Outfoxed. Hotspur

Sister noticed a hound’s head come up, drawn by an enticing aroma lifting off the meadows.

“Nellie, settle,” Sister quietly said, and Nellie dispelled her brief notion of making a wild break for the rising fox scent.

They walked and chatted for another half mile, then returned home by the route they had come.

At the covered bridge, Shaker noticed Peppermint stretched out by the creekside. Eyes sharp, he turned to face his pack.“Hold up.”

The hounds stopped.

“What’s up?” Betty asked as she pushed a stray lock of blonde hair off her forehead.

“Walter, go over there and check on Peppermint, will you?” Shaker called back to the physician.

Walter, a former star halfback at Cornell, put one hand on the top rail of the fence and gracefully vaulted over it. He loped to the unmoving horse, who was being watched over by his two old friends.

Walter called to Peppermint. No response. When he reached the aged animal he knelt down and felt Peppermint’s neck for a pulse.

“Oh, Pepper, what a good horse you were.” He gently patted the dead animal’s neck, then rose and recrossed the green meadow back to the waiting group.

He leaned over the fence and simply said,“Gone.”

Sister lowered her head for several moments as the news sank in. She’d known this horse for more than three decades. As sad as she was, Tedi would be devastated.

“Shaker, Bobby, take the hounds back to the kennels,” she instructed. “Betty and Walter, if you can spare the time, stay with me. We need to bury this fellow before Tedi comes out and finds him. She loved him so.” Sister paused. “A last link with Nola.”

“And it is July, he’ll blow up fast,” Shaker said under his breath. Then he called to the hounds in a singsong voice, “Come along.”

The hounds followed after him, though Cora couldn’t help a glance over her shoulder at the horse she remembered well.

“Walter, do you mind finding one of Tedi’s men? Just ask him to meet us at the bridge with the backhoe. Button his lip. I’ll tell Tedi once we’ve properly buried Peppermint.”

Walter jogged across the bridge as Betty and Sister went to the carcass at creek’s edge.

Betty knelt down to touch the large shoulder.“What a great one he was. Godspeed, Peppermint. You had a wonderful life.”

Sister, with Raleigh at her side, consoled Domino and Merry Andrew before sitting down beside Peppermint.“Jesus, Betty, I’m getting old. I remember Pepper when he was steel gray. He’s pure white now.” She referred to the fact that gray horses, born dark, lighten in color as they age.

“Remember the time Tedi hit every fence perfectly in the hunter trials? Tedi couldn’t find her distance if you gave her measuring tape. But by God, she won the blue ribbon that year. I think it was one of the happiest moments of her life.” Betty continued stroking the animal’s beautifulgray head. “He did it for her. Pepper didn’t much like showing. He liked hunting.” Betty smiled, marveling at the capacity of animals to love humans, creatures who so often failed to reciprocate.

“God, I hope we can pull this off before Tedi finds out. I mean, I hope she’s not up there in the barn or gardening or something. If she sees the backhoe rumble out of the equipment shed, she’ll be curious.” Sister plucked a blade of grass, sucking out the sweetness. “Peppermint was the last horse Nola hunted. Tedi is going to be upset.”

“That’s why you sent Walter—in case the news has to be broken now.”

“Yes, I did, didn’t I?” Sister grinned, an appealing, girlish grin for a seventy-one-year-old woman, thin as a blade and just as sharp.

“Poor Tedi, not that I wouldn’t cry my eyes out if Outlaw died, mind you.” Betty referred to her adored and sturdily built horse.

“We all would. Even that asshole Crawford Howard would cry if Czapaka died.” Crawford was a rich, blowhard member of the Hunt, and his horse, Czapaka, endured him with only occasional moments of justified rebellion. Sister and Betty had known each other for all of Betty’s forty-odd years,so Sister spoke with complete candor to her. Had it been anyone but an old friend she would never have openly criticized Crawford.

“Tedi’s such a dear soul.” Betty sighed.

“Strange life.”

“I don’t wish inherited wealth on anyone. It’s a real curse,” Betty declared. “It’s one thing to earn a pile of money, it’s another to never work for anything at all.”

“I agree. I’ve known very few people who weren’t scalded by it in one way or t’other.” She pronounced “another” the old Virginia way.

“Tedi has surely had her share of suffering.”

“That she has.”

They halted their conversation, rising as a large backhoe chugged over the hill, down the farm road, then rattled through the covered bridge. Walter stood behind the driver, Jimmy Chirios, an industrious, cheerful young man only two years in the Bancrofts’ employ.

Jimmy cut the motor and looked down at Peppermint.“Just like that?”

“A peaceful death.” Sister had to shade her eyes to look up at him in the morning sun.

Walter hopped off the equipment.“Jimmy, we can’t bury him here. The creek floods wicked bad every couple of years. Higher ground.”

Domino and Merry Andrew, having moved away when the backhoe arrived, now returned to stand near their fallen friend.

“This side of the bridge is anchored on high ground. You wouldn’t have to drag him but a hundred yards. Did you bring a chain?” Sister inquired.

“Yep.” Jimmy handed the thick chain to Walter, who looped it around Peppermint’s hind legs, then snapped the heavy hook around another loop of chain on the back of the big yellow machine.

“Slow,” Walter ordered as the two women walked up to what they concluded would be the ideal spot above the abutment.

As Peppermint was dragged to his final resting place, Domino, his bay head bowed, and Merry Andrew, curious as always, followed behind, somewhat obscuring the mark Peppermint’s body made. Walter unhitched the chain, then unwrapped it from Peppermint. Jimmy started digging.

The rise, just above the bridge abutment, was a good place. Rain had softened the earth two days earlier, and the clawed jaw of the backhoe easily bit into it. Jimmy rapidly dug out a seven-foot-deep trench, then squared the sides, forming a tidy rectangle. As they were all country people, they knew that animals could smell decay under the earth. A good six feet or more for a grave was mandatory or, sure enough, whatever was buried would be resurrected by scavengers. And much as one might have missed the deceased, one did not wish the return of a hoof or a leg.

“Looks good,” Walter hollered through hands cupped to his mouth.

But Jimmy decided the side of the grave closest to the bridge needed more tidying.

He lowered the jaws into the earth. A crumble of rich alluvial deposit rolled down into the bottom as he swung the captured earth over the side of the grave.

“Stop!” Sister cried. She astonished them all by leaping into the grave.

“What the hell are you doing?” Betty said as Walter leaned over the grave. Then he, too, jumped right in.

At the bottom edge of the freshly dug hole, Walter and Sister stared at the whitened bones of what looked like an elbow.

“Human?” Sister asked.

“I think so.” Walter carefully brushed away the earth until more bone was revealed. Unable to resist, Betty joined them. Jimmy clambered down from the cab of the backhoe and knelt down at the edge of the gaping hole.

“I can’t believe this,” Betty gasped.

Walter kept brushing. More arm bones. Then a hand. Definitely human.

The long rays of the morning sun crept into the tomb, causing the royal blue of a huge sapphire flanked by two diamonds to glitter in the light.

“The Hapsburg sapphire,” Betty whispered.

“Sweet Jesus.” Sister’s hands shook as she reached to touch the sapphire, then pulled back.

CHAPTER 2

Creamy suds of disinfectant swirled down the large kennel drain as Shaker washed the feed room. The female hounds, called bitches or gyps, drowsy after their exercise and breakfast, lounged on the benches on their side of the kennels. The dog hounds on their side, separate from the girls, did likewise as well as being scattered throughout the runs like so many canine statues.

A few hound ears perked up, then dropped back as Sister Jane and Betty hurried into the kennels.

Shaker turned off the power washer.“Sad job putting old Pepper in the ground.” He hung the washer nozzle on a wall hook, then glanced over at his boss and dear friend. “Janie, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Ashen-faced, still a little shaky, she replied,“I have.”

The three repaired to Shaker’s office next to the kennels. The open windows let in the breeze carrying the tang of hound scent.

“Here, you’d better sit down.” He pulled out his desk chair for Sister. “You, too, Betty.” He moved over the spartan extra chair for Betty Franklin, who dropped into it. Betty kept swallowing.

“We have seen a ghost. We have.” Tears welled up in Betty’s expressive eyes.

Shaker, always a bit awkward in emotional situations but a feeling man nonetheless, patted Betty on the back.“On Hangman’s Ridge?” They hadn’t walked out that way, but it was the first thing that popped into his mind. The ridge was reputed to have been haunted since Lawrence Pollard had swung from the oak for having master-minded a land speculation deal that had impoverished all who had invested in it in 1702.

Sister shook her silver head.“Nola Bancroft.”

He perched his spare frame on the edge of the desk, a flicker of disbelief on his sunburnt features.“What are you talking about?”

Sister closed her eyes, inhaled deeply.“After you took hounds back, Walter got Jimmy to bury Peppermint. We couldn’t put him by Snake Creek, so Betty and I thought just above the abutment by the covered bridge would be high enough.” She took a deep breath. “Well, Jimmy did a fine job, but I saw bones. I jumped in, Walterafter me—”

“Me too,” Betty chimed in. “It was an elbow.”

“Walter brushed away the earth, and the arm bones appeared and then the hand. The Hapsburg sapphire was still on her finger… .”

Raleigh wedged himself tightly next to Sister’s leg since he could tell she was upset.

“My God, I don’t believe it! After all these years.”

“Twenty-one years,” Betty added. “Just a pile of whitened bones and that ring. The little metal belt buckle from her dress was there, too. Remember when Paul Ramy kept asking each of us what Nola was wearing the last time we saw her? Well, we’d all just seen her at Sorrel Buruss’s party.”

“She had on a blue flowered sundress,” Sister recalled. “Everyone teased her that she bought the dress because the blue matched her eyes and she sassed back that she bought it because it showed off her cleavage.” Sister smiled, remembering the impossibly beautiful younger daughter of Tedi and Edward Bancroft.

Nola had been twenty-four years old when she’d disappeared more than two decades earlier.

“Uh, is she still in the grave?” Shaker lowered his voice.

“I don’t know.” Betty shifted in her seat. “The sheriff showed up with Gaston Marshall, the coroner. Ben took statements from each of us and told us we could leave.”

Ben Sidell was the sheriff. Betty, like many county residents, often called him by his first name.

“What did Gaston do?” Shaker asked.

“He made the sheriff’s assistant take pictures and then he got down in the grave and they started cleaning off the dirt. They were very careful. We were excused before they’d finished the job. Maybe there will be clues left.”

“What a pity old Sheriff Ramy isn’t still alive for this,” Betty said.

“I always thought Sheriff Ramy pretty much died the day his son Guy disappeared. His body just kept on for a while longer,” Sister added.

Guy Ramy had been courting Nola. The Bancrofts did not consider the sheriff’s son a suitable match for their daughter. They offered strong resistance, which only made Guy more attractive to the headstrong Nola. And he wasn’t bad-looking to begin with. He disappeared when Nola did, so at first people naturally figured they’d run off to get married without parental blessing. But as days passed, then weeks, no one heard a peep. Even Sybil, Nola’s older sister, didn’t hear from Nola, and the two sisters were close. Sybil, married but a year to Ken Fawkes, plunged into a depression. In a sense, the whole family did as the weeks passed into months. As Sybil had married beneath her, to use Tedi’s phrase, she felt guilty because she thought her marriage had put even more pressure on Nola to marry a Randolph, a Valentine, a Venable, a De-Jarnette, names considered suitable in Virginia.

No one ever saw or heard from Nola Bancroft or Guy Ramy again after Saturday, September 5, 1981.

“Walter’s still there. As a medical man, Ben asked him to stay. The worst was what to do about telling Tedi. We all agreed she couldn’t find her daughter and Peppermint together. The sheriff allowed Jimmy to haul Peppermint up on the ridge and bury him there so Tedi won’t have to see that. And he said he wouldn’t fetch Tedi and Edward until Nola’s body is completely free of its tomb. Well, I guess it isn’t a tomb, but you know what I mean. Oh, it’s just awful, Shaker.”

The thought of Tedi Bancroft viewing the skeletal remains of her beloved daughter made Shaker grimace.“Can’t someone else identify her?”

“Actually none of us can. Not even Tedi. We assume it’s Nola because of the sapphire. The coroner will have to go by dental records.”

“Assuming the skull is there.” Betty furrowed her eyebrows.

“Betty,” Sister said, looking at her sternly.

“Well, we don’t know how she died. Killers do really strange things. I mean, some of them are fascinated with death. They keep coming back. And who knows but what they might find Guy right there with her. Maybe he killed her and then shot himself.”

“He’d never kill Nola. He loved that girl,” Shaker said with conviction.

“Furthermore, how could he bury himself?” Sister sensibly added.

“Well, I am shook up. I’m not being very logical. But I can’t help it. The sight of that big ring on that bony finger will stay with me forever.”

“Yes, me too.” Sister sighed, dropping her hand to pet Raleigh’s sleek head. “Let’s pray that Walter can talk Ben out of fetching Tedi. Edward can come down. Or Ken, or Sybil, or anyone but Tedi. Anyway, I think the only reason Ben would subject them to this is to see if he can jolt something out of them,” Sister said shrewdly.

“None of them did it,” Betty flatly stated.

“But people suppress things, Betty. Maybe the grisly sight will force out a memory that will help put the pieces of the puzzle together. I don’t know about you, but I’m sure I’ve suppressed plenty in my own life.”

“Haven’t we all.” Betty cracked her knuckles, a nervous gesture.

“You know what my memory of Nola is?” Shaker asked. “I see this beautiful girl just flying her fences on Peppermint. Like that great big old stone wall down there at Duelling Grounds.” Shaker mentioned a farm where they hunted. “Everyone takes the low end, but she’d put him right to the four-foot section and sail over, hands forward, eyes up, big smile on her face.”

“Girl could ride,” Betty agreed as she smiled in remembrance.

In these parts, indeed in most of Virginia, the ability to ride was considered one of the social graces. It had nothing to do with money and a lot to do with talent. Or at least determination, should one lack talent. Nola had it all: talent, determination, and money.

Sybil, a very good rider herself, pitted herself against Nola or rode with her as her partner in hunter pairs at hunter trials and hunter paces, outdoor competitions. They were fun to watch.

Golliwog, a large calico, sauntered into the kennel. She’d been waiting up at the house for Sister to return and she was quite irritated about her delay. Not only was Sister overdue, but Golliwog had artfully arranged a large field mouse on the back porch for Sister’s delectation. But the heat was rising, the mouse ripening with it. Golly did not like such unsavory things, although Raleigh did, of course. This was just one more reason that dogs were inferior to cats in Golly’s mind.

“I am sick and tired of waiting for everyone!”she complained.

“Pipe down, Golly!” Sister ordered the cat, a useless order, of course.

“We found Nola Bancroft’s body,”Raleigh informed the imperious creature.

Nola had disappeared long before Golly was born— the cat was now in the prime of life—but she had heard odd snippets over the years concerning the Bancroft girl who could have been a movie star. Not that she paid much attention, since she always preferred to be the topic of conversation herself.

“What, she just popped up somewhere?”

“Peppermint died this morning and we found her when Jimmy Chirios dug the grave with the backhoe.”

As the dog and cat considered the morning’s events, Sister stood up. “Well, we’ve got to do something, but I don’t know exactly what.”

“Pay a call,” Betty suggested.

“Yes, I know that. We’ve got to let the club members know. She was a member of Jefferson Hunt, after all.”

“You’re right. I’ll get the telephone tree going,” Betty said. Shaker pulled the club directory from his long middle desk drawer, handing it to Betty.

“I suggest you don’t,” he said.

“Why?” Both women stared at him.

“Wait until you talk again to the sheriff. He might not want the news out quite that fast.”

“Shaker, this is Jefferson County. Gossip travels faster than light,” Sister truthfully stated. “Even now the phones are ringing throughout the county.”

“But it shouldn’t be on our heads. He’s going to want to talk to anyone who remembers Nola, which is anyone in our club over twentyfive, and that’s most everyone.”

“He’s right.” Betty handed back the directory.

Sister, usually politically astute, considered the wisdom of Shaker’s suggestion and realized she’d been more rattled by the discovery than she’d thought. “Right.” She rubbed her temples a moment. “Do you know what keeps running through my mind? It’s Peppermint. He loved her. He would do anything for Nola. He carried all the Bancrofts at one time or another, but he loved Nola best of all and now he’s led us back to her.”

“In death,” Betty said, sounding a trifle morbid even to herself.

“Fate.” Shaker reached for his old briarwood Dunhill pipe, his father’s.

“Aren’t death and fate the same thing?” Betty wondered.

“No, ma’am, not by a long shot.” Shaker leaned against the desk. “Not by a long shot.”

CHAPTER 3

As the last human left the grave site, a tremendous clap of thunder shook the earth.

Inky, a member of the gray fox clan who happened to be black, had been watching the activity at the grave site so intently that she jumped at the thunder. She looked toward the west. Roiling low clouds would be directly overhead in fifteen minutes or less.

Her curiosity, overcome by the weather, gave way to a mad dash for her den, a tidy place two miles west of After All Farm. Inky lived on Sister Jane’s place, Roughneck Farm, at the edge of the cornfield, near a mighty old walnut, on high ground above a small tributary feeding into Broad Creek. She lived very well and at one and a half years of age she was a sleek, healthy creature with unusually bright eyes.

The first huge raindrops splattered around her just as she reached the border of Roughneck Farm. Another few minutes and she’d be home. The sky, dark now, seemed close enough to touch. Sister pulled out onto the farm road in her new red GMC truck. Her headlights caught Inky for a moment, but the fox did not stop to give the older woman the pleasure of her company. She raced for her den, shooting in as thunder rumbled overhead and lightning momentarily turned the sky lavender green.

Inky hated getting wet. She nestled in her sweet-smelling hay bed, which she’d carried home after the last cutting.

Like all foxes, reds and grays, Inky was a highly intelligent, adaptable creature. Part of this adaptability derived from being omnivorous like humans. Whenever that insufferable cat, Golliwog, would fuss at Inky for visiting the kennels where she liked to chat with Diana, a young gyp, Inky would remind her as she left that Golliwog was an obligate carnivore.

This would infuriate Golly, who in retaliation would stir up the hounds. Then Shaker would open the front door of his clapboard cottage and speak to the hounds to quiet them. Golly could be vengeful, but she was smart. Inky had to give her that.

As Inky dried herself she wondered who was in that grave. The human emotions had cast a strong scent that carried up to her. As soon as the storm was over she thought she’d go out again and visit her parents, who lived deeper in the woods near strong-running Broad Creek. Perhaps they would know something. And she wanted to tell her family that Peppermint had passed on. He had loved chatting with his former adversaries, as he’d dubbed the foxes. Peppermint had always had a quaint turn of phrase like the older gentleman he was.

Inky knew that when humans were feeling wretched the shock waves would vibrate over the countryside. Her curiosity was thus more than a mental exercise; it was key to survival.

“Hello, Inky,” Sister said, noting the lovely animal racing beside the road.

“I worry that she’s getting too tame.” Shaker pressed two fingers around the knot of his tie.

Never comfortable in a coat and tie, he was a proper fellow. Given the circumstances, he would not cross the Bancroft threshold unless respectfully dressed. Lean and wiry, Shaker exuded a toughness that belied his kindly nature.

Both Shaker and Sister had hurried to clean up after Betty had hopped into her car. She’d pick up Bobby, fill him in, clean up herself, and meet the master and huntsman at After All.

“The legend of the black fox.”

“Bull. We’ve always had black foxes.” He half snorted. “We just don’t always see them.”

“I know that.” She turned the windshield wipers to a higher speed. She wasn’t 100 percent familiar with her new truck yet, so she had to fiddle with the stick on the steering column.

“Be nice when you learn to drive this thing.”

“Be nice when you learn to treat me with respect.”

“Oh la.” He half sang. “Janie, none of this bodes well, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. And I know I’m using Inky as an excuse, but you will recall a black fox gave us a hell of a run just before Ray died, and then again before Raymond died.” Ray, her son, was killed in a freak harvesting accident in 1974. Her husband, Raymond, died of emphysema in 1991. “And Raymond’s grandmother would always rattle on about how her mother swore that in 1860 all they hunted was black foxes.”

“Hunted Yankees after that.” Shaker, born and bred in Mount Sidney, Virginia, half smiled as he said it.

“Jesus, think we’ll ever get over it?”

“The Jews built Pharaoh’s pyramids five thousand years ago and they’re still talking about it. The Irish still fuss about Elizabeth the First like she just left the throne. People have to have something to bitch and moan about.” He caught his breath for a moment. “If you ask me, people can’t do without their tragedies. Makes them feel important.”

“You might be right. The Bancrofts aren’t like that, thank God. Shaker, I can’t exactly fathom it. Not to know where your child is for all those years and then to find out she’s been buried on your own property all along. A ring on a bony hand.”

“Horrible.” Although he wasn’t a father, he could sympathize as could most anybody with a heart.

“When I lost Ray, well, you were there. Yes, it was dreadful. Yes, I wanted to die with him. But at least I knew. I could say good-bye. I could grieve. All those years that Tedi and Edward hoped and prayed and then settled into a dull ache of a life. And now, to finally know where Nola is. Where she’s been all along …”

“I think Tedi knew.”

“In her heart—yes, I think she knew Nola was dead the night she went missing. But Edward could never give up.”

“Alice Ramy broke bad.”

“Wonder who’s going to tell her?”

Alice Ramy, the mother of Guy Ramy, turned bitter and disruptive after her son’s disappearance. Her only positive outlets seemed to be the prize chickens she bred and her gardens. But even these activities led to frustration. At least once a year her dahlias would be shredded when the prize chickens escaped into her gardens for a feast.

Shaker shifted nervously in his seat as they drove through the majestic wrought-iron gates, the serried spear-points gilded, of After All Farm’s main entrance. “Ben Sidell will tell Alice.”

“There are plenty of people who still believe Guy killed her and then disappeared. Some ass would come back from a vacation in Paris and declare, ‘Saw Guy Ramy on the Left Bank. He’s bald now.’ You know perfectly well they never saw a goddamned thing.” Sister’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. She, too, was nervous.

“Guy Ramy might have killed someone over Nola, but he would have never killed Nola,” Shaker said.

They peered out their windows through the streaming rain. Half the hunt club members were already there. A tightly knit community, the Jefferson Hunt Club supported one another instantly through every crisis—but felt free to gossip about one another with equal alacrity.

A red Mercedes S500 was parked closest to the front walk, trailed by a silver Jaguar, a 1987 Ford pickup, a hunter green Explorer, and a Tahoe. The number of trucks suggested people had walked away from their farm chores to hasten to the Bancrofts’. A Toyota Land Cruiser announced that Ralph Assumptio was there. He was a cousin on his mother’s side to Guy Ramy.

Sister had to park halfway down to the barns.

Shaker picked up the golf umbrella resting slant-ways across his feet.“You stay there. I’ll come ’round to your side.”

He opened the door and the rain slashed down.

When the arc of the red and yellow umbrella loomed outside, Sister opened her door and stepped down, ducking under cover.

She clutched Shaker’s strong forearm. “Well, let’s do what we can.”

A huge hanging glass lantern, supported by four heavy chains, cast diffuse light into the rainy evening. The white columns glistened as did the slate roof of this magnificent Palladian triumph.

The fan window above the oversized black door was handblown glass, as were all the paned windows.

After All, one of the great mansions of the early eighteenth century, had received many visitors in both joy and sorrow.

As they reached the front door, Walter Lungrun opened it before the harried butler could get to it. For a moment, with the light framing his face, Sister felt an odd sense of comfort—something akin to homecoming. She shook off the unexpected feeling, deciding that all her nerve endings were on red alert. Of course she was glad to see him. She’d known Walter, at a distance, since his childhood.

“Sister, thank God you’re here.” Walter bent down to kiss her cheek. “You, too, Shaker. Tedi and Edward are in the living room. Ken and Sybil, too.”

A servant hung their dripping raincoats in the coat closet. They heard Betty and Bobby come through the door as well as other people behind them.

Walter took Sister’s hand and led her to the living room, crowded with people. Shaker walked on her other side. People parted for Sister. They usually did.

Tedi sat perched on the edge of her Sheraton sofa, the cost of which alone could buy most Americans a lovely home. When she looked up to see one of her oldest friends and her master, she burst into tears again and stood up, throwing her arms around Sister.“Janie.”

Edward, whose eyes also were wet, stood up next to his wife and embraced Sister when Tedi relinquished her. Then Tedi hugged Shaker, and Edward shook his hand.

“Thank you for coming, Shaker.”

“Mr. Bancroft, I’m terribly sorry for the circumstances.” Shaker, always correct as a hunt servant, addressed Edward, a member, by his surname.

“Yes, yes.” Edward’s lip began to quiver and Shaker reached for his hand again, holding it in both of his.

“Janie, sit with us.” Tedi pulled her down on the sofa.

A servant in livery—the Bancrofts, wonderful though they were, had pretensions—offered refreshments on a tray. Perhaps they weren’t pretentious. It was the world into which both had been raised. This was part of life.

“You knew it was Nola.” Tedi wiped her eyes.

“The ring.” Sister draped her arm around Tedi’s thin shoulders.

“Edward went to see. I couldn’t go. I just couldn’t.” Tedi choked, then composed herself. “I don’t know how Edward did it.”

Sister looked up at the tall man, severely handsome with a full head of closely cropped white hair and a trim military mustache. He greeted guests and shepherded them away from Tedi so she could talk to Sister for a moment.“He’s a strong man.”

“Guess he had to be.” Tedi leaned into Sister. “You can’t run a business like his without people trying to tear you into little pieces.”

“Tedi, I don’t know if something like today’s discovery can bring good. But—maybe it can bring peace.”

Tedi shook her head.“I don’t know. I don’t know about peace, but I must find out what happened to my—baby.”

A chill touched Sister at the base of her neck just as a blazing bolt of lightning hit close to the house. Sparks flew, pink sparks widened into a halo of fireworks, and then the room went dark.

Ken Fawkes, the Bancrofts’ son-in-law, said, “Dad, it must have hit the transformer. I’ll crank up the generator.”

Ken had fallen into the habit of calling his father-in-law“Dad.”

The servants glided into the room, lighting candles, carrying hurricane lamps. Being plunged into darkness was not an uncommon experience in the country.

Sister wondered whether she should tell Tedi what she felt, felt so strongly that it was as if she’d been hit by that bolt of lightning. “Tedi, youwillfind out.”

Tedi turned to look directly into her friend’s warm eyes. “Yes, I think I will. I don’t think I’m going to like it.”

Sister kissed her friend again.“So many people want to see you, Tedi. I’ll come by tomorrow.”

“No, no, let me come to you. I want out of this place.”

“Good.” Tedi embraced her one more time, holding her tightly, then released her.

Sister nodded to people, shaking hands as she made her way over to Sybil, Nola’s older sister. Sybil, an attractive forty-six years old, was red-eyed from crying. The sisters had resembled each other, but in Nola, Sybil’s features had found perfection. Sybil’s jaw was a trifle too long, her eyes a light blue, whereas Nola’s were electric blue just like Tedi’s.

Scattered throughout the house were family photographs. If Nola had not been in those photographs your eye would have focused on Sybil, a pretty girl. But Nola was there and you couldn’t take your eyes off her.

On a few occasions, Sybil’s resentment of her sister would explode. Everyone understood, even Sybil’s own peers when they were children. It was damned hard to be outshone by your bratty little sister, and yet Sybil did love her. The two of them could fall into transports of giggles, pulling pranks, riding first flight in the hunt field. Both were good students, both were good with people, and both clung to each other as the children of the very rich often do once they discover they are very rich.

“Sister—” Sybil didn’t finish her sentence as the tears came.

Sister took her in her arms.“Be strong. Grab mane. Eyes up.” She told her the same thing she used to tell her when Sybil faced a big fence as a small child. And Sybil had been good to Ray Junior. Sister loved her for that. Sybil was a few years older than her son, yet always paid attention to him and rode with him. Both of them could ride like banshees.

Nola, while always friendly to Ray Junior, was too busy conquering men even as a fourteen-year-old to pay much attention to the boy. Nola had discovered her powers early and was determined to use them.

“I will.” Sybil sniffed.

Ken joined them.“Thank you for coming.” He embraced Sister.

“I’m just so glad you and the children are here.”

“We haven’t told the children all of it. Only that their Aunt Nola was finally found. What do you tell a ten-year-old and a six-year-old in a situation like this?” Ken shrugged.

“The truth—as gently as you can, because if you don’t, someone else will,” Sister forthrightly replied. “They’re strong.”

“Mother wants us to move back into the big house, but we can’t. We’re staying at Hunter’s Rest, but I’ll be with Mother every day,” Sybil said.

Hunter’s Rest, a two-story frame house, was located at the southernmost border of the large estate. It once housed the farm manager.

“If you need to get the children away, drop them with me. The S litter”—Sister mentioned a robust litter of foxhound puppies whelped in mid-May—“need walking out and handling. And you know they’re always as welcome as you are.”

“Thank you.” Ken placed his large hand on her shoulder. Apart from a slight paunch, he was holding his own against middle age. A few strands of gray appeared in his sandy hair and eyebrows. A small bald spot like a tonsure bore testimony to the encroaching years, but one had to be taller than Ken to see it.

Later, as Sister and Shaker drove back through the continuing rain, Shaker loosened his dark blue tie.“Had the damndest feeling.”

“What?”

“Well”—he paused, then sheepishly looked over at Sister—“I think I’ve seen too many TV mysteries.”

“What?” she persisted, knowing he’d have to work up to anything that couldn’t be proven by logic.

“Well, I felt that somebody in that room knew—knew what had really happened to Nola.”

CHAPTER 4

The windshield wipers on the Mercedes S500 flipped at their highest speed as Crawford Howard and his wife, Marty, drove back toward town. They had met and married at the University of Indiana, made a fortune in strip malls, moved to central Virginia, divorced, and remarried, all before age forty-seven. Surprisingly, neither of them appeared exhausted by this process.

“Honey, slow down.” Marty involuntarily shrank back as the water from puddles splashed against her side window.

“This machine can handle everything.”

“This machine must still obey the laws of physics,” she wryly replied. But knowing how he loathed being corrected, she hastened to add, “Edward was glad to see you. I know you’ve had a long day, but thank you for making the effort.”

He slowed to forty-five miles an hour.“That girl must have been something. Those photographs of her all over the house—really something.”

The Howards had moved to Jefferson Hunt Country after Nola’s disappearance.

“Don’t you think people are jumping to conclusions?” Marty’s voice rose.

“What? That she was murdered?”

“Right.”

“Honey, people don’t commit suicide and bury themselves. If they commit suicide, sooner or later the body is found. And she disappeared in September, so you know she would have been found quick enough.”

“Betty Franklin said the last time anyone saw her alive was at a party Sorrel Buruss gave for the first day of cubbing. But you’re right. It’s still hot in September.”

“A first-day-ofcubbing party. That’s a good idea.”

Foxhunting rarely opened with a home run, more like a base hit. Cubbing introduced young entry, those hounds hunting for their first year, to the young foxes, being hunted for the first time. The older hounds and hunt staff helped steady the youngsters, keeping them running between the bases instead of straying off into center field. The young foxes, with a bit of luck, learned the rules from the older foxes, but in case a youngster was caught unawares, many a huntsman would steer his pack away to save the fox. If the pack couldn’t be deterred, if scent was just flaming, a whipper-in would do his or her best to warn the fox. If hounds were far enough away, the whipper-in would speak to the fox. The sound of a human voice usually set the fox to running. If hounds were close, the whipper-in would smack his or her boot with their crop. The sound alerted the fox. The whipper-in didn’t want to use his or her voice, if possible, in those circumstances, for the hounds would know the human’s voice.

No one wanted to kill a fox under any circumstances, whether in cubbing or later in formal hunting. American foxhunting was purely about the thrill of the chase—the joy of good hound work and hard riding. Unfortunately, most Americans formed their concept of foxhunting from the English traditions. This was a misunderstanding American foxhunters fretted over continually.

“Wonder why we don’t have a party like that anymore?”

“Bad organization.” Crawford rarely let slip the opportunity to criticize, implicitly suggesting he could do better.

Foxhunting clubs, like all volunteer organizations, rolled with the ebb and flow of individual enthusiasm. One member might host an annual breakfast or party for years, then grow weary of it. The master might suggest that someone else pick up the slack, but she or he couldn’t exactly give orders. Orders usually attend paychecks.

“Well, darling, perhaps we should host one. Bring back a lovely tradition.”

He braked sharply as a deer shot across the road.“Big rats, that’s what they are.” Then he returned his attentions to his recently remarried wife. “Wouldn’t hurt. And let’s do it properly. None of this platter of ham biscuits and a pile of doughnuts. Mumm de Cramant.” He mentioned a champagne of which he was particularly fond.

“Cristal.” She loved Louis Roederer.

“I’m not serving $270 bottles of champagne. As it is, the de Cramant is running about $70, although if I order a few cases from Sherry-Lehmann I can get the price down. Don’t worry, sweetie, they’ll be damned impressed when they taste it.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” She noticed the sign to the entrance of the Franklins’ small farm swinging wildly in the increasing wind. “Turning into a filthy night. Almost as if Nola’s ghost has stirred up the winds.”

“Now, Marty.” He laughed.

“I believe in spirits. What about the ghosts at Hangman’s Ridge? People have seen them, and people who aren’t”—she weighed her next word—“flighty.”

“Pure bunk. Anyway, this will all blow over, forgive the pun. If there’s any evidence left on the body at all, I guarantee you it will lead back to Guy Ramy. It just figures. So the real work is finally tracking him down. You know someone around here knows where he is or helped him get outof town. Boy’s father was the sheriff. Man might have been the sheriff, but I’ll bet you he protected his own.”

“But honey, everyone who knew them said Guy loved her.”

“Men kill the women they say they love every day.”

“Makes me wonder why the compliment isn’t reciprocated.”

“Women are more moral.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I do. I know you’re my moral superior. And I wished when we were younger I’d asked you about things, deals, people. But I didn’t.” He shifted in his seat. “Although I still think you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. Not that I’m condoning smashing people to bits, but competition is the lifeblood of trade, it’s the lifeblood of this country. Someone has to win and someone has to lose.”

“I guess Nola lost.”

“Don’t worry over it, Marty. This will get settled now that the body has surfaced. Really. And there’s nothing we can do about it except do whatever the Bancrofts need done.” He slowed for the entrance to their farm, Beasley Hall. It was named long before they bought it. It was named for Tobias Beasley, the original holder of the land grant from Charles II. “Wonder if Edward Bancroft has more money than I do? If I’d inherited what he inherited I’d have turned it into four or five billion dollars by now. You know, these people who inherit fortunes let gentlemen investorsmanage their money. The investments return maybe three percent or four percent a year. I can’t understand anyone being that passive about their money.”

“I don’t know if Edward has as much as you do, honey, but he’s not passive. He ran the Bancroft empire until a few years ago when he retired.”

“Coffee.”

“What, dear?”

“Their money started in coffee, of all the damn things. I’d never put my money in anything where Mother Nature was my partner. But I guess it was a different time. Early nineteenth century. That ancestor of his had to be pretty damned smart.”

“Now they just seem damned, don’t they?”

“The Bancrofts? No. Marty, don’t let this Nola thing affect you. The Bancrofts made whatever adjustment they had to twenty years ago. Sybil married a decent enough fellow, they have two grandchildren, and sure, you never forget a child, but I don’t think you can say they’re damned.” He pulled into the new garage attached to the original main house, an addition Crawford had commissioned.

The new wing was tastefully done and didn’t resemble a garage. If anything, it was the tiniest bit overdone.

The garage doors rolled down behind the red Mercedes.

The first building on this site was a log cabin built in 1730 by Tobias Beasley’s grandson. Over the years it had been replaced with a handsome brick structure boasting a huge center hall and four-over-four windows. Each generation that made money added to the main house. This meant about every thirty or forty years a ballroom would be built or more bedrooms with sleeping porches. Whatever excited the owners’ fancy was added, which gave Beasley Hall true character.

Crawford opened the door into the mudroom and ushered his wife through.

“Thank you, dear.”

“Nightcap?”

“How about a small brandy with a rind of orange on the rim.”

He laughed at her but made her the drink and brought it upstairs to their huge bedroom, decorated by Cole-fax and Fowler. Crawford could have hired Parish Hadley out of New York, but no, he had to go to London. The woman who put the English country house look on the map, Nancy Lancaster, whose mother, Lizzie, had been born a Langhorne of Virginia, was influenced by Mirador, the Langhorne seat in Albemarle County. Crawford liked telling people he and Marty were simply bringing her talent back home. Nancy Lancaster, born in 1897, had been dead since 1994, but her decorating firm soldiered on.

The simple truth was that Crawford was a dreadful snob.

They slipped into their scarlet cashmere bathrobes from Woods and Falon, another English firm, and nestled into an overstuffed sofa suffocating with chintz-covered pillows.

Marty enjoyed unwinding on this sofa before retiring to bed. When she and Howard had separated and Crawford’s lawyers had played the old starve-the-wife routine, she’d had ample time to consider the financial impact of divorce on middle-aged women. She realized she could not make a graceful transition into the ranks of thenouveau pauvre.

“Whenisthe first day of cubbing this year?” Crawford put his arm around her.

“September seventh, I think.”

“Time to leg up the horses.”

“Time to leg up ourselves.”

“Oh, honey, you look fantastic. In fact, you look better than when I married you.”

“Liar.”

“It’s true.”

“You can thank the business—and yourself.”

One of her demands for returning to Crawford, who had been unfaithful to her, was that he buy her the landscaping firm where she had been working to make ends meet. She’d fallen in love with the business. When the owner, Fontaine Buruss, died an untimely death in the hunt field, Crawford made a handsome settlement upon Fontaine’s widow. Marty had never been happier now that she was running her own business. She had a real purpose of her own.

He kissed her.“Funny how things work out.”

“You look pretty fantastic yourself.” She winked at him.

He’d lost his paunch, changed his diet, and worked with a personal trainer. He’d also endured liposuction, but he wasn’t advertising that fact.

The rain slashed at the windowpanes, and Crawford’s heart beat right along with it. When Marty winked it meant she wanted sex.

Crawford, like most people with business drive, also had a high sex drive. He adored making love on a rainy night, too.

He reached up and rubbed her neck.“Did I tell you how crazy I am about you?”

What he didn’t tell her was that he had not given up his long-standing goal of becoming joint-master of the Jefferson Hunt and that that very day he had put his plan in motion. By God, he would be joint-master whether Jane Arnold wanted him or not.

CHAPTER 5

Large, overhead industrial fans set high in the ceiling swirled, their flat blades pushing the air downward, and window fans also sucked in air from the outside and sent it over the sleeping hounds. This arrangement kept flies out of the kennels as well.

It was late afternoon, the day after Nola had been discovered. The rains had been followed by the oppressive heat typical of the South.

The Jefferson Hunt Club Kennels, built in the 1950s, were simple and graceful. The building’s exterior was brick, much too expensive to use now thanks to higher taxes and higher labor costs. The large square structure housed the office, the feed rooms, and an examination room where a hound could be isolated for worming or the administration of medicines. At the back of this was a150-foot-square courtyard of poured concrete sloping down to a central drain. The roofline from the main building gracefully extended over one side of this courtyard by about eight feet. Lovely arches much like those underneath the walkways at Monticello supported the overhang.

Open archways bounded the courtyard, again like the ones at Monticello. The dog hounds lived on the right side and the gyps on the left. Each gender had its own runs and kennel houses with raised beds and little porches. The puppies lived at the rear with their own courtyard and special house. A small, separate sick bay nestled under trees far to the right.

The design—simple, functional—was pleasing to the eye. Doorways into the sleeping quarters were covered with tin to discourage chewing. The center sections of the doors to the runs were cut out and covered with a swinging heavy rubber flat, like a large mud flap on a truck, so the hounds could come and go as they wished. Eventually someone would get the bright idea to chew the flap, but a large square of rubber was easier to replace than an entire door.

All sleeping quarters were washed down every morning and evening. Painted cinder-block walls discouraged insect infestation. The floors sloped to central drains.

Many hounds slept in their raised beds, the wash of refreshing air keeping them cool. Others were dreaming in the huge runs, a quarter of an acre each, filled with large deciduous and fir trees. Some hounds felt the only proper response to blistering weather was to dig a crater in the earth, curling up in it. Fans whirling over kennel beds was sissy stuff.

Two such tough characters, Diana and Cora, faced each other from their shallow earthen holes, now muddy, which pleased them.

“Hate summer,”Cora grumbled.

“It’s not so bad,”the beautiful tricolor replied, her head resting on the edge of her crater.

“You’re still young. Heat gets harder to handle as youget older,”Cora said. She had recently turned six.

Six, while not old, gave Cora maturity. She was the strike hound, the hound who pushes forward. She sensed she was slowing just the tiniest bit and knew Dragon, Diana’s littermate, would jostle for her position.

Cora hated Dragon as much as she loved his sister. Quite a few hounds loathed the talented, arrogant Dragon.

Being the strike hound didn’t mean that Cora always found the scent first. But she worked a bit ahead of the rest—not much, perhaps only five yards in front, but she was first and she wanted to keep it that way.

If another hound, say a flanker, a hound on the sides of the pack, found scent before she did, Cora would slow, listening for the anchor hound, the quarterback, to speak. If the anchor said the scent was valid, then Cora would swing around to the new line, racing up front again. She had to be first.

If the anchor hound said nothing, then Cora would wait for a moment to listen for someone else whom she trusted. All she waited for was“It is good.”If she didn’t hear it soon, then she’d push on.

For years the anchor hound of the Jefferson Hunt had been Archie, a great American hound of substance, bone, deep voice, and reliable nose. Archie, a true leader, knew when to knock a smart-ass youngster silly, when to encourage, when to chide the whole pack, and when to urge them on. He died a fighting death against a bear, ensuring his glory among the pack as well as among the humans. They all missed him.

Diana, though young, possessed the brains to be an anchor hound. No one else exhibited that subtle combination of leadership, drive, nose, and identifiable cry. Cora knew Diana would become a wonderful anchor, but her youth would cause some problems this season. Like a young, talented quarterback, Diana would misread some signals and get blitzed. But the girl had it, she definitely had it.

In fact, the whole D litter, named for the first letter of their mother’s name as is the custom among foxhunters, oozed talent. And in Dragon’s case, overweening conceit.

Puppies taunted one another, their high-pitched voices carrying over the yards drenched in late-afternoon sunshine.

“Pipe down, you worthless rats,”Cora yelled at them.

They quieted.

“Too bad Archie can’t see this litter. He was their grandfather. They’re beauties.”Diana watched one chubby puppy waddle to the chain-link fence between the yards, where he studied a mockingbird staring right back at him from the other side.

“Babblers.”Cora laughed.“They are beautiful. Butthe proof is in the pudding. We’ll see what they can really do two seasons from now. And don’t forget”—she lowered her voice because gossip travels fast in close quarters—“Sweetpea just isn’t brilliant. Steady, Godbless her, steady as a rock, but not an A student.”

Sweetpea was the mother of this litter.

“I wish it were the first day of cubbing.”Diana sighed.

“Don’t we all. I don’t mind the walking out. Really. Theexercise is good, and each week the walks get longer. You know next week we’ll start with the horses again, which Ienjoy, but still—not the same.”

“Heard the boys in the pasture yesterday.”Diana meant the horses.“They’re excited about starting back to work so long as Sister, Shaker, and Doug go out early,really early.”Diana sniffed the air. A familiar light odor announced the presence of Golly grandly picking her way through the freshly mowed grass toward the outdoor run.

Diana rose, shaking the dirt off.

Cora, too, smelled Golly.“Insufferable shit.”

Diana laughed.“Cora, you’re crabby today.”

“It’s the heat. But that doesn’t change the fact that thatcat is a holy horror.”Cora curled farther into her cool mud crater. She wasn’t going to talk to the calico.

Golly reached the chain-link fence.“Good afternoon,Diana. Your nose is dirty.”

Diana sat down at the chain-link fence.“Keeps thebugs off.”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t get bugs.”

“Liar,”Cora called out.

“Tick hotel,”Golly fired right back.

“Flea bait. You hallucinate. I’ve seen you chase theghosts of fleas,”Cora replied, giggling.

“I have never hallucinated in my life, Cora. And youcan’t get my goat, ha,”she said,“because you’re a lowerlife-form and I’m not letting you needle me.”

“Oh, if you aren’t hallucinating, then what are youdoing when you, for no reason, leap straight into the air,twist around, race to a tree, climb up, drop down, and doit all over again? You’re mental.”

“Spoken like the unimaginative canine you are.”Golly raised her chin, half closing her eyes.“I’m being visitedby The Muse on those occasions.”

“I’m going to throw up,”Cora said, and made a gagging sound.

“Worms!”Golly triumphantly decreed.

Diana, thoroughly enjoying the hostilities, said,“Justgot wormed Monday.”

“Well, I walked down here in the heat of the day togive you girls some news, but since you’re insulting me Ithink I’ll go hiss at the puppies, teach them who’s bossaround here.”

“You can tell me.”Diana lowered her voice and her head, her dirt-encrusted nose touching the fence.

“You’re a sensible girl,”the cat replied.

In truth, Diana was sensible and also quite sweet. She loved everybody.

Cora, upright now, walked over.“Well?”

“Who said I was talking to you?”Golly opened her eyes wide.

“Oh come on, Golliwog, you know we’re dying to hear it,”Cora coaxed, buttering her up.

The luxurious calico leaned forward, her nose on the chain-link fence now.“It was Nola. The family dentistidentified her not an hour ago.”

Cora thought for a moment.“This will stir up a hornet’s nest.”

“If only we had known her … we hear and smell things.”Diana frowned.“We might have been able tohelp find out something useful.”

“The last hound that knew Nola Bancroft would havebeen Archie’s grandmother. She lived to be eighteen, youknow,”Cora said.“It was a long, long time ago.”

“You’d think if any of us had known about the murder, or if any of the horses over at After All Farm knew,they would have told. We’d know. We pass those thingsdown,”Diana said.

“Undomesticated.”Cora meant that undomesticated animals might have witnessed something at the time.

“Who lives that long?”Diana wondered.

“Turtles. That snapping turtle at After All Farm, thehuge one in the back pond, he’s got to be forty years old,I swear it,”Cora said.

“Amphibians aren’t terribly smart, you know. Theirbrain moves at about the same speed they do,”Golly said with a laugh. Then she thought again.“But they doremember everything.”

“How old is Athena?”Diana asked, thinking of the great horned owl.“They live a long time, don’t they?”

“Don’t know,”the cat and hound said in unison.

Diana lay down, her head on her paws, her face now level with Golly’s face, almost.“Why does it matter? Tous, I mean?”

“Because it really will stir up a hornet’s nest, Diana.People start buzzing. Old dirt will get turned over, and I promise you, ladies, I promise you, this will all comeback to the Jefferson Hunt Club. Sooner or later, everything in this part of the world does,”Cora said.

“Think Sister knows that?”Diana asked. She loved Sister.

“She knows. Sister has lived almost six hound lifetimes. Think of what she knows,”Cora said, shaking her head in wonder.

“Well, exactly how do you think this will affect us?Will people not pay their dues or something like that?” Diana asked.

“No. People drop out when it’s a bad season. No huntclub has control over the weather, but people act asthough they do, the fair-weather hunters, I mean.”Cora observed human behavior closely.“Or when there’s aclub blowup, which happens about every seven years.Archie always said humans do things in seven-year cycles. They just don’t recognize it.”

“Crawford Howard.”Golly curled her upper lip as she said his name.

“Up to his old tricks?”Cora snapped at a low-flying dragonfly.

“Cat intuition.”Golly smiled.“I have an idea. Whatever happened to Nola in 1981 was well done, if you will.When you’re hunting you all go places humans don’t.Sometimes even Shaker can’t keep up with you when territory’s rough. You might find something or smell something out there that could help solve this mess. After all,the best noses in the world are”—she paused for effect—“bloodhounds, but you all are second.”

“Second to none!”Cora’s voice rose, which caused a few sleepers to open one eye and grumble.

Humans ranked the noses of bloodhounds first, followed by bassets second and foxhounds third, with all other canines following. Foxhounds thought this an outrage. Of course they were best. Besides, who in the world could hunt behind a bloodhound? The poor horse would die of boredom. This was a pure article of foxhound faith.

“This has to do with hunting? Is that what you’re really thinking, Golly?”Diana noticed a few of the boys in the kennel were quarreling over a stick. How they had the energy to even growl in this heat mystified her. One of the troublemakers, of course, was her brother, Dragon.

“Yes, think about it. Cubbing starts September seventh. It’s the end of July. Stuff happens when you’rehunting. Everything speeds up. People reveal themselvesout there.”

“We sure hear them scream for Jesus.”Diana giggled as she recalled a few of the oaths elicited by a stiff fence.

“I have never figured that out. The horse jumps thefence, not them,”Cora said, laughing.

“Oh, but that’s just it, Cora. Sometimes the humantakes the fence and the horse doesn’t.”

They all laughed at that.

“We’ll keep our nose to the ground,”Cora promised.

“I have the strangest feeling that Guy Ramy will becoming back.”Golly lowered her voice again.“More catintuition.”

In a way, Golly was right.

CHAPTER 6

The Hapsburg saphhire glittered on the small glass-topped table. Outside, the long summer twilight cloaked the grand old trees surrounding Roughneck Farm, and scarlet tendrils of sunset seemed to ensnare the wisteria that climbed all over the back porch. The rose and gold light reflected off the windowpanes of the neat gardening shed, casting intricate designs across the emerald lawn.

Tedi and Sister sat on the screened-in back porch. The humidity was particularly oppressive this evening. Sister drank dark hot tea while Tedi nursed a martini as well as a glass of iced green tea. The mercury was dropping with evening’s approach. The humidity seemed determined to hang on. Sister believed drinking a hot drink on a hot day kept you healthier. No one else could stand anything hot.

Raleigh and Golliwog were curled up together in Raleigh’s Black Watch plaid dog bed. Rooster, Peter Wheeler’s lovely harrier, was stretched out in his own bed, covered in the Wallace tartan, next to Raleigh. Peter, an ex-lover of Sister’s, had bequeathed his handsome hound to her and his entire estate to the Jefferson Hunt to be administeredsolely by the master—not the Board of Directors. Peter’s eight decades on this earth had taught him a benign dictatorship was infinitely preferable to democracy. He died peacefully last year, a quiet end to a productive life.

Both Sister and Tedi now knew Nola had not died peacefully, a fact they were currently grappling with.

The animals listened intently, even Golly, who under normal circumstances would have told Raleigh how lucky he was to have her in his special porch bed.

“I knew. I always knew. So did you,” Tedi said sadly.

Sister heard a squirrel clamber up the wisteria on her way to her nest in the attic.“We hoped. We always hoped.”

“I’m done crying. I know, Janie, that I can be all over the map, as you say.” She held up her hand to quell the protest. “I am a little different. I was never able to think the way you do. You think in sequences, you see patterns. Edward’s like that. I don’t. I gather it all up in one big basket, then dump it on the table and start sorting. But I eventually find what I’m looking for even if I drive everyone crazy doing it. It’s just the way my mind works.”

“You are an original,” Sister said, smiling. “I’m lucky to know you.”

“Do you realize we’ve known each other all our lives? But it seems like a split second. I don’t understand it. We’re seventy-one years old and I don’t feel old, I don’t act old, at least I don’t think I do. I don’t know where the years are. Are they hiding in my pocket? Are theywherever Nola is? What happened?”

Sister shrugged.“Wherever they are we sure packed a lot into them.” She sipped her tea.

“Yes, we did.” Tedi inhaled, her bright blue eyes flickering for a moment. “I’m not avoiding the subject.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“I know Nola was murdered. I didn’t need the dental chart to prove those bones were Nola’s any more than I needed Ben Sidell to tell me her skull had been crushed. A blunt instrument, he said, or a large rock. They aren’t going to find the answers to this under a microscope, it’s been too long. Too long.”

“Well, he has to go by the book. Otherwise he won’t stay sheriff for long.”

“I know that. I just want to know who killed her. I still think it was Guy Ramy. Dog in a manger. I can’t have her, so no one else can have her.”

“But Nola was perfectly capable of running off with Guy and he was madly in love with her.”

“They all were. And she wouldn’t have run off with Guy. Headstrong as she was, Janie, Nola loved money. I think she might have allowed herself a flaming affair. And enjoy it all the more knowing I did not approve nor did her father. But marry Guy?” She shook her head.“No.”

“I think she would.”

“Why?”

“She knew in time you and Edward would forgive her. You’d have made a settlement on her with the appearance of the first grandchild. After all, you acquiesced to Ken in time.”

A silence followed this.

“Maybe.”

“No maybe about it. Nola could play her father like a harp, and eventually you’d have given in as well. So long as she was happy.”

“He wouldn’t have made her happy.” Tedi’s voice dropped a quarter of an octave.

“Tedi, there’s ripe disagreement on that subject. People started talking about it in 1980, when Nola and Guy first fell in love. Opening Hunt. You could feel the electricity.”

“Odd. They’d known each other all their lives.”

“Not so odd. He went away to college, graduated, put in two years in the service. She hadn’t seen him, hardly, for six years.”

“I don’t understand it.”

“No one does. That’s why love is love.” Sister smiled. “Freshen your drink?”

“I’ll do it.” Tedi rose, walking to the small bar in the pantry just off the kitchen, the wide, uneven heart pine planks creaking underfoot.

A larger bar, more elaborate, still stood ready between the living room and the dining room. Raymond had loved to throw big parties. Sister had gotten out of the habit after his death in 1991; she figured hunting was her form of throwing a big party. Although she did always have the Opening Hunt from her farm, with a huge breakfast following at the house. Raymond and Ray both had gloried in these occasions. She rather more endured them and hoped she was a gracious hostess. The glitter on the table held her eye. Two diamonds of two karats each flanked the eleven-karat sapphire and picked up all available light, throwing it back on the large square-cut blue stone. Sapphires are usually too muddy or too pale. This one was a perfect royal blue—like a strip of startling water in the Caribbean.

Tedi called from the pantry,“You could pour me more tea, please.”

Sister poured tea from a graceful cut-glass pitcher, ice cubes tinkling inside, into Tedi’s frosted glass.

Tedi rejoined her.“Are you surprised I’m not crying? I’m not on the floor frothing at the mouth? It’s not that I don’t care. I do. I care passionately, but I don’t have one tear left in my body. And I don’t trust my emotions.”

“What do you mean?”

“When Nola disappeared I went to pieces. There’s really no other way to put it. Fragments of Tedi Prescott”—she used her maiden name—“were scattered from here to Washington and back. I wore out the road driving up there to the FBI. I just knew Paul Ramy wasn’t up to the task. Especially when Guy went missing. I was a total wreck. I regret that.”

“Honey, any mother would have been torn to shreds inside.”

“Yes, but I missed things. If I could have kept my wits about me, especially in those early days, I believe I might have picked up information, clues, nuances. I didn’t. All I felt was pain. I believe we were very close to the killer, to finding out who the killer was, and he slipped through our fingers to land God knows where.”

“We were all distraught.”

“Which works to a killer’s advantage.”

“Can you go over it again? Will it upset you?”

“No. I mean, I have been over it. I last saw Nola at Sorrel Buruss’s party. I think that’s the last time any of us saw her alive. We’d patched things up in the stable before hunting that day. She apologized and so did I. Had a whopping fight the night before over Guy. Anyway, she was in high spirits, I was in neutral spirits. Edward was grumpy but putting a good face on it since we were at Sorrel’s. Fontaine was an ass, as usual.” She mentioned the handsome husband of Sorrel. “Since Nola wouldn’t go to bed with him, he thought Sybil might be honored at his attentions. She slapped him square in the face. Sorrel, accustomed to his outrages, simply flipped him an ice cube to hold to his face. Nola laughed and laughed. Fontaine’s face grew redder and redder. I was furious when I saw Fontaine pressure Sybil. She’s a bit retiring and perhaps too anxious to please. I remember being very proud of her that she stopped that insufferable womanizer. Do you remember?”

“I do. And Peter Wheeler made a toast to Sybil. Let’s see, ‘Here’s to Sybil, beloved of Apollo. Let her be an example to all women.’ ”

“Everyone was pretty well lubricated except you. I used to wish you’d drink with us, and now I’m glad you never did. You were smarter than all of us, and you look better for it, too. Ah well, then.” Tedi sipped some martini, chased it with green tea. “Nola left without saying good-bye. The last time I saw her.”

Sister raised her index finger.“I overheard Sybil saying that she and Ken would meet Nola at the C&O downstairs. Some band was playing they wanted to hear. But I was talking to everyone and I can’t say I was paying particular attention to Nola.”

The C&O was and remained a popular restaurant and nightspot over in Albemarle County.

“And I didn’t know until the next morning that Nola never showed up. It wasn’t that unusual for her to say she’d be somewhere and not show. Nola was always open to a better offer, her words.” Tedi’s memories, bitter-sweet, haunted her. “I didn’t know until I saw Sybil at church.I was furious that Nola had stayed out all night but, well, it wasn’t the first time. I didn’t start to worry until Sunday supper.”

Leaning back in her chair, Sister glanced outside at the sky, darkening from turquoise to cobalt, then back at Tedi.“Here’s what I think, knowing what we now know. Nola was killed sometime between seven in the evening and early the next morning. You and Edward were building the covered bridge. The earth was still soft around it, remember? She had to have been killed in that time frame, because people don’t go burying their victims in broad daylight. Whoever killed her had to have known about the bridge work. That was a drought summer. The earth was hard as rock. Thanks to the bulldozers, the embankment and the base for the bridge weren’t packed tight yet. You were just putting the roof on the bridge. So whoever killed Nola knew that.”

“That’s right,” Tedi whispered.

“And we’d hunted through there Saturday morning. I’ve checked my hunt records.” Sister, like many masters, kept a detailed hunt diary. “We had forty-one people the first day of cubbing.”

“Everyone in the county knew about the bridge work,” Tedi said, a wave of hopelessness washing over her. She fought it off. “A lot of people knew, anyway.” Tedi reached for the ring. “I should have never given this ring to Nola. For her it was the Hapless sapphire, just as it was forits first owner.”

“Old sorrows,” Sister said.

“It was made for the Empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Elizabeth. She had dark hair, was a wonderful, wonderful horsewoman like Nola. Loved foxhunting. Rented hunting boxes in England and flew her fences. But hers was not a happy life. Her son committed suicide, and she was assassinated. I often wonder, if she’d lived, would Franz Josef have signed the Declaration of War of 1918?”

As a foxhunter, Sister had always found the empress’s story irresistible. “As I recall, the Bancrofts bought this right after the First World War,” she said. “Nolan couldn’t have worried too much about the history of the stone if he gave it to his wife. She lived a long, happy life.” Nolan was Edward’s grandfather, who had lived through the terrifying action at Belleau Wood during the Great War.

Tedi held the ring up to the light; bits of rainbow struck off the diamonds, little dots splashing the walls. She slipped the ring on the middle finger of her left hand.“This was on my baby’s finger when she died. Now I’m wearing it. Every time I look at it I’ll remember her laughter. I’ll remember how much I loved her. I’ve not spent one day that I haven’t missed her, felt that ache. It’s kind of like my tongue going back to the site of a missing tooth. I swore I would find out what happened to her but never did. Now—this. Sister, I will find Nola’s killer even if it kills me.”

“That makes two of us.”

CHAPTER 7

“Jesus Christ, Doug, watch what you’re doing.” Shaker rubbed the back of his elbow where a heavy oak board had smacked him from behind.

“Sorry,” the handsome young man apologized. “It’s this heat. I can’t think today.”

Sticky, clammy humidity added to the discomfort this Monday, July twenty-second.

Shaker put down his hammer, tilting his head to direct Doug’s attention across the road.

Doug followed Shaker’s eyes. Wearing a torn tank top and equally torn jeans, an old red bandanna tied around her forehead, Sister toiled on the other side of the dirt farm road building a new coop, a jump resembling a chicken coop, with Walter Lungrun’s help.

The old hunt club truck, Peter Wheeler’s 1974 Chevy with the 454 engine, was parked off to the side of the road.

“Can’t slow down,” Doug pretended to whisper, “she’ll cuss us.”

“I heard that.”

“I thought you were working, not eavesdropping,” Shaker said.

“Women can do two or three things at the same time. Unlike men,” Sister said, laughing.

“Doc, are you going to let her get away with that kind of abuse?” Shaker looked to the blond doctor for help.

“I suggest you call the state employment commission and register a complaint of sexism,” Walter solemnly intoned.

“Oh, do make it a complaint of sexual assault. At my age, I’ll be a heroine.”

They all laughed at that and decided spontaneously to take a break and sit under a huge chestnut tree.

This particular tree was much studied by Virginia Tech students motoring up from Blacksburg, as it was one of the few original chestnuts to survive the horrible blight that almost entirely killed this most beautiful of species. The disease had started in New York State in 1904, spread west to Michigan, north to the border, and south to Alabama. Within a few decades most every native American chestnut, many over one hundred feet high, was dead.

This tree had survived because it was alone.

They were working at Foxglove Farm, a tidy farm north of Sister’s farm. You could see the long, flat top of Hangman’s Ridge to the south from high spots on Foxglove.

The staff and dedicated members of a hunt club worked harder during the summers than during hunt season. Puppies were whelped. Young entry had to be taught their lessons. Foxes would be carefully watched, wormer and other medicines put out for them to ensure their health. Seasoned hounds might need a few reminders of their tasks. The hunt horses would be turned out for vacation time. Young horses, called green, would be trained to see if they could become staff horses, a harder task than being a field hunter. Neighboring landowners would be visited, always a pleasure. Old jumps would be repaired or replaced, and new jumps would be built in new territory to be opened if the club was lucky enough to secure new territory.

Foxglove had been part of the Jefferson Hunt territory from the late nineteenth century, when a group of farmer friends had merged their small packs of hounds together into one communal pack. Many of these men had been veterans of the War Between the States. Their sons and grandsons were destined to be shipped overseas to the horrors of the First World War.

Out of this raggle-taggle mess of hounds, a systematic breeding program emerged under the visionary second master, Major H. H. Joubert, called Double H by all. He blended his tough local Bywaters hounds from northern Virginia with a little Skinker blood from Orange County Hunt. Then he folded in a lacing of English blood. Whether by guess or by God, Double H’s system worked. He was a smart master, he bred for the territory, and he studied other packs of hounds, ever eager to improve his pack and his methods.

Hound men had been bragging about their animals since the early seventeenth century and a few very wealthy colonists imported hounds from England, products of a line that could be traced to a single source.

In 1670, the Duke of Buckingham fell from favor at Charles II’s court. In his disgrace, he retired to North Riding in Yorkshire and established a pack of hounds solely devoted to hunt fox. If the vigorous, robust duke offended His Majesty the King, he pleased subsequent generations of foxhunters, all of whom owe him a debt. Until Buckingham’s time, packs hunted stag, otter, and hare somewhat indiscriminately.

The Duke of Buckingham, a fashionable man as most Buckinghams were and still are, prompted his contemporaries Lord Monmouth and Lord Grey to specialize in foxhunting down in Sussex. These gentlemen began to study their quarry and to consider, intelligently, the best type of hound to hunt such a wily foe.

Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax, born in 1693, drew inspiration from this older generation of Englishmen. He lived a long life, dying in 1781, and he kept good records concerning his hounds. Lord Fairfax also had the wit to repair to Virginia in 1748, where he had been granted an estate of 5 million acres—the Northern Neck. The entire Northern Neck between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers was his backyard. And he brought his passion for foxhounds with him. Young George Washington hunted with Fairfax, his cousin Col. William Fairfax, and the Colonel’s son, George William Fairfax. When George William Fairfax married the enchanting Sally Fairfax, young Washington fell in love with her, an unrequited love. But foxhunting repaid his passion by giving Washington a lifetime of pleasure.

Then, as now, foxhunting imparted a certain social cachet, and men eager to rise found a good pack of hounds was one way to do so. Ripe arguments continually erupted about who had the best hounds. Some argued for the French Bleu hound; others said the large Kerry beagle was best for the New World. The black and tan had many admirers, and any white hound was always claimed to go back to the medieval kennels of King Louis of France.

Out of this mix came an American hound much like the American human: tough, quick, filled with remarkable drive to succeed. The American hound was of lighter weight than his English and French brothers. His clear voice could be heard in the virgin forests covering Virginia and Maryland even if he couldn’t be seen, and this remains a prime virtue of the American hound.

The Revolutionary War slowed down the remarkable progress that had been made up to that point. After 1781, foxhunters returned to their passion—a passion undimmed even at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

When Sister took over as the fifth master in the hunt’s history she was grateful that she inherited a great pack and she didn’t have to start from scratch. She knew her hound history. She simply had to be reasonably intelligent so as not to screw up Double H’s original plan.

The home fixtures—Roughneck Farm, Foxglove, Mill Ruins, After All, and Beveridge Hundred—nourished the diverse creatures who had been living there since before the white man settled in Virginia in 1607. Decent soil, a wealth of underground and overground water, and the protection of the Blue Ridge Mountains a few miles west conspired to make this a kind of heaven on earth.

Not even a hot, muggy, buggy day like today diminished the glory of the place. Each and every resident believed that she or he lived in God’s country. To make it even sweeter, most of them liked one another. And those few who qualified as flaming assholes were appreciated for providing ripe comment and amusement for the others.

As Sister’s mother used to say, “Nobody’s worthless. They can always serve as a horrible example.”

One such specimen was just puttering down the road.

Alice Ramy stopped her Isuzu truck with a lurch. The four workers sitting under the chestnut tree looked up, composing their features so as not to look discomfited at the lady’s arrival.

Alice’s unhappiness seeped through every pore, marring her pleasant features.

“Sister, if you or your hounds come near my chickens I am taking out a warrant!”

Alice delivered this message at least twice a year. It was usually the pretext for something else.

“Now Alice, my hounds have never so much as glanced at your fine chickens.”

“No, but that damned dog of Peter Wheeler’s killed three of them. Dog should have followed Peter to the grave.”

Rooster, Peter’s harrier, had chased Aunt Netty, an especially fast and sneaky fox, into and then out of Alice’s chicken pen. But poor Rooster—the pen door slammed shut and he was stuck with the corpses of two Australorp chickens. Netty, a small fox, dragged off the other one. No easy task since the beautiful black chickens were quite plump.

“Hello, Mrs. Ramy.” Shaker smiled.

“Mrs. Ramy.” Doug touched his head with his forefinger in greeting.

Doug, skin color that of coffee with cream, was experimenting with long, thick sideburns.

“Alice, good to see you,” Walter lied convincingly.

“Hmmph.” Alice’s reply sounded like a balloon deflating.

“You know, Alice, we’re building coops here. We could build one for you.” Sister’s eyes brightened.

“Ha! Don’t you dare set one foot on my land.”

“How about a hoof?” Sister felt mischievous.

“Never.”

“Well, Alice, I know you’ve lost more chickens and I know Peter’s harrier hasn’t been off my farm. Now just what or who do you think is dispatching your chickens?”

Alice generally ignored what she didn’t wish to hear, and she did so now. Unbeknownst to her, Aunt Netty was sauntering through the hayfield at that very moment. When she heard Alice’s strident voice she stopped to listen.

Aunt Netty thought Alice a pluperfect fool because she shut her chicken yard gate but she never poured concrete along the edges of the pen. Digging under was a cinch. Netty considered the Ramy residence one big supermarket.

Strolling down the fence line from the opposite direction was Comet, a gray fox, Inky’s brother. He, too, stopped when he caught a whiff of the nearby humans.

“You’ll say anything to hunt!” Alice curled her lip, heavily impacted with hot pink lipstick.

“Of course, Alice, I’m a master.” Sister laughed, but good-naturedly.

She’d known Alice most of her life and while she had never really liked the woman, she’d grown accustomed to her.

Alice put her hands on her rounded hips.“I know what you all are thinking. I know what everyone is thinking. You think Guy killed Nola. He didn’t.”

“I don’t think that for a minute, Alice. Sit down here on the grass with us and have a Co-Cola.” Sister reached into the cooler and handed an ice-cold can to Alice, who accepted the Coke but not the seat.

Aunt Netty’s ears swept forward when she heard the pop of the can’s pull tab. She liked sweets, considering Coke a sweet. She wondered if she could open the cooler when the humans returned to their coops. Might even be doughnuts or brownies in that cooler. Wouldn’t hurt to look.

“Well, a lot of people did.” Alice’s voice softened. “But you didn’t. I remember, you didn’t.”

A slight breeze rolled down over the mountainside, causing the leaves to sway. The old chestnut tree was so huge, Alice was sheltered in its shade even standing yards away from the workers.

Walter spoke in his most soothing baritone, which could be hypnotic.“Mrs. Ramy, finding Nola has shocked everyone. With the advancements of forensic science, we might learn more now.”

“What good does it do?” Alice betrayed more anguish than she wanted.

“I don’t know.” Sister stood up and put her arm around Alice’s shoulder, patting her. “Maybe it will bring peace to Tedi and Edward.”

“Well, it won’t bring peace to me. No one will believe me unless Guy is found. People think he’s in”—she shook her head—“Berlin or Quito or”—her tone darkened— “in this county I hear everything. And I know plenty of people think Paul covered up for Guy. If Guy had killed her, Paul would have brought him in. His own son.” Alice finally decided to sit down.

“I believe he would,” Sister replied.

“Has Ben Sidell visited you?” Walter asked.

“Yes. Impertinent. Ohio.” She uttered “Ohio” as if it were a communicable disease.

“Good farms there.” Sister wished she could think of something to say to make Alice feel better and to go away.

“If they’re so damned good, then let those people go back to them. He accused me of covering for my son. Oh, not in so many words, but that’s what he meant. I should have knocked him down.” She drank her Coke in five big gulps.

Comet crouched down, slinking through the hay, and nearly bumped right into Aunt Netty.

He giggled.

“Hush.”Aunt Netty glared at him.

Comet did stop giggling, but he still had a silly grin on his face. Reds thought they were superior to grays. Comet, a gray, couldn’t have cared less but he did respect Aunt Netty. Her speed and tricks were legendary among foxes.

“He’s been calling on all of us, even people who were children back in ’81,” Sister said.

“I don’t know any more today than I did that September. I never saw Guy again after that Saturday. Never.” She breathed in deeply. “Why can’t the past stay in the past?”

“Never does,” Sister simply said.

“You lost a son and a husband. We’re both all alone.” Alice blurted this out. “Nobody cares what happens to old women.”

“Now, now, Mrs. Ramy, people do care. They do.” Walter was gallant. “And raking up the past, well, it sets teeth on edge. Don’t worry about what people say. They love to talk, don’t they? And the sillier they are, the more they gossip. And furthermore, Mrs. Ramy, you don’t look your age. Don’t call yourself an old lady.” His voice conveyed sympathy and warmth.

“Damn right!” Alice stood up, brushed off the back of her khaki Bermuda shorts. “You know, Jane Arnold, I could never for the life of me imagine why you’d want to be master of the hunt. Too much work and too much danger. But now I know why you do it.” She walked away a step. “You’re surrounded by such handsome men.” With that she climbed over the fence and drove off.

Shaker ran his hand through his auburn curls.“Her elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top.”

“I’d better call on her in a day or two,” Sister said.

“Why?” Doug asked, feeling that Sister had been kind enough.

“Because she’s alone.”

“She brought it on herself, poor thing,” Walter quietly said, and without rancor.

“We all pretty much make the bed we lie in. Or is it lay in?” Sister held up her hand. “Isn’t grammar a bitch? Anyway, she is a neighbor. This is awful for her, too. And who knows, maybe I’ll get us the right to pass through her farm.”

“Spoken like a true master,” Walter said, laughing as he headed back to the coop.

The two coops faced each other from opposite sides of the dirt farm road. During a hunt it was great fun to jump one, canter across the road, and sail over the other. However, some horses would jump out of the hayfield, their hooves would touch the dirt road, and they’d suck back. If the rider didn’t squeeze hard with his or her legs, the horse might refuse the next coop, which meant horses behind would stack up with dolorous results.

Some would fuss because they were ready to jump and the nervous humans messed up their rhythm. Others would think to themselves that this must be quite a scary situation if Old Paint up front had chickened out.

Sister, who also being field master led the field, could never resist slowing a bit to look over her shoulder to see who made it and who didn’t. The results would provoke a stream of laughter back in the tack room or in the kennel as she, Shaker, and Doug finished up the chores of the day. Not that the master herself hadn’t supplied laughter and comment over the years. That’s part of the appeal of foxhunting. Sooner or later, you’ll make a spectacle of yourself.

As the humans returned to their task, Aunt Netty and Comet crept over to the cooler. Netty used her nose to pop the lid right up. Both foxes peered into the ice-filled container.

“No brownies,”Aunt Netty mourned.

“Pack of Nabs.”Comet spied the little pack of orange crackers beloved by Southerners and loathed by everyone else.

“What’s wrong with people?”Aunt Netty moaned.“This should be full of sandwiches, brownies, chocolatechip cookies!”

“Lazy. They’re getting lazy as sin,”the young gray concurred with her negative assessment.

“I don’t know what this world is coming to. Why, there used to be a time, young one, when those two-legged idiots would charge off on the hunt, we’d sendsomeone to keep them busy, while the rest of us wouldraid their trailers. Hamper baskets full of ham biscuits,corn bread, cinnamon buns, fried chicken.”

“Aren’t things still like that when they have tailgates?” Comet inquired.

“Sometimes. But, you see, women work now. In the old days more stayed home, so the food was better.That’s my analysis of the situation. Actually it’s my husband’s, who as you know is inclined to theorize.”She eyed the pack of Nabs.“I’m not eating those things.”

“I will.”Comet reached in and flipped out the cellophane-wrapped crackers.

Walter, nailing the last board in place, a top board over the peak of the coop, looked up. He whispered,“Tallyho.”

Sister stopped and turned to look.“Aha. Aunt Netty. That gray with her is out of last year’s litter on my farm.”

“They see us.”Comet picked up the crackers.

“Let them look all they want. Can’t very well chase us.I’m telling you, a praying mantis can run faster than a human being. My God they are slow. Makes you wonderhow they survived.”She slapped the cracker pack out of Comet’s mouth.“Open that pack and eat it. Give thema show.”

“Okay.”Comet tore open the crackers and gobbled them down.

“Aunt Netty, I know that’s you.” Sister shook her finger at the red fox.

“So?”Aunt Netty laughed.

“I’m going to chase you this fall,” Sister promised.

Shaker and Doug stopped work to watch the two foxes.

“Reds and grays don’t much fraternize, means the game’s good. Plenty for them to eat, so they might as well be friends,” Shaker noted.

“You can chase me until the Second Coming. You willnever catch me, Sister Jane,”Netty taunted.

Comet swallowed the last of the Nabs.“Jeez, thesethings are salty. And I can’t open a can.”

“Me neither. Put an ice cube in your mouth and let itmelt. That will help. Now you see what I mean—a cheapold pack of Nabs when it could have been fried chicken.Just terrible. Standards have fallen.”

Comet did as he was told.

“I’m going closer. Give them a thrill.”

Comet couldn’t talk because he had an ice cube in his mouth, but he watched as Aunt Netty sashayed to within twenty yards of Sister and Walter. She stared at them for a moment, then leapt straight up in the air as though catching a bird. When she landed she rolled over and scooted back into the hay. Comet, too, disappeared into the hay and headed back to his den above Broad Creek, which traversed many farms on its way to spilling into the Rockfish River.

“She’s a pistol,” Walter said, slapping his leg.

“Fastest damned fox. Not the prettiest. That pathetic brush of hers looks more like a bottlebrush,” Sister said, laughing, too.

“When I first started hunting with you, I didn’t really believe you could identify the foxes. But you can. They’re all different from one another.”

“And she’s sassy. She’s not happy unless she has people flying off horses like pinballs spinning out of a pinball machine. She likes to hear them hit the ground.” Sister giggled.

Shaker was picking up the leftover wood bits.“Well, we recognize them as individuals and they recognize us. She came right on up to you to give you a show.” He tossed the wood fragments in a five-gallon kelly green plastic bucket.

“That she did.” Sister picked up the wood bits at her coop. “The gray looked healthy.”

“Lot of people don’t like running a gray,” Doug said.

“I love getting on a gray. Love to start my puppies on a gray,” Sister enthusiastically said, her voice rising a little. “They’ll give you a good run—but in circles or figure eights. More contained. For the young ones, that’s a help.” She thought for a moment. “You know, cubbingis harder than formal hunting in the sense that you’ve got to give the youngsters, hounds, and foxes positive experiences. The leaves are on trees and shrubs. It’s difficult to see. More to handle, I guess is what I’m trying to say. Kind of like the preseason in football.”

“Still can’t believe she came up here like that.”

“Alice?” Doug spoke.

“No, Aunt Netty.” Walter took the extra planks, unplaned oak, heavy, and slipped them on the back of the pickup.

“A lot more pleasant than Alice.” Shaker dropped his hammer into his tool belt. “Alice never was strong on social skills and they’re really rusty now.”

A loud moo and the appearance of a large Holstein heifer, her calf in tow, captured their attention.

“That damned cow.” Shaker took off his ball cap, wiping his brow with his forearm.

“I’ll walk them back.” Sister reached in the bed of the pickup, retrieving a small bucket of grain kept there for just such events.

“I’ll walk with you,” Walter eagerly volunteered.

“Best offer I’ve had in years.” She smiled.

“When you two are done flirting, tell me, boss, how do you propose to get home?”

“You’re going to pick us up at Cindy’s barn in a half hour.”

Shaker nodded in agreement as he and Doug climbed into the old Chevy pickup.

“Come on, Clytemnestra. Come on, Orestes,” Sister called, shaking the bucket enticingly.

Clytemnestra followed and kept pushing Sister for the bucket. Once on the woody path, Walter broke off a thin branch and used it as a switch. Orestes stuck with his fat mother. Both were terribly spoiled and mischievous.

Out of the woods, they passed the lovely schoolhouse that Foxglove Farm’s owner, Cindy Chandler, had restored.

“Can’t keep this cow in. She opens gates, crashes fences. Bovine wanderlust.” Sister slapped Clytemnestra’s wet nose as the cow nudged her again.

“Picture of health.”

“Raymond and I used to run cattle. Very cyclical business. Don’t know if I’ll ever go back to it.”

They walked in silence for a while, punctuated only by Clytemnestra’s mooish comments, the loud swish of her tail.

“Do you think Guy killed Nola?” Walter asked. He’d been in his teens at the time and remembered little of it.

“No.”

“It’s strange. On the one hand I’m glad Nola was found and on the other I’m not.” Walter took the bucket from Sister, handing her the switch.

“I think we all feel that way. I try not to trouble myself with things out of my control,” Sister said. “I can’t do anything about the past, but maybe I’ll be able to do something to help.”

“Count me in.” Walter growled at Clytemnestra, who balked at going back through her pasture gate.

“I do count on you, Walter. I do.”

CHAPTER 8

Roger’s Corner, a white frame convenience store, commanded the crossroads of Soldier Road, the road heading west from town, and White Cat Road, an old wagon road heading north and south. Far in the distance, a thin turquoise line rimmed the mountains. A first-quarter moon accompanied by a red star hovered above the last bright strip of twilight.

Roger, now in his middle forties, ate too much of his own pizza heated in a revolving infrared glass case. On the shelves, Snickers, Cheez-Its, Little Debbie cakes, and Entenmann’s chocolate-covered doughnuts vied with bags of charcoal, ammunition, hunting knives. In the coolers, handmade sandwiches—including Roger’s famous olive cream cheese on whole wheat—enticed folks to stop. If they hadn’t tanked up in town, they pretty much had to stop at Roger’s, because gas was hard to find in these parts. The next pump was over the Blue Ridge Mountains in Waynesboro.

The outside floodlights hummed in the night air accompanied by the flutter of saturniid moths and the buzz of many bugs, a few zapped by the lights themselves. A long sign, ROGER’S CORNER, white with well-proportioned red block letters, ran almost the entire length of the roof. Roger might never achieve his fifteen minutes of Warholian fame in the world at large, but his sign announced his presence emphatically in these parts.

Shaker Crown, his Orioles baseball cap pulled up off his forehead, worn out from the day’s work and not much of a cook, leaned over the counter.

Henry Xavier, owner of the largest insurance company in town, had stopped by on his way home as had Ralph Assumptio, owner of the John Deere tractor dealership. Both men had farms on this west side of the county that were part of Jefferson Hunt territory and both men hunted with Sister. Most members didn’t say they hunted with the Jefferson Hunt. They’d simply say, “I hunt with Sister Jane.”

By so doing, they found out instantly if the person to whom they were talking knew anything about local society. If they were met with a blank they would graciously add,“the Jefferson Hunt.” It was one of those little pride things like the way members of Green Springs Valley Hounds outside of Baltimore never discussed how big their jumps were. They shrugged and would say about their horse, “Oh, he got over nicely.” Green Springs Valley Hounds, founded in 1892, boasted some stiff fences. It was not a hunt for the fainthearted, but such details were never explained, simply announced.

All groups cherish their ceremonies of togetherness, rituals that prove them set apart and special.

“Where’s your chew?” Roger was ringing up Shaker’s sandwich.

“Um …”

“Here it is. You left it on top of the Twinkies.” Henry Xavier, known only as Xavier, picked up the neat round tin of Copenhagen Black and handed it to Shaker.

“Ah, thanks.” Shaker tapped his head. “Vapor lock.”

Ralph joined them, banging on the counter the gallon of milk his wife had told him to pick up.“Day wasn’t fit for man nor beast.”

“We built new coops over there at Foxglove. And it was hateful.”

“Thank God.” Ralph lovingly stared at the round can of chew in Shaker’s hand. “Damn, I wish I hadn’t promised Frances I’d give that up.”

“Guess who showed up to bitch out Sister?” Shaker asked as he pulled soggy bills out of his pocket, gently peeling a fiver off the wad.

“Crawford,” Xavier offered.

“On a mission,” Roger simply said.

“Mission impossible.” Xavier smiled as the others laughed.

“That jumped-up jackass really believes we’ll elect him joint-master.” Ralph put his milk back in the cooler because he sensed this might be a ripening chat.

“Hey, if he dumps enough money into the club, who knows?” Xavier’s heavy brows, black with some gray, shot upward. “Money papers over many sins.”

“Sins I can handle. But he lacks the imagination to be a sinner. He’s just a Yankee jackass,” Ralph said as he walked back from the cooler.

“Aren’t they all?” Shaker winked.

“I was born in Connecticut.” Xavier smiled. He was a genial man becoming portly. In this heat he favored seersucker shirts, which somehow made him look fatter, not thinner.

“Oh, Xavier, you were raised here. Don’t turn P.C. on us.” Roger slapped at him over the counter.

“Well, do you guys want to know who rolled down the road or not?”

“Shoot,” Xavier said.

“Alice Ramy.”

“What did she want?” Ralph couldn’t stand it any longer; he grabbed a tin of Skoal menthol chew, pulled the string around it, and with delight placed a pinch between his lip and his gum. He closed his teeth in contentment.

“Oh, the usual. Got up in Janie’s face and said we couldn’t hunt there and she’d loose the hounds of hell on us”—Shaker enjoyed his little reference to hounds— “and that Peter’s harrier better stay out of her chicken coop, wait, make that her golden chicken coop.”

“And Sister smiled through it all,” Ralph said.

“And that’s why Crawford Howard can’t ever be a joint-master. His ego would be in the way. He’d fire back at the old battle-ax or buy up all the land around her and choke her out. Son of a bitch.” Xavier knew a good deal about Crawford’s local business dealings since he insured manyof them. He hated Crawford, but business was business.

“True.” Roger clasped his hands. “But you guys need a joint-master so Sister can train him to her ways. She can’t live forever.”

“She might come close,” Shaker said with a laugh. “She was throwing around oak boards today like a thirty-year-old. Tough as nails, the old girl is.”

“Don’t make ’em like that anymore.” Xavier admired Sister. After all, he’d hunted in the field with her when he was a boy. She’d been in her forties then.

“I kind of felt sorry for Alice,” Shaker continued. “Guess Ben Sidell got her knickers in a knot. She felt he accused her of covering up for Guy, and you know, the whole ugly mess is flaring up all over again. Sister was real good about it. Said she’d call on her. I couldn’t take it that far, but I do feel kind of bad for Alice.”

“Alice doesn’t make it any easier, and I should know,” Ralph said, and shook his head. He was Alice’s nephew; his mother was Alice’s sister. “Everything has to be her way. If you take a can of beer out of her refrigerator, she opens the door behind you to make sure you didn’t disturb the other cans lined up inside. You can’t smoke a whole cigarette but what she whisks the ashtray and dumps the ashes. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she’ll run you crazy. And now she’s out of control. At least when Paul was alive he’d make fun of her and snap her out of it.”

“Women dry up,” Xavier simply stated.

“And men get sentimental,” Roger, a sharp observer of folks, said. He reached for a brew. “Anyone? On me?”

“Thanks.” Xavier accepted a cold can of Bud while Roger reached for an import, Sol.

“People dry up if they aren’t tended to. I’m kind of worried about myself,” Shaker joked.

“I don’t want to hear, ‘There are no women out there.’ ” Xavier punched him. “Clean up, get out, and start looking.”

“Did Ben call on you?” Ralph asked Roger.

“Sure.”

“Me too.” Xavier sighed.

“Hasn’t gotten to me yet,” Shaker added. “I was hired on as a whipper-in that year. What a year.”

“Give Ben credit. He’s going over the file and questioning every name he finds in there. I talked to him.” Roger liked the aftertaste the crisp Sol beer left in his mouth. He liked Mexican beers. “Guy stopped by here that last night. Bought something. I don’t remember what. Dad was behind the counter. I was helping to unload the Coca-Cola truck.”

“You had muscles then,” Xavier teased him.

“Still do. They’re protected by this layer of fat.”

“You’ll never have that problem,” Xavier, also a bit heftier than in his running days, commented to Shaker.

“Most huntsmen stay pretty lean, takes a lean hound for a long race and a lean huntsman, too. Although I know one or two fat huntsmen. Pity the horse.”

“Ever notice how a lot of fat people are really light on their feet?” Xavier thought about a copy ofMen’sHealthmagazine he’d seen on the rack at Barnes& Noble. A fellow in swim trunks was on the cover, his abs rippled like the proverbial six-packs. Xavier made a mental note to buy the magazine. He was standing around looking at his buddies, and except for Shaker they looked like overweight middle-aged men.

“I don’t want to see it,” Ralph blurted out.

“See what?” Xavier asked.

“The grave. The grave over at After All.”

“Ralph, what made you think of that?” Shaker noticed how white Ralph’s face had turned.

“First day of cubbing. We’ll probably leave from the kennels, and if the fox heads east we could wind up over there, and I don’t want to see that grave. Every time I think about Nola I get sick. I mean it.”

A silence followed.

Roger broke it.“Me too.”

“Ditto,” Xavier sighed.

“I guess when the sheriff is done with the bones, he’ll give them back to the Bancrofts,” Shaker said.

“And that’s another thing—all this bullshit about forensic science,” Ralph exploded. “Nola’s been in that dirt tomb for twenty-one years. They aren’t going to find squat. You know why you hear so much about pathology and this miracle and that miracle? Because any law enforcement officer can tell you, murder is damned easy to pull off. So if you create this propaganda about how you can be convicted from one strand of hair, people believe it. I suppose it deters the weak-willed. I don’t know much, but I can tell you those lab coat dudes aren’t going to find much.”

“They know her head was crushed,” Xavier said. “Ben told me.”

“Oh, come on. If we’d dug her up we’d know that, too,” Ralph practically spit out. “Do you think he cares? The killer? People kill every day and never give it a second thought. They don’t have a conscience. It would eat you or me up alive. But whoever killed Nola”—Ralph pointed his forefinger for emphasis—“walked away and thought he was right, or rid of her, or whatever he thought, but he didn’t give a damn.”

“I don’t believe that,” Shaker argued.

“Me neither. Killing a beautiful woman like that would haunt him for the rest of his days,” Roger agreed with Shaker.

Xavier tapped his lips with his forefinger, a little stream of air escaping, then he said,“Maybe. Maybe not. If it was Guy, we will never know. Apologies to you, Ralph. I know he was your cousin, but let’s just look at this from every angle. If it was Guy, it’s done and he’s gone. Maybe he’ll return someday in old age, confess, repent. I don’t know. Stranger things havehappened, but if it wasn’t Guy, I don’t think the man who smashed in the side of her head cares that he killed her. He just cares that he doesn’t get caught.”

CHAPTER 9

The vents whooshed out cooling air. As Sister plumped up pillows behind her so she could read, she was grateful she’d installed central air-conditioning ten years ago and she wondered why she’d been so stubborn about having it before.

Raleigh slept stretched out on the floor and Rooster was curled up in a nearby doggie bed. Doggie beds liberally dotted the house. Golliwog thought she’d read with Sister, so she sat next to her as Sister opened a recently published history of the Hapsburg Empire. She didn’t expect to find a mention of the sapphire, but she used the index to find the times Elizabeth’s name appeared. As this was a scholarly work the tone was dry. She picked up the notebook she always kept beside her bed on the nightstand and wrote down to find a good biography of the last empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The phone rang at nine-fifteen, which meant it was an old friend. No one else dared call after nine in the evening since Sister retired early and rose before sunup.

It was Shaker, and he told her about Ralph’s squeamishness about seeing Nola’s grave while cubbing.

“Actually, Shaker, it probably isn’t a good idea to go over there. I’m glad you called my attention to it. How was Ralph?”

“Seemed a little jumpy.”

“He loved Nola.”

“I remember that was how I figured out Ron Haslip was gay—he didn’t have a crush on Nola.” Shaker laughed, mentioning a hunt club member they all liked who, after years of pretending otherwise, finally came out.

“Guess you’re right. A man would have to have been homosexual or dead not to have responded to her.”

“Xavier warned me that Crawford’s up to his tricks.”

“I’ll just bet he is.” She pressed her lips together. “Hey, it’s supposed to be bloody hot again tomorrow. Let’s not walk out hounds with horses. Tell Doug. We can start up day after tomorrow—six, six-thirty in the morning. Let’s try to beat the heat. Anyway, I could use tomorrow to catch up on my errands.”

Doug, as professional whipper-in, was responsible for the staff horses, so he needed to know the schedule change.

“One more day won’t hurt them.” Shaker meant the horses. “Do you want to walk out on foot in the evening?”

“Tell you what, let’s just give everyone a rest. I’ll call Betty. We could all use a day off.”

She hung up, then dialed Betty, who was madly clicking away on her channel surfer, furious that she and Bobby paid money for a satellite dish with 128 channels and there wasn’t one damn thing worth watching. Betty, too, was glad for a day off.

Sister then picked up her book again, but the pages soon blurred. She hadn’t realized how tired she was from working in the blistering heat all day. She turned out the light as Golly artfully arranged herself around Sister’s head.

“Golly, will you settle down.”

“Then stop hogging the pillow,”the cat complained, but she did stop wiggling.

The memory of Aunt Netty cutting a shine made Sister giggle. Then she thought about Alice’s distress and a pang of guilt shot through her for disliking Alice. She remembered that Guy’s nickname was Hotspur. She thought of Henry Hotspur, Sir Henry Percy, the bold supporter of Henry IV of England.

She opened her eyes.“Damn.”

“Now what’s the matter?”Golly shifted.

“Golly, will you stop crabbing?”Raleigh rolled over onto his other side.

Rooster, snoring, missed the exchange.

“When something pops into my head like that, it’s leading somewhere.” She sat upright, which irritated Golly. “Am I trolling the depths of my subconscious? Do I even have one? I ask you animals, is there a subconscious or is it a human invention? And if I have one, you have one. We aren’t that far apart.”

“Glad you recognize that.”Golly moved to the other pillow. She knew when Sister’s brain clicked on she’d be up and down half the night writing notes in her book.

“Gang, I don’t know about a subconscious, but I do know about memories. You either remember something or you don’t. Repressed memories are something lawyers use to get criminals off scot-free. But there is imagination. Indeed. And Henry Hotspur is riding right at me, right out of Shakespeare’s imagination and my own. I think he’s got a message. I hope I can figure it out.” She clicked on the light, making a few notes.

“Why do humans read?”Raleigh asked.

“To cure insomnia,”Golly replied.

CHAPTER 10

As Sister settled in for the night, Athena started hunting.Bubo virginianus,great horned owl, her scientific and English name, cared little what she was called.

She was the queen of the night, and all other creatures need listen to her. If anyone challenged her supremacy she’d fly away as though in a huff, her wingspan seeming to cast a shadow even at night. Athena would then turn and silently strike the offender from behind; her balled-up talons could crack a skull. She feared no one. All feared her.

At two feet tall and nearly five pounds in weight, she could vanish in the blink of one of her golden eyes. How such a large creature could do this mystified other creatures. Like the goddess to whom she was sacred, Athena could appear and disappear at will.

Her cry, easily identified, was a deep, musical hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo. Sometimes she would vary the sequence and send out three low hoos. But her cry was distinctive and bore little resemblance to the barred owl’s or the long-eared owl’s, other hoo singers. Humans close to nature could tell the difference. Country people knew her song and her value to them. Athena rid them of raiders, rodents. Her worth was beyond rubies.

Other owls admired her and many wished they had her song. The short-eared owl emitted a little squeak. The barn owl, thick in these parts and also a friend to farmers, hissed or snapped her bill.

The only owl not intimidated by Athena’s sonorous voice was the screech owl, who would sing to her heart’s content and the misery of all around her. Only ten inches high, this reddish or gray little thing could crank out a volume that was most impressive. And she hardly limited herself to a bloodcurdling screech that scared the urine right out of city folks visiting the country. No, she could purr, trill, pitch high, then run down the scale to a lower register. When feeling marvelous—“mahvalous,” as she might say—she even provided tremolo.

Her sturdy ego meant that she, too, had no fear. In fact, a sly delight filled her when“visitors,” meaning city folk, shivered at her concert. She’d then fly close to them, putting on a display of fierceness that usually made one of these two-legged twits cry, “Rabies.”

As if she would ever get rabies. Puh-lease!

Already full from hunting, the screech owl sat in the old orchard by Roughneck Farm and hollered to her heart’s content. The hounds couldn’t shut her up.

Shaker and Doug, secure in air-conditioning in their separate quarters, could hear an occasional high note.

Bitsy, as she was known, rather hoped she could entice the hounds to sing with her. Sometimes one would lift his head and start a note, one or two others would follow or honor, the correct term, and within a minute the entire kennel would join her in ribald chorus.

They were really saying,“Bitsy, shut up, for God’ssake.”But the little brown owl thought she was the diva and they were her chorus in this great opera of life.

“Bitsy, do shut up.”

Bitsy complied this time as this request came from Athena, who had landed on a branch opposite her. The screech owl knew in her heart that Athena was jealous— after all, the other owls never challenged her in song contests—but Athena was Athena, so Bitsy shut up.“Hello. I didn’t hear you.”

“Of course not, you idiot. You make such a racket.” Athena fluffed out her feathers, appearing even more grand.

“It’s such a beautiful night. And I have dined on delicious mice this evening. Full of corn they were, raidingthe barns. So sweet and crunchy.”

“Me too,”Athena replied. She smoothed out her feathers.“Come with me.”

Bitsy, thrilled to be asked to accompany the queen herself, spread her strong little wings and lifted off, flying just to Athena’s right.

Both birds noiselessly soared through the sky, passing through the fragrant orchard where the apples hung gathering sweetness for a fall harvest. Beneath them a large pasture bisected by the dusty farm road appeared, the grasses swaying in the light breeze. They climbed upward, heading north over copses hugging the creek beds below. Within ten minutes of leisurely flying they passed over the fearsome tree on Hangman’s Ridge, then descended to the low, narrow fertile valley that ran east to west. A two-lane paved road, Soldier Road, ran through this valley. Sister owned the land south of Soldier Road. Foxglove Farm, the land north of Soldier Road, had been in the Chandler family since 1803.

The animals knew where the human boundaries were, but they looked at the land in geological terms. The long, thin valley, cultivated fields, on which Soldier Road was built, was the pinkie finger of a tiny glacier splinter that had veered off from the main push so long ago, humans weren’t even around here to write about it.

Parked along the side of the road, facing west, not two miles from Roger’s Corner, Ralph Assumptio sat in his Toyota Land Cruiser. The motor was cut off.

Athena and Bitsy landed in a poplar by Broad Creek. Steep and fed by runoff from the Blue Ridge Mountains, the creek crossed the road below Hangman’s Ridge at a diagonal. During hard, persistent rains, it often jumped its bed, spreading muddy waters over the low areas and in the worst of rains rising to drown the roadbed.

Ralph, his head in his hands, elbows on the steering wheel, was sobbing his heart out.

“It’s never good when a man cries,”Bitsy murmured.

“Mmm.”Athena’s gorgeous eyes opened wider, movement in the creek bed making her alert.

Inky, having eaten an early supper, was on her way to play at the kennels. Her den was by the walnut at cornfield’s edge, a mile from the kennel if one could fly. Inky liked chatting with Diana and she liked sitting under the apple trees, too.

She noticed the Land Cruiser. SUVs reminded her of large hercules beetles. Curiosity aroused, she walked closer, then stopped when she saw the two owls in the poplar. She softly padded over to them instead. She could hear Ralph’s sobs.

“Does he need help?”the glossy young fox asked.

“Not that we can supply,”Athena said.

“Should we wait until he leaves, just to make sure?” Inky, a kindhearted animal, wondered.

“Let’s examine the situation.”Athena puffed out her chest.“A man, alone, is pulled off to the side of the road,a road not heavily traveled except on the way to workand when they come home. He’s not drunk and he’s notsick. I can always smell sickness.”This was uttered with great authority.

“Wife left him,”Bitsy said.

“Could be, but he’s reputed to have a good marriage,” Athena said.

“And it’s not money. Ralph’s smart that way,”Inky said.

Indeed, Ralph was smart that way. He had graduated from Hamilton College in New York, then come back to Virginia to the university’s Darden School of Business. He took a job at the local John Deere dealership and wound up buying it in his mid-thirties. Now in his forties, he owned dealerships throughout Virginia. He was rumored to have a silent partner, but no one knew who that might be. Some people thought the silent partner concept was jealousy, because Ralph came up on his own. A small percentage of people can’t stand to be shown up by anyone. Ralph was a handy target for the stupid or lazy. He let them talk while he kept working— and making money.

“Maybe he’s received some kind of bad news, a friendis ill or someone that he loved died.”Bitsy turned her head nearly upside down thinking about it.

“Nola,”Athena said.

“Ah, all the men his age loved her, didn’t they? That’swhat I hear.”And Bitsy heard quite a lot sitting in trees or on a crossbeam in a hayloft.

Ralph coughed, snuffled loudly, coughed again, and wiped his eyes. He spit out the open car window. He wiped his eyes again, then reached into the glove compartment, pulling out a white aspirin bottle. He popped three into his mouth, swallowing them without water. He turned on the engine and drove off.

“Been almost a week since she was found. Why is hecrying now?”Inky thought it strange.

“Maybe it’s just hitting him,”Bitsy opined.

“No,”Athena crisply replied.“It’s worse than that.”

They sat there for another fifteen minutes chatting, then the two owls flew toward the Chandler barn.

Inky crossed the road, trotted up Hangman’s Ridge, and walked along the flat ridge toward the huge old tree, well over three hundred years old.

A whisper drew her eyes to the tree.

Inky thought she saw a ghost, a man in his mid-thirties dressed in fine clothes although his neck had been unnaturally stretched and his tongue hung out.

“ ‘For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.’ Romans, chapter twelve, verse nine.” His anguish was palpable.

Inky knew spirits existed. Just like Hamlet told Horatio, there were more things in heaven and earth than we knew, but that didn’t mean she wanted any part of them.

She raced back toward her den, deciding not to visit Diana tonight. A whippoorwill disturbed by her passing let out its characteristic call.

She dashed into her den, snuggling in the fresh hay she’d lined there.

“How sad humans are,”she thought to herself.“Theyhurt others and they hurt themselves and their miseryflows down through the centuries. Maybe there reallyis original sin for them.”She closed her eyes and prayed to God, who, for her, looked like a beautiful gray fox.“Thank you, dear God, thank you for making me a fox.”

CHAPTER 11

“I’ve always loved this spot, but now …” Sybil’s voice trailed off. Tears rolled down her cheek.

“Honey, try not to think about it.” Ken Fawkes thought that idea comforting, but it was impossible for either of them not to stare at the newly packed earth and not think about where Nola had lain for two decades and one year.

“When we were little girls, we’d sit up there, where Peppermint is buried now, and we’d look back over the creek and the meadows. I loved this time of year because it was cooler here and the cornflowers bloomed. Nola’s eyes were cornflower blue. She said I had iris eyes. Most times they’re pale blue, so that was nice of her.” Sybil sobbed harder.

Ken wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her head.“You have lavender eyes. The most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”

“Ken, what do we do now?”

He couldn’t answer right off. “Well, we keep on keeping on.”

“Did you notice Mother wearing the sapphire?”

“Yes.”

“I asked her why. She said she’d made a promise. The sapphire would remind her to keep it.”

A horsefly buzzed near Ken’s head, then moved away as he slapped at it, releasing his grasp on his wife. “Bad luck, that ring.”

Sybil smoothed her glossy hair.“I wonder. Maybe we just invest objects with our emotions. They’re neutral.”

“Well, don’t you wear that goddamned ring.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t.” She noticed color coming up on his cheeks.

Ken stuck his boot toe in the turf, scuffing at it like a petulant child.“Talked to this new sheriff guy who hardly inspires confidence. I’m starting to think if his brains were BBs they’d be rolling around a six-lane highway.”

“Paul Ramy must have had one BB, then,” Sybil ruefully replied.

“A good ol’ boy in the good old days. Shit.” Ken grimaced. “Things are supposed to be different. I don’t know if this Sidell is able to investigate roadside kill, much less this. The questions he asked me were pointless.”

“Twenty-one years. I guess from his standpoint it’s not pressing. No one else is in danger. If they were, more blood would have been spilled back in 1981.”

“You’re right.” Ken slapped at another fly. “Biting. Must be rain coming up.” He smiled. “Tuesday’s a good day for rain. Better now than the weekend.”

Domino and Merry Andrew trotted up from the other side of the hill. After nuzzlings and pats on the neck, they left the two humans.

“Ken, I don’t think we should let Mom or Dad collect Nola. What’s left of her.” A dark note of bitterness and loss crept into Sybil’s well-modulated voice. “They’ve been through enough. You and I should go get her. I didn’t ask Sidell when they’d release her remains to us.”

“Shouldn’t be much longer. They photographed the grave, her position in the earth. They’ll measure the bones. Scrape whatever they can scrape and send it to the lab. Guess it will tell them something. I’m not a scientist.”

“She was healthy as a horse.” Sybil scanned the western sky; a few gray cumulus tops were peeping over the mountains. “The horseflies watched the weather report.”

“They always bite before rain.” Ken checked his expensive watch, tapping the crystal, a habit. “Still time to call the sheriff today. I’ll see if I can make arrangements to get her.”

“I think you’d better call the funeral director first.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think family members can pick up corpses. I think the law is, a funeral director or employee has to do it. I’m pretty sure. You can’t just carry her out in a bag.”

“No.” Ken’s voice became a bit indignant. “I was going to get a proper coffin and put her in that. There’s nothing but bones. It’s not, well, you know …”

Sybil acknowledged with a nod that she did know. One doesn’t grow up in the country without a good sense of the disintegration of dead things. She knew, intellectually, that buzzards, worms, and beetles had their work to do. Without them the whole earth would be piled miles high with corpses. But why couldn’t the Lord have made it a tidier process? The stench alone was horrible. To think of her sister’s body decaying in the earth … she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. She struggled to remember her sister’s staccato laugh, to snatch at something lovely.

The backfire of an engine drew their attention to the farm lane leading to the covered bridge. Jimmy Chirios coasted over the small rise, the farm truck emitting small puffs of dark smoke.

“That truck burns too much oil.” Sybil was glad to switch to another subject.

“Your father refuses to buy a new one.”

Edward, despite his wealth, was no more sensible about personal expenditures than the rest of humanity. He would squander money on some things, yet he was tight as a tick about others.

The dark green Dodge rattled across the bridge.

Jimmy pulled up to the couple.“Storm’s coming. Heard on the radio. Coming fast. Flash floods.”

The minute they hopped into the cab the wind shifted gears. The willows by the creek swayed like geishas.

“You did a good job filling in that … the grave,” Ken awkwardly thanked the young man.

“Oh.” Jimmy couldn’t muster a smile even though he was being complimented. The thought of that whole mess upset him deeply. “Why’d they make me wait a week? Nothing else there.”

“Can’t be too careful.” Ken drummed on the edge of the door, his elbow on the armrest. “Cops, I mean.”

“Yeah.” Jimmy drove them back to the big house. No sooner had Sybil and Ken reached the front door than the first big raindrops splattered across the immaculate lawn.

Sybil called out,“Mom.”

“In the den.”

They walked into the richly paneled den, a glowing cherry wood, its patina enhanced by age. Moroccan leather-bound volumes—dark blue, red with gold, green, black, saddle-leather tan—filled the shelves. Photographs, some among the very first made in the nineteenth century, also dotted the shelves, each sepia-toned image encased in either its original filigree frame or a plain, sterling silver one. There was so much silver at After All, it could have filled one of the legendary Nevada mines.

Tedi was seated on the chintz sofa, an album spread out before her on the coffee table. Images of Nola in her Christmas dress, her senior year at Madeira; images of Nola in ratcatcher, reins in hand, Peppermint, young and handsome, by her side; images of Nola at twenty-two, accepting her diploma from Mount Holyoke, where she distinguished herself on the show-jumping team but not in the classroom; images of Nola as maid of honor at Sybil’s wedding, and even a photograph of Nola at Opening Hunt in 1980, Guy Ramy in the background staring at her with a big grin on his face. Maybe he did love her. Tedi smiled back from those photographs, too. She was in her twenties, then thirties, forties, fifties, sixties. She remained thin, well groomed, and youngish thanks to excellent plastic surgery.

“Oh, Momma, don’t.”

Tedi, with steely resolve, said,“I know I missed something. The pictures help. Sit down, both of you.”

“I’m all sweaty. Would either of you girls like a drink?” Ken, fearful of a possible emotional outburst, inquired.

“Sweet iced tea and my martini.”

Sybil, next to her mother, squeezed her hand.“I remember when I used to think you were so uncool drinking martinis. Now they’re all the rage again.”

“Cycles. By the time you’re my age, you’ve seen them all.”

Within minutes, Ken and Edward joined them, each man handing his wife a drink.

Sybil gratefully tasted her daiquiri, the perfect summer drink, as the rain ramped up to a true downpour.“Mercy. It’s really coming down.”

Edward, tall and patrician with an aquiline nose, seemed a forbidding presence, yet he was a kind man, a good man. He stared out the window, then back at his remaining daughter. He smiled, taking a sip of his scotch on the rocks.“Feast or famine. It’s either drought or a gully washer.”

“True,” Ken agreed from where he still stood.

“Honey, will you sit down. It’s not like there’s never been a sweaty man in this room before,” Sybil ordered.

He perched on the edge of one of the oversized chairs.“Dad, how about eighteen holes tomorrow? David Wheeler and Pat Butterfield need us to clean out their wallets.”

A flicker lit in Edward’s eyes. “The money in David’s wallet has mold on it.”

“You’re right. That money needs to see the light of day. Capitalism depends on the circulation of cash. We can take them.” Ken’s voice was a bit too hearty. “Greens will be slow, too.”

“We should. Will you call them?”

“Already did,” Ken replied, happy that his father-in-law was evidencing some interest in the outside world.

Privilege and the Fawkes name were not accustomed to each other. Fawkes was the surname of many poor whites in these parts. A few over the centuries had risen, but the name clung to them like a digger bee, wouldn’t let go.

Ken’s people, hardworking, all attended the Baptist church. The Bancrofts had never and would never set foot in a Baptist church.

Ken had worked his way through North Carolina State, made the football team as a walk-on. He proved so ferocious as outside linebacker that he won a scholarship for his junior and senior years. He majored in business, making respectable grades. He didn’t know what he would do exactly. He just wanted to find some type of work he liked and make a decent living. But then he met Sybil and his compass shifted. Making do wouldn’t be good enough.

Jealous folks said,“That Ken Fawkes landed in the honey pot.”

And he did, no doubt about it. But he was reasonably intelligent. Edward created a niche for him through the Bancroft real estate business in a small local company. Ken started learning the business. He studied the roads, bought near crossroads, and developed subdivisions. Of course, some people said the hardest way to make money was to marry it. Ken never said that.

He exuded an air of masculinity. Women found him very attractive indeed, even though he couldn’t be described as classically handsome.

Sybil bent closer to the photo album.“Amazing.”

“What, dear?” Tedi thought her tea could use another hit of sugar, although her martini was perfect. “Ken, be a darling and put another spoonful in there for me. I’m having my late-afternoon sinking spell.”

“Of course.” Ken stood up, took her glass, and left the room for a moment.

“Twentyfive years ago this picture, and Sister looks the same. Her hair’s silver now, that’s all.”

“The outdoor life,” Tedi said.

“And you look fabulous yourself, my love.” Edward, unlike many men, learned very early in life that you can never compliment a woman—especially your wife—too many times.

“Thank you, dear.” Tedi smiled. “But I feel old. I feel, well, let’s just say I comprehend vulnerability.”

Ken returned with her tea.“Here’s your sugar buzz.” He looked outside. “Black as the devil’s eyebrows.”

“Nothing like a summer thunderstorm to make you glad you’re inside,” Edward said, savoring the distinctive deep sweetness of the scotch.

“I’ve been thinking.” Tedi leaned back on the sofa. “A ceremony is in order, a commemoration and celebration of Nola’s life. We never had one—”

Ken quickly said,“We always hoped.”

“Yes.” Tedi never liked being interrupted. “That’s over now. A service is in order. I’ve spoken to Reverend Thigpin and I’ve considered where Nola should have her final resting place.”

Edward cleared his throat, waiting. Would Tedi pick the Prescott plot on the Northern Neck near Warsaw, the seat of the first Prescotts, or would she choose the Bancroft private cemetery, here on After All?

“And what have you decided, dear?”

“Let’s make a special place, let’s build low stone walls around it, plant white lilacs there, too. Love. It must be a place filled with love. Nola loved Peppermint. More than any man, she loved Pepper. I like to think they’re hunting now with Ikey Bell carrying the horn.” Ikey Bell was a famous huntsman of the early twentieth century.

No one knew what to say.

Finally Sybil broached the subject.“Mom, it’s awfully close to where she was found.”

“I know. But she had no peace there. She couldn’t. She’ll have peace with Peppermint. He loved her in life, he’ll be with her in death. It’s fitting, you see.”

Edward stared out at the rain. His hand touched his Adam’s apple. “Whatever you want. You know better about these things.”

“And let’s do all the things that Nola loved. Yes. Let’s plant huge blue hydrangeas, and the dwarf kind, too. I say fiddle to snotty gardeners and snotty gardens. Isn’t that a nasty word?” She brightened as though a burden had been lifted from her. “Red poppies next to purple iris and mounds of something snowy white. Let’s use all the colors Nola loved.”

“Cornflower blue.” Sybil had tears in her eyes.

“Yes. And you know what she loved more than anything in the world?” The family hung expectantly on Tedi’s next word. “Foxhunting!”

CHAPTER 12

The creamy coral of Crawford’s Paul Stuart polo shirt reflected warmth on his face. Crawford liked the best. Paul Stuart was an exclusive men’s shop on Madison Avenue. If he wasn’t shopping there or at Sulka up on Park, he thought nothing of picking up the phone and ordering a dozen shirts from Turnbull and Asser inLondon, shoes and boots from Lobb, luxurious cashmeres and silks from a dealer in Turin. To his credit, he always looked splendid.

The morning, hazy, promised a muggy day. This July 28, the anniversary of the day Elizabeth’s bold men dispersed the Spanish Armada in 1588 and Arthur Wellesley knocked the stuffing out of the French at Talavera in 1809. A student of history and business, he remembered odd dates.

He and Marty had attended early service at Saint Luke’s and now he puttered happily in the tack room of his sumptuous stable with its fittings of polished brass, PavSafe floors that cost a fortune, impeccable doors and stall fronts painted deep navy blue, all made by Lucas Equine in Cythiana, Kentucky. His stable colors were navy and red. Manyin these parts painted their vehicles in stable colors, or painted a small symbol or name in those colors on the driver’s door. Crawford’s red Mercedes had BEASLEY HALL in one-inch script, navy blue, painted on the driver’s door, plus the car was pin-striped in navy blue.

His cell phone, perched on custom-made tack trunks also in his colors, jingled.

“Crawford here.”

“Haslip,” came the terse, mocking reply.

Crawford missed that Ronnie Haslip was making fun of him.“How are you?”

“Fine. Two things.” Ronnie knew that with Crawford you got the best result by being brief and direct, most emphatically not the Virginia Way. “The hunt club is sponsoring a class at the Fall Classic Horse Show, Thanksgiving weekend this year. We’d like a perpetual trophy— silver, I think. It will cost quite a bit.”

“How much?”

“Seven thousand.”

“My God, Ronnie, how big is this thing?”

“Well, it’s huge. Sterling silver. The kind of stuff they used to do in the 1800s.”

“Why is Sister being so grand? Not like her, really.”

“It’s a secret. She wants us to do it in honor of Nola. The Nola Bancroft Perpetual Trophy, Ladies Over Fences.”

“Oh.” Crawford thought a moment. “Put me down for three thousand five hundred. That ought to get the ball rolling.”

“That is exceedingly generous, Crawford. Not only will Sister be grateful, the Bancrofts will be thrilled, once they know, of course.”

“Awful thing.”

“Yes. Oh, I just heard that Tedi intends to bury her August tenth at the farm. The club will be attending en masse.”

“Naturally.” He found this news depressing even though he never knew Nola. Funerals were not Crawford’s preferred social activity, but one must play one’s part. And he was not an unfeeling man, simply an overreaching one. “Ronnie, you grew up with Nola. Was she what everyone says?”

“And more.” Ronnie laughed. “There was a capriciousness about Nola that was divine, really, unless you were in love with her. Then she’d run you crazy or break your heart.”

“Was she aware of what she was doing to people?”

“I always thought she was like those Indian warriors collecting scalps. She’d keep four, five, who knows how many, on a string.”

“Sleeping with them?”

“Well …” Ronnie didn’t want to cast aspersions on any lady, but how could he put this? “Let’s just say that Nola was a high-spirited animal with prodigious energy.”

“For Christ’s sake, Ronnie!”

“She’d have lunch with one fellow, go to a party with another, and home with a third. She was heartless.” Ronnie laughed.

“You weren’t in love with her?” Crawford couldn’t resist this little dig.

“I wasn’t rich enough for Nola,” came the even reply, as Ronnie refused to rise to the bait.

“Neither was Guy Ramy, from what I hear.”

“But he was as beautiful as Nola was. Jet-black curly hair, ice blue eyes, shoulders as wide as Atlas himself. Fearless on a horse. Not the best rider, but fearless.”

“That’s how he got the nickname Hotspur?”

“Yes and no. I’m assuming you know the life of Sir Henry Percy.”

“Of course I do, Ronnie.” A note of indignation darkened Crawford’s voice. “I graduated Phi Beta Kappa.”

Bold, impetuous, strong, Henry Percy was the eldest son of the 1st Earl of Northumberland. Henry was born on May 20, 1364. He was taught to fight like all noble-born boys, displaying a true gift for it. In his early twenties he harried the Scots, who gave him the name Hotspur for his vigorous border patrols.

When Richard II began to show clear signs that he wasn’t up to the demands of being king, unrest grew throughout England. Many giggled that Richard would make a better queen than king. Hotspur and his father helped put Henry Bolingbroke on the throne in 1399, who then called himself Henry IV.

Hotspur’s daring brought him fame and admiration that perhaps incited a certain jealousy in the king. But Henry IV was no fool. He rewarded Hotspur with lands and offices in northern England and Wales, two places where a strong military leader was necessary.

The Percys demolished the Scots at Humbleton Hill in Durham on September 14, 1402. Henry IV, who was vainly trying to suppress the Welsh, paled by comparison. Henry’s ego clouded his usually calculating judgment. He wouldn’t allow Hotspur to ransom the Scottish nobles he had captured, a common policy that would have fattened Hotspur’s pocketbook as well as the crown’s.

To add insult to injury, Henry wouldn’t pay the bill for Hotspur’s border warfare. Not only was the king jealous, he was cheap.

Furious, Hotspur and his father raised a rebellion to depose the king in 1403. Henry, more clever than the Percys realized, intercepted Hotspur near Shrewsbury before he could join up with his father. Though outnumbered, Hotspur fought like the lion he was but in the end he was beaten, hanged, drawn, and quartered. His violent end came on July 21, at the age of thirty-nine.

“There was always a sense,” Ronnie’s bass voice intoned, “that Guy would draw his sword against the wrong man.”

“Sword as in weapon or sword as in cock?”

“Both.”

“So he ran around on Nola?”

“Oh no. No, he was totally in love with her. But while she might have been in love with him, that didn’t prevent her from enjoying other men’s attentions.”

“But people say she would have married him.” Crawford began to understand how complex this was and how reluctant people were to tell what they knew. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that. Except the dogs were now wide awake.

“Some people. I think that opinion reveals more about the romantic nature of the speaker than it does about Nola.”

“Exactly what do you mean, Ronnie?” Crawford lacked the patience for linguistic subtlety as practiced in Virginia.

“Unearthly beauty, child of Midas, marries country boy. People love that sort of thing. She wouldn’t have married him. She saw what Sybil endured when she married Ken Fawkes.”

“He’s done quite well. With the old man’s help, of course.”

“Yes,” Ronnie inhaled, “but he’ll never be one of them. He was set up, then propped up by Edward, so everyone wonders about Ken’s abilities. And Sybil bears the Fawkes name, not Bancroft.”

“So?”

“Crawford. This is Virginia. No one forgets a goddamned thing. No way in green hell would Nola be Nola Ramy.”

“But Ken’s no slouch. In time, Guy may have proved he possessed business acumen.”

“At the time that Nola was flaming around with Guy, Ken was struggling not just to master the real estate business but to master the nuances of the life into which he had married. Scott Fitzgerald said the rich are different. And I know that you know they are. Old money, I mean. Really old money.”

“Not like my money.” Crawford’s voice had an edge.

“I didn’t say that.” Ronnie didn’t have to say it.

“You weren’t in love with Nola but you did like her?” Crawford changed the subject.

A beat passed, then Ronnie honestly replied,“She was a vacuous, spoiled child who had no feelings for anyone but herself. But she was also fun, enormous fun.”

Crawford knew that in this assessment Ronnie betrayed his own emotions. Perhaps he was once in love with Guy Ramy or one of the other men Nola had so easily vanquished.“Then maybe it’s better that she always be young and beautiful in everyone’s mind.”

“She would have been an impossible middle-aged bitch. Women like Nola can’t age. It kills them.”

“In her case, someone else did the job.”

Ronnie didn’t respond; he waited a moment and then asked, “I also thought you might want to know given the discussion we had about hunt staff last week that David Headdon left Shenandoah Valley Hounds last night. Left them flat.”

“Hmm.” Crawford smiled. The huntsman David Headdon was known both for his brilliance and his temper. “Does Sister know?”

“Sister knows everything.”

Crawford chuckled.“Almost, but she doesn’t know who killed Nola Bancroft.”

Ronnie respected Sister, even though many people might have interpreted his coziness with Crawford as a betrayal of her. He truly believed that Crawford needed to be joint-master of the Jefferson Hunt. Let him pour money into the club until a true hunting master could be found to succeed Sister should she step down or step up to heaven. At this point in the political development of looking for a joint-master, Ronnie kept his support of Crawford quiet.

“You know something, Crawford, if anyone can find out what really happened now that Nola has reappeared, it will be Jane Arnold.”

“Ronnie, you’ve been most helpful.”

“So have you. Thank you for the donation.”

“If you didn’t like Nola, why are you collecting for the trophy?”

Sometimes Ronnie couldn’t believe that Crawford didn’t get it. He’d lived here over a decade. “Because Sister gave me the job and because it’s the proper thing to do.”

Crawford snapped shut his tiny cell phone, hopped in his car, and drove west toward Roughneck Farm.

CHAPTER 13

“I’m going. You’d better put a check by my name,” Dragon, his handsome head held high, yelled over the other dog hounds.

“Pipe down,”Dasher, his brother, growled.

Asa, Archie’s relative, same breeding but one year later, sat in silent splendor. If young entry were going to foxpen, then he’d be there to steady them.

Shaker, clipboard in hand, wrote down the names Sister called out.

Sister would gladly have given Shaker Sundays off, but Shaker, like most hound men, wanted to be with his hounds. Sister was the same way. Covered with mud, red clay caked onto their work boots, both humans breathed in the heady odor of hound, shavings, and a hint of Penn-o-Pine disinfectant.

Doug had taken the day off, as he’d promised the new girl he was dating they’d canoe down the James River.

“If we have Asa, Cora, Delia, and Nellie for made hounds, then we can just take young ones. Those four will keep the freshman class in line.” She rubbed her chin, unaware that she had mud on her hands.

“Supposed to rain again this afternoon.” Shaker slipped the pen behind his ear.

“We’re not sugar, we won’t melt.”

“Moisture will be good for scent.” Shaker smiled.

“Last time we went to foxpen it was dust over there, but that’s good for the youngsters. Every day they hunt isn’t going to be a good scenting day, and I was proud of them. They pushed and pushed until they finally picked up a line. Took them forty-five minutes. That shows a lot of patience for youngsters.”

The sound of a deep motor made all heads turn.

Raleigh left Sister’s side, stood on his hind legs, and peered out the kennel window.“Crawford Howard.”

“If only I were out of here, I’d pee on his leg,”Dragon promised as the others laughed.

Shaker walked over, his head just above Raleigh’s. It would have made a funny photograph. “Your favorite.”

She laughed.“I have so many.”

“This is your true favorite, Crawford.” Shaker slapped the clipboard against his side.

She didn’t reply, but her lip curled slightly upward.

“He’s going to the house, Mom,”Raleigh announced.

Sister figured as much. She called over her shoulder as she opened the kennel door,“Five-thirty tomorrow.”

“Yes’um.”

She was looking forward to the morrow. Foxpen delighted her. A foxpen is a fenced-in area, often hundreds of acres. Foxes can’t get out and deer can’t get in. Man-made dens and natural dens cover the land. The purpose of a foxpen is to introduce young entry to fox scent, a lighter scent than deer.

A good hound wants to hunt, and on a miserable scenting day, deer scent becomes enticing. No foxhunter wants his or her hounds chasing deer, particularly since there are now so many of them. Introducing a youngster to fox scent in controlled conditions helped to guide them on the paths of righteousness.

Hounds can’t harm the foxes at a foxpen since there are so many dens in which to escape, so everyone can rest easy, but most especially the foxes. Hounds hunt by scent not sight, and by the time they were cast, the foxes, being nocturnal hunters, were usually in their dens. If not, the foxes soon found one, the trail of scent leading to their secure den. All in all it was a perfect setup.

The foxes enjoyed good food, regular wormings, and regular exercise. The hounds enjoyed the run followed by praise and cookies.

Sister laughed to herself as she and Raleigh trudged up to the house. Crawford so desperately wanted to be joint-master, but she couldn’t imagine him rousing himself to go to foxpen before dawn.

Then again, too many cooks spoil the broth. Crawford, if she could find no alternative, could swan about and be one of those fellows who is better at running his mouth than running the fox. Still, he could write checks better than anyone else. That’s something.

“Crawford,” she called out as he headed for the back porch door of the simple Federal house painted a soft yellow with white trim and Charleston green shutters.

“Good morning.” He turned, smiling.

“Have you had your breakfast?”

“I have.”

She opened the door.“Another cup of coffee and a bran muffin?”

“One of your bran muffins?” He wiped his feet on the rug just inside the porch door.

“Yes. I’m in my domestic goddess phase.”

“All this time I thought you were the goddess of the hunt.” He’d picked up a few Virginia ways, even though most folks didn’t notice since they were too busy criticizing him. It never hurt to flatter a woman, a truth southern men imbibe with their mother’s milk. Crawford still had to think about it, but he was practicing, which was a great step forward.

He sat down at the kitchen table while Sister made a pot of Jamaican coffee, the aroma filling the room. The bran muffins, under a mesh cover, were placed before him along with a plate, utensils, and country butter.

“Ever eat bran muffins with clotted cream? Sounds awful, but it’s a step away from heaven.” She poured his coffee into a mug bearing the symbol of the Jefferson Hunt, a fox mask.

“Too rich for me. I shouldn’t even use this butter.”

“You have lost weight. Look good.” She sat next to him at the large old farmhouse table. “What can I do for you?”

“Mmm, this is wonderful.” He took a sip of coffee. “You and I both like good coffee, too. Well, I guess you’ve heard about Shenandoah Valley Hounds. I suspect it was one of those ‘You’re fired.’ ‘I quit!’ things.” Crawford was fishing. He could have asked Sister directly. “The huntsman leaving, I mean.”

“If a master is discharging a hunt servant or a hunt servant is leaving, notice must be given by January first. After that it’s considered bad form. You leave either party hanging,” Sister evenly replied.

“Shenandoah would have endured him for another year?”

“Of course. David is actually a good huntsman. He’s an erratic person. That’s the problem.”

“Booze.”

“With huntsmen it generally is booze or women. One often leads to the other.” She laughed.

He drained his cup and she refilled it. Both drank their coffee black, which Sister called“barefoot.”

“I’ll get right to the point. Shaker will be our huntsman for many more years, barring injury. Am I correct?”

“You are.”

“Doug’s a young man, talented. He could carry the horn for Shenandoah.” He held up his hand, even though she’d made no sign of protest. “Now give me a minute. I’ve thought about this. Five years with Shenandoah and he’d be ready to move up to a fancier, richer hunt or come back here should Shaker retire or become injured.

“Now I know that being left without your first whipper-in this late in the day might cause a ripple of discontent, but it can’t be as bad as being without a huntsman.”

“You’re right about that.” She listened intently, knowing other cards were stuffed up his sleeve.

“Do you think Shenandoah would hire him?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“Do you think he would go?”

“This has been his home for years, but it would be a good opportunity, a step up. I don’t think he would leave without my blessing.”

“And would you give him that blessing?”

“I would, as would Shaker.”

“I would be happy to pay the salary of the next professional whipper-in.”

Her eyebrows raised.“Crawford, that’s very generous. You must be in a giving mood today, because Ronnie Haslip told me what you just pledged to the Nola Bancroft Trophy.”

“Ah.” He wondered if Ronnie was calling to make him, Crawford, look good or if Ronnie had called to make Ronnie look good, boasting about what he’d managed to pry out of him. He wasn’t sure about Ronnie. No matter. He was sure about himself. “You know I like the Bancrofts. And whileI never knew their younger daughter, I’m happy to do this. Mostly, I enjoy supporting the club.”

“And we are all grateful to you.” Her smile was genuine.

When she smiled like that, Crawford could see her as a young woman. Odd.

“I’m sure there’s a pool of people who might qualify for the job,” Crawford said.

“I’d ask the Masters of Foxhounds Association director, Lieutenant Colonel Dennis Foster, if he knows anyone who is suitable. There are always people out there who might have the skills you need for the job, but the chemistry is wrong where they are.” She wondered if he had a candidate whowould then be his mole. She respected Crawford’s intelligence but wished he didn’t continue to think a hunt club could be run as a business. It was something quite different, halfway between a church and a charity perhaps. She was never sure.

“I’d be happy to help in the search.”

She breathed a sigh of inner relief. He wasn’t going to foist someone on her. “Crawford, would you still consider making the salary contribution if for this year I utilized an honorary whipper-in? I think Shaker and I can handle the kennels.”

“Yes, but I thought the first whipper-in was responsible for keeping the hunt horses fit.”

“True. But the hunt club could use that money. Desperately. Our truck is on its last legs. It’s twelve years old and has 180,000 miles on it. These one-ton Duallys are so expensive now. Forty thousand dollars.”

“Who will take care of the horses?”

“If I had part-time help, Jennifer Franklin after school, perhaps, I think we could do it. You don’t have to give me an answer now. Maybe this feels like a bait and switch.”

“No, I held out the bait. The workload is overwhelming. Can you really do it with one less pair of hands?”

“Like I said, I think we can.”

“What would you do with the cottage?”

“Rent it out as a hunting box or convert it into an office. We don’t have an office. Papers are stuffed in Shaker’s house and mine. I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to think this through.”

But the fact that she had ready answers for the whipper-in position told Crawford she’d already considered encouraging Doug to apply for the huntsman’s job.

“Let me buy the truck. GM is making the best right now.”

A pause followed; Raleigh put his head on Sister’s knee. Her hand rested on his shiny black head.

Golliwog, sitting in the kitchen window over the sink, remarked,“Rain coming. Be here in fifteen minutes. It’son top of the mountain.”As no one responded, she raised the decibel level.“Isn’t anyone listening to me?”

“Golly, hush,” Sister chided her.

“It must be raindrops, so many raindrops.”The cat warbled the song she’d heard on the golden oldie radio station.

Sister didn’t listen to oldies, but Shaker did.

As Golly’s singing filled the room, Sister stood up and walked over to the window.

“You’re just awful.” Then she glanced out the window. “Crawford, rain’s sliding down the mountain. Are your car windows closed?”

“They are. This has been a wet summer.”

“Compared to last one. I love the weather. Let me amend that. I love observing the weather. For instance, you’d think when raindrops are hanging from a branch, you know, hanging not dropping, that scent would be fabulous. My experience is that you can’t find a damn thing.”

Not schooled in the refinements of hunting or country life, Crawford was nonetheless interested.“Doesn’t compute, does it?”

“No, but there it is.” She sat back down as the cat preened in the window. “I am overwhelmed by your willingness to share your resources. And I’m not unmindful that you want to be my joint-master.” She smiled. “I would hate for you to give us all this money and be disappointed down the road.”

“If you told people you wanted me, I’d be joint-master,” he bluntly replied, but in good humor.

“Don’t feel that I don’t value you. I do. But Crawford, you are not a hunting man. You’re still new to it.”

“Ten years.” This came out in a puff of wind.

“For the first two or three years, you, like every other beginner, were just trying to hang on. It takes a long time to learn about foxhunting, and the truth is most people are out there to run and jump. Real hunting is an art, and I don’t pretend to be Rembrandt, but I know it takes study, then more study, and the recognition that these animals are often far wiser than we are. I guess I’m saying it takes humility.”

Crawford could not believe that any animal was superior to the human animal, but he did know her assessment of his early years was accurate.“I’m willing to learn.”

“And I respect that. You must also realize, surely you know, that if you are elected joint-master there will be one whopping fight.”

He looked up from his cup.“I know. I’ve stepped on toes.”

“Let me throw this out to you. I don’t expect you to be a hunting master, Crawford, but you can certainly learn what it takes to run a club. Money is a big part of it, but the medley of breeding, of seeing to the health of your foxes, of landowner relations, of relations with the Board of Governors, of opening new territory and maintaining the old, it’s a great deal of work. One must treat people with a light touch.”

“I’m not good at that,” he honestly admitted.

“And you know nothing about hounds.”

“That’s true, too. One hound looks pretty much like the next to me. But I have ideas. I have resources. And if I do say so, Marty would be invaluable to our social members.” He meant Marty would throw a lot of parties, a real plus.

“Promise me this: that this hunt season you will pay attention. Try to keep your ego in check. It will make a difference.”

“So, you are considering me?”

“I am. And what about Bobby Franklin? He punched you and bodily threw you out of his shop last year. He’s our president.”

A club president ran the various committees. It, too, was a big job. The master was responsible for hunt staff, hounds, territory, and actual hunting in a subscription club—which the Jefferson Hunt was.

“Unusual circumstances.” Crawford cleared his throat.

“Can you bring yourself to apologize?”

“Yes.” This was hard.

“You have no children. People are blind about their own children, and what you told him about Cody may have been one hundred percent on the money. But few fathers could hear it.”

Cody, the Franklins’ oldest daughter, was currently in jail. The beginning of this dismal reality was her infatuation with drugs.

“I understand.” He paused. “Do you think you were blind to your son’s faults?”

“I’d like to think I wasn’t, but I’m sure I was. He was a beguiling boy.” She smiled.

“Speaking of children, it’s funny. I’ve asked people about Nola Bancroft and gotten some wildly different replies. Some men thought she was Venus, others thought she was a bitch.”

“I expect there were more of the former than the latter.”

“True.”

“We’re like chemicals. We react with one another differently.”

“What did you think of her?”

“Oh, she was great fun. As a woman, I saw her differently than men did, obviously. She had a great sense of humor, loved practical jokes, had energy to burn. She had lots of girl friends, which is important. You need friends of your own sex. But I thought she was heading for a fall.”

“Why?”

She folded her hands.“She was getting a little too wild. Enjoying her hold over men a little too much.”

“And Tedi didn’t see it?”

“No. Well, she was beginning to sense it, but as I said, parents are blind.”

“Here it comes.”The rain hit the windows and Golly moved off the sill.

“Back on track. Bobby Franklin will be our president for as long as he can stand the job. He’s good at it and we’re lucky to have him. If you want to be a joint-master, you must work with Bobby. And Betty, too.” Sister returned to what Crawford needed to do.

“You’ve never had a joint-master. Think you could do it?”

“If you or whoever stays out of the kennel, I can. I won’t have anyone messing with my hounds or my breeding program.”

“Well, what happens if you drop dead?”

“Crawford, I do make allowances for the fact that you are from Indiana, but for God’s sake could you be a little less direct? Of course, I will drop dead one day, as you so bluntly put it. Who knows when?”

“Well, who will continue your breeding program?”

“Shaker.”

“What if he’s gone?”

“I’ve written it down. But you do point out a vulnerability. If you are chosen as a joint-master, I will need to be training someone to take my place when that time comes. A true hunting master.”

“I understand that.”

“Good.”

They talked a bit more, then Crawford rose.

She accompanied him to the back door.“Would you like an umbrella?”

“No. I’ll make a dash for it.” He pecked her on the cheek. He’d grown fond of her even though she frustrated him. “Are you worried about this Nola thing?”

“The truth?” She took a deep breath. “I’m worried sick.”

CHAPTER 14

At six-thirty on the morning of Saturday, September 7, a light easterly wind carried a fresh tang in the air, a hint of changes to come.

A hardy band of twelve gathered at the kennels in these last moments before sunup. Sunrise was 6:38 on this day. The first day of cubbing excited the hard-core foxhunters, the ones who would follow hounds on horseback or on foot, in cars, in rickshaws if there was no other way. For this happy group, hunting with hounds was a passion right up there with the ecstasies of Saint Teresa of Avila.

Those hounds waiting in the draw run, a special pen to hold the hounds hunting that day, leapt up and down in excitement. Those not drawn wailed in abject misery.

Not to go out on the first day of cubbing was no disgrace to a hound. Only a foolish huntsman or master would stack the pack with young entry. Each day of cubbing, like each day of preseason football, different young hounds would be mixed with different mature hounds. By the end of cubbing, huntsman and master would have a solid sense of which youngsters had learned their lessons and which older hounds had become a step too slow.

The older, trusted hounds understood this training process, but that didn’t mean they wanted to stay behind even if they knew perfectly well they’d be out next time. No good hound wants to sit in the kennel.

Atop her light bay with the blaze, Sybil Fawkes’s quiet demeanor belied her inner nervousness. She had accepted the position of honorary first whipper-in, the honorary meaning no remuneration, with excitement and fear. She could ride hard, but she wasn’t sure she could identify all the hounds even though she’d come to the kennel almost every day since the end of July. Doug had spent a lot of time with her before leaving to carry the horn at Shenandoah, but she was still nervous.

August had drained Sybil. It hadn’t just been the heat. The ceremony at Nola’s grave, although restrained, even beautiful, had hammered home her loss.

She found herself snapping at her boys. Ken, sensitive to her moods, kept the kids busy.

Sybil’s restorative time proved to be with the hounds. Working with the animals, with Sister and Shaker, gave her some peace. Their focus on the pack was so intense, it crowded out her sadness over Nola.

When she worried that she wouldn’t make a good whipper-in, Sister encouraged her, telling her she’d make mistakes but she’d learn from them.

“I’ve been hunting since I was six and I still make mistakes. Always will,” Sister had said.

Betty Franklin, who had been second whipper-in for over a decade, could have filled the first’s boots but she had to work for a living. There might be times when she couldn’t show up. Also, Betty had limited resources and one daughter to get through college. She couldn’t afford the horses. She owned two fabulous horses, Outlaw and Magellan, and Bobby owned a horse. They couldn’t afford any more horses, which depressed Betty.

But she was anything but depressed this morning. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach just as the real things were awakening to soft light.

Sister, too, had butterflies. Opening Hunt would mean the beginning of the formal season, but this, this was the true beginning and she so wanted her young entry to do her proud.

As Crawford and others had predicted, nothing more was learned concerning Nola’s death. The murder crept into conversations but not with the earlier frequency and intensity.

Tedi accepted the offer of a sip from Crawford’s flask as she sat on Maid of Honor, her smallish chestnut mare, who possessed a fiery temper—but then, she was a red-head. Tedi’s salt sack, an unbleached linen coat worn in hot weather, hung perfectly from her shoulders, a subtle nip in at the waist. Salt sacks usually hang like sacks,but Tedi, a fastidious woman, had hers hand-fitted.

Every stitch of clothing on her body had been tailored for her over forty years ago. Good hunting clothes pass from generation to generation. A few fads might appear— such as short hunting coats during the seventies and eighties—but hunters soon return to the tried and true. A longer skirt on a hunting jacket protects the thigh. Sensible. Everything must be sensible.

Cubbing granted the rider a greater latitude of personal expression in matters of dress. One could wear a tweed jacket with or without a waistcoat depending on the temperature. It was already sixty degrees, so everyone there, seasoned hunters, knew by the time hounds were lifted they’d be boiling in a vest. Their vests hung back in their trailers.

People wore white, yellow, pink, or oxford blue shirts with ties. Their britches were beige or canary, as no one wore white in the field on an informal day.

Betty wore a pair of twenty-year-old oxblood boots; their patina glowed with the years. Her gloves were also oxblood and she wore a thin, thin navy jacket with a yellow shirt and a hunter green tie.

Bobby, after asking the master’s permission, rode in a shirt only. It wasn’t truly proper, but he was so overweight that the heat vexed him especially. He wore a lovely Egyptian cotton white shirt and a maroon tie with light blue rampant lions embroidered on it. He’d worn the same tie for the first day of cubbing for the last fourteen years. It brought luck.

Shaker wore a gray tweed so old, it was even thinner than Betty’s navy coat. His brown field boots glistened. His well-worn brown hunting cap gave testimony to many a season. He carried the cap under his arm. Protocol decreed he could put on his cap only when the master said, “Hounds, please!”

While spanking-new clothes were beautiful, there was a quiet pride in the faded ones, proof of hard rides over the years.

Edward Bancroft, more reserved and preoccupied of late, roused himself to be convivial. Ken Fawkes, also wearing a salt sack, offered his flask to one and all. He beamed with pride at his wife and counseled her before they set off that morning that cubbing would be more difficult than the formal season because hounds weren’t yet settled. If she could get through cubbing, why, the rest of the season would be a piece of cake.

Ronnie Haslip rivaled the impeccable Crawford in the splendor of his turnout. His gloves, butter-soft pale yellow, matched his breeches. He wore Newmarket boots, the height of fashion for warm days but rarely seen because they wear out much faster than all leather boots. The inside of the boot and the foot was either brown or oxblood leather, but the shank of the boot was made of a burlaplike fabric lined in microthin leather. A rolled rim of leather topped off these impressive boots. Ronnie even wore garters with his Newmarkets, something rarely seen now.

His shirt, a pale pink button-down, fit him just right as did the dark green hunting jacket he’d had made while visiting in Ireland. A deep violet tie secured by a narrow, unadorned gold bar was echoed by a woven belt the same color as his tie. His black velvet cap, tails up since he was neither a master nor a huntsman, had faded to a pleasing hue that declared he knew his business. He carried an expensive applewood knob end crop with a kangaroo thong.

All the riders carried crops. Usually they saved the staghorn crops for formal hunting, but in Betty’s case that was all she had. It wasn’t improper to carry the staghorn while cubbing, really, it was just that once formal hunting started, riders were locked into a more rigid sartorial system. Then you had to carry the staghorn crop or none at all. Though they were rarely used on the horses, they proved useful. One could lean out of the saddle and hook a gate or close it with the crop. The really dexterous might dangle the staghorn end over their horse’s flank and pick up a dropped cap or glove. This was always met with approval.

Today, Sister carried a knob end crop, an old blackthorn, perfectly balanced with a whopping eight-foot, twelve-plaited thong topped off by a cracker she made herself out of plastic baling twine. When she popped her whip it sounded like a rifle shot.

Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright; she couldn’t wait to get going. As the wind came out of the east, there was no point in fiddle-faddling, she’d cast right into it. Hit a line fast and go.

The youngsters had shone at their foxpen outings. She wasn’t worried that they needed to head downwind for a bit to settle. Anyway, the temperature would climb quickly. Off to a good start, a bracing run, then lift and bring everyone back to the kennels on a high note.

Positive reinforcement worked much better than negative, in Sister’s opinion. Let the youngsters feel they’ve done well and they’d do even better next time.

Her old salt sack with its holes carefully patched, her boots repaired that summer by Dehner, a boot maker in Omaha, her mustard breeches and light blue shirt all suited her. She wore a bridle leather belt, matching her boots, peanut brittle in color. She looked exactly right, but she wasn’t showing off.

Jane Arnold was a stickler for being correct. One intrepid soul mentioned to her that another hunt was allowing members to cub in chaps.

“Oh, how interesting,” she replied, and uttered not another word.

That was the end of that.

Being superstitious, she pinned Raymond’s grandfather’s pocket watch to the inside of her coat pocket as she always did. John “Hap” Arnold, a hunting man, had a pocket watch devised wherein the cover had a round glass center so he could see the arms where they attached to the center of the watch. The outside rim of the watch, gold, had the hours engraved on it. She could see enough of the slender blued hands to make out the time without popping open the top. This cover came in handy should Sister smack into a tree or take an involuntary dismount. And she never had to open the watch in rain. As Bobby had his good-luck tie, she had her good-luck watch.

On the right rear side of her saddle hung couple straps in case she had to bring back tuckered-out hounds early. However, on the High Holy Days—Opening Hunt, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Hunts—she carried a ladies’ sandwich case, instead of couple straps, with the rectangular glass flask inside the case. When visiting other hunts she also carried this case. A small silver flask filled with iced tea rested in her inside coat pocket.

It took years to conquer the minutiae of hunting attire, ever a fruitful source of discord. An elderly member might fume that few wore garters anymore. A younger member would respond that boots stayed up quite well by themselves when bespoke by Dehner, Vogel, Lobb, or Maxwell.

Someone else would be horrified if a lady wore a hunt cap rather than a derby, and no one really wanted to say what they thought of chin straps. No master could disallow them, but behind the users’ backs they were always called “sissy straps.”

Ladies had been known to tear one another’s veils off during formal hunting when one disdained the concave of another lady’s top hat. One of the worst arguments Nola ever got into the last year of her life occurred when she sniffed that Frances Gohanna, soon to be Frances Assumptio, had a dressage top hat perched on her head instead of a true hunting top hat. Exactly why these trifles inspired such emotion amused Sister, but then foxhunters were passionate by nature.

Even Golliwog, viewing the assembled from the vantage point of the open stable door, was excited and took note of how the people were turned out. Once hounds were loosed she would take the precaution of repairing to the hayloft to watch the hunt. Occasionally an errant hound youngster would wander into the stable, and Golly loathed all that whining and slobber.

Sister, on Lafayette, rode over to Shaker.“Wind’s picking up. I know we didn’t want to run into After All, but we have two miles until their border. Best to cast east now.”

Shaker, too, had noticed the shift. Their original plan was to strike north and hunt toward Foxglove Farm. Then he’d swing the pack around to the bottom of Hangman’s Ridge and hunt through the woods on the west side of the old farm road right back to the kennels. Given their hound walks all summer this territory would be familiar to a youngster if he or she became separated from the pack. The last thingeither of them wanted to do was have a young one lost and frantic first time out.

Three couple of young entry were in the pack. Six to watch. The veterans were pretty foolproof.

“East it is.” His voice lowered.

Sister left him and rode to the small field.“Sun’s up. What are we waiting for?” She beamed.

“Here’s to a great season,” Crawford called.

The others murmured their agreement.

“Hounds, please,” Sister called to Shaker.

He slapped his cap on his head and Betty opened the gate. She then quickly swung herself onto Outlaw, as good a horse as was ever foaled if not the most beautiful.

“YAHOO,”the hounds cried.

Thirty couple of hounds bounded out of the kennel, spirits high, then waited for Shaker to blow a low wiggly note followed by a high short one that meant,“We’re on our way.” This was blown as much for the humans as for the hounds. Humans have a tendency to dawdle.

Hounds gaily trotted behind their huntsman, Sybil to their left and Betty to their right. Sister followed forty yards behind, leading the field as the rim of the sun, shocking scarlet, inched over the horizon.

Beyond the apple orchard they passed an old peach orchard, filled with delicious Alberta peaches. Tempting though it was to cast in there, both huntsman and master wanted to reach the sheep’s meadow between the farm road and the woods. That pasture’s rich soil held scent. On a good day, hounds might tease a line into the woods or back toward the orchards and the pace picked up accordingly. Not that hitting a scorching scent right off wasn’t a dream, it was, but sometimes, especially with young ones, a teasing scent helped organize their minds. You never knew with scent.

A black three-board fence marked off the meadow, a coop squatted in the best place to jump. Shaker on Gunpowder, a rangy gray formerly off the racetrack, effortlessly sailed over. His whippers-in had preceded him into the field. Sister could always push up a straggling hound.

“Noses down, young ones!”Cora commanded.

“I got something. I got something!”Trident, a firstyear entry, squealed.

Asa ambled over, sniffled,“Yes, you do, son. That’s agroundhog.”

The other hounds laughed as Trident, ears dropping for a moment, accepted his chastisement, then decided he’d follow Asa. He couldn’t go wrong then.

A sweetish, heavy, lingering line greeted Diana’s sensitive nose as she probed a mossy patch amidst the timothy swaying in the east wind.“Pay dirt.”

Although only in her second year, Diana, tremendously gifted, had earned the respect of the older hounds.

Just to be certain, Asa touched his nose to the spot.“We’re off.”

Both Diana and Asa pushed forward, Cora already ahead of them. Her nose, while not as extraordinary as Diana’s, was plenty good enough. Yes, this line was perhaps fifteen minutes old and, on the dew, the temperature in the low sixties, it would hold for perhaps another five or ten minutes in the hay. Then the rising sun plus the wind would scatter it forever.

Trident inhaled the light fragrance.“This is it! Thisis it! I’m really hunting. It’s not foxpen. This is the realdeal.”He was so overcome, he tripped and rolled over.

Trudy, his littermate, laughed as she moved past him, her nose on the ground.“Showtime!”

Archie used to say“Showtime!”when hounds would find. It made everyone laugh, relaxing yet energizing them.

Hearing their former anchor hound’s phrase from this new kid made the others really laugh.

The scent grew stronger, snaking toward the woods. Whoever left it was in no hurry.

Whoever left it happened to be dozing on a rock outcropping about a quarter of a mile into the woods. Uncle Yancy, a red fox and the husband of Aunt Netty, filled with blackberries, peaches, and grain from Sister’s stable, needed a nap to aid his digestion. Uncle Yancy would frequently sit on the window ledge and watch TV at either Shaker’s or Doug’s cottage. Now that Doug had taken the horn at Shenandoah Valley Hunt, he wondered if anyone would be in there. He could see the picture better from Doug’s window than from Shaker’s. He liked to keep up with the world. Raleigh and Rooster never minded his curiosity, but that damned cat would torment him sometimes. She’d call out to the hounds,“Lookwho’s here, you lazy sots.”Then some offended creature would open his big mouth and Yancy’d push off.

He lifted his head from his delicate paws.“Oh, bother.”

Bitsy, on her way home from a very successful night, screeched,“They’ll be fast, Uncle Yancy.”

“Ha! The foxhound isn’t born that can keep up with me.”

Bitsy landed on a low maple limb.“Pride goeth beforea fall.”

He stretched as the sound grew closer.“Not pride.Simple fact. If you want a good time, fly with me as Isend these young ones in the wrong direction. Mighteven unseat a few humans, too. Why any creature wouldwant to totter around on two legs is beyond me.”

“That’s why they ride horses. Then they have four,” Bitsy sensibly concluded.

“I hadn’t thought of that. Of course, some of themcan’t stay on those horses, now can they? A weak andvain species, the human, but a few are quite lovely. Ohwell”—he shook himself—“let’s cause as much mayhemas possible.”

He left the rocks, walked down to Broad Creek, crossed it, then climbed out on the other side. He shook off the water.

“I’m telling you, Uncle Yancy, these young ones are fast.”

“Bitsy, they aren’t supposed to run in front of thepack. They’re supposed to run as a pack.”

“That’s what cubbing is for, to teach them. And I wouldn’t be so cocky if I were you. If St. Just is about,he’ll make trouble.”

St. Just, king of the crows, hated foxes, especially red foxes, because Target, Uncle Yancy’s brother, had killed his mate. St. Just swore revenge on the whole fox nation and he had led one young red to his death last year.

Finally heeding the little owl, Uncle Yancy started trotting east.

“It’s getting stronger!”Trudy yelped as she approached the rocks.

Sybil, up ahead, spied Uncle Yancy slipping through a thick stand of holly.“Tallyho!”

Yancy decided to run after that. He broke out of the holly, crossed an old rutted path, dove into a thick thorny underbrush, then slithered out of that and headed for the edge of the woods.

“Over here.”Dasher, a second-year dog hound, littermate to Diana, reached the edge of the creek the same time as Cora. He splashed across the creek, then began whining because he couldn’t pick up the scent.

“Don’t be a nincompoop!”Cora chided him.“Do youreally think a fox is going to walk straight across a creek?You go left, I’ll go right. And who’s to say he didn’t double back? Trudy,”she called to the youngster,“you andyour idiot brother work that side of the creek.”

While hounds searched for the scent, Sister and the field quietly waited on the rutted wagon road.

Crawford had just unscrewed the top of his silver flask when Dasher hollered,“Here.”

“Drat.” Crawford knocked back a hasty gulp, motioned for Marty to have a sip, which she declined. As they trotted off he screwed on the cap, its little silver hinge ensuring it wouldn’t fall off. Not a drop sloshed on him even though he’d filled it to the brim. He was quite proud of himself.

“Stronger!”Cora, again ahead, spoke in her light, pretty voice.

Bitsy flew back to watch the hounds, then took off again to give Yancy a progress report.“They just raninto the thorns.”

“Damn,”Yancy cursed. These hounds were faster than he thought.

He broke out of the woods and into the easternmost meadow of Roughneck Farm, which was filled with black-eyed Susans, Queen Anne’s lace, and cornflowers; it hadn’t been weeded or overseeded in years. Sister thought of it as her wildflower experiment and was loath to return it to timothy, alfalfa, or orchard grass.

A hog’s-back jump loomed in the fence line. Sister and Lafayette sailed over it as the pace was picking up. She saw Betty, up ahead, already flying over the spanking-new coop that marked the westernmost border of After All Farm.

“This fox is a devil,” she thought to herself.

The hounds, in full cry now, roared across the wildflower meadow. Even Trident was on, his concentration improving.

Walter Lungrun, riding Clemson, an older and wiser horse, steered clear of Crawford, whose horse, Czapaka, a big warmblood, occasionally refused a jump when he’d had enough of Crawford sawing at the reins.

New coops, not having yet settled into the earth, looked bigger than normal. Fortunately, Tedi and Edward painted theirs black. Unpainted coops seemed to cause more trouble than painted ones. Sister never knew if the trouble was with the horses or with the people.

As she trusted Lafayette with her heart and soul, she didn’t give this jump a second thought, landing just as she heard Shaker double the notes on the horn.

They were close, close to their fox, who must have tarried along the way.

Uncle Yancy, putting on the afterburners now, was shadowed by Bitsy, who was quite worried about him. She wished she hadn’t said“Pride goeth before a fall,”as she had no desire to see Uncle Yancy, everybody’s uncle, perish. Rarely did Sister’s hounds kill, but if a fox was ancient or sick, the hounds might dispatch it swiftly. In three seconds the quarry was dead, its neck snapped by the lead hound.

Bitsy tried to remember the last time there was a kill. It had been three years ago; one of the red tribe at the edge of the territory came down with distemper. Either way he was going to die because he refused to eat the medicines put out for him; he refused to go into one of the Havahart traps that Sister and Shaker put out in an effort to save him. He knew other foxes had been taken to the vet, but he did not trust any human, not even Sister.

“At least he died fast,” Bitsy thought to herself.

If she was worried, Uncle Yancy was not. Yes, the pack was faster. Sister had retired quite a few older hounds over the summer who now graced barns and hearths throughout the membership. These young ones had speed. Sister was breeding in more speed. He would have to tell the others.

In the meantime, he had to shake these damned hounds. He heard Cora’s distinctive voice, then Asa’s, both smart hounds.

“But not as smart as I am.”He chuckled as he raced for the covered bridge and trotted across it, dragging his brush purposefully to leave a heavy, heavy scent. Then he started up the farm road, covered in brown pearock. The Bancrofts spared no expense on those items they considered aesthetically pleasing.

He whirled around, 180 degrees, backtracking in his own footprints, then launched himself at the edge of the covered bridge and down into the waters of Snake Creek, which were high, muddy, and fast from all the rain. Swimming to the opposite bank proved harder than he’d anticipated.

“Hurry!”Bitsy blinked from atop the covered bridge.

Uncle Yancy made it to the far side. The swim had cost him precious time and tired him. He heard the hounds not a third of a mile away, closing with blinding speed.

“Damn them,”he cursed as he raced for the place where Nola and Peppermint were now buried.

The red fox with a little white tip on his tail leapt over the zigzag fence, crossed the twenty yards to the other side, and leapt over that. The earth, still soft from the digging and from the rains, showed distinct footprints marking his progress. Tedi had put up a zigzag fence until the stonemason, in high demand, could build stone walls around the graves.

A muddy trail followed him as he headed along the ridge, then turned in an arc back toward Roughneck Farm. He was more tired than he wanted to be. A groundhog hole, messy but under the circumstances better than nothing, had been dug right along the fence line between After All Farm and Sister’s wildflower meadow. He wasn’t going to be able to make the loop back to his den at this rate and he wished he’d paid more attention to Bitsy, faithfully flying overhead.

“Ouch!”

Uncle Yancy looked upward. St. Just had dive-bombed Bitsy, pecking her.

“You little creep!”St. Just pecked at Bitsy again, who was built for silent flight. She couldn’t maneuver as handily as the blue-black bird, but she was smarter. She flew low to the ground, right over Uncle Yancy. If St. Just tried for her, Yancy could whirl around and possibly catch the hated bird in his jaws, or even with his front paws.

St. Just knew better than to get close to a fox. He cursed Bitsy for helping the fox and squawked loudly. If only he could turn the hounds before they reached the covered bridge, he could get them on Uncle Yancy fast. But his outburst and his bad language offended Athena, who had just stopped over between the two farms. A nest of baby copperheads, born late but with a good chance of survival thanks to the abundance of game, were close to the large rock where they lived. She thought one would make a tasty dessert, and St. Just spoiled everything by scaring them back under their rock.

He offended her in principle. He didn’t know his place. Then, when she saw him go after Bitsy, her blood boiled. She lifted off the evergreen branch, her large wingspan impressive, and noiselessly, effortlessly came up behind the crow with four big flaps of her wings. She zoomed for him, talons down. He heard her a split secondtoo late. As he turned to avoid the full impact of her blow, she caught him on the right wing. Enough to throw him off and enough to tear out feathers painfully.

“Out of my sight, peasant!”

Feathers flying, St. Just feared he might fall to earth with them. He pulled himself out of the dive, veering back toward the woods. Uncle Yancy, pursued though he was, would have made short work of this mortal enemy and then left the carcass to distract the hounds. Fresh blood was always distracting to a hound.

“Thank God you’re here,”Bitsy hollered, her high-pitched voice frightening four deer grazing below.

“Thank Athena.”The large bird hooted low, mentioning her namesake, then with a few powerful blasts she was over the wildflower meadow, heading to her home high in a huge walnut by Sister’s house.

Back at the creek, the hounds charged across the covered bridge in full cry.

Sister was about to lead the field across, knowing there’d be some fussing from the horses inside the bridge, when she heard a change in Diana’s voice. Wisely, for she trusted her hounds, she paused.

People panted. Horses’ ears pricked forward; they thought stopping pure folly, but they did as they were told.

Cora had overrun the line. Asa came up to Diana. He, too, changed his tune.

“What’s happening? What’s happening?”Trident thought he’d done something wrong.

“Pipe down and listen.”Dasher put his nose to the ground.

In a situation like this, Dragon was invaluable, for he was highly intelligent and had an incredible nose. But he’d been left back in the kennel since Shaker felt he had enough good hounds out and Dragon could be a handful. He thought the young ones, especially this T litter, might do better without Dragon today.

Little by little, Dasher, not as brilliant as his brother but methodical, worked his way back to the bridge.“Ithink he’s doubled back.”

Hounds milled around, then Cora said,“Well, there’sonly one way to be sure. Dasher, go through the bridge;be careful, because some fool human will say you aredoubling back on the line, and then Sybil, who’s new, remember, will rate you. But if he has doubled back, hisscent will be stronger on the other side. Which direction,I don’t know. Take Diana with you.”

Both Dasher and Diana tore back across the bridge.

“Heel,” Ronnie Haslip whispered to Crawford, who nodded knowingly.

Technically they were right, but Sister did not call out to her hounds to join the others. Diana and Dasher were terrific second-year entry.

Sybil, forward of the bridge, turned to head back. Shaker sat right on the far side of the bridge, close to his lead hounds.

Dasher said low to Diana,“Here, I think this is fresher.”

She put her nose down and inhaled.“Yes, but we’d best be sure before we call them all back to us.”

They ran top speed and then were quite certain that the fox had headed up the ridge.“Yes! He’s here. Come on.”

Shaker, thrilled with these two, blew three doubling notes, sending the others on to them, claws clicking on the wooden floor of the bridge.

They emerged, cut hard right, and flew up the ridge. They all jumped the newly installed zigzag fence, running hard over Nola’s and Peppermint’s graves, headstones not yet carved.

Sister hesitated one moment, waiting for her huntsman to get ahead of her. She then rode up the ridge but wide of the new grave sites. Ken Fawkes, usually a strong rider, lost control of his horse, who wanted to follow the hounds directly. The big dark horse, almost black, catapulted over the first line of the zigzag fence, took one giant stride, and was over the second. Deep hoofprints now mingled with Uncle Yancy’s prints and those of the hounds.

The woods reverberated with the song of the hounds. Within minutes they were back over the fence line dividing After All Farm from Roughneck Farm.

Sister, knowing she had to head back to the new coop, turned and pressed Lafayette on. She cursed because the underbrush was thick. The leaves were still on the trees, and she couldn’t see her hounds in the thick woods. This was another reason cubbing was harder than formal hunting. If she didn’t hurry up she’d get thrown out and be way behind. She reached the new coop, got well over, then headed right on a diagonal across the open field. She could see the flowers and hay swaying and sterns swaying, too, where hounds pushed through, their voices in unison.

“He’s close! He’s close!”

And he was. Uncle Yancy slid into the groundhog hole, rolling right on top of the groundhog.

“I beg your pardon.”

The groundhog, large and unkempt, but jolly, said,“Care for some sweet grass?”

“Thank you, no.”Yancy couldn’t understand how any animal could be as sloppy as this fellow.“You know within a second those hounds will start digging at yourmain entrance.”

“Good. That will save me work.”

“I shall assume you have other exits should it cometo that.”

“One of them right under a hanging hornet’s nest. Three feet long it is.”The groundhog, lying on his back, laughed just as Cora dove toward the hole and began digging frantically.

Uncle Yancy’s scent was so strong, it drove her wild. Red, moist earth splattered up behind her paws. Diana joined her at the edges, as did Asa and Dasher.

Trident asked his sister,“Are we supposed to do that?”

“I think you have to be first. There isn’t room for us toget in there, but I think we’re supposed to sing really, really loud.”

Trudy and Trident did just that and were joined by every hound there. Triumph!

Shaker arrived, hopped off Gunpowder, and blew the happy notes signifying that these wonderful hounds had denned their fox.

Sybil rode up, taking Gunpowder’s reins.

“I know my job,”the gray snapped, incensed that Sybil thought he might walk off.

Betty rode in from the opposite direction as the field pulled up not ten yards away.

Shaker took the horn from his lips.“He’s in there. He’s in there. What good hounds. Good hounds.” He grabbed Cora’s tail, pulling her out of there. She weighed seventy pounds of pure muscle. “You’re quite the girl.”

“I am!”Cora turned a circle of pure joy.

Then Shaker called each hound by name, praising their good work. He petted the puppies.

Sister rode up.“A fine beginning. Shall we call it a day?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Shaker smiled. “And did you see how Dasher and Diana came back across the bridge? That’s as nice a piece of work as I have ever seen in my life.”

Sister looked down at the two tricolor hounds.“Diana and Dasher, you have made me very, very proud.”

They wagged their whole bodies.

“Proud of you, proud of you.” Shaker again blew the notes of victory, then, without a grunt, lifted himself back into the saddle.

As they rode back toward the kennels, Ken, ashen-faced, came alongside his motherin-law.“I am terribly sorry. I couldn’t hold him. I—”

She held up her hand.“Ken, to have the fox and hounds run across your grave is a good thing. No apology necessary. Nola would be laughing with the excitement of it.”

No one else said a word about it while the Bancrofts were around.

Uncle Yancy thanked his host and stuck his head up to make sure there were no stragglers.

Bitsy, in a pawpaw tree, giggled.“A near thing. Andrunning over Nola and Peppermint like that.”