turned out regardless of conditions. Over the years they’d become her family, since her blood relations and her two Raymonds had died.

Archie, deeper in the woods, conferred with Cora:“Distinguishable but … ?”

“It’s all we’ve got and most likely all we’re going to get. You do the honors.” Cora confirmed his thoughts.

Archie lifted his head, wiggled his tail a bit.“Come along.”

“Old line,” Cora added in her distinctive contralto.

The other hounds called out in turn and then together, loping along behind Cora and Archie, who moved forward. If scent had been hot, Archie would have taken his usual position a bit like a safety in football, a defensive position. A hot scent even a puppy can find and make good but a scent such as this, fading fast yet distinguishable on the moss and underbrush, demanded a professional.

Archie and Cora worked side by side, running a few steps, then slowing to check and double-check. It would never do to overrun such a pathetic little trail.

Dragon, bored with the pace, decided he could do better off on the right. Besides, maybe he’d pick up something more potent. He had no sooner shot off about two hundred yards than a loud crack pierced the beating rain.

“Leave it!” Betty commanded, flicking her whip out one more time for effect. The crack worked like magic. It usually wasn’t necessary to touch the hound.

He scooted back to the pack.

“Settle, boy, because if you don’t, you’re going to get yourself in trouble and some of us, too,” Cora growled at him.

Dragon said nothing but ran alongside Dasher, his litter mate, who showed promise but could be easily influenced by his brother.

“Dragon, come up with me.” Archie curled his lip slightly.

A cowed Dragon did as he was told. The work was difficult and patience wasn’t one of his virtues, but Archie had grabbed him by the neck, throwing him down hard in the kennels after Tuesday’s hunt. He feared Archie, as would any hound with a grain of sense.

Sister and Cody trotted through the woods, the hounds in sight but well in front of them. Sister picked up the pace and soon was right behind Jennifer, who was right behind the hounds.

The hounds swung out in a big circle. Moving back to the tobacco barn and then picking up speed, they shot across Soldier Road and onto the low, broad, and long meadow between the two ridges. The great tree, enshrouded as though in a silver winding sheet, commanded Hangman’s Ridge.

They popped over a coop in the fence line and then headed toward the coop that Sister and Shaker had repaired—Fontaine’s coop, as they now thought of it. Once over that obstacle they continued at a trot through the thick woods.

The hounds moved faster.

“Fools.” Butch heard the hounds in the distance from the safety of his den.

“Should I give them a run?”

“Just because they’re dumb enough to get soaked doesn’t mean you should.” Butch scowled at his son, Comet.

“But they have to go out,” Inky half said, half questioned.“It’s their job.”

“Which is exactly why we aren’t domesticated. Domestication is for weak hearts. You can’t do what you want when you want; you have to do what the human tells you. I hear, though, that the food is quite good.”

“And good medical benefits, too,” his wife, Mary Vey, added. She paused a moment.“They’re getting closer.”

“Following my old trail. Well, let’s give them something to talk about back in the kennel. Damned if I want them digging out our main entrance.” He grabbed a fresh chicken wing, feathers still on.“Comet, get the rest.”

The two males, mouths full of pieces of chicken, walked out the oval entrance to their den.

“Want me to drop them?”

“Throw them all around.” Butch dropped bones, feathers, a cock’s comb, and a neck in a wide semicircle around the den entrance.

They casually sauntered back into their snug quarters with four escape routes, one of which hung over Broad Creek, as hounds drew closer.

The pack in full cry charged upon Butch’s den within seven minutes.

“Chicken!” Dragon squealed as he grabbed the feathered wing.

“My favorite,”yelped another hound.

Archie, with difficulty, resisted the temptation to grab a piece of chicken. He headed instead to the den opening, cocked his head to listen.

Cora joined him.“I know they’re in there and they’ll burst out laughing the minute we leave.”

“You’re right,” Butch sang out to taunt her.

Archie turned to exhort the rest of the pack to start digging even though he knew he was sitting over tunnels and other escape routes. But it was too late. Shaker Crown was upon them.

“Leave it!” he bellowed. He then blew three successive short and sharp toots on his horn, which was his signal that he wanted his whips in immediately. Jennifer came up from behind, Douglas galloped up, and Betty rode in from her position.

Without a word, the mother and younger daughter dismounted, rushing toward the hounds as Sister and Cody trotted up. They, too, dismounted, each human grabbing a hound and pulling the chicken out of its mouth or even reaching into the mouth to pry out the bones.

They knew that chicken bones could splinter in a hound’s intestine.

Fifteen minutes of frantic work removed the danger.

Humans and hounds, muddy, stared at one another.

Shaker, voice low and stern, chastised them:“How could you? Archie and Cora were the only two hounds doing their job.” He turned on his heel and mounted up. The hounds, heads hanging, were both mortified and enraged, since they could hear the tittering in the den.

Sister walked over to the den.“Gray. This den has been occupied by grays since I first hunted this territory as a child. Maybe I ought to come back out here and drop them a fixture card.”

“They know the schedule.” Betty laughed.

Douglas swung onto the saddle.“They do know.”

“I expect they do.” Sister turned to Lafayette, leading him to a log. She stepped on the log, then lifted up lightly as everyone mounted up. “Well, let’s call it a day.”

Shaker quietly said,“Come along, hounds.”

As the small band rode away, Diana, drawn by an overpowering curiosity, snuck back to the den.

“I’ll get her,” Doug volunteered.

“Don’t rate her, Doug. She’s going for the fox and she’s young,” Shaker ordered.

“I won’t.” Doug knew better than to crank on a young hound, but he cheerfully took the advice. Some people couldn’t stand to be told what they already knew but Douglas was an easygoing fellow.

Diana scurried to the den opening, spread her front paws far apart, and stuck her head down the entrance as far as it would go. To her surprise, Inky was coming out to see the pack leave. They touched noses.

This surprised Diana. She jumped back and sat down blinking. Inky did the same thing. Then the smallish black fox crept up closer to the entrance to get a better look at the hound.

The two looked at each other. Then Inky, hearing Douglas, ducked back in.

“Diana. Come along,” he sang out to her.

She hurried to him but thought to herself,“They’re like us. They’re dogs.” She’d only smelled fox. She’d never seen one before.

Douglas soon joined the others, the rain beating down on them in sheets.

“Thought you said this would clear up,” Betty, riding next to Sister, complained.

“I thought it would.”

“You say that every time the weather gets filthy. ‘Oh, it will pass.’ ” Betty mimicked Sister’s voice, an amber alto.

“It does pass.”

“In two days or two weeks.” Betty laughed.

Cody rode over to Douglas. They were on the hounds’ left. Jennifer was on the right as Sister and Betty now brought up the rear.

“Hi,” Cody said.

“Hi,” he replied.

They rode along, water spilling over their cap brims.

“You aren’t very talkative.”

“I think you’re making a big mistake,” he replied.

CHAPTER 5

The world was wrapped in silver-gray. Fontaine couldn’t see the town square from his office window at Mountain Landscapes, the rain was so heavy.

Marty Howard buzzed him.“Mr. Buruss, Mrs. Arnold is here to see you.”

“I’ll be right there.” Surprised, he pressed the disconnect button on his intercom, stood up, and checked himself in the mirror. He straightened his charcoal-gray tie with the small fuchsia squares; then he strode into the small well-appointed reception room, beaming, hand outstretched. “Sister, what a pleasure to see you on such a wicked day.”

She smiled.“You’re a fair-weather foxhunter.”

“I certainly was today. Come on in.” He winked at Marty, her blond hair in a long braid down her back. “Bring Sister a steaming cup of coffee.”

“We were just discussing that. We were also discussing you giving me Tuesday mornings off so I can hunt. I’ll work late Wednesdays,” Marty said, happy to have Sister standing there.

“Two against one. Not fair.” Fontaine, black hair razor cut to perfection, tan despite the season, wagged his finger at his good-looking secretary. Each time he thought of the distress he caused Crawford Howard, he laughed silently. Fontaine lightly cupped Sister’s elbow, leading her into hisoffice, a hymn to eclecticism.

She sat on the burgundy leather sofa.“Fontaine, I’ll get to the point.”

“You usually do, Mother Superior.”

“First, you didn’t fix the coop you smashed.” She held up her hand as he started to apologize. “I know what happened there. But you wrecked it. You fix it. Those are the rules. Now as to the situation that caused it, talk to me.”

The rainy weather affected his energy. He got up to pace on the other side of a coffee table inlaid with granite. He thought moving around would wake him up.“Chalk and cheese. Simple as that.”

“I understand that.” Marty lightly knocked on the door, bringing in half-coffee, half-cream, Sister’s favorite midday drink. “Oh, thank you, Marty. By the way, I think Cochise is going very well. You’ve worked wonders with that stinker,” she said, referring to Marty’s horse.

“He just needed time. He’s only six, you know.”

“Yes. They learn at different rates of speed, just as we do.”

“Whoops, there’s the phone.” Marty hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her.

“Let’s stay on line, Fontaine.” She used a foxhunting phrase referring to keeping on one line of scent.

He finally sat across from her in a leather chair, a burgundy that glowed against the taupe walls filled with exquisite hunting prints in old gold frames. Fontaine’s family had left him the prints. “I can’t abide that man. I’d use stronger language but not in the presence of a lady, a grand lady.” He smiled, his even teeth a testament to good genetics.

She gratefully swallowed her coffee, the warmth chasing the chill she’d taken that morning. Then she put the mug down, composed herself, and said, “Yankees are what they are. However, he contributes to the hunt. He contributes to every charity in town, even the AIDS foundation, and most of our friends won’t give them a penny. He rubs my fur the wrong way, too.He’s loud, given to voicing many opinions, and he divorced one of the best women God has ever put on this earth. For nothing, I might add, but then you know all that. The truth is—we need him.” She drew in a deep breath, which seemed harder than usual, the air was so heavy. “For all his faults, I think his heart is in the right place, except for the episode with Marty.”

Fontaine weighed his words.“I can only address what I see. He uses money like a club or a wedge, depending on the circumstances. He pours money into Jefferson Hunt because he thinks he’ll soon be joint-master.” Fontaine, being a Virginian, could not say that he himself wanted to be joint-master. That would have been social suicide. He had to wait for Sister to bring up the subject and she had remained ominously silent for the last three years. He knew that she knew that he wanted the job.

“That’s obvious. Another problem.”

“You are the master. You’ve been the master for forty-some years. I grew up hunting behind you, Sister. You know I will support you whatever.”

“I do know that. It’s one of the reasons I’m here. I remember you walking out puppies when you were no bigger than they were. You know hunting even if you are a wimp when the weather turns a little, oh, damp. But a few words. Take a couple of lessons. You’re getting sloppy in the saddle.”

Fontaine, vain about his riding ability, blushed.“I hadn’t realized—”

“No more on the subject. Just do it. Next, hound walk at least once a week.”

“I will definitely make time.”

“Money. Do you have anything left?”

He grinned.“Not much. I’m not a businessman, Sister. I’m just not.”

“I know.” Sympathy played on her even, delicate features. “We live in a time where money is the only value for most people. It wasn’t that way when I was young and that isn’t the nostalgia of an old woman. The golden calf is the true god now. I hate it and I can’t do anything about it. Some would say you’ve squandered your inheritance but you gave to friends, to family. You were not and are not an unfeeling man.”

Not expecting this, he quietly said,“Thank you, Sister.”

“And I appreciate that you haven’t drawn out Crawford in public despite your antipathy. You can be hotheaded.”

“I can’t promise I won’t deck him.”

“Well—who knows what tomorrow will bring. Fontaine, I’m seventy—”

He interrupted.“And beautiful. Truly, Sister.”

“You do have a way with women.” She lowered her eyes, then raised them, a gesture that had drawn men to her since she was a child. “I can no longer put off preparing for the future of the hunt without me. I hope I can hunt as long as Ginny Moss of Moore County Hounds, still whipping-in at ninety, but nonetheless, I must do something I have never wanted to do: I must take a joint-master.” Fontaine held his breath as she continued. “You are one of us. You are known throughout the state by other masters. You’ve hunted with other hunts in other states. You’ve participated in many Masters of Foxhounds Association functions. You’ve chaired committees on public land use. You’ve made connections in Richmond and in Baltimore, too. You’re politically astute, as was your mother, god rest her soul. You have a good sense of what it takes to keep a hunt going although believe me, you never know until you’re master. But Fontaine, you also have drawbacks. You are a philanderer of the first order.” She again held up her hand. “I’m not judging. You know what Raymond used to say, ‘Men have balls. They have to use them.’ That’s when I brought out the frying pan. At any rate, that caused problems. Messy problems. And you have little money to throw into the pot. Am I right?”

He gulped.“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now I must ask you something directly. I am sorry to do this but circumstances compel me. Have you had or are you having an affair with Marty Howard?”

Relieved, he said,“No.”

Her black eyebrows rose.“Why?”

He laughed.“Chemistry. And no matter what you may think of me, Sister, it wouldn’t have been sporting. She was devastated during the separation and divorce.”

“I believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.” She laughed with him.

“I deserve that.”

“Sorrel”—she named Fontaine’s wife—“is an unusually tolerant woman.”

“Oh, Sister, we married too young. She’s my best friend. We have an arrangement. Rather European. I would not end my marriage for anything in the world. I value her and I love her. Can you—?”

He didn’t finish because she knew the next word was “understand.” She finished her coffee, then simply stated, “Of course I understand. It’s eminently civilized. And you have two small children to consider. As long as you and Sorrel”—she accented the “el,” which was the proper way to pronounce the name—“can bring stability and comfort to one another, I applaud you. I am only telling you it is something one must consider. You may be rational about such liaisons but that doesn’t mean the women will be when things have run their course. Or their husbands if they find out. There’s no point in mincing words. Too much is at stake, Fontaine.”

“Ma’am?”

“You should be my joint-master but I must consider everything.”

His face drained of color, then grew flushed.“Yes. I do understand.” His heart was beating wildly and he told himself it was a pastime. Why should he care so much? But he did. To be joint-master, serving with Sister Jane, would be a crowning achievement for Fontaine.

“Here’s the hard news. I need you and I need Crawford Howard. Each has what the other lacks. If I chose two joint-masters, could you swallow your distaste and work with him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you’re honest.”

“I would be proud to be your joint-master. I would give it everything I’ve got. You know how much I love hunting.”

“You didn’t love it this morning.”

“You’re right. I was a wuss. A wimp. A candyass. But I do love hunting.”

“I know you do.” She softened. “You know our history. You know the struggles we’ve had to breed the kind of hound suitable for our territory. You’ve seen the ups and the downs for much of your life. That continuity is vital for the club, especially now that we’ve tipped over into the twenty-first century. I still can’t get used to saying it or writing the year.”

“Me neither.”

“I ask you to keep this to yourself no matter how much you want to discuss it.”

“Have you spoken to Crawford?”

“No, I have not. I will do so this week and then I have to sit down and make a decision. By opening hunt.”

“November sixth.”

“Three weeks away and it still feels like opening night on Broadway.” She beamed. “But I must. The club needs time to adjust to the joint-masters. We need those transition years while I’m still strong.”

“May it always be so,” he fervently prayed.

“I can’t live forever, Fontaine, but I’d like to. Keep thisunder your hat. I will come back to you. Depending on Crawford’s response, we may need to sit down together, the three of us. Fontaine”—she reached for his hand—“think this through. I need you. Loyalties are already dividingconcerning you and Crawford. We need a united club. That’s another reason why I must make this decision now.”

“Sister, I promise I’ll think about this. And I’ll think about my own feelings toward Crawford. I’m not perfect but I can change.”

She squeezed his hand, then rose to leave.

CHAPTER 6

The winds shifted from the south, bringing in even more moisture, but at least the rains scaled back to steady precipitation instead of a deluge.

Landowners called asking Sister Jane not to chop up their fields, so she canceled Saturday’s cubbing. The landowners had more to fear from the trailers churning up the fields than from the horses.

She hated to cancel any hunt but decided not to grumble. She walked down to the kennels to play with the puppies.

Shaker joined her. Puppies were like people. The more you put into them, the more you got from them, the big difference being that puppies were more fun.

Sister and Shaker had worked together for twenty-two years as master and huntsman. They’d become so accustomed to each other, so relaxed when together, they could and did say anything to each other.

Neither was given to gusts of emotion. Both were dedicated to hounds and country life.

Each knew the other’s virtues, faults, and secrets, and as is the way with old friends, each knew something about the other hidden from them. Sister knew that Shaker, for all his physical toughness, feared women deep down. He simply thought women were difficult, Sister, his best friend, excluded. Shaker needed lovebut he didn’t know how to find it.

And Shaker knew that Sister’s surface amiability masked a steely determination born of rank competitiveness. She didn’t know that about herself, could never see that she had to best her older brother, a career officer, killed in Vietnam.

Each had endured the ups and downs of the other’s marriage, secret affairs.

When Raymond Junior died, Shaker proved as considerate and strong as Raymond Senior. The bond forged in that sorrow would never be broken.

These two would be best friends until death do us part—united by time, temperament, and foxhunting.

“Good litter.” Shaker rubbed a little fellow, turned over to display a fat belly.

“Bywaters blood.” She mentioned a Virginian hound bloodline developed by Burrell Frank Bywaters (1848–1922). The Bywaters family, after the War between the States, used those hounds who had survived that violent upheaval to breed a strain of American foxhound with nose, brains, drive, and cry. Hugh Bywaters (1872–1952) continued the tradition, as did other family members.

“That and a touch of Exmoor Landseer.” He smiled, naming a fine hound born in 1986 from England’s Exmoor hunt. Shaker studied bloodlines. It was his job but also his passion.

“Good litter. Good year.”

“Hope so.”

“Douglas seems a bit down. Do you know what’s wrong?”

“Woman trouble.”

“What woman?”

Shaker reached for another puppy.“Same one.”

“Oh no.” Sister sighed. “I thought that was all over.”

“If she could let go of the shot glass—” Shaker shrugged.

“In the blood. Bobby’s brother. Drove himself right into a tree the day he graduated from high school. Drunk as a skunk.”

“Bobby can put it away when he wants to… . He can hold his liquor, though.”

“True. Old Man Franklin loved his bottle, too. A lot of things pass in the blood.” She held a bright tricolor puppy in her lap. “Good and bad.”

“Girl’s beautiful.”

“Her sister, too. Course Betty was a great beauty when she was young. She’s put on a pound or two. Says it fills out the wrinkles.” Sister smiled, for she loved Betty.

“I guess.” A light red stubble shone on his chin.

“If any of us approached romance rationally, it would never happen and that would be the end of the human race.”

“Wouldn’t be such a bad thing.” He smiled sardonically. “I married one woman and woke up with another.” He referred to his dreary marriage, which had ended many years ago, although the scars remained visible.

“For all our faults humans are marginally amusing and sporadically talented. I don’t think any of these beautiful puppies will paintNight Watch.”

They sat in silence in the puppy wing of the kennel. The grown hounds were asleep in the adult wing, so it was quiet except for the patter of rain.

Sister spoke again:“I met with Fontaine Buruss.”

“Thought you might.”

“Time.”

“Naw.” He shook his head.

“I said that at sixty but it truly is time at seventy. We need a smooth transfer of power here over the next couple of years.”

“Won’t be smooth with Fontaine.”

“There are precious few candidates. At least the man knows hunting enough to know what he doesn’t know.”

“He’s an empty-headed peacock.”

“Don’t hold back.” She laughed.

“He is. Cock of the walk. Doesn’t know a damn thing about hounds.” Since Shaker’s whole life was hounds, that was his basis for assessing other foxhunters.

“But you do. One of my conditions, should I choose him, is he either stays out of the kennel or he shuts up and learns.”

“But he can’t learn. He’s too interested in how he looks.”

She knew there was a lot of truth in Shaker’s assessment. Men judged other men differently than women judged men. They were harsher. “Crawford Howard.”

“If that goddamned Yankee winds up as joint-master, I’m leaving. He knows less than Fontaine and he can’t ride a hair of that horse of his.”

“Fortunately, the horse is a saint. But if he were joint-master with me, he wouldn’t bother you.”

“The sight of him would turn my stomach. He thinks he’s a bleeding genius because he built strip malls in Indiana and Iowa. He made money and that’s all he’s done.”

“He plays the stock market and makes more. We need money.”

“That’s a fact.”

“What if I made them both joint-masters? There’s a strong current of support for Fontaine in the club. I can’t ignore that, nor can I ignore our financial dilemma. We need a businessman. We need someone who can think ahead. Crawford has that ability, Shaker. I can’t see my way out of this. I might have to make them both joint-masters.”

Shaker reached down, putting another puppy in Sister’s lap. “They’ll kill each other.”

CHAPTER 7

The Garage, an after-hours club in an abandoned garage, drew a young crowd on Saturday night. The music was good, the drinks were watered, and drugs were sold in the parking lot.

Bored, Doug sat at a small round table wondering why he bothered to go out. He’d downed two martinis and knew, given the weather, that drinking a third and driving those twisty country roads home wouldn’t be the smartest choice. He left money on the table and walked for the door just as a wet Cody Jean Franklin dashed in.

“Doug. Don’t go. I just got here.”

“I can see that.”

“Have I ever told you what beautiful green eyes you have?”

“In first grade.”

“Buy me a drink?”

“No.”

She tossed her long black hair.“Why are you so pissed at me.”

“One word: Fontaine.”

“That? Don’t be silly.”

“You’re sleeping with him, Cody. I know you.”

“Maybe you just think you do. I could care less about Fontaine and I’m not sleeping with him.”

He grabbed her forearm, his grip tight.“Don’t lie to me.”

Coolly she said,“Let go.”

He released her arm as though it were on fire, brushed by her, and walked outside.

Livid, she ran after him.

Doug had opened the door of his truck by the time she reached him. They were both soaked.

She slammed him against the side of the truck and kissed him hard. He put his hands on her shoulders, intending to push her away, but instead he kissed her back.

“Cody, don’t do me like this.”

She whispered in his ear,“Dougie, life’s full of secrets. Some are even worth keeping. Trust me.” She kissed him again. “Let’s go to your place.”

“Where’s your car?”

“Jen dropped me off. I saw your truck.”

He leaned his forehead against her forehead, flesh cool in the wet night.“Don’t lie to me, Cody. I’m taking you home.”

“Great. You can stay at my place.”

“I’m taking you home. Period.” He unlocked his truck. They both got in, the seats wet from their drenched jeans. “As long as you’re fucking around—”

She flared up.“I’m not fucking around.”

“Let me finish.” He turned on the motor and the heat. “As long as you’re doing drugs I’m not getting involved.”

“But we are involved.”

“Were. We broke up Memorial Day. One gram of coke and half a bottle of Absolut. Christ, I’m amazed that you lived.”

She slunk down in the seat, staring out the window.

CHAPTER 8

By Sunday the streams, creeks, and rivers hovered dangerously near their banks. The rain slowed to a drizzle. The sun, trying to break through the clouds, cast an ethereal glow over the morning.

Crawford Howard worried about the water as he crossed the arching stone bridge leading out of his property. A hurricane in’97 washed away the bridge and he’d rebuilt it to the tune of seventy-five thousand dollars. Stonemasons commanded exorbitant fees, especially in collaboration with engineers. They vowed the bridge would withstand everything except a hurricane of Force 5, the worst of the worst. Crawford had nodesire to find out if that was true. The water, boiling and muddy underneath the bridge, appeared to mock human planning.

The arched bridge with its large keystone provided a symbol for Crawford. Opposing forces, lined up against one another, held everything in place, made the bridge strong. It reminded him of Elizabeth I’s statecraft, playing the great continental powers off one another while England grew stronger. He admired farsighted people. Bismarck was another favorite, as was Peter the Great, although Peter was a touch too emotional for Crawford, who considered himself supremely rational. It was one of thereasons he was an Episcopalian. One should worship in a civil and controlled manner. Evangelism was for the unwashed.

Then, too, the power in most towns gathered at the Episcopal church. A spillover might be Lutheran or one or two might even be Catholic, always regarded with slight suspicion, of course. Lutherans were also suspicious because of the manner in which they’d broken from the Church of Rome. Crawford thought Luther might have tried more negotiation and less passionate denunciation. He could see no reason why Lutherans weren’t members of the Anglican Church. After all, it was English whereas the Catholic Church was Roman. That would never do. Too much color and incense for Crawford. Besides which, the Italians perfected corruption and ill-advised business practices.

Crawford made no secret of being an Anglophile in everything except cars. Anyone worth their salt was.

He pulled into the parking lot of Saint Luke’s, secure in leaving his Mercedes surrounded by other Mercedes, BMWs, Audis, and Volvos. His ex-wife’s flame-red Grand Wagoneer stood out like a sore thumb. He grimaced, then cut his motor and reached down for his umbrella. He hadn’t yet put the parking brake on, so the car drifted a bit before he realized it. He pressed the brake, irritated at his loss of focus. He turned the motor on and backed properly into the parking place. He locked the car and walked confidently into the church. He sat next to Marty, who smiled reflexively as he nodded to her.

The first year of their divorce he avoided her, sitting on the other side of the church, but he thought of himself as a proper gentleman, so as time passed he moved closer to his ex-wife each week until finally he was sitting beside her. Loath to admit the guilt and loneliness he felt, he couched his behavior in terms of friendship and civility.

The sermon by Reverend Thigpin, a young, swarthy man, intrigued Crawford because he’d chosen as his text Christ’s admonition about a rich man entering heaven.

Reading from Luke, chapter eighteen, verses twenty-two through twentyfive, where Jesus is speaking to a rich man, Reverend Thigpin’s deep voice filled the old building: “ ‘There is still one thing lacking: sell everything you have and distribute unto the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; and come, follow me.’ At these words his heart sank; for he was a very rich man. Then Jesus said, ‘How hard it is for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ ” Reverend Thigpin surveyed his congregation as he took a deep breath. “Are we to divest ourselves of all our worldly goods? Let’s look at this inanother fashion. At the time this text was written the gulf between rich and poor was cavernous. There was no strong middle class as we know it. Life was brutal, nasty, and short, to paraphrase Hobbes.” Reverend Thigpin could use such references. Episcopalians went to college. They may not have read Thomas Hobbes but they knew who he was.

As Crawford listened to the sermon, he admired the young man’s audacity in speaking thus in the lion’s den. And he agreed with Thigpin’s conclusions. We must read the Bible in historical context. We must cherish the message of forgiveness and redemption.

As to wealth, if one shares, one is doing one’s duty. After all, in ancient Judaea there were no relief agencies. No one today led such a wretched life as the maimed and poor of that time. And what would happen if people of means chose poverty? There would be even more mouths to feed. The choice was to use one’s wealth in a structured, moral manner

Crawford liked that. He was going to remember that phrase,“structured, moral manner.”

When the service ended he leaned over.“May I take you to breakfast?”

Marty studied her fingernail polish, then replied,“The club?”

“Yes.”

Within fifteen minutes they were seated at Crawford’s favorite table by the large fireplace, cherry logs crackling, each drinking a robust coffee.

“You know, Marty, time teaches us all and it has taught me that I allowed my lawyers to manipulate my complex feelings over our parting. I’ve spoken to Adrian”—he mentioned the director of the country club—“and I have purchased a full membership in your name. Now you can golf without those long waits at the public course.”

Her lovely light brown eyes opened wide.“Crawford.”

He lowered his voice.“Perhaps you would tee off with me from time to time, although I will never be as good a golfer as you. Used to frustrate me, Martha.” He leaned forward. “I have been foolishly competitive and controlling. Then I turned forty and I don’t know what happened exactly. Male menopause and all that but it was more. Some kind of primal fear. Didn’t you feel it when you turned forty?”

“No, but I only just did.”

“I thought women feared age more than men.”

“Depends on the woman. Crawford, this is a generous gift. I’ll regard it as a thoughtful birthday present.”

“I sent you a dozen roses for your birthday. I almost sent forty but then I thought, ‘Maybe not.’ ”

“How’s the farm?” She changed the subject.

“Good, although I’m afraid the water will jump the banks again. If that bridge goes down, I’m building a suspension bridge out of steel girders.”

“You’ll rebuild what is already there because it’s utterly perfect. You have an incredible eye.” She laughed low. “Your strip malls look prettier than anyone else’s.”

“Do you ever regret leaving Indiana and moving here with me?”

“No. It’s magical here. I only regret our marriage blew up like a grenade.”

“My fault.”

“I’d like to think that but maybe I’ve had to learn a few things myself. I thought I was inadequate. Then I thought you were inadequate. I’m not using the words I used at the time.” He tipped his head to one side as she continued. “I was raised to believe my task was to complete you andthat you would complete me. But I lived through you. When we were young that must have made you feel quite manly, I suppose. But as we jostled along in years, it must have been a burden. And face it, the sex wears off. No one wants to admit it. God knows, the bookstores are filled with remedies about how to keep the fire in your marriage. Perhaps some people can, but we didn’t. I understand your chorus girl.” Using the words “chorus girl” was the only hint she gave of a trace of bitterness. “So you see, it wasn’t exactly your fault. You acted on your feelings. I didn’t.”

“You were bored, too?” He felt so incredibly relieved that she wasn’t swinging the wronged-and-superior-woman cudgel.

“Constricted.” Her hand reached for her throat.

They stopped the conversation while the waitress, the same one he usually had at the club, brought her eggs and his waffles. She refilled their coffee cups, then retreated.

“I went into therapy, you know.”

“I did, too.” She giggled. “I’m still going.”

“Me, too. No one knows but you. Doesn’t look good for a man to be, well, you know.”

“I know.” She told the truth. The double standard cut both ways.

“You won’t rat on me?”

“No.”

“Martha, do you think we could date? Get to know one another again on a better footing?”

She lifted her eyes to his.“Crawford, I never stopped loving you. I stopped trusting you. Perhaps we should take it slow.”

“Tuesday nights?”

“Why don’t we hunt together in the morning first, provided you don’t run Fontaine into any more jumps.”

A sly smile betrayed his glee.“Still mad, is he?”

“Fontaine has an endless capacity for revenge. Underneath that priapic exterior lies something darker than I realized.”

“He has to one-up every other man he meets. Like you once said to me, it’s ‘testosterone poisoning.’ I have a fair amount of the stuff myself.” He poured more maple syrup on his waffles, which were so light they might have flown away.

She leaned closer.“Maybe it’s a deep anger because he’ll never be the man his grandfather was. People say Nathaniel Buruss crushed people underfoot.”

“It’s hard to become rich in business without crushing others. I thought that was a good sermon. Thigpin is quite good. When Tom Farley retired I worried for Saint Luke’s but I think Thigpin is tough, good tough.”

“Me, too. Back to Fontaine. I mean it. Don’t run him into another jump. He’s a pretty good rider. You were lucky this time but I’d stay behind him in the hunt field if I were you.”

“I hate that you work for him.”

“I’m learning a lot and much as you dislike him, he’s been very good to me. Only good to me and a gentleman … and I’d like to open my own landscaping business someday. I really love it.”

“The only reason he’s a gentleman to you is I’d kill him if he weren’t.”

“Craw, in the beginning you didn’t care. You were happy to be rid of me and he truly helped me through that awful first year. It was awful. If I learned nothing else, I learned that divorce lawyers have everything to gain by fanning the flames. They don’t want to settle. They don’t want people to work it out. My lawyer was as reprehensible as your lawyer, except he preyed on my being a woman. He was ‘taking care’ of me and I fell for it.”

“A plague on both their houses. I should have given you all the money I paid that bastard. Well, it’s over. We’re going to go on. I’m a different man, Martha. I truly am.”

“Parts of the old one were quite wonderful, you know.” She smiled flirtatiously and suddenly looked like the beautiful Kappa Kappa Gamma he’d met at Indiana University all those years ago.

He smiled magnanimously.“I owe you a great deal. You believed in me when I was young, and I wouldn’t be foxhunting had it not been for you. You got me up on a horse and I will always be grateful for that.”

“At first I didn’t know if you’d stick it out. If you’d learn to ride. When you did, well, I think it made me love you more than I could ever imagine. You did it for me.”

“Yes.” He folded his hands together. “Now I can’t imagine not hunting. I’ve put a lot of myself into the club, you know. I hope it pays off.”

Crawford couldn’t give to give. There had to be a payback.

“Sister visited Fontaine… .” Realizing she might be betraying a confidence, she quickly shut up.

Crawford tensed.“There’s no reason for her to visit him unless it’s about the mastership.”

Fumbling, Martha finally squealed,“Maybe not. He has to fix the coop he smashed.”

“He didn’t say?”

“No.”

“How long was she there?”

“Oh, twenty minutes.”

He cracked his knuckles.“Damn! Fontaine is such a lightweight.”

“Well, we were kind of talking about that. There’s this part of Fontaine that wants to prove he’s not. He’s been cooking up some business deal he won’t discuss. I only know it because I see the name Gordon Smith penciled in on his daybook occasionally.” Gordon Smith was a commercial contractor building large office buildings in northern Virginia, especially around Dulles airport. Wealthy, highly intelligent, and driven, he lived in Upperville. “I also saw Peter Wheeler’s name penciled in last week.”

“Fontaine doesn’t know the first thing about commercial real estate.” He thought a moment. “Why would Gordon Smith waste his time with Fontaine? Peter Wheeler, though, that is bad news. I’d better get over there to see him.”

“Don’t underestimate Fontaine.”

He grimaced, then smiled indulgently.“You’re fond of him. He protected you when I was at my worst. I suppose I should be grateful to him. I’m not sure I’ve evolved that much. Just once I’d like to knock his fucking block off. I want to hear his teeth rattle across the floor.”

“That’s graphic.”

“Sorry.” He drained his cup. “I can’t help it. I hate that bastard.”

“And you want to be joint-master.”

Downcast, he said,“Sister hasn’t paid a call to me.”

“Sister is full of surprises.”

CHAPTER 9

Sister was full of surprises. She walked out into the Sunday drizzle just as Cody Jean Franklin pulled into the kennels. Cody was furious about Doug dumping her at her door. She’d had a whole night to get even more angry.

“Cody,” Sister called out, Raleigh at her heels.

Cody turned, her baseball cap low over her eyes. She pushed the cap back.“Good morning. You must have gone to church early this morning.”

“Six-thirty service. I get claustrophobic sitting there with the eight o’clock rush. Where are you working now?”

“Freelancing. I catch a ride in the mornings and work at Shear Power in the afternoons. I quit waiting on tables.”

“I didn’t know you could cut hair.”

“I’m the receptionist.”

“Cody, what’s wrong with you?” Sister bore down. “Learn the print business. Your parents spent their whole lives building that business. It hasn’t made them rich but they paid for their home and sent you to college, and Jennifer will go, too.”

“Jennifer can run the business.” Cody feared Sister, but then most people did have a touch of fear about the dynamic old lady. “I’m not cut out for that.”

“Well, what are you cut out for? You’re twentyfive. You can’t just do nothing.”

“Not quite twentyfive.”

“Don’t quibble. You know exactly what I mean.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You must have a special interest.”

“Horses.”

Sister whistled to Raleigh, who had walked on ahead. He hurried back.“Hard way to make a living but if you love it, truly love it, then do it. You’ve only got one life and you spend most of it working. Do what you love. I did.”

“You had Mr. Arnold.” Cody showed some backbone.

“I didn’t start life with Raymond. I taught geology at Mary Baldwin College. Of course, I graduated with a degree in English but they needed a geology teacher so I learned. Funny, it’s helped me so much in hunting. Anyway, I worked. I taught even after Raymond and I were married. That was long before your time. I stopped when I had the baby. So there. Find something you like and stop wasting your life.”

“I wish I knew. You make it sound so easy.”

“It is easy. You’re waiting for someone to live your life for you, Cody.”

“I’m not. I’m a little, uh, rudderless right now.”

“I’m talking to you because no one else will.”

“Guess they’re talking behind my back.”

“This is a small town. The time to worry is when they’re not talking about you.”

Cody laughed.“That’s one way to look at it.”

“There’s a rabbit over there.” Raleigh could see it hop off in the drizzle.

Sister put her hand on the sleek black head.“I don’t have any cookies.” She returned her attention to Cody. “I’m glad you came out to help with the hounds.”

Cody pretended she was there for hound walk.“They need to go out.”

“Missed a day hunting. Do you know last year I only canceled twice. Twice. And here it is cubbing and I’ve already canceled once.”

“The weather is—” Cody shrugged.

“Have your parents talked to you? About direction, I mean.”

“Dad huffs. Mother is sympathetic.”

“I see.”

“I don’t want to leave here. There’s more opportunities in Richmond but I love it here by the mountains. I’d rather bump along than move there or go down to Charlotte.”

“Charlotte is totally unrecognizable to me.” Sister recalled the small textile town in North Carolina from her youth. “Here I’ve peppered you with questions but I haven’t provided any answers. Can’t, you know. Has to come from you.”

“Well, when Jennifer gets out of college I think we’ll start our own business. Maybe if she really takes over Mom and Dad’s business I could work with her. I’m hoping—” She broke her train of thought and couldn’t quite get back to it.

“Will you go out Tuesday?”

“I’m trying a new horse for Fontaine. Could be a rodeo show.” Cody pulled her cap down again.

“Ride in the back of the field, then.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And Cody …”

“Ma’am?”

“You can’t drown your sorrows. They know how to swim.”

CHAPTER 10

Chickens amused Peter Wheeler. He’d built a sturdy chicken coop with a pitched roof, bought steel broody boxes, and built little ladders for them to perch on when not nestled in the boxes.

He fed them in the mornings, then returned at sundown to count heads, refill the water bucket, pluck eggs from the boxes.

Long ago he ran cattle, kept a few sheep, had hundreds of chickens, and grew hay as well. He’d always kept four horses, since he loved hunting.

Children found their way to Peter. Doug Kinser wound up there. The Lungrun children would come after school, as they desperately needed a happy atmosphere. Children walked over from surrounding farms or hitched rides out from town.

Age wore him down. In his eighties now, Peter had only the chickens left and a well-built harrier named Rooster.

He’d sold his business, a tractor dealership, for quite a bit of money, so his declining years were not attended by that poverty sadly common among the elderly.

He stooped a bit but still had thick wavy white hair plus all his teeth.

Often“his kids” would drive down the country road to visit him. He’d go into town on Wednesdays to see old friends.

Like many old people, he looked forward to chatting with anyone who dropped in.

He heard a truck rumble up to the house.

“Hey,” a familiar voice called out.

“In the henhouse,” he answered.

The door pushed open; Sister hugged him.“You love these damn chickens.” She leaned over. “Hi there, Rooster.”

“Hi.” He wagged his tail.

“Imelda, here”—he lifted up a plump chicken—“has turned into my best layer.” He gave Sister the egg basket.

“Wish it would stop raining.”

“Has been wet.” He handed her about a dozen eggs as he walked down the broody boxes. “I’ve got plenty. You take those home.”

“Thanks.” She reached in, feeling the warm brown eggs. “Peter, has Fontaine contacted you?”

“Wants to buy the place. Crawford, too. The numbers go up and up.”

“Fontaine doesn’t have money anymore. Don’t let him carry you fast.”

“Do I look like a fool?”

“No. In fact, you look quite handsome.”

“Bullshit. Fontaine says he has investors. Crawford has cold hard cash. Both say they want to save the farm from developers. I say they’re both liars of the first water. What do you say?”

“Suspicious.”

“And then some.”

“Good money?”

“Yes. Crawford started at one-point-five million and is up to two-point-seven. Fontaine says to give him until November and he’ll come up with three million.”

“Jesus.”

“For a nature conservancy. I asked for papers, contracts, conservation easements. Crawford had them. Now, sugar pie, they look good, but any decent lawyer will spot the loopholes. Sounds like Wheeler’s Mill Estates to me.” He laughed.

“That’s a lot of money.”

“I’m too goddamned old to enjoy it but I like the action. Used to love to make deals in my youth—my sixties and seventies.”

“Do they know they’re competing?”

“They do.” He laughed louder. “Lord, it’s fun. Those two boys hate each other.” He wrapped his arm around her. “Come on to the house. You look peaked, honey.”

“I was scared you might sell.”

“Come on.”

They went inside, drank a little sherry, and laughed at all the things people know about one another and their community when they’ve lived together a long time.

She checked her watch.“I’d better head out.”

“Janie, I still love you. I want you to know that.”

“I love you, too.”

“Ever wonder what would have happened if we could have married?”

“I’d be feeding chickens.” She laughed, then said, “Life’s strange.”

“It is that.”

The fleeting image of the Grim Reaper jolted Sister. She said,“Peter, if I had to do it all over again I wouldn’t change a thing. You know when Ray Junior died I thought God was punishing me for our affair. Then time passed and I thought differently.”

“God doesn’t punish us for love. Only people do that.”

“Well, I loved you. I’ll always love you. I guess I was a good wife but not a faithful one.”

“You were a good wife. I just wish I’d found you before Ray did. I never hated him. He was too good a man. He had his Achilles’ heel. We all do. But he was a good man.”

“You, too.”

“I guess we took what we could. Maybe that’s all anyone can do.” His voice grew stronger. “My time is coming. I feel well enough but I know my time is coming. I wanted you to know I love you.”

She kissed him good-bye and cried the whole way home.

CHAPTER 11

The rain finally stopped Sunday night. The grays emerged from their den, making straight for the cornfield on the east side of Hangman’s Ridge. The year, rich in gleanings, kept everyone happy.

In a few weeks the young would disperse to find their own territory, their own mates. Males might travel as far as 150 miles. Females usually remained closer to their place of birth.

Butch and Mary Vey had a small litter this year, only four. One little gray male had been carried away by a large hawk its first time out of the den. The other was sickly and died. Inky and Comet, half-grown, stayed healthy. Both parents taught them how to hunt, what to hunt, how to dump hounds, how to cross the road. In preparation for leaving home they now hunted on their own.

Inky traveled to the edge of the cornfield. She’d eaten so much corn, she sat down. A rustling through the corn, not the light wind, made her crouch low.

A huge male red fox appeared, saw Inky, and said,“Oh, it’s you.” Without further conversation he moved on.

Inky sat up and blinked. The red fox,Vulpes vulpes, as he preferred to be called, felt the gray inferior. This particular male, Target, had an especially splashy white tip on his tail. He was easily recognizable to humans, too. He’d been around for years.

Target’s entire family, four kits, also half-grown, were out hunting, as well as his mate, his sister, and her mate. The reds—a numerous, querulous clan—kept themselves busy, so they rarely spoke to anyone else. They feared no one, not even the bobcats, mountain lions, and bears, quite numerous in central Virginia, since the Blue Ridge Mountains provided food and safety.

As to foxhunters and their hounds, not only did the reds have no fear, they delighted in exhausting and then maiming their foe. Few sounds were as lovely to a red’s ears as the sound of a human breaking bones.

If the hounds picked up a gray fox, the reds generally ignored the chase, concentrating on sunning themselves or going into their den and sleeping.

The grays could take care of themselves. They ran in smaller circles than the reds, some of whom might run straight for miles. Grays also perfected a figure eight, a maneuver incorporating sharp turns and practiced dives into other creatures’ dens. This confused the hounds and infuriated the animal receiving the unexpected caller. However, there was little choice but to entertain the gray until the hounds were called off by the huntsman and cast in another direction. Since the grays were smaller than the red fox, they could squeeze into all manner of hiding places. They also climbed trees, a trick the reds thought much too catlike. Reds intensely disliked cats, who competed for the same game but who also sassed them.

The grays weren’t overfond of cats but a feline insult was shrugged off. The reds, proud of their position, felt most animals owed them obeisance.

Inky learned these things from her parents and from experience. She looked overhead as Athena, the large owl, silently glided by. Athena, a deadly hunter, would swoop down, talons outstretched, before her prey knew what hit them.

Inky didn’t fear Athena. The owl was civil. Since the fox, red and gray, has no natural enemies, they didn’t need to worry about anyone wishing to eat them. Only the small kits were game, and that was usually for hawks or vultures. In droughts or hard times the vultures became aggressive, even attackingnewborn calves.

Athena’s nemesis was St. Just, the king of the crows. They rarely saw one another, since the crow was a daytime creature, but if he caught sight of Athena, St. Just would harass her even though she was four times his size.

The person St. Just hated above all others was Target. The big red had killed St. Just’s mate, eating her with a flourish.

Inky sat there, the moist earth filled with enticing messages. October kept all creatures busy. The bears would soon hibernate, so they were eating everything they could. The squirrels gathered more and more nuts, often forgetting where they stashed them. Everyone prepared for winter. Even the humans cut firewood, put up storm windows, and changed the antifreeze in their cars.

Although it was early, Inky considered going home to sleep. However, she thought an apple might be nice for dessert even though she was full. She nosed out of the corn, sniffed the wind, then headed at a ground-eating trot up to the top of Hangman’s Ridge. From this spot she could see most of the valley. Even Whiskey Ridge, running parallel to the north, was a bit lower. The criminals hanged from the oak tree could have been seen from below. This must have proved a potent warning. The last hanging occurred in 1875, when Gilliam Norris wasstrung up. He’d killed his entire family—mother, father, two sisters, and a brother—with a service revolver. When the sheriff came to arrest him, Gilliam shot him, too. Took fifteen men, including the sheriff from the next county, to bring Gilliam in. People said he’d lost his mind in the war.

Inky heard that story, passed from generation to generation. The first victim of the tree was Lawrence Pollard in 1702. An intrepid man, an explorer and founder of towns, Lawrence indulged in land speculation, as did many colonists. He was selling acreage in the Shenandoah Valley, the deal went bust, and Lawrence’s investors strung him up without judge or jury.

From her vantage point Inky could see the Arnold farm, the barn and kennels and the understated two-story brick house painted white with Charleston-green shutters surrounded by oaks and maples of enormous size. At the edge of the expansive lawn was a small apple orchard. Peach and pear trees were around the house for decoration as much as for fruit. The orchard, though, was laid out in neat rows.

Inky swooped down the ridge, ran across a downed log over Broad Creek, and was happily in the middle of the orchard in fifteen minutes.

Raleigh, whom she knew by sight, was in the house. Golliwog, however, was in the orchard.

“I’ll tell the hounds you’re here.”

“They can’t get out,” Inky replied.

“They can make a helluva racket. The humans will get up.”

“I’ll be gone by that time, they’ll be in a bad mood, and you’re the one that has to listen to them,” Inky sensibly said.“I only want one apple. I’m not going to poach your game.”

Golly arched her long eyebrows.“How can you eat fruit?”

“It’s good.”

The cat shook herself.“Well, get your apple and get out.”

Inky snatched a small, sweet apple that had just fallen, then darted out of the orchard, passing the kennel on her way home. The hounds were snoring.

She stopped, apple in her mouth. She put the apple down for a moment and turned. Golly had climbed up into one of the apple trees at the edge of the orchard. She’d heard that the house cat was smart and no friend to foxes. Figuring she was ahead of the game and not wishing further to irritate the calico, Inky picked up the apple. As she walked by the separate runs, Diana, sleeping outside since the rain had stopped, opened one eye, then both eyes, sitting up with a start.

She opened her mouth, but Inky dropped her apple and quickly pleaded,“Don’t. It will set everyone crazy.”

Diana walked to the fence.“You’re the black fox—“

“You stuck your nose into my den. I’ve come for an apple and I’ll be on my way. I didn’t even go near the chicken coop. All’s well.”

“You know if I were out of here I’d chase you to the James River,” Diana bragged.

“Ha. I’d run circles around you and you wouldn’t even know it.”

Diana cocked her head to one side.“I love the chase. Do you?”

“For about fifteen minutes. Then I have better things to do. The reds like it more than we grays, I think.”

“This is my first season. I guess I’ll find that out.” Diana blinked and lowered her head to be closer to the fox.“I’ve been doing okay with cubbing, though, and last year, when I was a puppy, Shaker and Sister walked us every day and sometimes they laid down scent to help us. I think I know what to do if I can concentrate. I lose my concentration sometimes.”

“This is my first year, too, so I only know what my parents have told me and cubbing … I like cubbing. It was funny when you stuck your nose in the den. My brother wanted to bite you. He’s like that.” Inky giggled.

“Glad he didn’t. My nose is very sensitive.”

Golly backed down the apple tree. She sauntered toward the kennel.

“I’d better go. She gave me a fair warning.”

Diana pricked up her ears.“Golliwog can be very fierce. She scares me.”

“You know we will all be leaving our dens in a few weeks. Right about the time of opening hunt. There will be good runs then. You’ll have fun. My dad says opening hunt is like a three-ring circus. I’m going to climb a tree and watch.”

“Where will you go?”

“Already found my place. On the other side of Broad Creek. There’s so much corn and game, my father said it’s all right to live close. He said if hard times come then I might have to push on.”

“I’m nervous about opening hunt,” Diana confessed.

“Stay away from the people. And if you’re on Target, the huge red with lots of white tip, be real careful. He’s very smart. My father says he’s incredibly smart but cruel. Target will try to lead you to your death. His son, Reynard, can be cruel, too.” Diana shuddered so Inky added,“Stick to a hound that knows what she’s doing. You’ll be safe then.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll wave if you go by.” Inky giggled again, then picked up her apple and skedaddled, for Golly was bearing down on her, picking up speed.

The imposing calico stopped.“Diana, you’re loose as ashes. You can’t believe one word from a fox’s mouth.”

Diana dropped her head.“Yes, ma’am.”

Satisfied that she had imparted wisdom as well as put that lower life-form, the hound, in her place, Golly strolled, tail swaying to and fro, back to the main house. The night was too damp for her. She was going in the house to snuggle up next to Sister, who was sound asleep. She might clean off her muddy paws and then again she might not. Walking across the old Persian carpets so prized by Sister would get the mud off fast enough.

CHAPTER 12

A stiff tiger trap, cut logs shining in the morning mist, like giant’s teeth, slowed Dragon for a moment as he scrambled over, the pack ahead of him. The tiger trap jump, like a coop but with vertical logs, often backed off riders. Sidetracked by an unfamiliar smell, Dragon snapped to when he heard Cora’s authoritative call.

Twenty couple hounds, forty individuals, had been carried in their special trailer to Beveridge Hundred, an old plantation five miles west of Sister’s house as the crow flies.

But today it wasn’t the crow flying, it was the hounds. Shaker cast them in the classic triangle cast. Sending hounds on their mission was truly like a fisherman casting his net. Hence, the term “cast.” Most huntsmen threw their hounds straight into the wind, figuring the scent would carry and they’d be offin a hurry. That was a better idea for flat country than for the hills, ravines, pastures, and deep creeks of Jefferson Hunt territory. Shaker liked to give his hounds about fifteen minutes to settle; then he’d cut the corner and move up the side of the triangle into the wind. He planned his huntand hunted his plan, always dividing the territory to be hunted into a series of triangles.

The pack struck quickly, running straight. Their quarry ran perhaps seven to ten minutes ahead. The scent held on the still-wet earth. The light shone scarlet as the sun’s rim loomed over the horizon.

Shaker doubled his blasts as he plunged into a stand of black birches, shot out into the thirty-acre hay field just as hounds crossed over the middle of the cut field.

Sister galloped about fifty yards behind Shaker. He soared over the tiger trap; Sister and Lafayette easily cleared the big jump. Cody made it, as did Fontaine, who kept his eyes glued to Cody’s perfect butt in the saddle.

Gunsmoke, Fontaine’s half-bred, thought the horse Cody was trying for Fontaine, Keepsake, a rangy thoroughbred, was doing great so far. But then thoroughbreds always did better when the field was moving fast.

Marty, Crawford, and finally Bobby safely landed in the hay field.

Three visitors from Bull Run Hunt kept up with the small Tuesday group.

At the edge of the hay field the hounds split. Cora headed left toward The Rocks, an outcropping of boulders, while Archie headed right through double-lined rows of cedars into another hay field.

“Archie, two foxes. Stick with me,” Cora called, her bel canto lilt floating over the mists still not rising.

This brought Archie’s head up.

Dragon shot his mouth off.“This scent is hot.”

“Yes it is, son, but if the fox can split us, we’ll wind up in East Jesus, the whips will be going in two directions, and each fox can further mislead us. We’re on Target. They’re on Aunt Netty.” Archie knew his foxes by the patterns they ran.“Reds.”

“I’m not leaving this scent,” Dragon howled, nose to the ground.“Cora’s an old bitch, anyway.”

“Good way to get drafted out, you fool.” Archie turned, flat out now, belly low to the ground, tail stretched out behind him as he streaked for Cora.

Without hesitation the other hounds, including Diana on her first flaming run, followed Archie. He cut across the hay field, crawled under the old wire cow fence, catapulting over the sunken farm road worn down by three hundred years of use. With one bound he was over the loose stone wall, heading, flying, flashing down to The Rocks.

Moving in the opposite direction, Dragon touched the earth with his nose, bawled for all he was worth, and charged into a smaller pasture. Hay rolled in large round bales dotted the verdant expanse.

“Moron!” a taunting voice called.

Dragon jerked his head up. Sitting on top of the hay round were Target and Reynard, magnificent, shining, as red as the scarlet sunrise.

“I’ll tear you to shreds!” Dragon bared his fangs, bouncing toward father and son.

“You fierce beast.” Target, falsetto-voiced, mocked him, while Reynard watched the older, wiser fox sucker in the hound.

When Dragon was two strides from the hay round, Target casually jumped down, darting into a burrow in the bale. Reynard followed. His tail flicked into this makeshift den just as Target skidded around the bale.

Growling, saliva dripping, Dragon bumped into the bale as his hind end gave out under him from the force of his sharp turn. His head nearly hit the ground, his two front legs splayed out. He was eyeball to eyeball with a mature copperhead still drowsy and not amused.

Like lightning the snake struck, sinking her fangs, almost as large as Dragon’s, into his left cheek. He shook his head but she didn’t let go until she’d released her venom to the last drop.

“Oh, God, it hurts,” Dragon screamed as the snake finally let go.

“Moron.” Target laughed as Dragon, weeping, tried to outrun the pain. At least he had sense enough to go for the sound of the hounds, maybe a mile off by now.

Hounds, horses, huntsman were stymied at The Rocks, water spilling down over the sides in a gentle waterfall.

Aunt Netty, on a ledge behind the waterfall, cleaned her claws embedded with mud. She’d run over the rocks leading up to the small waterfall. Her scent would last for only a few moments on the rock but the morning was damp, the mists were low, and the hounds were close. To be safe she ducked behind the water. She didn’t mind getting a little wet. She knew her scent had been wiped out by the waterfall.

Cora, a trifle overweight, panted.“Aunt Netty works her magic act.”

In the distance they could hear Bobby Franklin, who’d fallen far behind, talk to his horse, Oreo. “Not so fast. Not so fast. I hate running on rock!”

“Stop worrying, you fat pig,” the horse replied.“My sense of balance is better than yours.”

“Everyone in one piece?” Sister laughingly asked.

“Is it always like this?” one of the visitors asked.

“Sure,” Fontaine lied, winking.

A rustling noise coming through the woods captured their attention. Dragon joined them in a few moments. He shook his head, he cried, he rolled over.

Shaker dismounted as Sister held his reins.“Snakebite,” he tersely informed her.

“His head will blow up like a pumpkin,” Cody said.

“Killed my Jack Russell. Remember Darth Vader?” Fontaine said that, which, under the circumstances, was not a helpful recollection.

Crawford, hoping for brownie points, dismounted from Czapaka. He walked over to Shaker, who didn’t look up but kept his gaze on Dragon.

“I can throw the hound over my saddle.”

“No need,” Shaker replied evenly.

“He’s better off walking back.” Douglas Kinser had ridden in from his outpost.

“Sister, do you mind if I have Doug walk Dragon back?”

“No. Betty’s out on your left. Can you get by with one whip?”

“Two’s better.”

“I’ll go.” Cody smiled.

“No, you won’t. I haven’t bought that horse yet, and who knows what you’ll get into. It’s already been a wild morning,” Fontaine commanded.

“I’ll whip. I’m not the best rider in the world but I can do it. I know most of the hounds by sight,” Marty volunteered.

“Good.”

“Fine.” Shaker seconded Sister. “You take the right. Three blasts, short and high of equal duration, means come in to me. You know the other signals?”

“Well, Shaker, if I don’t you all can come out and find me. Just don’t leave me out until sundown.”

Crawford, jealous of Marty for the chance to whip, mounted up. He smiled at her but was secretly miserable that he wasn’t a strong enough rider to whip. And he hadn’t a clue as to how to rate hounds. He thought all a whip had to do was ride hard. In Crawford’s case, ignorance was bliss. How he longed to say at some fancy Virginia party, “Oh, yes, I whip-in at Jefferson Hunt.” It would be even more delicious to drop the information into a cocktail party in Manhattan. They’d think it had something to do with sexual practices. He’d then get to fire off a double entendre or two, after which he could declaim about foxhunting.

As it was, Crawford could have used Velcro in his saddle.

“Sister?” Shaker worked closely with his master. She’d carried the horn in her youth when the then huntsman died unexpectedly and violently in a bar fight Saturday night. She had a great eye for terrain and a good sense of casting hounds. Not a professional huntsman by a long shot, but she was no slouch either.

She inhaled deeply, the heavy air filling her lungs.“Warming fast.”

“Northern edge of the woods?” He swung gracefully up in the saddle.

“Good idea.”

As the hounds packed in and trotted to the next cast Diana whispered,“Is Dragon in trouble?”

Dasher, her litter mate, as was Dragon, whispered back,“If not with the people then with the snake. Boy, is he going to be sick.”

Jefferson Hunt named their hounds using the first letter of the bitch’s name. Dasher, Dragon, and Diana had been born to Delia, an old lady now retired to laze in the sun.

“If that copperhead hadn’t bit him, I would have!” Archie exclaimed.

Shaker stared down at Arch.“What are you talking about?”

“Sorry,” the steady fellow apologized. Wouldn’t do for him to be accused of babbling.

“How do you know it was a copperhead?” Dasher whispered.

“Head already getting fat. A nonpoisonous snake would have left two fang marks and that’s about it.”

“Rattler,” Cora quietly said.

“He’d be dead by now.” Archie tried not to gloat.

At the northern edge Shaker pushed the hounds toward the hay field. They picked up a fading scent moving at a trot. The next hour the hounds worked diligently with a few small bursts as their reward.

Sister lifted hounds and they happily walked back to the trailers.

“Bobby, dear, we could hear you all the way down to The Rocks,” his wife chided him.

“Oh.” His face reddened.

Behind them Crawford rode in silence, Fontaine behind him. Fontaine was studying Czapaka intently, especially his hindquarters. Confirmation, the way a horse is put together, reveals a lot about the horse’s potential use and longevity of service. Cody observed this.

“Nice horse.”

Fontaine turned his head back. Cody drew alongside him so they could speak without shouting.“Yes, he is a nice horse.”

“Quick with his hind feet?” Fontaine called up to Crawford, meaning “Does the horse kick?”

With disdain, Crawford, not even turning his head, called back.“No, but I am.”

“I’ll remember that.” Fontaine smiled broadly and benevolently for all to see.

“What’s Fontaine up to?” Cody thought to herself.

Walking back to the trailers, Target was a deadly foe.

CHAPTER 13

“Going to be a great year. One of the best. They go in cycles.” Lafayette dropped some of his hay, reaching down to snatch it up.

Rickyroo, in the next stall, stuck his nose between the iron stall divider bars.“We were right behind Aunt Netty.”

“Could you see her?”

“No. She vanished. The usual.” Rickyroo picked up his red play ball with a handle. He threw it over his head.

Ricky, full of energy, found things to do, things that were upsetting to the humans. If a bridle hung on the stall door, he’d play with it until he had pulled the reins into his stall; then he’d chew them to pieces.

He tore off other horses’ blankets when they were turned out in the field.

He also tore a flap off Cody Jean Franklin’s frock coat last year because he felt like it.

The humans called him a handful. The horses thought of him as a joker.

Aztec, a graceful five-year-old light bay, a blaze down her face, said,“It’s not fair. You two go and I stay home.”

“You’ll go out in the field, Az. Sister believes in bringing along horses slow,” Lafayette counseled her.

“I’m as big as you are.”

“And so you are, but I’ve seen a lot more than you have. The last thing we need is you spooking all over the place with Sister on your back. She’s a good rider but she’s no spring chicken.”

“I’m not going to spook. I hilltopped last year.” She referred to the practice of hunting but not taking the jumps.

“Be patient,”Rickyroo advised.

“You’re not,” Aztec grumbled.

“I know what I’m doing.” He threw the ball at the bars between them.

Golliwog strolled in during the conversation, Raleigh behind her.“If you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t be playing with that stupid ball.”

“Raleigh plays with balls,” came the retort from the dark bay.

“My point exactly.” Golliwog sat down on a hay bale, picked the tip of her tail up with her paw, and began grooming.

Raleigh, an exceedingly good-natured dog, said,“Golly, you’re such a snot.”

“Cats,” was all Lafayette said.

“You’re jealous. You’re all jealous. You have to work for a living whereas I simply exist to be beautiful and catch the occasional offensive mouse.”

“You’re doing a piss-poor job of it.” Aztec laughed.

“Oh, really?” Golly dropped her tail.“Do you have any idea how many places there are for mice to hide? Shall I list them, grass-eater, eyes-on-the-side-of-your-head, big fat flat teeth, no-good … !”

“We’re scared.” Lafayette reached for more hay in his hayrack.

“I could scratch your eyes out if I wanted to. You’re lucky that I like you—basically.”

“Golly, cool it.” The sleek Doberman nudged the cat.“We all know that you are the most beautiful, the smartest cat that ever lived. Even smarter than Dick Whittington’s cat.”

Having heard what she wanted to hear, Golly’s mood instantly improved.“Say, I heard Dragon got nailed.”

“Archie told me on the way home that the little shit had it coming,” Lafayette said.“When Archie realized they’d split and told his group to catch up with Cora, Dragon refused. He even called Cora an old bitch. Archie’s furious.”

“She should have drafted him out when he was a puppy. He was beautiful but he was rotten even then. I told her but she missed it. The problem with Sister is it takes her too long to figure these things out. I knew that puppy’s attitude was wrong. Outrageous.” Raleigh stood on his hind legs to peer into Lafayette’s stall.

“But you’re a dog. Dogs know about one another. Same with us.” Lafayette nodded to his stablemates.“We know if a horse will work into the program long before Sister or Douglas knows. It’s the nature of things.”

“I suppose, but I’d like to save her the trouble.” Raleigh loved Sister with all his heart and soul.

“Humans need trouble. Makes them think they’re living.” Golliwog laughed.

“Cynic,” Raleigh returned to the cat.

“Means ‘dog’ in Greek, you know.” Golly adored showing off.

“It does?” Aztec was surprised.

“Yes. Diogenes lived like a dog. Really, he lived in a hovel and wore rags but he was brilliant. He questioned everything, especially authority. He upset the rich, obviously. They called him a dog. They called the people who followed him dogs. Stuck.”

“How do you know all this?” Aztec asked, her deep-brown eyes filled with admiration.

“I read whatever Sister is reading. I sit on her shoulder or on the pillow behind her shoulders. She reads all the time.”

“I don’t understand the appeal of books.” Ricky tossed his ball again.

“Big surprise.” Lafayette snorted in jest.

“I’ll tell you about books.” Golly stretched fore and aft, then sat down quite regally, prepared to declaim.“It’s the best way to enjoy an uninterrupted conversation with the best human minds from any century, from most any country. Superior as we are to humans, imagine if we wrote books. You might know what Man O’ War learned and thought. I could learn from the cats of ancient Egypt. It truly is our one great failing. We don’t record our experiences.”

“We’re too busy living them.” Raleigh laughed.

“There is that.” Golly smiled and purred. She did love Raleigh quite a bit.

The slam of a truck door diverted their attention. The cat and dog walked to the open barn doors. The sun had just set and soon a light frost like thin icing would blanket the ground.

“Doug and Cody,” Raleigh said.

“That started up again?” Rickyroo paid little attention to human couplings and uncouplings.

“How could Doug pick such a loser, even if she is pretty?” Golly returned to her hay bale by the side of the aisle, set up for the morning feeding.

“On again, off again.” Lafayette’s stall dutch door opened on the other side of the barn from Doug’s cottage.

“I don’t want her to hurt Doug again.” Raleigh’s ears swept back.

“Of course she will. She’ll hurt everybody, including herself, but there’s one thing I’ll say for Cody … if she gets somebody in trouble, she gets right in there with him.”

“What’s the worst that can happen? She gets pregnant,” Ricky said.

“There’s lots worse than that. People commit suicide over love and really dumb stuff,” Raleigh replied.

“Well, it doesn’t affect us.” Ricky felt the whole thing was silly.

“The hell it doesn’t.” Golly spoke forcefully.“Everything they do affects us.”

CHAPTER 14

Later that night three short knocks brought Cody to the front door of her small house. She opened the door.

“Hi, Sis.” Jennifer leaned against the doorjamb, the hall light framing her hair like a halo.

“Jen, get in here.” Cody clamped her hand around Jennifer’s wrist, pulling her inside and shutting the door behind her. “You asshole.”

Jennifer, unperturbed, unsteadily walked for the couch and dropped onto it.“Shut up.”

“What’d you take?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t jam me.” Cody bent over Jennifer to check out her pupils.

“Couldn’t go home.”

Cody picked up the phone.“Hi, Mom. Jen’s with me. She’s going to spend the night.”

“What about her clothes for school?” Betty asked.

“She can wear mine. She needs help writing her history report.”

“Well …” Betty’s voice faded. Then she said, “All right.”

Cody hung up the phone.“Don’t do this.”

“You do.”

She bent over Jennifer. It was like looking into her own face.“Because I’m weak. I don’t want to do it. I don’t even want to drink a beer. Something happens and I just do.”

“Yeah, well, me, too.”

“No one’s got a gun to your head. Stay off the stuff. I’ve wasted the last five years and I’ll never get them back and I’m trying to get straight. Hear?”

Jennifer nodded.“Everything is so fast.”

Cody sat next to her sister, patting her knee.“Yeah. And everything is so clear. Cocaine. I’m a genius on coke until I come off.”

“Black.” Jennifer rocked a bit.

“Heading down?”

“Yeah. There’s got to be something to cut that, I mean cut the down. I heard speedballs do it.” She mentioned a potent cocktail of cocaine and heroin.

“That’ll kill you if you get the mix wrong,” Cody replied.

“Got anything?”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t give it to me if you had,” Jennifer flared.

“If it would soften the drop, I would. I’ve been on that ride, little sis.”

“What am I gonna do?” Jennifer cried.

“Feel like shit. There’s nothing I can do.”

Desperation contorted Jennifer’s beautiful features. “You gotta help me.”

“I am. I’m letting you stay here.” Cody sighed. This would be a long night. “Where’d you get the stuff?”

“Easy to get.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Jennifer laughed.“Why the hell do you care? You get it where you can get it. I can buy it at school—lots of places.”

“Jen, you’re gonna stop if I have to lock you up and throw away the key. I’m not gonna let you screw around and fuck up like I have.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jennifer just wanted her racing heart to slow down and the black clouds to disperse.

CHAPTER 15

The night promised a light frost. Sister Jane made the rounds before turning in for the night. She checked Dragon, head swollen but beginning to feel better. She said good night to the rest of the hounds, hearing a few good nights in return.

She walked back over the brick path to the stable. The horses slept in perfect contentment.

With Raleigh at her heels, she walked in her back door, removed her barn coat and scarf, draping them over the Shaker pegs. Then she slipped her feet out of the green wellies.

She clicked off the lights in the kitchen, the hall, and the front parlor. Then she climbed the front stairs to her bedroom. Two windows, the glass handblown, looked over an impressive walnut tree. Beautiful though it was, the sound of dropping walnuts on a tin roof could waken the dead during the fall.

Golly, already on one pillow, opened an eye, then shut it when Sister and Raleigh entered the room. An old sheepskin rested at the foot of the bed. Raleigh jumped up, circled three times, finally dropping like a stone.

“You weigh more than I do,” Sister teased him.

“Close,”Raleigh replied.

A chill settled in the room. Built in 1707, the house was a marvelous example of early American architecture. Insulation was horsehair in the walls, some of which also had lathing. Years ago when Ray was still alive they’d blown fluffy insulation down the exterior walls and it helped cut the cold. Materials had advanced since then, and she often thought of just ripping out the walls from the interior and putting up those fat rolls of pink insulation with numbers like R-30.

The expense halted that pipe dream, as did the total disruption to her life. Bad enough to be disrupted at forty but by seventy her tolerance had diminished proportionately.

She hopped out of bed, slipped on a sweatshirt, and hopped back in.

She picked up Arthur Schnitzler’sThe Way into the Open, published in 1908. There was a line in the novel she appreciated,“the bereavements of everyday life.” She read a bit, then put it down. Neurotic, edgy Vienna displeased her tonight.

She reached for George Washington’s foxhunting diaries, which had been compiled for her by an old friend who worked at Mount Vernon. The good general had kept diaries, notes, letters from the age of fourteen on.

She read a few lines about hounds losing a line on a windy day. Then she put that down, too. Normally she loved reading Washington’s foxhunting observations. He was a highly intelligent man and a forthright one about hunting. But she needed relief from hunting. Right now it was causing as much headache as joy.

She opened a slim red volume of Washington’sRules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. These notes, written in 1746, when the general was fourteen, were, he hoped, going to be engraved on his brain. The physical act of writing pinned the words in the mind as well as on the page. But for the young, tall youth, the main purpose was mastery over himself.

She read out loud to Golly and Raleigh:“In the presence of others sing not to yourself with a humming noise, nor drum with your fingers or feet.” She paused. “Well, that leaves Kyle Dawson out of polite society.”

“Sister, you haven’t seen Kyle Dawson in years,” Raleigh reminded her.

She peeped over the book, speaking to the animals.“Here’s one for you. Number thirteen. Ready? ‘Kill no vermin as fleas, lice, ticks& c in sight of others; if you see any filth or thick spittle, put your foot dexterously upon it; if it be upon the clothes of your companions, put it off privately; and if it be upon our own clothes, return thanks to him who put it off.’ ”

“I don’t have fleas.” Golly rolled over, reaching high into the air with her left paw.

“Liar.” Raleigh lifted his head.

“That got a response.” Sister turned the page. The phone rang. No one close to Sister called after nine-thirty in the evening. It was now ten. “Hello.”

“Hello, is this Mrs. Raymond Arnold?”

“Yes.”

The deep male voice replied,“This is Dr. Walter Lungrun. I was hoping I could cub with you this Thursday.”

“Are you a member of another hunt, Mr. Lungrun?”

“No, ma’am, I’m not. I’ve just returned to the area to do my residency.”

“Ah, well, come on ours anyway. You’ll have to sign a waiver and release form saying you know this sport is dangerous and if you break your neck so be it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It will be good to have a doctor in the field. What’s your specialty?”

“Neurosurgery.”

Sister glanced at the silver-framed photograph of Raymond in his army uniform that rested on her night table.“Lungrun. From Louisa County?”

“Yes. I left to go to Cornell and then to NYU School of Medicine.”

“So you’re smart, Dr. Lungrun.” Her voice lightened.

“Smart enough to call you.” He was light in return.

“Well then, I’ll see you at seven-thirty at the Mill Ruins.”

“I look forward to it.”

“Good-bye, Dr. Lungrun.”

“Good-bye, Mrs. Arnold.”

She hung up the phone, folded her hands over her chest.“How extraordinary.”

CHAPTER 16

“Why do I have to do it? I don’t see why,” Jennifer, just a shade shorter than her older sister, argued.

“Because I said so.” Cody slipped her arm through her sister’s arm. “Come on.”

However, before they were out the door an irate Betty was pounding up the front steps.“Just where do you think you’re going?” She pointed at Cody. “You were supposed to take her to school.”

Betty pushed both her daughters through the door, slamming it behind her.

“Mom, I can explain,” Cody started.

“In a minute.” Betty held up her hands for silence, turned her bright blue eyes on her youngest. “Well, miss?”

“I got tired so I crashed with Cody.”

“And I just won the lottery.” Betty was having none of it.

With a slow step the young women moved toward the sofa. There’d be no getting out of this.

However, Cody tried.“Mom, why is Dad supporting Crawford Howard for the joint-mastership? Crawford doesn’t know anything about hunting.”

“Since when have you been interested in the politics of the Jefferson Hunt?” Betty plopped onto the chair facing the sofa.

“Curious.”

“Yeah.” Jennifer picked up the theme.

“Crawford will put the club on a financially secure base. Right now that’s crucial. Sister knows enough about hunting for ten masters. What we need is money or an angel.”

“Crawford could write checks.”

“Cody, no one is going to write out thirty to fifty thousand dollars a year above and beyond the annual budget simply to help the club. That kind of commitment demands a joint-M.F.H. behind his name.”

“Fontaine is a better choice.” Cody brushed back her black hair, which had fallen in her eyes.

“Fontaine can’t keep his dick in his pants.” Jennifer sniggered.

“Mom, they carry on like that in Washington all the time. If presidents can do it, why not Fontaine?”

“This is Virginia, not Washington.” Betty’s jaw jutted out.

Her girls stared at her. There was no rejoinder. Another quiet sigh escaped them.

“Cody and I overslept. It’s my fault. I didn’t set the alarm like I said I would,” Jennifer explained.

“Lame.” Betty crossed her arms over her impressive chest.

Cody thought to herself that a lame excuse was better than no excuse, but the weight of the lies, at first so gossamer thin, bent her shoulders. She’d lied about herself since high school and now she was lying for Jennifer. While these fabrications might solve the problem temporarily, they only seemed to worsen it long term. Cody knew the only reason she was still acceptable at Jefferson Hunt was that she could ride. Her beauty attracted men. Her problems eventually repelled them, except for Doug. She studied her sister. In Cody’s eyes, Jennifer was more beautiful than herself. Where her hair was black, Jennifer’s was a rich seal brown and her light-coffee-colored eyes made her so warm, approachable. Cody’s eyes were beginning tobetray hard living.

“Mom, I’ll go to the principal. This is my fault.” Cody squared her shoulders.

“That’s noble of you. However, we aren’t leaving this room until I get the truth. And if I don’t, Jennifer, you are coming home with me and you’re grounded, and I mean grounded for the next month. No allowance. No parties. No hunting. Zip.”

“Mom!”

“That’s right,Mom,” Betty shouted.

“I didn’t feel good, so I came here. It was closer than home.” Jennifer stretched out her long legs, crossing them at the ankles.

Betty wordlessly looked to Cody, who finally said,“She was—”

“High.” Betty cut in. “Do you think I’m blind? Jennifer, we went through this last summer. You promised you’d stop but”—she weighed her words—“that’s proved beyond your powers.”

“Mom, it wasn’t so bad. I mean this is the only time since June. Since last time. Really. I just felt like it. I was stupid. It won’t happen again.”

“What amazes me is that you are seventeen years old and you can find dope or whatever you call it these days and the police can’t. We’re beyond apologies, Jennifer. We’re going into a treatment program.”

“No.” Jennifer’s face turned crimson.

“And if you know what’s good for you, Cody, you’ll cough up the money and go in, too.”

Cody pinched her lips together.

“You can’t do this to me!” Jennifer jumped up, towering over her medium-sized mother.

Betty rose but Jennifer pushed her back onto the chair.

Cody shot from the sofa, grabbing Jennifer.“Don’t touch Mom, Jen.”

“She’s a fucking saint?” Jennifer snarled.

“She’s our mother and she’s a lot closer to it than we’ll ever be. Don’t touch her.”

“Fine.” Jennifer hauled off and socked Cody instead.

Cody, bigger, stronger, and smarter, ducked the next punch, stepped inside a roundhouse swing, and with the back edge of her hand chopped Jennifer hard in the throat. Both of Jennifer’s hands went for her throat. She choked and Cody grabbed the back of her collar, dragging her to the sofa.

Looming over the coughing girl, Cody said,“You’re going to treatment.”

Betty never imagined her younger daughter would attack her. The corroding effect of drugs even when one wasn’t on them shocked her. She would have died herself before lifting a hand against her own mother.

Jennifer started bawling. She choked a few times, then snarled at Cody.“You hurt me.”

“You hurt yourself,” Cody fired back. “Mom, how much is the treatment program?”

“I don’t know. Central Virginia Hospital has an outpatient program. I hear it’s good. Cody, we can’t afford to send you. You’ve been out on your own and you need to do this for yourself.”

Jennifer bellowed,“What am I going to say to my friends? I’m in drug rehab. Mom, this will ruin me. I won’t have any friends.”

“Then they aren’t really your friends.” Betty raised her voice. “And I’m not worried about your friends. I’m worried about you.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.” A flash of defiance illuminated Jennifer’s eyes.

“As long as you’re under my roof, you’ll do as I say. We’re going to Central Virginia.”

“Now?” Jennifer’s voice dropped, betraying fear.

“Now. Cody?”

“I’m coming.”

CHAPTER 17

At five-thirty in the morning the frost covered the ground like a silver net. The few leaves underfoot would soon give way to blankets of maple, oak, hickory, gum, sycamore, and poplar. Fall, a bit late this year, was about a week away from peak color. Flaming red edging the green of the maples stood out against the dawn light, as did the yellow oak leaves.

Shaker divided hounds in the kennel. Those who would be hunting that day were placed in a draw run. Excited to be chosen, they tormented those left behind with boasts of how good the day’s hunt would be.

Hounds remaining in the kennel were deemed unfit or unready for many reasons. A bitch going into season would be put in the hot bitch pen until her estrus passed. A hound footsore from Tuesday’s hunt would be left in the kennel. A hound having difficulty mastering his or her job would be held back lest he or she distract the other hounds from their task. Hounds under two years or a year and a half, depending on development, would be left in the puppy runs. Dragon languished in sick bay. Although he was recovering rapidly, his left eye was swollen shut.

Shaker patiently explained to his charges the reasons for their missing the party. He double-checked everyone, making certain plenty of fresh water was available and that they had eaten their breakfast.

The hounds to hunt wouldn’t get breakfast until their return. Full hounds run slow or sit down and throw up. No one minded delaying breakfast if it meant they’d hunt. They pricked their ears, waved their tails, hopped around in circles.

“All right. Settle. Settle now. It’s another hour before you go on the party wagon.” Shaker called the hound van the party wagon. “No point in wearing yourself out before the party starts.”

He had backed up the hound van to the draw run the night before. He had only to open the door into the draw run and the hounds would race down the chute to the opened door of the van. This saved time because without a draw run a few hounds, overexcited, would zoom past the van.

He walked outside the kennel to light his pipe. Shaker wouldn’t smoke near his hounds. Their noses were so sensitive that smoke bothered them. He wanted those noses sharp for the hunt.

He read somewhere that dogs in general hear six times better than humans and that a human has about five million scent receptors whereas a hound has over twenty-two million. Whatever the numbers, hounds heard and smelled more than a human could imagine. He thought about that sometimes, about how dull our world would seem to a creature with broader, sharper senses.

What must it be like to see through the eagle’s eye or the owl’s?

What he saw was the gray giving way to the first streak of pale pink. The clear sky promised a spectacular day, but not for hunting. Those raw days when the smoke from the chimneys hangs low, those are good hunting days. Today scent would evaporate rapidly. However, there was no wind, hardly even a lick of breeze. That would help. He’d have to drop hounds on a line fast and hope for a burst. Whatever line they’d get wouldn’t last too long unless, of course, the fox moved along the creek bed.

He sucked contentedly on his briar pipe, a Dunhill of great antiquity given him by his father. Lights were on in Sister’s kitchen. No doubt she was already on the phone with a member who needed to know right that moment what Sister Jane thought about wearing Prince of Wales spurs or could the member show up in a running martingale, even though it was improper?

Shaker knew he had not the patience to be a master nor the money. He’d worked his way up to being huntsman, getting the horn when he was thirty-one, no small accomplishment. In his mid-forties, he had no money other than what he earned and that wasn’t much. His benefits, housing, truck, standing in the community pleased him, but most of all he loved what he did. He loved it more than money, more than anything. In the end even more than his ex-wife, who when he turned forty bedeviled him to think about his future, take a job where he could make some good money. Sheila never understood him but then maybe he didn’t understand her. Women seemed to need security more than he did. He asked for a fine day’s hunting, each hound on the line, and he lived one day at a time.

He could hear Doug in the stable. Having a good professional first whipper-in made the huntsman’s life much easier. Shaker’s horse would be tacked up and loaded on the van. He could rely on Doug to get ahead of the hounds, an assignment that took a brave and good rider.

Although young, Doug would carry the horn someday. Shaker had known Doug since he was in grade school. He’d come to the kennel and tag after Shaker and Sister Jane like a hound puppy. There wasn’t much love or stability in Doug’s childhood. He found both at the kennel.

The back door opened and closed. Sister Jane, dressed except for the barn coat she was wearing, waved good morning.

Raleigh ran ahead.“What a day.”

“Morning, big guy.” Shaker ran his palm over the glossy black head.

Sister beamed, breathing in deeply.“If we can’t get up a fox, we’ll have a perfect trail ride. Not that you won’t find a fox.” She winked.

“I’m beginning to think the fox finds us.”

“There is that.”

“And who had called this morning, ass over tit?”

“Only Ronnie Haslip. He can’t find his tweed jacket. I told him the day would warm up fast. He can ride in his shirt and vest. For whatever reason that seemed to satisfy him. He said he’d called everyone but couldn’t find an extra coat and he’d go straight up to Warrenton to Horse Countryand buy a coat after the hunt. He worries more than his mother and she was world-class.” Sister Jane laughed. “Oh, the Franklin girls are in rehab.”

“Heard yesterday.”

“As Raymond would say, ‘The shit has hit the Franklin fan.’ ” She admired the lacy pattern of the frost. “Wouldn’t he just love today. He took credit for every bright, low-humidity day we had.”

“Direct line to Great God Almighty.”

“That’s what he said.” Sister laughed, remembering her husband’s sacrilegious streak. Raymond liked nothing better than pouncing on someone who touted the Bible. She herself thought one worshiped best outdoors. “Do you ever miss Sheila on a day like today?”

Accustomed to her sudden direct hits, the curly-haired man shook his head.“No.”

“Not even on a full moon?”

“Well”—he smiled—“maybe then.”

“Good.” She smiled triumphantly. “It won’t do for a man to be too independent of women.”

“I have you.”

“Ha. My solemn vow is to fuss at you. Think of it as marriage without the benefits.”

“Long as I can fuss back.” He patted her on the back.

“Deal.” She leaned into him. She’d known Shaker nearly as long as she had known Raymond. She knew his virtues and his faults. She loved him for himself as well as for his talent.

“Rodeo?”

“Yep.”

They turned to enter the kennel, to load up the hounds. Doug was already loading the horses.

The phone rang in the kennel.

“Jefferson Hunt.” Shaker listened, then handed it to Sister Jane, his hand over the earpiece. “Crawford.”

“Hello.”

“Sister Jane, might I have a few words with you after the hunt today?”

“Of course, Crawford, but you have to survive it first.”

CHAPTER 18

The massive stone ruins of an old mill perched over the fast-running creek. Broad Creek, swift moving and ten yards wide on Sister Jane’s property, was twenty to thirty yards wide in places at Wheeler Mill, which was eight miles south of her place. The raceway remained intact two centuries later. The men who built this mill intended for it to last.

As a courtesy to Peter Wheeler, too old to maintain his property, the hunt club, once a year, cleaned the raceway of branches or any other floating debris, bushhogged the trails, and repaired jumps. The stone fences rarely needed fixing, having been constructed in 1730, same as the mill.

The Wheeler line would die with Peter. Speculation as to the disposition of his estate intensified with each passing year.

An early riser, the old man sat on a director’s chair in the bed of his truck, having been hoisted up by Walter Lungrun, who’d arrived early.

When Sister saw the young doctor she breathed in sharply. He reminded her of her husband. Walter—tall, blond, wide-shouldered, and square-jawed—was handsome without being pretty, just as Raymond had been.

Upon seeing Sister, Walter walked over, tipping his hat.“Master, good morning.”

Shaker stared at him as though seeing a ghost, then returned his attention quickly to the hounds.

Before he could say his name Sister smiled.“Dr. Lungrun, you are most welcome. I’ll try and scare up a fox for you. Is this your first hunt?”

“When I was in college and med school I hunted a few times. May I try first flight?”

“You may. If you make an involuntary dismount I’ll keep going, you know, but whoever is riding tail today will pick you up.”

“I’ll try not to embarrass myself.” He clapped his black cap back on, tails up.

Only staff could hunt with cap tails down.

Sister surveyed the field. Twentyfive people on Thursday morning at seven. Opening hunt was two weeks away. Each hunt the field swelled as people, presumably in shape, eased back into the routine of foxhunting.

The regulars were out in full force except for Jennifer and Cody Franklin.

“Folks.” She motioned for them to ride over to her. A few were frantically searching for the last-minute ties, gloves, and girths back at their trailers. Shaker and Doug had unloaded the hounds, who were being wonderfully well behaved. “First flight with me. Hilltoppers with Fontaine. Will you do us the honors, Fontaine?”

“Of course, Master.” He touched his hat with his crop. Much as Fontaine hated missing riding up front, he knew he was being given a position acknowledging hunting sense and better yet, this was done in front of Crawford Howard. Of course, Fontaine’s knowledge of the territory didn’t mean hepossessed the much coveted hound sense. But to lead Hilltoppers, Fontaine didn’t need to have it.

“Ralph, will you ride tail?” she asked Raphael Assumptio, known as Ralph, a middle-aged man, strong rider and better yet, competent in a crisis.

“Glad to.” He, too, touched his cap with his crop.

“Huntsman.”

Shaker, holding his cap in his lap as was proper, nodded, put his cap on, and said,“Hounds ready?”

“You bet!” came the chorus.

Lafayette turned his head.“Ready to rock and roll?”

As Sister patted his gray neck, the other horses neighed in anticipation.

Shaker stuck to his plan, dropping the hounds where he thought he’d hit a line along the creek. Flecks of frost clung to the sides of the creek and overtop the banks, but across the pastures the light frost had already transformed into sparkling dew.

He moved along on the farm road paralleling the creek bed. He glanced back, smiling when he saw old Peter Wheeler, hand cupped to his ear, waiting to hear the hounds, which when in full cry were music to his ears.

Peter hadn’t long to wait because Dasher called out,“Over here.”

As this was Dasher’s first year, the other hounds weren’t quick to honor him. His litter mate Diana respected him, though, and she trotted over, putting her nose to the earth.“He’s been here.”

On hearing both Dasher and Diana, Cora thought she might double-check their work.“For real. Come on. I say he’s fifteen minutes ahead of us.”She touched the earth again.“Maybe twenty.”

With a burst of speed, the hounds tried to close the gap, but the fox, who’d been hunting, meandered over fallen logs, lingered on stone walls waiting for mice. Once he heard the hounds he doubled back, slipped down the raceway embankment to run along the watercourse. Then he climbed out right at Wheeler Mill, paused to consider what an old man was doing in the back ofa pickup truck. He sauntered behind the truck, stopped and sat to stare at Peter, then got up and walked into the mill, where he had a tidy little den with so many exits the hounds couldn’t trap him if they put a hound on each visible one. He even had exits running under mighty timber supports.

Peter bellowed for all he was worth,“Yip, yip yooo,” giv-ing the rebel yell instead of “holloa” or “tallyho.”

Within three minutes the hounds arrived at the truck, then plunged into the raceway, the creek, then back out, since the fox had zigzagged by the creek and then the raceway. It only took the hounds perhaps half a minute before they were all in the mill itself.

Shaker was a minute behind his hounds. He could see Douglas ahead parallel to the creek. He knew no hounds had veered off course.

He hopped off Showboat, his Thursday horse. Showboat calmly stood while Shaker gingerly walked across the low stone wall into the mill. Otherwise he’d have to ride around, and Shaker believed in getting to his hounds as quickly as possible, in this case to reward them for putting their quarry in his den.

Sister and the field galloped up as Shaker bent low to open the oak door into the bottom of the mill.

The hounds sang,“He’s in his den. He’s in his pen. We’ve got him cornered! Mighty hounds are we!”

Shaker blew triumphant notes on his horn; then he trebled them, which made the hounds dance all around the enormous mill wheels and the smooth areas where the kernels dropped to be bagged up. They leapt over one another, they dug at one of the den openings, they jumped straight up in the air so Shaker would notice them.

“I found the line first,” Dasher boasted. The black marking on his head came forward in a widow’s peak.

“I was first into the mill,” Diana, thrilled at her success, barked.

“We did well as a pack. The youngsters led the way.” Cora allowed herself great satisfaction.

“I still think if we’d crossed the raceway instead of moving alongside it we would have nabbed him,” Archie, brow furrowed, flews hanging loose, said.

“Archie, you worry too much.” Cora laughed at him.

“There is no perfect hunt, Cora. We can always improve.”

“You’re right, Arch.” She humored him.

Outside Sister Jane rode over to Peter.“Thanks for the view.”

“Granddad taught me that yell.” Peter felt young again despite his infirmities. “And I tell you, Janie, he walked right up here and stared at me. Insolent he was. Insolent and big, oh, a big fine red dog fox. I’ve seen him before. Fox everywhere this year but none so big as this boy.”

“You’re a good whip, Peter.”

“Tell you one thing, pretty girl, if there’s not foxhunting in heaven, I’m not going.” He laughed; his eyes sparkled.

She remembered him when he was younger, when his hair was pitch-black. Peter Wheeler was a handsome man to have in the field or in the bed.

“I hope you won’t be going any time soon even though I bet the foxes are grand. Foxes from the great runs in England during the nineteenth century. Now there’s a thought.”

He beamed at her.“When you were seventeen, I predicted you would be master someday. You had it even then, Jane.” He reached in the pocket of his flannel shirt for a cigar, a Macanudo for a mild early-morning smoke. “It’s an inborn thing. Can’t be taught. Can’t be bought.”

“Thank you.”

“And I’ll tell you something else. You’re still a fine-looking woman. I’m glad you didn’t dye your hair or tie up your face. Looks stupid and fake. Hate to see that on a woman. Silver hair makes you look distinguished. More like a master.” He chuckled. “And a word of advice—and that’s the great thing about being two years older than God—I can say whatever I damn well please. To hell with the rules, Janie, do as you please. Time’s a-wasting.” He laughed. “Go seduce some fellow half your age. You can, you know. Here comes Shaker. Like the cat that ate the canary. And look at those hounds, will you. Just as pleased with themselves as Shaker. My, how I’d love to be on the back of a horse.” He was so excited he stood up, energy racing through him.

The field buzzed behind the master, happy to have such a good beginning and happy to have a moment for gossip, pass the flask, take a few furtive puffs on a cigarette, and quickly grind it out on the bottom of a boot. The horses chatted, too.

Sister rode over to Shaker.“Well done.”

“Not bad. I’ll cast in the other direction, up toward the graveyard.”

“Fine.”

She turned back to her field, took her place in the front as Crawford edged up behind her. He dearly wanted to ride in the master’s pocket, the most coveted position in the field.

Czapaka murmured to Lafayette,“I’ll try not to bump you. He can’t hold me, you know, but I don’t want to go first. You’ve got more guts than I do. You go first.”

True, Lafayette did have to negotiate obstacles and terrain first, but Showboat was in front of him on those times when he could see him. That gave him a good idea of the footing. If Showboat and Shaker were out of sight, he used his judgment, which was solid. Lafayette took Sister Jane to the jump. She didn’t have to squeeze him over.

“If it gets too bad just dump him,”Lafayette advised. Being a thoroughbred, he had no tolerance for someone with bad hands.

They waved good-bye to Peter as they walked north. A yip now and then meant a faint, faint scent lingered, but they crept for about a half hour, arriving at the graveyard, headstones so old the writing had worn down to curves and straight lines. The years still read clear. Those resting within were Wheelers, Jacksons, and Japazaws, descended from an Indian leader of the last half of the seventeenth century, the first half of the eighteenth. It was always a source of pride and defiance among the Wheelers, Jacksons, and Japazaws that they claimed their blood. Many a settler denied sexual congress with the native peoples, much less married them.

Archie walked through the open wrought-iron gate, twelve feet high with a scroll at the top.“Half hour.”

Cora joined him.“Let’s make certain.”

They deliberately walked through the graveyard, feathers scattered behind a large monument. A bobwhite had provided a feast for their fox.

“There’s another one.” Archie sniffed a crossing scent.“About the same time.”

“Arch, I’ll go to the edge of the graveyard with this one and you go to the edge with the other. Let’s come back and compare. If we leave the graveyard, the whips will come in thinking we’ve split but I don’t know which line is better.”

“Okay.” Archie moved north.

Cora moved south, taking the pack with her before some young one got impatient, although Dragon’s disgrace seemed to have sunk in.

Within a few minutes the pack was at the southern edge of the graveyard, which opened onto a rolling fifty-acre pasture. Archie halted at the northern end, cut over about ten years ago. A border of mature trees had been left around the graveyard.

Cora called out,“It’s about the same. The scent.”

“Same here,” Archie replied.“But if we go into the cutover we have a better chance of staying with it. The scent will surely be dissipated on the pasture.” Archie knew the territory better than anyone.

“Come on, kids.” Cora swung the pack around. They fell in behind Archie, slipped through the wrought iron, and headed into the tangles.

The young ones had been trained to go into rough country during their hound walks but this was the real thing.

A lovely young bitch hesitated.

“Get your butt in there,” Archie growled.“You don’t want Shaker to push you in.”

She scooted in.

Douglas up ahead viewed, letting out a holler.

Shaker didn’t bother his hounds. They were working well; they needed no encouragement. To speak to them would bring their heads up. Besides which the hounds could hear Douglas better than he could. They knew what it meant.

The field followed along a farm road. The brush, thick, inhibited horses going in after the hounds. They covered a lot of ground at a steady trot. The cutover acres gave way to a bog. The road, higher, got them through. Sister saw hounds on both sides of the bog, in a line, moving forward, working hard because there couldn’t have been much to go on in that mess. Once out of the bog they fanned out, picking up the scent on the moss at the bottom of a fiddle oak.

“Fading fast.” Cora urged the others,“Try to keep your head down more, youngsters, even though it will slow you down. It’s so easy to overrun the line in these conditions.”

Once out of the bog they entered a high meadow; a cool wind caught them on the spine of the meadow. The hounds dipped their heads under it, although Dasher would stick his nose up. True, he got wind of heavy scent, but it wasn’t fox.

“Don’t even think about it,” Archie snapped.

Dasher dropped his head obediently, even though the deer scent sorely vexed him.

Diana stopped at the highest point looking to the east. There, sunning herself on a rock, was a luxurious vixen, gray. She had little interest in the proceedings.

“Look.”

Archie stopped to see the fox.“She’s not the hunted fox. But oh, this is tempting.”

The pack came to a halt. Sister, too, saw the sunbathing vixen.

She paused, waiting for her hounds, and Crawford, the damned fool, bellowed,“Tallyho.”

This brought a chorus of tallyhos behind her. The hounds all brought their heads up. Shaker stopped; the hounds stopped, then turned. The gray fox, disgusted, shot off her rock. The hounds picked up the scent, red-hot, and ran full speed ahead.

Sister squeezed Lafayette. They roared over the meadow, cleared the four sliprail fence into the next meadow, and approached a trick drop jump at the edge of that. The slope on the other side was mossy, which meant horses slipped. The drop wasn’t all that steep; it was the footing. Of course, the horses collected themselves in no time. It was the people that didn’t.

Sister gracefully leapt over, barely leaning back in the saddle. She stayed over Lafayette’s center of gravity regardless of the jump.

Crawford kicked Czapaka too hard. The horse had no intention of refusing but then over the jump Crawford looked down, panicked, and snatched the seventeen-hand fellow in the mouth, infuriating him. Czapaka skidded, Crawford hung up on his neck, and as the horse brought his hind end up under him, he let out a serious buck. Crawford was launched into space. Having relieved himself of the lump on his back, Czapaka turned around and jumped back over the jump, which brought Walter Lungrun to grief as he was approaching the jump. On the other side Czapaka galloped back toward the trailers, which in his estimation were three miles back.

Walter and Crawford picked themselves up simultaneously on both sides of the jump.

“Goddamn him! Goddamn that brute,” Crawford screeched as the field receded from view.

Ralph cleared the jump, having ascertained that Walter was fine.“Crawford, you in one piece?”

“Yes, goddammit!”

“Know your way back to the trailer?”

“Yes, goddammit.” Crawford was linguistically stuck.

Walter’s horse, an old hunter named Clemson, wise in the ways of the sport, stood still. It was neither his fault nor Walter’s that they parted company. Czapaka, crazed with freedom, crashed into them on their approach. Walter was already in his two-point position and the big Holsteiner knocked Clemson, a 16.1-hand appendix quarter horse, nearly off his feet.

Walter, not the best rider, was nonetheless a caring one. He checked Clemson’s legs, walked him, reins over his head, to make sure the old fellow wasn’t banged up.

“I’m fine. I can’t abide warmbloods. Dumb-bloods!” Clemson said.

Walter patted him on the neck, then swung up into the saddle. A hair under six feet, Walter looked much taller because of his terrific build. He slipped his feet in the stirrups.

“Ready?” Clemson asked, and was squeezed lightly in return.

They cleared the upright in good order as a still-cursing Crawford walked down to the eight-foot gate and struggled with the rusted chain and latch. This brought forth a torrent of verbal abuse.

Walter hid his laughter and trotted to catch up. He saw no reason to fly like a bat out of hell, since he could hear hoofbeats ahead.

Just as Walter found the group, Fontaine and the hilltoppers found Crawford, walking across the high meadow.

“It’s a glorious morning for a walk, Mr. Howard.”

“Shut up, Fontaine.”

“All in a day’s sport.”

“I’ll see your ass on the ground before the season’s over.” Crawford slapped his own thigh with his crop.

“Ah well, your ass is there now and buddy, there’s so much of it.” Fontaine laughed, riding on. The hilltoppers followed, suppressing giggles.

It never occurred to Crawford that not one of the hilltoppers asked if he was all right.

By the time he reached the trailers his feet hurt as much as his pride. Czapaka stood at the trailer as though an angel of reason. If Peter Wheeler weren’t still on the truck bed, Crawford would have taken the crop to Czapaka. Which wouldn’t have been a good idea no matter the horse but most especially Czapaka, who never forgot and never forgave.

“Horse’s all a lather,” Peter called out.

“Yes, he was a bad boy.” Crawford tried to be sociable. He was glad that Martha worked Thursdays. He would have hated to have her see his debacle. Fontaine would tell her in lurid detail the minute he got back to the office.

He loaded up his horse and drove off, waving good-bye to Peter.

When Crawford drove out, Sister Jane and the field had pulled up two meadows beyond the high meadow. The fox disappeared. No den was in sight. No stream to wash away scent. Not even cow patties to foul scent.

The hounds worked the ground but they couldn’t find even a sliver of hope.

“Let’s call it a day,” Sister advised Shaker, who was standing beside her.

“Cagey devil.”

“Related to my reds. Must be. They’re too smart to be foreign foxes.”

She did recognize foxes. She made scent stations, kept track of litters in the spring, threw out dead chickens given her by farmers. The chickens were shot full of wormer, which helped to keep the parasite loads down.

Sister was proud of her healthy foxes.

As they turned back for the trailers, Shaker blew in Douglas and Betty Franklin. The morning proved better than he thought it would. He was happy. Sister was happy. The hounds were happy. Only Crawford was unhappy, and that was his own damn fault.

Once at the trailers, the hounds loaded, Betty broke out her hamper basket, as did other members. These impromptu breakfasts, sitting on the ground, delighted everyone.

Hunting port made the rounds, as well as iced tea. Sister kept a cooler full of soft drinks in her trailer.

After she’d made sure the hounds and horses were fine, she sat down, leaning against Betty’s trailer.

“I ought to get you a director’s chair.” Betty handed her a saddle pad to sit on.

“I ought to get one myself. Too many things to do,” Sister replied.

“Dr. Lungrun, come on over here and feed your face.” Betty waved him over and he gratefully accepted.

Everyone talked, laughed about Crawford, asked questions of Walter, praised the hounds.

“Tabor Lungrun?” Bobby Franklin asked him.

“My father.”

“Ah. We’re glad to have you with us and hope you’ll come back out.”

“Dr. Lungrun, join us.”

He smiled at Sister Jane, finding her the most beautiful older woman he had ever seen.“I need two sponsors, do I not?”

“I can’t sponsor you because I’m the master.”

Bobby held out his hand and shook Walter’s. “I’d be happy to sponsor you, Doctor. My pleasure.”

Fontaine, quick to curry favor with Sister Jane, held out his glass.“Me, too. Your father was a good man ruined by a not so good one. We’d be pleased to have a Lungrun in the fold.”

The only reason Fontaine brought up that unhappy episode was so that no one would forget it. Small worry. No one in Virginia ever forgot anything. Misdeeds from 1626 were recounted with as much relish as if they’d happened yesterday. But Fontaine, who knew better than to point out another man’s misery, also wanted that joint-mastership. Since it was Crawford Howard who’d destroyed Walter’s father in what Crawford said was a bad business deal and others said was calculated greed, Fontaine wanted everyone to remember right that moment.

“I’d be happy to ride with Jefferson Hunt.” Walter bowed his head a moment. “Mrs. Arnold, I apologize for calling you after nine-thirty. I’ve been informed that you go to bed early.”

“Beauty sleep,” Betty teased her.

“Then I need to be comatose.” Sister laughed at herself.

“Hear. Hear. A beautiful woman need not disparage herself.” Fontaine held up his glass and the men drank to the master, who rather enjoyed it.

As the group broke up, Douglas sought out Betty.

“Mrs. Franklin, I thought Cody was hunting today?”

She liked Douglas and often wondered why he bothered with Cody, who treated all men badly.“Douglas, both of my girls are in a drug rehab program. They must stay at the hospital for a week and then they’ll be back with us but still part of the program on an outpatient basis.”

Bobby, in the trailer tack room, stuck his head out the door.“Betty, people don’t have to know that.”

“They know already. About drugs. We were the last to know.” She turned to Douglas. “Because we didn’t want to know, I’m afraid. Anyway, they’re both doing something about it.”

“Is Cody allowed to see people?”

“Not this first week. After that, as I said, she’ll be out. You knew. I mean you knew about the drugs?”

He nodded that he did.

Bobby stepped down with an oomph. His knees hurt from carting around all that weight.“Guess there are no secrets in this club.”

“You don’t have to answer this, but do you take drugs?”

“No. I’ll drink sometimes but I can pretty well keep a lid on it.”

“Thank you for being honest with me.” Betty touched his shoulder.

On the way home Bobby fumed first about that conversation but then about Fontaine.“He’s going to tear this club apart. He’s going to undo all the good that Sister and Raymond built over the years. He didn’t have to bring that up about Tabor Lungrun. We all know why he brought it up.”

“The young people don’t remember.”

“They’ll know now. They’ll ask and the whole thing will be like fresh paint.”

“It was murky.”

“Murky. It was business, Princess. Crawford put up the money and Tabor put up the work. They went into the cattle business together twenty years ago. The market crashed. Tabor lost everything. Crawford could take it as a tax write-off. That’s not dishonest.”

“Buying Tabor’s farm at a bargain basement price is dicey.”

“Business, Princess, business. The Lungruns never had much anyway. He had to sell the farm to keep the family going.”

“Well, he loved that farm. He’d worked and scratched and scrimped. You know the Lungruns are made fun of in these parts, poor whites. He pulled himself up and then was brought down. Crawford could have floated him a loan or helped. No. He took advantage of him.”

“Crawford is from Indiana. He doesn’t think like we do. To him it was a matter of numbers.”

“That poor man loved every blade of grass on that farm. Luckily he didn’t live to see Crawford sell it eight years later at an enormous profit. No, by that time he’d shot himself, the poor bastard.”

Bobby softened somewhat.“Terrible thing. Leaving those little kids with no father.”

“And Libby Lungrun about killed herself working two jobs. She did kill herself. I think cancer can be brought on by worry.”

“Honey, you read too many books about that stuff.” He exhaled as they turned into their small farm entrance. “She was something to look at, Libby Olson.” He called her by her maiden name.

Betty cast him a sly glance.“Yes.”

“When a man stops looking he’s dead.”

“Just so you don’t punish me for the same thing. That son of hers could have stepped right out of a movie. The old movies when they were all handsome.”

“Guess he could.”

As they pulled in front of the small, neat barn Betty said,“Bobby, you ought to reconsider supporting Crawford. It’s not going to work.”

“Well, it’s not going to work with Fontaine either!” He tried to change the subject. “Walter’s made something of himself. Lost track of him after he graduated from high school.”

“I’m warning you. This is going to blow up in your face. We have enough trouble as it is with two girls in the hospital and everyone in the county buying laser printers. Let’s tend to our own business. Jane will do what’s right.”

“Sister Jane doesn’t have many choices.”

“Crawford isn’t one of them!” Betty slammed the truck door hard and stomped to the back of the trailer. She let the ramp down with a thud, narrowly missing her foot.

CHAPTER 19

Sister Jane and Douglas stood up, groaning. Without thinking about it they mirrored each other, putting their hands in the small of their backs.

She laughed when she saw him.“You’re too young to ache.”

“Bending over like that really gets me.”

They’d examined each hound that hunted that morning. When hounds came off the party wagon they walked back into the draw run and then each hound was pulled out, paws inspected, everything checked, and then sent back to their various kennel runs. The only way to properly do this was to bend over or kneel down. If you knelt down, your knees hurt. If you bent over, your back hurt. They alternated pains.

Shaker slipped on arriving back at the kennel, going down hard. He must have clenched his jaw with special force because he cracked a back tooth and part of the filling fell out. He would have finished his kennel chores despite his discomfort but Sister forced him to get right back in the farm truck and hurry to the dentist. She believed the farther away a pain was from your head the less it hurt.

“We deserve a reward. Come on. I’ll make you a fried-egg sandwich.”

Doug happily trailed after her. They walked into the kitchen, where Golly had tossed bell peppers on the floor.

“Now why would she want to do that?”

“Meanness,” Raleigh answered.

Douglas bent over, handing one to Sister.“She’s bitten holes in this one.”

“I wonder if I could get a video of that? You know that TV show, home videos or pet videos. Whatever. Golly can just start earning her keep here.”

From the next room a strong meow was heard.“I do earn my keep.”

Smiling, Sister Jane tiptoed to the swinging door between the kitchen and the pantry, which then opened onto a huge dining room with a fireplace so gigantic a person could stand up straight in it. On the middle shelf of the pantry, nestled in the dish towels, reposed the calico.

“Aha.”

“Got bored.”

“Imagine what would have happened if I’d done that,” Raleigh, still in the kitchen, complained.

“What would have happened is you would have drooled over everything and then stepped on a pepper and squashed it. I merely sank my fangs in. A simple test for freshness.”

Golly’s jabber amused Sister, who reached down into a square basket, retrieving fresh eggs. “I’m making fried-egg sandwiches. If you care to join us, I’ll fry you an egg.”

“I’ll come if you fry bacon.” Golly rolled over to show her tum-tum.

Sister walked back in.“She’s talking a whole row.”

“Cats are funny.”

As she greased the skillet, Sister chatted and then asked,“Did you know about Cody’s drug problems?”

A silence followed. Then Doug said,“I did.”

“Don’t worry. You aren’t betraying a confidence. Betty called me yesterday and told me both girls are at rehab or in rehab. I wonder what’s correct? Anyway … Bobby’s not much help. He’s pretending it’s like a broken leg.”

“Mrs. Franklin told me this morning.”

“But you knew about the drugs, I mean?”

“Well, I did, sort of. Cody goes on and off. I wasn’t sure about Jennifer. I don’t see her except when we’re hunting and usually she’s fine then.”

“Yes. I had no idea. I wonder what else I miss.” She buttered the whole wheat bread as the bacon sizzled.

Golly graced them with her presence, entering with a flourish as the bacon was flipped out of the pan.

“Don’t even think about stealing my bacon.” Raleigh frowned.

“I’ll do as I please and if you value your eyes, you’ll do as I please.” She cackled.

Sister tore up a strip of bacon in small pieces, putting it on the counter for Golly. She gave Raleigh a whole strip when he sat. Then she put plates on the table.

“Drugs are all around.” Doug opened his sandwich to put pickles on the egg.

“I guess they are”—she sat opposite him—“if you know where to look.”

They both looked at the door because they heard a car drive into the driveway.

“Let’s hope it’s UPS so we can eat in peace.”

It wasn’t. It was Crawford Howard in his big-ass Mercedes, the V-12, the top of the top.

He knocked on the back door, then charged on through the mudroom into the kitchen. Most old friends walked in on Sister Jane, although she’d never considered Crawford an old friend.

“I’m sorry. I’ll come back.”

“Would you like a fried-egg sandwich?”

“No. I’ve already had my lunch. Thank you.”

“Sit down. A Coke?”

“I’ll get it.” He opened the refrigerator door, pulled out a Coke, got a glass of ice, and sat down.

Sister winked at Doug when Crawford’s back was turned. “Doug, stay a few minutes after feeding tonight.”

“Sure.”

Crawford sat heavily in the chair. He’d had a face-lift, a good one. He’d gotten some fat sucked off his middle, too. While it improved his appearance it didn’t much improve his personality. “Doug, I’m glad you’re here. I’ll pay you twenty dollars a ride if you’ll work with my horse. I’ll board him here. Sister, what’s full board?”

“Four hundred. Field board is two-fifty for hunt members.”

“The Haslips get five hundred.”

“I know, but we do try to limit ourselves to members, giving them a discount.”

“Can’t think like that, Sister. Business means whatever the market will bear. You’ve got to make hay while the sun shines.”

“I’ll consider it.” Sister remained noncommittal.

“I’d be happy to work with Czapaka. He’s a talented horse.” Doug wiped his mouth with a napkin, rose, and carried his plate and glass to the sink. He washed them off, putting them in the drying rack. Sister hated dishwashers. Pretty much she hated most appliances. “Well, I’ll be workingthe greenies if you need me.”

Sister, wishing she could go with him to ride the young horses, waved as he left by the back door.

Crawford hunched over the table.“I’ll get to the point.” Being a Yankee, Crawford felt this was the superior approach, the waste-no-time approach. He never gave a thought to the fact that spending time with someone shouldn’t be wasting time. “I have money. I have contacts. I have vision. I want to help the club. If you appoint me joint-master I will expect to contribute fifty thousand a year plus whatever overruns we have. You are the senior master. I can’t hope to know what you know about hunting and hounds but I can learn.”

This was a generous offer from an ungenerous man, in most respects. She placed both hands around her cool glass.“I appreciate your financial acumen. Just keeping the territory open costs us roughly twenty thousand a year, as you know. And you do have vision. I have a lot to think about, Crawford, and I’d like to make a decision before the season is over.”

“I thought you wanted to make a decision by opening hunt?”

“That’s two weeks away and I’m on the horns of a dilemma. I do truly appreciate your special skills but there is strong support in the club for Fontaine Buruss.”

“Yes, I know.” Crawford’s jaw clenched.

“He’s a foxhunting man.” Which was to say he was better qualified in many ways than Crawford, although Sister would never be so crude.

“He’s also an irresponsible person. His sexual peccadilloes alone will—well, you know. His latest is Cody Franklin and I’m not so certain he doesn’t give her drugs. Supply her.”

This startled Sister. She wondered if Douglas knew.“That’s a disturbing accusation.”

“I’ve hired detectives.”

“You what?”

He nodded, grinning.“Oh, yes. I take the reputation of this club seriously. There’s a century of history in Jefferson Hunt. We must protect that.”

“Can you prove this about Fontaine?”

“I think I can. I also know he’s been in meetings with Gordon Smith, the developer around Dulles airport. Now, I ask myself what would someone of Smith’s stature want with Fontaine? To develop.”

“Does he?”

“I called him and he said the talks were merely preliminary. Smith said he was interested in developing along the Route Twenty-nine corridor. He’s not interested in gobbling up hunting fixtures. He was plain about that but then he’s a hunting man, too. I think Fontaine is doing this to make himself look good. He doesn’t really have much to offer Mr. Smith.”

“He has contacts. He knows everyone.”

“Well …”

“Can you prove this about the drugs?”

“By opening hunt, Sister, I think I can prove a lot of things.”

“I hope you’re wrong. I truly hope you’re wrong.”

Crawford dimly realized he’d upset Sister. He thought the news would be disturbing and put him in a good light. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“We can’t have someone like that as a joint-master.”

“No, we can’t, Crawford, but you can’t hang a man without evidence. I beseech you not to discuss this—”

He jumped in.“Of course I won’t. Fontaine would get wind of it; then I can’t nail him.”

“Do you intend to turn this over to the sheriff?”

“Yes. I do. Absolutely.”

“I see.”

CHAPTER 20

A light wind kicked up at twilight and by seven o’clock had some bite to it. Sister, walking to the stable, turned back and grabbed the blue barn coat with the blanket lining. With Raleigh at her heels, she caught up with Doug on his way back to his cottage.

“Sorry I couldn’t get back to you until now. It’s been pandemonium. The caterer lost the menu. Had to go over the entire thing. Marty Howard called to ask if she could come by tomorrow regarding her ex. Betty Franklin called to say she disavows herself from Bobby’s support of Crawford. My sister called to say she thought she should have Mother’s china for the next year. I’d had it long enough and would I ship it to Sutton Place. I swear, Manhattan isn’t far enough away. I think I’ll suggest that Kay spend the next year in Paris. God, what a pain in the ass she is. Oh and the load of pearock we ordered for the walkways was delivered to the Haslips instead and they think they’ll keep it. Fortunately, they paid the bill.” She suddenly smiled brightly. “And how was your day?”

“Pretty good. Aztec jumped a whole course today. I think you should hunt her Saturday. The jumps have settled in at Rumble Bars.” He mentioned Saturday’s fixture. “She’ll do fine.”

“Why not? Lafayette can stay home and loll about. Sorry to dump my worries on you. It’s been that kind of day.”

“I still don’t see why you hire a caterer for opening hunt. The members can feed everyone. You do enough.”

“No. The members host breakfasts throughout the season. It’s fitting that I should host the first one.”

“I guess.” Douglas was always thinking of ways to save Sister money. As far as he was concerned people could bring their own drinks and sandwiches.

“What’d you think of Crawford?”

“Barreling up the driveway?” His green eyes noticed a cobweb on the stall bars. He attacked it immediately. “Spider intelligence.”

“Huh?”

“They come where the flies are.”

“Fortunately, there aren’t many of them.” She loved fall and winter for that reason as well as others. “Crawford.”

“If you need the money that badly, okay. If there’s any other way to steer this ship into the future—do it. I’m sure that Attila the Hun was more offensive but you know, Attila’s dead.”

“M-m-m.” She walked with him to the end of the aisle.

They rolled back the tall double doors, stepped outside, rolled them back.

He shivered.“That came up fast.” Looked at the treetops. “Out of the northwest, too. No point standing out here. Come on.”

Once inside his two-story cottage, Sister sat by the fireside. Doug quickly built a fire, throwing on a walnut log, which released a warm aroma. He took good care of the cottage. The heart-pine floors shone. The old Persian carpet Sister had given him fit perfectly in the living room, as did an old leather sofa facing two wing chairs with a simple coffee table between, a square one.

A flintlock with a powder horn hung over the fireplace. A cow horn, a true Virginia hunting horn, hung on a peg next to a nineteenth-century hand-colored hunting print. A white buffalo-plaid blanket was folded over the back of the leather sofa.

Spare, clean, yet inviting, Doug had a way of pulling things together that Sister Jane envied. She’d had to pay Colfax-Fowler to decorate her house back in the sixties and she’d updated it about every seven years since then. Sister never pretended to be aesthetically attuned but she had sense enough to follow those who were. Raymond evinced more interest in these things than she did.

Doug had absorbed a lot from Raymond not only in the way he arranged his cottage but in how he dressed. With an uncanny sense of color, he could pick the exact right tie, the correct fold of pocket handkerchief, the right break of the trousers over the shoe.

When Ray died Sister gave Douglas his clothing, generously paying to have everything altered for Doug, who was Ray’s height but thinner. Ray’s clothes were so classic that they looked as good today as the day he’d bought them. As Shaker was a short man, none of Ray’s clothes would fit him so she gave the huntsman Ray’s beautiful gold watch and his saddle.

“Coffee?”

“No. Too late for me.”

“Where’s Raleigh?”

“Asleep in the hall. He didn’t hear me go out. I won’t take up much of your time. You work all day. You don’t need your nights—”

“I like having you here.”

“Thank you.”

“Sure you don’t want anything?”

“No. Before Crawford barged in I wanted to ask you if you’re still in love with her. It’s none of my business and yet it is. If I can help you in any way, you know I will.”

“I know that.” He sat opposite her in the big wing chair. “Summer, well—let me start again. When she ended the relationship in May, it hurt. But I learned a lot about myself. I can’t blame her. Then last weekend she ran into me on purpose and well, we’re talking again.”

“Yes.”

“So I don’t know where I am.”

“But you know where she is.”

“Physically, yes.”

Sister drummed her fingers on the arm of the sofa.“These are hard habits to break. Usually the person is broken instead. I hope she makes it. But you can’t get yourself in a relationship where you’re worrying about her all the time.”

“I know. I’m glad she went in voluntarily.”

“She’s a beautiful woman.”

He sighed.“That makes it harder.”

“Funny how we get turned around by looks. My mother said, ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover.’ She was right but I fell for Raymond because he was big, blond, and handsome. But in those days you couldn’t just jump into bed together or live together. The courtship process was definite. As I got to know him I discovered he was quite a lovely man. Well, I don’t need a trip down memory lane and neither do you. If I can help you in any way, I will.”

“I know.”

She rose and he rose with her.“You know the people who sell these damned drugs should be shot. Either that or we legalize them. We have years of dolorous evidence to prove that what we’re doing now doesn’t work.”

“That’s for sure.” He walked her to the door. “Wasn’t it something to see Walter Lungrun? He was in high school when I was in junior high. Went to all the football games. All-state. I loved to watch him. I think he could have made pro even though he went to an Ivy League school. He’s grown up, though. Something’s different.”

“Yes. I suppose facing life and death every day grows up most everybody.”

“I’d kill Crawford if I were Walter.”

She smiled at Douglas.“I don’t know if I would, but I’d take pleasure in long, slow suffering.”

They both laughed as she hopped out the door into the biting wind. She hurried to her back door, opened it, and hung up her coat.

Golliwog sauntered into the mudroom.“You’re late and I’m hungry.”

CHAPTER 21

To prove their dedication both Fontaine and Crawford hunted Saturday morning in filthy conditions. The wind cut them to ribbons; a light rain stinging like needles irritated them.

Although she didn’t expect much, Sister thought the worst that could happen was they’d have a good hound walk. Keeping hounds fit tended to keep the people fit, too.

To her surprise Walter Lungrun was out. The small field kept close together, spending the first half of the early morning jumping ditches, fording swollen creeks, and hunching down in their jackets to stay warm.

Finally hounds hit above a freshly trimmed oat field, cut much too late. The run was short but intense. Sister decided to stop on a good note.

They rode back toward the west, the sharp wind smack in their faces. Combating the elements occupied Fontaine and Crawford.

Dragon, back in the pack, behaved impeccably.

Sister Jane patted Aztec on the neck. She behaved like a lady; no jump fazed her.

A howl ahead of them brought every hound head up.

“What’s that?” Dasher asked.

“Mountain lion,” Cora answered.“And I’m as happy to chase one as a fox. As long as I don’t chase deer, I think I’m in the right.” She glanced up at Shaker, who was trying to decide what to do.

He didn’t want to send his hounds up until he knew exactly what was there. If it was a mountain lion, the scent of it might send some horses into a frenzy. Also, Sister was on a young horse. The horse had a fine mind but still, she was green.

He raised his horn to his lips, then brought it down again.“Sister, let me go ahead. You’ll hear the horn if we can hunt home.”

This was a code between them. No point in telling the field you’re worried about them.

“Fine. Doug should be up there.”

“He’s ahead to the right a bit. Betty’s behind us.” Shaker chirped to the pack; they eagerly trotted ahead of him. He was a huntsman who wanted his hounds in front of him always. Some didn’t but Shaker did.

The young entry, curious, surged ahead of Cora.

“Not so fast,” the strike hound ordered them.

“We’ll stop when we get around the corner.” The three D young hounds plunged forward, the trees bending overhead, the light in the forest failing as the clouds lowered.

They stopped cold. Inky, crouched low but fangs bared, kept her paw on a plump rabbit she’d killed. Circling her was a half-grown mountain lion.

Diana growled, charging forward.“Leave her!”

The mountain lion, startled, backed off. Dasher and Dragon remained frozen to the spot, which gave Diana enough time to tell Inky,“Go home. Fast. I’ll get the pack on the big cat. Foul your scent any way you can because there are experienced hounds behind us. My brothers don’t know much.”

Inky shot away to the right, scampering over dripping moss and pine needles, skidding down a bank and plunging into a narrow drainage ditch. She paddled in the water for forty yards, then clambered out. The water trick would gain her time but a hound like Cora or Archie would work that opposite bank. They knew the water trick and they were close. Very close. She prayed that Diana could set them on the lion and she wondered that she was foolish enough to square off against the cat. However, it infuriated her that she’d worked hard to bring down that rabbit and the sluggard wanted to steal her dinner.

Diana, rooted to the spot, the rabbit between her paws, shouted for her litter mates:“Follow me!”

They barreled down, putting their noses to the ground as Diana deftly steered them onto the mountain lion’s tracks. The scent, stronger than Inky’s, was easy to follow. Within minutes the whole pack was behind them with only Archie holding his ground bellowing,“The fox went this way.”

Even Cora, a rock of a hound, ignored him. She reasoned that they could get up a fox any day but a mountain lion, so close, well, why not?

Shaker, up behind them now, watched a smallish bitch pick up the rabbit, running with the prize in her mouth. He peered at the mixed-up tracks, thought he saw one fox pawprint, dainty, but he clearly saw the cat pawprints. He plunged into the woods, knowing that Douglas would be ahead of him. A dirt road bounded the forest two miles away. Doug had to get there before the hounds did even though it was sparsely traveled.

Sister listened for the horn. When she heard the double notes she trotted and quickly found the spot and the tracks. She saw Shaker’s scarlet coat disappear into the darkening woods, heard him encourage his hounds with another double blast. She couldn’t take her tiny field in there. She pushed Aztec into a canter, hoping to reach the edge of the woods and turn left. Blessed with fabulous ears, as long as she could hear herhounds she could follow. She knew she was onto a big cat. How and where the beast would run was anybody’s guess.

They reached the small pasture, picked up the sunken farm road, and headed toward the state road. She could hear Fontaine and Crawford jockeying for position behind her, since there was now room. A flash of buckskin on her left in the woods told her Betty had headed into the fray using an old deer trail. All hounds were on. Betty had no one to push up, so she could move out and she was heedless of her kneecaps. Outlaw, Betty’s mount, would take good care of her and that confidence radiated from both horse and rider.

Aztec flicked her ears back and forth. The scent of mountain lion puzzled and frightened her a bit. The two riders behind her moving up irritated her. She felt Sister’s right hand stroke her from her poll down to her withers as they flew along and she thought to herself,“It’s okay. Sister would never ask me to do anything that would hurt me.” She focused again on the road.

Sister held her hand up like a right-hand-turn signal.“Hold hard!”

Crawford bumped into Fontaine, who turned around and cursed.“Hold your horse, fool.”

Sister, without turning her head, rebuked them by saying,“Gentlemen.”

Martha and Walter, the only other two in the field, sat still behind the two rivals, whose shoulders had tensed up.

“They’re to your left, Master,” Crawford prattled.

“I know that.” Sister wanted to say, “You flaming asshole. What I don’t know is if they’re turning.”

Before she could say or think anything, the half-grown mountain lion blew past them on the other side of the state road. She was running low and if one wasn’t concentrating, she resembled a German shepherd.

“Oh my god. Oh my god.” Crawford pointed.

Fontaine, cooler, called in a singsong voice,“Tally-lion.”

Since the hounds were still a ways off, he could holler without bringing their heads up. Otherwise he would have turned his horse’s head in the direction the lion was heading, taken off his cap, and held it at the end of his arm, also in that direction. This way he would alert staff without disturbing the hounds. As any experienced foxhunter knows, the quarry you see may not be the hunted fox. It’s imperative to keep hounds on the hunted fox or, in this case, lion.

Sister calmly waited for Douglas to pass, then the hounds, in good order, then Shaker, a big grin on his face. She fell in right behind her huntsman, perhaps twenty yards behind him.

Shaker pressed to the hog’s-back jump, big logs built to create a rounded obstacle almost like a huge lobster trap. The huntsman shot over. Aztec eyed the jump. She hadn’t seen one like that. Then she felt Sister squeeze and thought,“What the hell. It looks like fun.”

If Aztec had sucked back then, Czapaka would have quit for sure and Crawford would have taken the jump but the horse wouldn’t have. Czapaka, edging ahead of Gunpowder and an inflamed Fontaine, jumped the hog’s back in good form. Walter and Clemson cleared, as did Martha and Cochise.

Behind them they heard Betty and Outlaw. They sailed over, then ran alongside the small field until Betty drew parallel with Sister.

“Some pumpkins,” Sister called out.

“Tell you what.” Betty laughed, the rain slashing at her face.

The hounds picked up speed. The humans and horses flew over the pasture. The footing got slick. They headed into a small wooded border between two properties, jumped a rising creek, and with three strides more jumped a sliprail fence dividing two properties and then into more woods.

Sister halted. Shaker and Douglas, hounds at their feet, stared up at a massive rock outcropping, black in the rain. On top of it the mountain lion looked down at them. She’d had enough. She never did grab the rabbit, the cause of all this, and she’d had just about enough trouble for one day. Let one hound try to climb up to her and she intended to break its neck.

St. Just, the king of the crows, who had been shadowing them, perched in a poplar, leaves yellow.

“Leave it!” Shaker commanded.

“I’m not afraid!” Dragon, in frustration, yelped.

“Haven’t you learned anything?” Archie said in disgust.

“Obey!” Cora commanded.

Dragon shut up, glowering.

Hearing Sister, Shaker cupped his hand to his mouth.“Hold there, Sister.”

She pulled up. They could all see the lion on the rocks.

The hounds bunched up, following Shaker. Betty rode under the mountain lion’s snarl.

“I don’t like you either,” Outlaw sassed.

Instead of going in front of the pack, Douglas made sure that Betty got out safely and every hound was out. Then he and Rickyroo trotted away as the big cat let out a spine-tingling roar. Spooked Rickyroo.

“I wouldn’t have missed this day for anything in the world,” Martha said.

“Me neither.” Walter took off his cap, wiping his brow. Chilly as it was, the run and the fear made him sweat.

“Staff, please,” Sister called out.

The little field moved over so Shaker, the hounds, Doug, and Betty could ride through. Hounds always had the right of way, with staff next. Field members turned their horses around so they faced the staff. One never turned a horse’s butt toward a passing staff member.

“Ma’am?” Shaker drew alongside of Sister, his horn tucked between the top two buttons of his jacket.

“A leisurely trail ride back to the trailers, I think.”

“Good.” He wiped his hands on his britches. The reins were slippery. “It’s been years since we ran a cat.”

“She’ll have a tale to tell her friends and so will we.”

Flying alongside the hounds, St. Just cawed,“Not bad for cubbing.”

“Where have you been?” Cora inquired. She liked St. Just, who often acted as aerial reconnaissance for the hounds—so great was her hatred of Target, in particular, and red foxes in general.

Most crows disliked foxes but ever since Target had killed St. Just’s mate this dislike had turned into a vendetta.

“I’ve been preparing my nest for winter. Going to be a cold winter.”

The humans noticed the crow flying overhead, then peeling off. While they couldn’t understand what was communicated, the staff members knew if scent was bad and crows were circling and cawing, often hounds would find a line.

The sky deepened to gunmetal gray. Sister remembered the Reaper on Hangman’s Ridge. She didn’t know why that incident popped into her head.

They rode toward the trailers visible now at Foxglove Farm.

Walter rode up alongside the master.“Is it always like this?”

“Sure.” She smiled.

CHAPTER 22

Candles floated across the carp pond, which pleased Fontaine but not the carp. Although the evening remained as rainy as the day, the candles, housed in small lanterns in clever boats, kept their flames. Fontaine’s house, built in 1819, exuded serene Federal appeal. Over the years a wing was added here or there but the successive owners never lost the simplicity of design so central to the Federal period. The carp pond anchored the back left corner of his spring garden, mulched and tidied for the coming winter. The fall gardens shouted color from zinnias, mums, holly bushes, and shiny-leafed bay bushes. The sudden turn in the weather meant those loud colors had perhaps a day or two before they faded, giving way to the silvers, grays, beiges, and whites of that most stringent season.