Outfoxed. Hotspur

“That’s an unquiet grave,”the red fox said. Mask to the west, he headed for home.

CHAPTER 15

Crawford and Marty Howard hosted a First Day of Cubbing breakfast. Upon reflection they decided to pass on having an evening gathering. Instead they hired a local caterer who set up outdoor stoves outside Sister’s stable. Crawford considered setting them up on the long rolling lawn overlooking Sister’s fall gardens, but then he’d have to tell her. He wanted the breakfast to be a surprise, as did Marty. Having it back at the stable where the trailers were parked wouldn’t disturb her lawn. As people often brought homemade breads, sandwiches, or drinks, sharing same at the trailers, Crawford and Marty thought they wouldn’t need to ask permission and the surprise would be complete.

It was. People untacked and wiped down their horses to the scent of bacon crackling on the grill, succulent blond and regular sausages, and omelettes.

One gave the two chefs their omelette order and within minutes it was ready. Breads, jellies, fruits, cold cereals, and fresh milk along with sweets covered the long table to the side of the stoves.

The riders were thrilled, as were the hounds, who could smell the enticing medley of aromas. Whatever might be left over would be mixed into their kibble later.

“What a wonderful idea,” Betty Franklin said to Sybil as they stood in line.

“I never realize how famished I am while I’m hunting, but the second I get back to the trailers my stomach makes as much noise as The 1812 Overture.” Sybil laughed at herself.

Marty Howard was whispering directions to the caterer’s assistant, pouring coffee.

“Right away, madam.” He handed her a large cup.

She carried the steaming coffee to Shaker, still in the kennels.

He looked up and smiled as she came through the door.“Mrs. Howard.”

“Here. What a great day. Now come on over and get your piping hot omelette. The Boss said for me to tell you to come on, you can wash down the kennels on a full stomach better than on an empty one.”

“Did she?” He smiled broadly. “What a good woman.” He gratefully took a swallow. “Very good.”

“Jamaican.”

“High test.”

“Ninety-three octane.” Marty waited for him to toss a collar in the bucket hanging from the wall, a bucket used just for this purpose, as collars were removed from hounds when they returned from their labors.

As they walked back together to the festivities, Marty asked,“Did you always want to be a huntsman?”

“Yes, I did.”

“How did you learn?”

“My parents allowed me to move up to Warrenton to live with my aunt. I was twelve and I begged because the huntsman at Warrenton, Fred Duncan, said he’d set me to work in the kennels. That’s how I started. Fred was a fine huntsman. He’d whipped-in to Eddie Bywaters, the last huntsman of the great Bywaters clan. I learned so much from Fred, and I could go over and watch Melvin Poe hunt the Orange County hounds. Fred would take me up to watch the Piedmont hounds.”

Marty loved hearing these stories and knew there was so much to learn not just about foxhunting itself but about the incredible people who had carried it forward throughout the generations.“When did you get your first job?”

“Here.” He put his hand under Marty’s elbow as she was about to step into a small depression. “Jefferson Hunt needed a first whipper-in, and even though I was young, Fred vouched for me. Raymond put me on every screwball horse he could beg, borrow, or steal before he’d hire me. He finally said, ‘Kid can stick on a horse.’ That was that. And I never want to leave. I love it here.”

“Do you ever worry about the money? I mean, huntsmen make so little, and what if something were to happen?”

“I don’t worry. Maybe I should, but I knew as a little kid that my life wasn’t about money. This is what I’ve always wanted to do, and you know, Mrs. Howard, there isn’t enough money in the world to get me to give it up.”

“But what if you’re hurt?” Marty belonged to the worrying class.

“The Boss will take care of me just like I’d take care of her. We’ve been though a lot together.”

Marty thought about this, an attitude so different from the way she was raised and from the milieu in which she lived.“You’re a lucky man.”

Betty called out to Shaker,“How about those young entry?”

He gave her the thumbs-up sign.

Crawford, hoping to ingratiate himself with a person he considered a servant, and technically, Shaker was a servant, said,“Thank you.”

“The hounds did all the work.” Shaker smiled.

Sister, in line, observed the exchange as well as the high spirits of the group.

Bobby, in front of her, was chatting with Tedi. He noticed his wife.“Hey, hey there. I see you flirting with my wife.”

Ken Fawkes, who was holding a plate for Betty, replied,“Bobby, I’ll give you credit. You knew a good thing when you saw it.”

Everyone laughed.

As Shaker moved through the line, people complimented him. He was their star. They watched him ahead, taking the jumps first, without a lead. They saw him traverse territory they could loop around thanks to the wisdom of Sister, and they watched him work patiently with the hounds.

“Well done.” Bobby beamed as he passed Shaker.

“Can you eat all that?” Shaker looked at Bobby’s full plate.

“I can. That’s the problem.”

Once everyone had a full plate, the caterer’s assistant walked about refilling coffee cups, fetching hot tea or a cold Co-Cola.

People sat on their portable mounting blocks, hay bales, upturned buckets.

Sister, sitting next to Shaker, said to Ronnie Haslip,“Do you remember the day two years ago when Shaker had the flu so I took the horn?”

“Indeed, I do,” Ronnie replied.

“I asked him for advice and he said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what Fred Duncan told me: Hunt your hounds and don’t look behind you.’ So I did.”

The horses hung their heads over the fence, observing the delighted people. The caterer gave them apples from the fruit basket.

“I like this guy,”Keepsake commented.

Golly had positioned herself in the middle of the seated humans. She lay on her side, her tail lazily swishing up and down. Then she casually rolled on her back, her glittering eyes scanning the group.“I’m here.”

Sybil laughed.“Sister, Golly is speaking to us.”

Everyone focused on the cat, which encouraged her behavior. Raleigh and Rooster, seated by Sister, ignored the calico.

“Golly, come over here. I’ll give you bacon,” Tedi offered.

That fast, the cat sprang to her feet, zoomed over, and snatched the bacon from Tedi’s fingers.

“Shameless,” Marty commented.

The conversation bounced between everyone at once and then small fragments of people.

Tedi was mentioning to Sister her memories of a safari her parents had taken her on when she was a teenager.“… no one thought much about conservation back then. You know, I look back and I regret those tigers and giraffes my parents bagged. But I can’t bring himself to throw out the hides. It seems sacrilegious somehow. And you know, too, Janie, I have much more fun foxhunting than I ever didor could on a safari. ‘O, the blood more stirs, / To rouse a lion than to start a hare!’ Remember? Hotspur. He was wrong.”

“Sir Henry Percy never hunted fox, he was too busy hunting the Scots.” Crawford joined the conversation.

“Never hunted behind Ashland Bassets, either,” Edward commented, mentioning a pack of bassets whose quarry was rabbit. Following them on foot could be very exciting.

“Hey, where’s Ralph today?” Betty asked.

“Moline,” Ken answered. “Conference.”

Moline was the headquarters of John Deere.

“Poor Ralph. Had to miss the first day of cubbing because of business. Work interferes with the really important things in life,” Bobby said, and laughed.

As the gathering broke up, Crawford was telling Ron why they chose a breakfast instead of a party. He kept his voice low.“… memories. Marty discreetly inquired around and found out that after Nola and Guy disappeared no one ever gave a First Day of Cubbing evening party again. We thought better of it, but then Marty suggested we do this. I think we’ll make a tradition of it.”

“I hope you do. Of course, that means next year you’ll have one hundred people out on the first day.”

Crawford shrugged.“Good. I’ll just buy more eggs.” He picked up his mounting block, placing it inside the tack room of his trailer. “As nothing else had turned up, comes as no surprise, I think we’ve heard the last of Nola and Guy. It’s for the best.”

Ron replied, voice even lower,“God, I hope so.”

CHAPTER 16

A thin wisp of ground fog snaked over the pasture where Lafayette, Rickyroo, Keepsake, and Aztec munched and a family of raccoons crossed toward the garbage cans in the barn. Occasionally if Sister forgot to close the tack room door the raccoons would open the desk drawer and pull out bags of bite-sized Hershey’s bars. They loved sweets, as did the possums who followed them at a discreet distance.

Lafayette lorded it over the Rickyroo and Aztec, both young horses at six and five respectively. He relayed the day’s hunting, from the first moment the bit was in his mouth to his wash down with warm water in the wash stall, in colorful detail.

Keepsake, eight years old and a thoroughbred/quarter horse cross, thought Lafayette was laying it on a little thick. He nibbled twenty feet away from the three thoroughbreds. He liked them well enough but he felt he was more intelligent, or at least less gullible.

He noticed the downstairs lights in the house going off, the upstairs bedroom light switching on. The blue light of the television shone from Shaker’s window. He noticed Showboat, Gunpowder, and Hojo, three former steeplechasers, dozing in the adjoining pasture. Each of them had been donated to the hunt for the huntsmen’s use. Sometimes that meant the horses were orangutans; no one else could handle them, so this was the last stop unless the owner shipped them off to the killers. Few foxhunters wanted to put a horse in the knacker’s trailer no matter how badly the animal behaved. But the Jefferson Hunt membership had a wide sweep of contacts. Gunpowder had even spent time competing on the flat track. Having run over timber in steeplechase meets, these three disdained the jumps in the hunt field and thought any equine who even glanced sideways at such a puny obstacle, the largest being three feet six inches, was a wimp.

Keepsake could and would jump anything, so he shrugged off their air of superiority.

The night was thankfully cool and pleasant, the breeze still easterly. Sister turned off the air-conditioning and opened the bedroom windows.

The horses and hounds could faintly hear Mozart’sA Little Night Musicfloating from her bedroom. Then her phone rang.

She groaned, wondering what the problem was. A night call usually meant a problem. A master’s work is endless, whether physical or political, putting out the brush fires flaring up within the hunt club, any hunt club. Some fool left a gate open, another printed up the trail riding schedule and one date was wrong. Someone else hated that cubbing started so early in the morning andthey were sure this was a conspiracy to keep them home.

Any group of humans swirls about in a fog of gossip, misunderstanding, and good intentions. Political maneuvering makes for strange bedfellows—and in many an instance the bedfellows really are in bed together. Foxhunting seems to foster even more of that than other activities. The people, by nature, are hot-blooded just like their horses.

By the end of any given day, Sister’s reserves of emotional restraint ebbed.

Not all humans depleted her. The ones she loved energized her: Betty Franklin, Shaker Crown, Tedi and Edward Bancroft, and she thought she could learn to love Dr. Walter Lungrun. Maybe it was because he rented Peter Wheeler’s old place and she’d loved Peter, had even been his lover for years. In some ways, Walter reminded her of her husband, a curious resemblance, although socially Walter was more reserved than Raymond. Raymond had come to life in a group, his natural element.

Because of that, Raymond had made a fantastic field master. He’d understood the hounds, but he’d loved the people.

Sister felt her husband had been a better field master than she. She would occasionally forget about the people, so intense was her focus on the hounds. But she put her field in the right place time after time, which they greatly appreciated.

Ray Junior had taken after his father. She’d assumed he’d follow her as field master and then master someday.

She often thought of her husband and son at nighttime. The house, quiet, yielded up memories. Even Golly, a naturally mouthy cat, rested her voice at night.

Melancholy and Sister were never on good terms. She wasn’t one to dwell on her losses, on the sorrows that come to us all if we live long enough. They were part of life. If anything, she had learned to thank God for them. Her losses taught her about grace and true love. Her victories taught her to be generous and ultimately thankful.

Tonight as she listened to that most delicious of Mozart compositions, it occurred to her that the structure of music and literature were one and the same thing.

Then the damn phone rang just as this insight was unfolding.

“This better be good!” she growled into the receiver.

A muffled but queerly familiar voice said,“Master, look off the Norwood Bridge—the deep end.”

“I beg your pardon.” She sat bolt upright.

Both Raleigh and Rooster lifted their heads. Golly, on the pillow next to Sister, pricked forward her ears to better hear the voice on the other end of the line.

“A fiftyfive-gallon drum.”

“Who is this?”

“Hotspur.” With a click, the call ended.

Her hand shaking, she called the sheriff. He’d once given her his cell phone and his home numbers, which she’d prudently placed by the kennel, stable, kitchen, and bedroom phones.

She reached Ben and related her bizarre phone call. Then she hung up, slipped on her moccasins, her white terry cloth robe with her initials, JOA, stitched on the left breast pocket, and hurried down the back stairs into the kitchen. She charged out the back door, running toward Shaker’s.

All the horses trotted along with her in their paddocks.

Trident, gazing at the stars, still thrilled from his first hunt, saw her dash to the huntsman’s cottage.“What’sSister doing?”

Asa, also outside for a walkabout, said,“Go to sleep,son. You’ve had a big day.”But he knew something was coming down.

Sister knocked on Shaker’s door knocker, a brass crown. “Shaker, Shaker, forgive me for disturbing you.”

He opened the door, bare-chested, toothbrush in hand.“What’s happened?”

“Oh, Shaker, I heard a voice from the dead.”

CHAPTER 17

The Norwood Bridge curved out below a bluff above the Upper James River. Even this far from where its mouth poured into the Chesapeake Bay, the James proved a formidable river. Strong currents, sudden fluctuations in volume, and rough patches of rapids followed by successive small falls meant anyone navigating these waters best be wary.

At times the waters could become surprisingly clear; other times rains pulled down earth from the Blue Ridge Mountains, sending cascades of runoff flowing into the James, making it muddy for days, even weeks.

The village of Norwood, named for Norwood Plantation, still a working farm, clung to the bluff above the river, the source of transportation and commerce well into the 1840s when the bateaus were replaced by the railroads. A small redbrick former church, its steeple pleasingly proportionate to its base, served as the town’s post office. While small homes perched along the river roads, larger dwellings sat grandly on the bluff itself, where they had been surveying the river and its passing traffic for three centuries.

Sheriff Ben Sidell watched divers, three of them, submerge then rise again. The Norwood Bridge connected Nelson County with Buckingham County. This was not the deepest part of the Upper James, but was, however, one of the most undisturbed parts of the river.

Few motorized vessels plied these waters. Tubers, rollicking along, would cascade by until they were stopped by the first set of rapids, if indeed they lasted that long. Canoers enjoyed this stretch as the river straightened out from its northern bend. They paddled past fishermen, quietly waiting in their rowboats.

Once a year the bateau festival filled the small town. Flatboats heading downriver and people in period costume drew droves of tourists to watch.

Although it was Sunday, August fourth, Ben acted immediately upon hearing about Sister Jane’s mysterious phone call.

After a long talk with Shaker, she’d also called Walter, who agreed to spend the day with Ben Sidell. Sister wanted a hunt club person there and she felt Walter, both by training and temperament, was a good choice.

“If a body was tossed off this bridge, even if sufficiently weighted, it surely would have been carried downstream,” Ben said, “be nothing left.”

“Two hurricanes tore through here since 1981,” Walter replied, “plus plenty of gully washers. But if you follow the direction of the current, a body would have eventually snagged on the shore, maybe there”—he pointed to an eddy on the Buckingham side—“or hung up farther down on the next big arc. Surely someone would have seen it.”

“Well, there might only be old shoes to see. Nature’s aquatic garbagemen work very efficiently.” Ben sighed.

“The murder weapon might have been tossed off the bridge.”

Ben pursed his lips.“Yes, but that would work its way downriver as well. Obviously, it’s hard to say what killed Nola—a rock or a hammer or even the butt end of a revolver. The side of her skull was shattered. Almost like the murderer had snapped into a killing frenzy.”

“The reptilian brain.” Walter crossed his arms over his chest. “See it with animals. A few will go crazy with killing. That old part of our brain usually means violence.”

The temperature was rising, the heavy river smell rising with it.

“I see a lot of strange things in my business,” the sheriff said. “As the social controls have eroded, it seems self-control has eroded with it. We’re becoming more violent, not less.”

“Rwanda.”

“Yugoslavia. Attacks on our country.” The sheriff, a pleasant-looking man about the same age as Walter, in the prime of life, squinted as the reflection of the sun off the water temporarily blinded him. “People can usually find a reason to harm someone else. Mix religion into it like theIslamic terrorists and you’ve glamorized humankind’s worst instincts.”

Walter half smiled.“Whoever killed Nola didn’t need an ideology or national cause.”

“And given that she was buried with that huge sapphire on her finger, it sure wasn’t robbery. No, her death was about rage or lust.”

“Let’s go back to the murder weapon for a minute. Assuming that Sister’s caller is telling the truth, if whatever was tossed over this bridge was heavy enough, like a sledgehammer, isn’t it possible it sank headfirst into the silt, stuck there, and has been covered and uncovered and probably covered again over the last two decades?” Walter put on his sunglasses, blue elliptical lenses.

“I suppose.” Ben leaned against the bridge rail, back to the sun. “Walter, you’re a member of the hunt. Why do you think Sister Jane got this call?”

“Trust.”

“Huh?”

“He trusts her.”

“Hmm.” Ben turned this over in his mind. “If it was Guy Ramy he would call her instead of his own mother?”

“You don’t know that he hasn’t been in contact with Alice. She’d never tell.”

“True.” Ben nodded.

“If he’s guilty, he wants us to find whatever is in this river.”

“But he doesn’t want us to find him.”

“Not yet, anyway.”

“I wonder if he’d tell Sister where he is.”

“I don’t know. But Guy would be about forty-eight now. That’s a long time to carry around guilt. He may have killed her, but he also loved her.”

“You were in junior high, right?” Ben had talked to a lot of people and his memory was good.

“Seventh grade.”

“You didn’t really know these people?”

“We lived in Louisa County. I saw them at horse shows. My mother and father knew the hunt club crowd. Dad owned a small tire company in Charlottesville. My mother worked there, too. Sooner or later, everyone would need their tires replaced on trucks or trailers.”

“Funny, when I go out to question people, whatever the crime, I sweep up a lot of dust.”

“Guess you do.”

“In your line of work, I’m sure you pick up a lot, too.”

“People usually talk to their doctors.” Walter jingled the keys in his pocket.

“There’s jockeying for power in the hunt club. Hey, maybe it was a crank call. People are worried about Sister getting too old,” Ben said.

Walter took his hand out of his pocket, waving away this thought.“She’ll outlive us all.”

Ben laughed.“She just might.”

One of the divers surfaced, flipped up his face mask, and clung to the side of the boat.

Carl Walsh, sitting at the oars, cupped his hand to his mouth and hollered,“Sheriff, found the top of a fiftyfive-gallon drum. Can’t see the rest of it, it’s sunk all the way in the mud.”

Ben crossed the bridge to the northerly side.“Well, see if they can get chains around it.”

“Bet there’s a stove and a refrigerator down there, too.” Walter crossed over with him.

“Just one?” Ben hid his anticipation behind humor.

An hour later, a black fiftyfive-gallon drum rested on the shore directly under the bridge. The label had long since washed away, but it appeared to be an old oil drum, maybe a paint drum. A few holes, tiny, had been punched into the metal by rocks or fast-moving debris.

What was curious about it was that the top was welded into place. A rattle could be heard inside when the drum was jostled. And it was heavy, off balance.

“Must be someone in Norwood with an acetylene torch.” Ben didn’t want to move the drum any more if he could help it. “Carl, call in for a department photographer, too.”

Another forty-five minutes passed before Frank Kinser, a distant relative of Doug’s, was there with his torch. The photographer arrived, too.

Walter stood back as the blue sparks flew.

Within minutes the lid, cleanly cut, was lifted off.

“Jesus Christ!” Frank cut off his torch, his eyes wide.

A few scraps of cloth clung to a jumble of bones. In the bottom of the drum was a blacksmith’s anvil.

The photographer clicked away. Ben carefully observed the remains but did not touch or remove them.

Walter felt that there would be hell to pay.

CHAPTER 18

Technology makes a good servant but a bad master. When the Internet first got rolling, Sister Jane hopped on the bandwagon. Her phone bills soon reached stratospheric proportions. She continued using e-mail only to send out notes to the Hunt’s Board of Governors and dear friends. The research possibilities pleased her, but more often than not she found she’d much rather pull out her oldEncyclopaedia Britannicas. The writing could be quite good, and pausing to peruse subjects other than the searched-for subject always provided unexpected delights.

Keeping expenses down was a struggle she shared with millions of Americans who were no longer driven by hunger or need but were victims of advertising and their own acquisitive natures. Wonderful as the Internet might be, it cost money. Before you knew it you were paying for services and technology you didn’t really need.

One of these nonnecessities Sister still indulged was Caller I.D. When her mysterious phone call came in, the number appeared on the small telephone screen: 555-7644. Naturally, she gave the number to Ben Sidell, but she already knew it was the outside pay phone at Roger’s Corner.

The sheriff called Roger, who dutifully looked out the window, but by then no one was standing at the pay phone. The last hour before Roger’s ten P.M. closing time often proved hectic as people came by for a last pack of cigarettes or muffins for breakfast.

Roger’s Corner stayed open on Sundays, but Roger himself took the day off. That Sunday morning, Sister drove down there and parked by the blue eggshell that housed the phone. Gone was the tall glass phone booth with the folding door. The replacement was a cheap small plastic egg offering no protection from the elements. She knew what it looked like, but still for some reason she wanted to check out the phone.

People waved to her as they strolled in and out of the store. Why she wanted to pick up the phone, she didn’t know.

Kyle Dawson, Ronnie Haslip, and Dr. Tandy Zachs came and went, all of them riding or social members of the hunt. Finally, she realized she couldn’t stand there all day, as no new thoughts were coming to her. She climbed back into the truck and drove to After All Farm.

The sheriff’s car and Walter’s truck, parked in the driveway, made her question if she should go in. She decided she would when Tedi, who had heard her drive up, opened the front door and waved her in. “Come on. Kitchen.”

Seated in the cavernous kitchen she found Edward, Sybil, Ken, Ben, and Walter. The men rose when Sister entered the room.

Edward pulled up a chair for her.

Ben smiled but gave her a look. She interpreted it to mean she should keep quiet. Walter sat beside her, draping his arm over the back of her chair. She liked that.

“I’m sorry to barge in.”

“You could never barge in,” Tedi replied.

“Mrs. Arnold, I was just informing the Bancrofts that I received a telephone tip, a voice that was unidentified, telling me to search off the Norwood Bridge.” Ben kicked himself. He’d slipped up in his haste to gather together a team to rendezvous at the bridge at sunrise, and neglectedto order Sister to keep her mouth shut.

Ben assumed gossip wasn’t Sister’s lifeblood, but she could have told a few friends. He’d talk to her afterward, but he was worried. He’d made a mistake. He didn’t want Sister Jane to pay for it.

Sister understood Ben’s intention when he said that he’d received the phone call.

“Sheriff, I take it you found something or you wouldn’t be here,” Edward surmised.

“Yes. I asked the Doc to be with me this morning.” Again, Ben didn’t round out the fact that Sister had called Walter’s from Shaker’s cottage. “A fiftyfive-gallon drum mired in the silt and muck was discovered at seven-thirty this morning. Once we raised it, we cut off the top, as it was soldered shut.” Everyone held their breath as Ben continued. “Upon opening it, we discovered it contained human remains. How long the body had been there I can’t ascertain, but I would guess for years. We might have a positive I.D. later today.”

“So soon?” Ken questioned.

“Larry Hund is meeting the coroner in about an hour.” Larry was one of the area’s best dentists, a man who had been practicing for twentyfive years.

Tedi folded her hands together on the table and it seemed to Sister that the sapphire burned brighter on her hand.“Ben, you think you know who that body is. That’s why you’re here. Who is it?”

“Like I said, Mrs. Bancroft, I think we’ll have a positive I.D. in an hour or so.”

“Was the body recognizable?” Sybil felt a rising panic.

“No flesh remained, a bit of clothing. We know it was a man,” Ben replied.

“Oh God,” Sybil whispered.

“Hotspur.” Tedi Bancroft suddenly felt a wave of sympathy for Alice Ramy. “Does Alice know?”

“I have a deputy with her now and I’ll be going over there after I leave here,” Ben quietly answered. “Again, the I.D. isn’t positive, but we are working from the standpoint that the body may be Guy Ramy because of circumstances.”

“And you know that whoever killed Guy didn’t dispose of the body alone. It would take a Hercules to stuff a man like Guy into a fiftyfive-gallon drum, solder it, and then heave it over the bridge,” Edward said with a grimace.

“Yes, we are working from that angle as well,” Ben said. “Two or more people.”

Ken, ashen-faced, simply said,“Horrible. This is horrible.”

Ben had hurried to the Bancrofts’ because bad news travels fast. He did not want them to receive a phone call from Mr. Kinser or an onlooker. He wished the I.D. could be 100 percent certain, but the feelings of the Bancrofts were important to him. Ben was a sensitive man in a rough line of work. And he knew the discovery oftwo bodies would have the killer or killers rattled. What they had thought was long buried had arisen from the dead. Feeling in danger, they might endanger others.

“Is there anything we can do to help you?” Edward inquired, his silver eyebrows raised, his face drawn in concern.

“Be alert,” Ben replied simply. “And call me if anything occurs to you, no matter how trivial it might seem.”

“Yes, of course,” Tedi said.

“Let me be off to Mrs. Ramy’s. Oh, Sister, walk out with me to the squad car, will you? Walter, too. Perhaps you two can give me an idea of how to handle Mrs. Ramy.”

As Sister, Walter, and Ben walked outside, Sybil rubbed her eyes for a moment.

Tedi patted her daughter on the back.“It’s sordid, isn’t it?”

“You know, Mom, he was a beautiful thing, like some wild animal—just a beautiful thing.”

“Not anymore,” Ken said softly as he watched the three people outside.

Ben leaned against his brown squad car.“Sister, I apologize to you. I should have asked you last night not to tell anyone about the phone call. Did you talk to anyone else?”

“Walter”—she nodded at the handsome doctor—“and Shaker. Shaker won’t tell anyone. He’s not a talker unless it’s about hounds.”

“Nonetheless, remind him.”

“I will.”

“Walter?” Ben asked him.

Walter shrugged.“No one.”

“Mrs. Arnold, do you have any idea why you were called?”

“No, Ben, I told you, I really don’t and I wish I did.” She made a straight line in the brown pearock with the toe of her boot. “And please call me Sister or Jane, won’t you?”

“I’ll try.” Ben liked this woman. “Look, this is what I know. Whoever called knows you, trusts you, and lives here. Everyone stops at Roger’s Corner in these parts.”

“It’s one of us,” Sister said with no surprise.

“Yes.”

“I wish I could tell you more about the voice. A man’s voice. I sort of recognized it. He was disguising it, of course, muffling it and speaking in a higher tone, but—” She shrugged.

“You may get another call. Whoever called you knows you called me, and whoever called you may be the murderer.”

“After all these years?” Walter hooked his thumb in his belt loop.

“Guilt. Often they want to get caught.”

“And more often they don’t,” Sister sensibly said. “My hunch is whoever called me helped the killer toss that drum over the deep end of the bridge all those years ago.”

“I think your hunch is right,” Ben agreed.

CHAPTER 19

“There’s no hope. I don’t care if I live or die!” Alice Ramy cried, teetering on the brink of hysteria.

She’d held herself together when Ben Sidell visited her. Now Tedi, Edward, Sybil, and Ken had come by to express their sympathy. Sister Jane had also come with them after Tedi had asked her please to do so. Alice couldn’t put a good face on it any longer.

Tedi, perched on the edge of the wing chair where Alice sat crumpled, said,“You do care. You must care.”

“Why?”

“For Guy,” Tedi responded.

“He’s dead. Dead.” She stared at Tedi with vacant eyes.

“You already knew that, didn’t you?” Edward tried to be consoling, but this wasn’t the path to take.

“No! I prayed he had run away. I didn’t want him to be a murderer, but I didn’t want him dead.”

Sister, standing by the other side of the chair, said,“Alice, I believe Nola and Guy died together. If not at the same moment, then because of each other. I pray their souls rest in peace, but I know mine is in a state. I want to find their killer or killers.”

“How?” A flash of life illuminated Alice’s eyes; anger, too. “Especially now. Too much time, Sister, too much time.”

Sybil, sitting across from Alice with Ken by her side, spoke up.“Fate. It’s fate that they died and now it’s fate that they have reappeared. We’re supposed to find the killers.”

“Fate is just an excuse not to do your homework.” Alice smiled ruefully, tears in her eyes now. “When Guy brought home a D in geometry he said it was fate. I said fate is just an excuse not to do your homework. It stuck. There is no such thing as fate.”

Resting a strong hand on Alice’s shoulder, Sister leaned down. “Then let’s do our homework. Try to remember—”

Alice interrupted,“I have!”

“Things can pop into your head at strange times. Come to some hunt breakfasts. Talk to the gang. Something might click,” Sister encouraged her.

“Nobody wants to talk to me.”

“Of course they do,” Tedi said warmly.

“Xavier keeps chickens,” Edward said, smiling.

“Fighting chickens,” Tedi sniffed.

“Not illegal to keep them. Just illegal to fight and bet on them,” Ken responded, trying to humor her, calm her. He didn’t really know what to say.

“Guy used to come home from those cockfights plucked cleaner than the chickens. I don’t believe he ever won a red cent.”

“He won sometimes,” Ken said, trying surreptitiously to check the time. “I was there. You just never saw a penny, Alice, because he spent it on wine, women, and song.”

“Guy could be very naughty.” Alice couldn’t conceal a note of pride. After all, how many women bear a son who is widely considered movie-star handsome?

Tedi, having a different take, said,“So could Nola, unfortunately.”

“Oh, Tedi, she was high-spirited,” Sister said.

“High-spirited with other women’s husbands.”

“Mother,” Sybil exclaimed.

“You thought I didn’t know. Nola was a bad girl. I loved her. I couldn’t help but love her, but men were chess pieces to her. Every man a pawn and she the only queen.”

A moment of embarrassing silence followed, broken when Alice surprisingly said,“She met her match in Guy. That’s why they fell in love. Both of them wild as dogs in heat.” She looked fleetingly at Edward, then Tedi. “Forgive me.”

“It’s the truth,” Tedi agreed.

Edward, not knowing about all of Nola’s amours, shifted uncomfortably in his chair. No father likes hearing these things about his daughter. Tedi certainly had never told him. Nola was the apple of his eye.

Ken, sensing Edward’s pain, said, “Dad, she wasn’t as bad as all that. Nola was a terrible flirt. She didn’t, well, you know …”

Tedi knew that was a flat-out lie but decided to let it pass. No point going into the details in front of everyone. It wouldn’t help Alice.

“Come to our hunt breakfasts. Reacquaint yourself with your neighbors and friends,” Sister said, again extending the invitation. “We go out cubbing Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. If weather’s iffy, I change around the days, but call me up. Once formal hunting starts October twenty-sixth, I’ll send you a fixture card.”

“You’re just trying to get me to let you hunt here. Guy used to beg me to let you do it, but I still won’t. Poor little foxes.”

“Those poor little foxes make fools of us all. But Alice, you know that’s not why I’m here. I mean it. Come out and see us. You’ll be surprised how friendly everyone is. All of Guy’s friends are there. You know Ralph and Xavier. Ronnie Haslip, of course. Ken will be there on Saturdays; sometimes he can squeeze in a weekday. Oh, the Franklins. The boys in their mid-forties—they’re all Guy’s old running buddies.”

“Maybe.”

“Alice, excuse me, but I have to go. Richmond business calls.” Ken stood up.

“Haven’t been to Richmond since 1986.” Alice noticed her mantel clock had stopped running. She’d forgotten to wind it.

“Downtown is a little sad. No Miller and Rhoads, no Thalheimer’s.” Ken mentioned the great department stores that used to draw shoppers like a magnet in the old days. “But it’s much the same. What’s changed is the West End. The shops, the businesses, Alice, they’re all the way out to Manakin Sabot on Broad Street. You just wouldn’t believe it.”

“Don’t want to see it.” Her obstinacy was returning, which meant she felt better.

“If you change your mind, I’d be happy to take you down. Be fun to find some fall clothes,” Sybil suggested.

Ken smiled.“Sybil, we need to build a new wing on the house for all your clothes.”

“She always looks so nice,” Alice said. “Thank you, Sybil, but I think I’ll pass on Richmond.”

Ken walked over, took both of Alice’s hands in his, leaned down, and kissed her on the cheek. Sybil also leaned over to kiss her good-bye. Alice hadn’t been kissed since Paul died in 1986. She craved human touch but didn’t realize it.

“You take care now. And you call me if you need anything,” Ken said warmly.

After Sybil and Ken left, the four contemporaries remained quiet for a few minutes.

“You’ve kept the place up,” Edward complimented her.

“Full-time job. Wouldn’t be so much work if it weren’t for the chickens. I change their water every day. I scrub out their coop every day, too. Doesn’t stink like chickens can, you know.”

“That’s wonderful.” Edward nodded pleasantly.

“Edward, Tedi, were you afraid Nola would run off with Guy?”

“Yes,” Tedi forthrightly answered for both herself and her husband.

“I was, too. I always assumed you didn’t think my boy was good enough for her.” An edge sharpened Alice’s voice, not the most melodious in any circumstances.

“No, Alice, that wasn’t it.” Edward approached this with his usual tact. “A fire that flames that blazingly hot can turn to ashes in a heartbeat.”

Tedi’s eyes searched out her husband’s. She had underrated him. Like most women she felt she understood emotions far better than men. Edward might not choose to talk about emotions, but he understood them, a real victory.

“I thought of that, too.” Alice glanced down at her crepe-soled shoes, then up again at Edward. “It scared me. For him, I mean. I don’t think Guy had ever truly been in love until Nola.”

“For what it’s worth, I think she loved him,” Sister said. She moved to sit opposite Alice.

“Did you?” Tedi genuinely inquired.

“I did. I didn’t know what would come of it. They both had a history of being carefree, if you will, but there is something to be said about the changes that happen to you when you meet the right one. One does settle down eventually.”

“I thought she’d throw him away.” Alice didn’t sound rancorous. If anything, she was grateful to finally be able to speak about this.

“I did, too,” Tedi said. “It wasn’t Guy. Don’t get me wrong. It was money. Nola loved money. She might have married him, but it would have fizzled. And regardless of what you might think, we did not spoil either of our girls. Yes, they both went to the best schools, but they didn’tget cars handed to them on their sixteenth birthdays. They had to earn the money. And every summer each one took a job. Oh, it might have been something fun like working on a ranch in Wyoming, but still, it was the beginning of responsibility. And, well, it’s as clear as the nose on our faces, Sybil was by far the more prudent, the more sensible. Nola worked, but she spent it as fast as she made it. Then she’d run out and come begging. I certainly never made up her debts, but I think”—Tedi nodded at Edward—“her father may have.”

“Once or twice, my dear, I didn’t make it a habit.”

“Oh, Edward.” Tedi didn’t believe a word of it.

“She wouldn’t have had money with Guy,” Alice argued. “Burned a hole in his pocket. He could have made money. He had the brains for it, but not the discipline. But he was only twentyfive when he died. Almost twenty-six. I’d like to think he would have found something to gainfully occupy him.”

“I’m sure he would have,” Sister said. She had seen Ralph, Ken, Ronnie, and Xavier each settle down and prosper. She thought Guy would have come ’round, too.

“Perhaps the fates are kind,” Tedi said, smoothing her skirt. “Nola and Guy were killed at the height of love, the first blush. They never knew disillusionment.”

“I told you I don’t believe in fate,” Alice stubbornly insisted. “And I don’t see how dying at twentyfive can be considered kind. So they would have fought. Guy would have gotten drunk or picked up sticks and left for a while. He would have recovered. She would have, too. It’s all stuff and nonsense, this love business.”

“Not when you’re young and maybe not when you’re old. I might be seventy-one, but I tell you, let another woman go after Edward and I’ll knock her sideways.”

“You flatter me.” Edward smiled. “I’m the one on guard here. I have a wife who looks thirty years younger than myself. It can be quite nerve-racking. Why, one of Ken’s friends tried to woo her at a company gathering over the Fourth of July.”

“Now who’s the flatterer?” Tedi shook her head.

“Well, I’m the cynic. Year in and year out Paul Ramy brought me flowers on my birthday, chocolates on Valentine’s Day, and usually a charm for my charm bracelet at Christmas. That was it. No variety and no spontaneity. I think Guy became romantic just because his father wasn’t. Now, my son always brought me little presents, even as a child.” She stopped herself and swallowed. “When Ben Sidell came here I thought it was more questions. I didn’t think I’d find out what happened to Guy.”

CHAPTER 20

Diminutive, intense, levelheaded, Gaston B. Marshall became a pathologist by default and county coroner by fiat. When Vee Jansen, the coroner since 1949, died of a heart attack in 1995, Gaston inherited the job.

In other counties, especially above the Mason-Dixon line, county commissioners might have grumbled at having such an ancient coroner as Vee Jansen performing autopsies. This would have been superseded by a new wave of grumbling as a much younger man assumed the duties. But in central Virginia, in this county, where everyone claimed everyone else as shirttail cousins, Gaston was readily accepted when he became coroner. He was a homeboy. Gaston B. Marshall, a professor of medicine at the university, now had two jobs. The extra stipend from the county was useful. Gaston was the father of three grade-school children. The university, for all its grandeur, paid poorly.

The other good thing about this job was Gaston was left to his own devices. If he wanted students to assist him, no one quibbled. If he wanted to utilize his findings in his lectures, names of the deceased changed, he could do it. Being county coroner proved a rich source of teaching material. His students could see things they might not see at the university hospital. During one autopsy of a drunken gentleman, well born but bone idle, when he attempted to lift out the liver it literally disintegrated in his hands. If nothing else, those students witnessing the diseased liver would think twice before drinking too much.

On the Sunday the body was recovered from the river, he had but one assistant, a female intern utterly enraptured by pathology, Mandy Collatos. Perhaps the appeal was you were always right but one day late. In the case of Guy Ramy their findings were twenty-one years late almost to the day.

Walter Lungrun stood in scrubs over the stainless-steel table, the channels on the side sloping downward for drainage.

Ben Sidell, a by-the-book man most times, wanted Gaston to see the drum, so he delivered that as well. It sat near the table. A large double sink, also stainless steel, ran along the wall.

All three physicians wore thin rubber gloves.

“You know if there hadn’t been punctures in the drum I believe he would have been mummified.” Mandy was proud that they had extracted the skeleton doing precious little damage to it, no easy task.

“Yes.” Gaston finished placing the bones in their proper position. The major joint areas had come apart when the skeleton was removed, much as a joint pulls out of a chicken leg. Plus the anvil in the bottom of the drum had broken bones probably on the drop into the river. The drum had settled after that.

Walter watched intently.

“Dr. Marshall,” Mandy said, pointing to two ribs, left side.

Gaston bent down, his upturned nose almost touching the graceful, thin rib bones.“Uh-huh. When a body has been out this long, you hope for the best. We were lucky Nola was buried in red clay. It preserved her longer.”

“The methods of killing were different for these two,” Walter said.

“Yes. Interesting …” Gaston noticed that Guy’s right shinbone was shorter than the left and thicker. “Old break.”

“Casanova Point-to-Point Races. Late seventies,” Walter said. He marveled at the body’s ability to knit itself back together.

“You were there?”

“Actually, I was. My mother took me. I was always crazy for horses. Guy crashed a timber fence. No fault of his own. The jockey in front of him bobbled in front of the jump, flew off, and Guy’s horse braked hard.” Walter smiled slightly. “He threw Guy straight into the timber. He was out foxhunting the next week in a cast. At least that’s what I heard.”

A knock on the door made Gaston pause in his examination.“Come in.”

Larry Hund, the dentist, entered the room. He was carrying a folder.“Still has a jawbone.”

“Larry, we see a lot of strange things in here—including one another.” Gaston motioned for him to step up to the table.

Larry pulled out the dental charts and swiftly checked the teeth, most still in the jawbone.“Guy Ramy.”

Gaston and Mandy, nothing if not thorough, finished up in another hour, obsessively checking and double-checking, measuring bones, making detailed notes.

Larry inspected the drum before leaving.“Boy, someone wanted him to stay put. Got an anvil in there.”

“But he didn’t stay put, did he?” Gaston yanked a paper towel off the dowel.

“I don’t know how you can do your work.” Larry smiled. “It’s one thing when bare bones are on the table. But when you have to cut into a corpse that’s been out there for days or weeks …”

“You get used to it, but I don’t think any of us look forward to working on a body exposed for a few days. When it’s hot, one day will do it. I can smoke cigars, shove Vicks VapoRub up my nose or camphor oil, the damned stench still gets through. After they’ve been out a week, unless, of course, they’re frozen, it actually begins to improve.”

“What’s the fascination?” Larry rarely had an opportunity to talk to Gaston like this.

“Answers. I can often get the answers and, in the case of wrongful death, clues to the killer.”

“Well, I don’t know about this one.” Larry picked up his folder. “How will you ever find the killer?”

“I don’t know.” Gaston sighed.

Mandy put the body in a cooler drawer, slid it shut with a thunk, and inserted a paper card in the small slot in the front, with a number on it.

“Anyone else in here?” Larry was curious.

“No, it’s been quiet.” He finished toweling off. “You did a good job on Nola, by the way. I don’t remember if I thanked you. So many teeth were missing. I don’t know if her killer smashed her skull in first or hit her in the face first.”

“Do you think it’s weird—pathology?” Mandy asked Larry.

“In a sense,” he honestly answered. “The typical response to death is aversion, even repulsion.”

“True,” Gaston agreed. “I had to overcome that myself in med school. But then, I remember it as clear as yesterday, we were in lab working on the circulatory system and I was lifting up the aorta, like rubber those cadavers, and I stepped back to look at the body. The arteries and the veins were a tracery of life. It was beautiful. I looked at bodies differently after that, and let’s face it, I wasn’t meant to be a plastic surgeon. No bedside manner.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to talk to your patients,” Walter said, smiling. He regularly dealt with people in acute distress.

“Right,” Larry laughed at Gaston and Mandy, “your patients don’t talk back.”

“Oh, but they do,” Gaston countered, “they do.”

CHAPTER 21

Aunt Netty, cross with Uncle Yancy, trotted over to Target’s den. The last quarter of the moon, a thin melon slice in the Prussian blue sky, pulsated with feeble light.

Target, a hefty eight pounds if he was an ounce, sat near the main entrance. His mate, Charlene, was eating blackberries curling over the fence line near the edge of the woods about a quarter of a mile from the den. Just beyond that fence, rolling pastures swept up to the farm road and then on to the kennels.

Their three cubs this year, half grown, had left early to set up homes around Wheeler’s Mill. Roughneck Farm, After All, and Foxglove, filled with reds and grays, were reaching the saturation point. Target and Charlene knew that the old, nasty red who had lived underneath the mill had succumbed to old age. The place needed foxes, and it was better to get their cubs established early before the reds farther south got the bright idea to move in.

Plentiful game meant the young ones would be fine for food. Also, Walter Lungrun occasionally put out dog food supplemented with liquid wormer as well as tasty bits of sweet feed. The molasses flavor was delicious.

“Netty, you’ve got on your mad face.”Target laughed at his sister.

“Yancy’s in one of his hoarding moods. He’s buryingdead crickets, which is the dumbest thing. Chicken, rabbit pieces, yes. But crickets? That run on the first day ofcubbing has affected his mind.”

“I thought it was being married to you,”Target wryly said.

“What a pathetic attempt at humor. I wouldn’t be sitting here laughing. Tuesday, Sister will take out morepuppies and she’ll have Dragon in the pack. He wasn’twith them Saturday or Yancy would be a goner for sure.”

“Sister ought to draft out that hound. He’s too fast.He’ll ruin the pack.”Target knew for a pack of hounds to be good they should run together. Dragon pushed ahead too far.

“It’s his second year. She’ll give him the year to see ifhe improves. And you know she loves his blood, lot of Piedmont blood in her D line.”Piedmont Fox Hounds, founded in northern Virginia in 1840, was the oldest organized hunt in America.

Henry Hudson brought hounds with him when he discovered the river that now bears his name. American settlers hunted with hounds almost from the founding of the first surviving colony in 1607. But Piedmont was the first hunt organized in the modern sense, and those who wore its colors, old gold, could be forgiven a bit of swagger.

“He’s an arrogant hound,”Netty said.

“I got my revenge last year when I lured him into acopperhead.”

“He’ll never forget it, which is why I’m here. To remind you that Tuesday, Sister will cast hounds this wayand Dragon will be with them. I’d stay in my den if Iwere you.”

“Ha! I’ll break his neck yet.”

“Unless he breaks yours. He’s fast, Target, and he’sseventy pounds of hard muscle to your eight. He cansnap your neck in a split second if he bumps you androlls you. He has that kind of drive.”

“Netty,”Target said, incensed, standing up.“I’m almost as fast as you are.”

She wanted to say,“but not as smart.”Instead, she cajoled him.“True enough. I’m just giving you a heads-up.The whole pack is faster, and if Bitsy hadn’t been aroundit really would have been a near thing for Yancy, thedamned fool.”

“Wonder why Sister is breeding for more speed? They’realready fast enough and I must commend her and themfor their nose. Boy, she has really improved the way theytrack a scent.”Target mentioned the ability of a hound to scent.

“She has, and let’s not forget, we’ve had more moisture this year. That’s going to help them, too. We’d betterbe on our paws. I know neither Sister nor Shaker wantsto kill any of us, but accidents happen.”

“If I have to die I’d rather die that way than frommange.”Target flicked his tail. Netty’s infernal and constant advice irritated him.

“Wouldn’t we all. Here’s to old age! But take yourmedicine. Sister spends good money on that stuff andnow she’s putting it on dog kibble instead of stuffing itinside dead chickens. It’s easier to get at.”

“I do eat the damned stuff, Netty!”

Before he could cuss her out and tell her to stop mothering him, Athena, talons spread, swooped over them.“Hoo hoo hoo.”She laughed as they both flattened. She turned and landed on the lowest limb of the slippery elm.“Good evening.”

“Athena, you scared the wits out of me,”Netty grumbled as she dusted herself off.

“Why, Netty, I don’t think that’s possible.”

Netty, somewhat mollified, said,“You’re looking well.”

“Shrews, I’ve been eating shrews. Does wonders forme. Well, Target, cat got your tongue?”

“No, it’s good to see you. I hear you helped out UncleYancy the other morning.”

“St. Just was calling the hounds on after they’d lostscent.”

“I’ll kill him if it’s the last thing I do.”

“You know, Target, that’s what he says about you,” Aunt Netty said, adding her two cents.

“I’m here with the news. Guy Ramy’s body, sealed in afifty-five-gallon drum, was dredged out of the James thismorning. A red-winged blackbird watched the wholething.”

“Blackbirds, crows, ravens,”Target snarled,“can’tbelieve a word they say.”

“Don’t let your hostility to the species blind you to thetruth,”Athena sagely counseled.

“You’re quite right,”Aunt Netty agreed, and wanted to kick her brother hard with her hind leg. One needed to pay court to Athena. She stared crossly at Target.

Although full of himself, he wasn’t stupid.“You areright, Athena. I hear the name, St. Just, and my bloodboils. He killed my son.”

“And you killed his wife. You’re even. Be done withit.”She raised herself to her full height, as she’d been leaning down to speak to the foxes. Athena, at two feet tall, was undeniably regal.

Target weighed his next words.“Yes, but I think it’sgone beyond that. I don’t think he’ll stop. After all, hecalled the hounds on Uncle Yancy.”

“I know. My concern is that you don’t endanger otheranimals with this blood feud. There’s enough going onnow. Finding Guy Ramy is not a good omen for any of us.”

“The humans are already stirred up about Nola Bancroft.”Aunt Netty moved over to sit beside her brother.

“The human who killed these two knew enough to putthem where vultures couldn’t get them or dogs dig themup. He or she knows a little something about animals.Right?”

“Yes.”Aunt Netty nodded her head.

“And although none of us were born then, we know from the humans’ incessant talking that Nola and Guydisappeared after the first day of cubbing in 1981. A fullcycle. Cubbing has just begun.”She leaned down toward them again.“And if they turn up something or someonegets a notion, they’ll start digging, literally. They’ll disturb our dens and nests and flush game. They’ll makea mess.”

“I’d better tell the cubs at Wheeler’s Mill,”Target thought out loud.

“I already did. And Bitsy is telling Butch, Mary Vey,Comet, and Inky.”Athena mentioned the gray foxes.

“Do you really think it’s that bad?”Target wondered, not wanting to challenge her, just wondering.

“Actually, I’m afraid one of them’s going to snap.” Athena’s low voice dipped even lower.“Bitsy, Inky, andI saw Ralph Assumptio, crying, parked by the side ofthe road.”

“That’s it. He’s the killer, then,”Target declared.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”The brown bird cast her golden eyes upward as a blue heron, late, headed for home.“My point is they are all feeling the strain.”

“Do the hounds know?”Aunt Netty asked.

“Yes. Bitsy is telling them.”

“Who cares if they know?”Target didn’t dislike the hounds, but he felt them an inferior member of the canine family because they allowed themselves to be domesticated.

“Are you argumentative tonight or thickheaded?”Netty nudged him on his shoulder.“The hounds are closer to thehumans than we are.”

“And the killer is a foxhunter as surely as I am theQueen of the Night.”

A little while after Athena had left, Charlene returned. Target and Netty filled her in, then they all discussed what Athena meant about the killer being a foxhunter. They weren’t sure.

Athena had been figuring. There had been no reports of struggle. If there’d been a fight in a car or truck, someone would have noticed the blood and the damage to the vehicle. If someone had sold their vehicle immediately after the disappearance, someone would have noticed that, too. Both Nola and Guy willingly followed or climbed into the vehicle of their murderer. Nola’s car was left at the Burusses’. Guy’s was parked downtown on the street. Athena had gathered all this with Bitsy’s help by listening to the humans talk on their porches or on the phone, windows open.

She had just been sharing all this with Bitsy, sitting on a crossbeam in Sister’s barn. Bitsy nodded.“Guy andNola knew their killer.”

Athena added,“And trusted him.”

CHAPTER 22

The humidity, suddenly oppressive, pressed down on the green pastures, the blazing white and deep pink crepe myrtle, the orange daylilies. Even the green metallic dragonflies, surprised by the rapid climb in temperatures and the dew point, sat motionless on lily pads in ponds. Rockfish dozed in deep creek eddies, frogs burrowed in cooling mud.

Lafayette, Rickyroo, Keepsake, and Aztec stood nose to tail under the enormous pin oak in their pasture. Showboat, Gunpowder, and Hojo did the same under a fiddle oak in their neighboring separate pasture.

Golliwog reposed on the library sofa. Raleigh and Rooster stretched out at Sister’s feet beneath her desk.

The Louis XV desk, a wedding gift from Raymond’s mother, was not an idle antique. Despite its great value, Sister worked at the desk much as the royal court secretary who had scribbled at it centuries ago.

The library, not a large room, housed Sister’s most beloved books, especially her sporting library. Some of those volumes, precious to her as well as collectors, had been written and printed in the eighteenth century. She loved the pages themselves, crisp paper of such high quality, one would have to search the great libraries of Europe for its equivalent today. The type, velvet black, had been cut into the paper by metal, each letter set by hand. The typefaces, elegant yet simple, had been carefully selected by the bookmaker or possibly even the author.

Sister had observed that modern books, printed on cheap paper, thermographed print, disintegrated in decades. The author not only had nothing to do with the process but was actively kept from it.

Sister inhaled the special tang of her library as she worked. Old fires, leather bindings, a scented candle on the mantelpiece added to the allure of the room along with the Heather St. Claire Davis painting of herself on Lafayette leaping down an embankment over a creek bed, hounds in the near distance, the huntsman right up with them.

The twenty-first century, mass production having vulgarized just about every single human activity, still could not cheapen foxhunting. For this, the older woman was profoundly grateful. This pastime could never become a vehicle for mass merchandisers. Whippers-in would not be embroidering advertisements for tires, cars, or deodorant on their coat sleeves. Saddle pads would not bear a pharmaceutical logo. Velvet hunt caps, black derbies, glistening silk top hats would be spared a dotcom address.

Sister wasn’t a snob, far from it. Nor was she especially rich. Raymond, to his eternal credit, had done well as a stockbroker, leaving her with a portfolio large enough to provide for her needs. Raymond figured life would never get cheaper, only more and more expensive, as Americans demanded ever more services, which meant ever more taxes. He knew the cities would always vote themselves more money. Country people would have to fight not only for their way of life but simply to have a life. He had invested wisely and died knowing that whatever his failings as a husband, he had been a good provider.

Sister was of that generation who expected men to provide for women and children. Indeed, it was a disgrace if a man’s wife worked. Poor women had to work, so if a woman took a job it meant a man had failed. Through supporting a host of charitable organizations, well-to-do women did work. They just weren’t paid for it. That was fine. It made the men feel better and perhaps some of the women, too.

She didn’t think of herself as a rebel, but she’d taught geology at Mary Baldwin College even after marrying Raymond. He’d fussed, but she’d loved it so much. She stopped working when Ray Junior was born in 1960. When Ray was killed in 1974 she probably should have picked up teaching again, but somehow she couldn’t seem to put one foot in front of the other for a year. The second year after her son died she functioned perfectly well but felt numb. The third year she came back to herself. Had it not been for her husband, foxhunting, her friends, and Peter Wheeler, she thought she might have disappeared into the hole the White Rabbit had vanished into. Maybe life wasAlice in Wonderland.

There wasn’t a day when she didn’t think of Ray Junior and miss him. She missed her husband, too, who died in 1991, although missing a husband stirs emotions of a darker shade than missing a son. A husband left one with transgressions to forgive. A son left blasted promise. Then again, she’d transgressed enough herself to forgive Raymond his exuberance for life, which spilled over into an excessive appreciation for beautiful women. We were all human. Sister could forgive. It might take her time, but she could. She could never figure out if she was a good Christian or if exhaustion finally won out.

A photograph in a silver frame lit up the left corner of the desk. Raymond, herself, and a twelve-year-old Ray Junior, all in formal hunting attire, rode as a hunt team at the Washington International Horse Show. Raymond, resplendent in his scarlet weaselbelly and his white vest, grinned, his teeth sparkling white against his tanned face. Sister wore a black shadbelly, Continental blue colors on the collar, patent leather tops on her Spanish-cut boots so polished, they reflected the photographer’s flashbulb. Ray wore a hunt cap, black melton, fawn-colored breeches, and butcher boots. He was properly dressed for a junior, the unspoken rule of thumb being that even if a child has earned his colors, he doesn’t wear tails, called weaselbelly for a man, or a frock coat or tops on his boots until his voice changes and he shaves. For girls, whose voices change but not as dramatically, the rule was harder to interpret but by sixteen few masters would look amiss if a young lady rode out in a frock as opposed to a simple melton. A frock coat has two buttons on the back and a double vent, whereas the melton has a single vent on the back.

Sister, having grown up foxhunting, knew the sartorial rules, but sometimes even she had to consult the authorities from prior centuries in her library. If stymied she’d call Cindy Chandler at Foxglove Farm or Dr. Chuck Beegle at Brookhill Farm. Among the three of them they could usually find the definitive answer.

Nola had often caused feuds in the hunt field. For whatever reason, Nola appointed herself the fashion police, which did not go down with older members. The fight over Frances’s veil was but one of many such eruptions. She pitched a fit when Gordie Tomlinson rode out in dark brown gloves. One should wear mustard-colored gloves or white knit gloves, depending on the weather and the formality of the occasion. Even a British tan deer-skin pair would pass muster, but Gordie wore dark brown, which sent Nola into orbit.

Sister had to chastise Nola for her behavior and tell Gordie that while dark brown wasn’t perfect, she was only too happy to accept it except for High Holy Days. Nola fumed for weeks after that, declaring that Sister was letting standards go to hell.

The most recent fuss had occurred the previous March when Ralph Assumptio carried a blackthorn knob end whip on a Saturday, a formal day. Ronnie Haslip snapped at Ralph over this lapse in taste.

Ralph should have properly carried his staghorn crop, thong attached. However, the broad fat loop at the end of the crop to which the thong attaches had torn clear through on a hard, long hunt two days before. Ralph left his crop with Betty Franklin to repair. Betty enjoyed doing leather repair, she said it was kind of like needlepoint only harder. So, he grabbed his blackthorn knob end.

Sister rode back, heard the explanation, then told Ralph naturally he could carry his knob end until repairs were completed. This had to be declared in front of the whole field to satisfy all parties. If Ralph had thought about it, he would have obtained Sister’s permission for this variance before the hunt.

Knob ends, technically, can be carried during cubbing and during informal days after Opening Hunt. Most every hunt granted its members at least one informal day during the formal season. This allowed members time to repair torn jackets, dry out boots if they’d crossed high water, bleach stock ties, or do whatever needed to be done to restore their formal kit.

She glanced again at the photograph of the three of them. She used to grumble to big Raymond about the cost of outfitting a child. She wished she had shut up. He had been worth every penny. Many’s the time she’d dragged that poor kid through the shops in Marshall and Middleburg where good used hunting attire was sold. He was an angel about it, especially since he’d really wanted to go to Horse Country in Warrenton.

He would have been forty-one in December.

Where does the time go? Where does the soul go?

Would she see him again when her time came?

She banished these ruminations from her mind. They served no purpose and would make her cry. She had a draw list to compose for Tuesday’s hunt. She looked down at the sheet of paper, organized into bitches, dog hounds, second-year entry, firstyear entry. Each hunt she kept a list of who participated. Then she’d take the sheet back to her desk and make a notation of who did what. A sharp pencil is worth more than a good memory.

Dragon had to go this time. Trident and Trudy had gone, so she’d take their littermates, Tinsel, Trinkle, and Trinity. Rassle and Ruthie, also first year, should go. She hated to leave Cora in the kennel because Dragon would then be the strike hound, but Cora had gone Saturday and she had a tendency to run weight right off herself. Sister wanted to start the season with her hounds a few pounds over their fighting weight so by Opening Hunt they’d be perfect. Then she and Shaker needed to watch them like hawks. A hound can easily run thirty or forty miles in one day, and on a screaming day, even sixty. They run much farther than the riders, for the hounds are running into coverts, coming back, going out again. The riders, confined to ground horses can navigate, cover fewer miles. Still, after a hard day many an experienced hunter would dismount only to find his legs like jelly.

If a hound was starting to get light, Shaker would feed her or him separately or leave the animal in the kennel until back up to sufficient weight. Sister would not hunt a hound whose weight had fallen too low for her liking.

Her kennel practices bordered on the obsessive, but no one could ever say this woman did not love her hounds or her horses.

Her fierce concentration prevented her from hearing a car roll up the driveway.

Raleigh lifted his head.“Visitor.”

“Maybe it’s an intruder.”Rooster sprang up and raced for the back door.

“Yoo-hoo, Janie,” Tedi called out.

“In the library.”

Rooster greeted Tedi, then escorted her to the library, where Raleigh met her, too. Golliwog opened one eye; that was the extent of her greeting.

“Bills?” Tedi asked.

“Tuesday’s draw list. I need to mix my steady Eddies with the youngsters. Can I get you anything?”

“No. Ken just left for Richmond much too late. Edward and Sybil went to the club. She had a bad spell, floods of tears, which is why Ken got off so late. I just had to get out of the house, which I suppose makes me some sort of chicken. I can’t bear to see all those pictures of Nola right now. And I feel guilty because I should feel more compassion for Alice than I do.”

“Join the club.”

“She doesn’t make it easy, does she?”

“You were kind to go to her.”

“Who better to understand both the shock and the relief?” Tedi sat in the overstuffed club chair, tucking a needlepoint pillow behind her in the small of her back.

“It’s been a grisly time, hasn’t it?” agreed Sister, now sitting comfortably on the sofa.

“Don’t jiggle the sofa,”Golly complained.

Sister reached back to pet her.

“You ought to smack her,”Rooster advised.

“I’d smack back. In fact, why don’t you stick your wetnose here? I’ll smack you, too,”Golly threatened.

“Chatty, isn’t she?” Tedi thought the long-haired calico an exceptionally beautiful cat. “Do you know I have had the most curious experience. These last three days I’ve noticed a little screech owl, she’s no bigger than a minute, either in the barn or in the tree. She winks at me. I swear it. And I see her around. I feel as if this owl is following me. Sybil says, ‘Mom, you’re out there.’ ”

“She probably likes you. Just because an animal is undomesticated doesn’t mean it can’t take an interest in you.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Sure, look at Inky or Aunt Netty.” The two foxes were both well-known to hunt club members.

“I hope we don’t hop Aunt Netty until it cools down. She’ll run the legs right off of the hounds and us.”

“That she will. You know, Inky will sit at a distance when I’m in the hound graveyard or when I’m gardening up here around the house. She’ll sit and stare. She’s a dear little thing.”

“The black fox legend doesn’t scare you?” Tedi brought up the legend that the appearance of a black fox presages upheaval.

“No, not really. It’s not that uncommon a color variation. On the other end of it, look at that cub over at Wheeler’s Mill. So blond, he looks like a golden retriever and just as leggy. He’s going to be an odd-looking creation.”

“Let’s go out to dinner, my treat.” Tedi smiled. “In fact, let’s take Shaker. Come on, you can finish your draw list later.” She checked her watch. “You call Shaker. I’ll call Keswick Hall.”

“Oh, we’ll have to get all dressed up.”

“I mean the Sport Club. We can go in Bermuda shorts and sit at the little table by the bar. I don’t want to get dressed up, either.”

Within forty-five minutes all three of them were awaiting their appetizers. Sister sipped hot tea, Shaker drank iced tea, while Tedi indulged in a martini, the tiny corkscrew of lemon peel dancing around in the gin and vermouth. She said she wanted a twist instead of an olive because olives were for cool weather, lemons were for hot.

The three had also made a pact to not discuss Nola or Guy. One, it was too depressing. Two, they felt they were going around in circles about it. Three, Tedi especially needed to be distracted, which is exactly why she had left her daughter and husband at Farmington Country Club while she repaired to Keswick. Both country clubs also had hunt clubs bearing their names.

By the time the main courses arrived, all were in much more relaxed moods. Sister ordered sesame-crusted salmon; Tedi tried the pan-seared tuna, which she found delicious. Shaker stuck to chicken.

By the time they’d ordered their desserts they were telling old hunting stories and laughing.

Nancy Holt, the club tennis pro, came in and was hailed over to the table. She hunted with Keswick Hunt Club during the season on her day off, Wednesday.

“And what are you doing at work?” Tedi asked the tall, attractive woman.

“Just finished a kids’ tournament. Hey, I didn’t know Crawford Howard paid an extra five thousand dollars so Doug would come over to Shenandoah.”

“What?” All three stopped, forks filled with rich dessert poised in midair.

“Yes. Doakie Sproul was in the tournament. His mother told me they were surprised but grateful.” Mrs. Georgianna Sproul, wife of the master of the Shenandoah Hunt, was Doakie’s mother.

“That son of a bitch.” Shaker put his fork down.

“Uh-oh. Did I say something wrong?” Nancy put her hand to her mouth.

“No, you did not. Sit here. Would you like dinner?” Tedi patted the seat.

“No, thank you, but I’ll take a drink.”

As the drink was ordered, Shaker’s face grew redder. “That asshole. That total shit.” He drank a sip of tea. “I’m sorry, ladies.”

“I guess you didn’t know.” Nancy had no great love for Crawford since he kept running into her during joint meets. He’d use her for a bumper when he couldn’t hold Czapaka.

“Who did?” Tedi wondered. “And how come Wyatt Sproul didn’t tell you?” Wyatt was Shenandoah’s master.

“Wy is a good man. He must have thought I already knew.” Sister was putting two and two together.

“Doug would have told you. Means he doesn’t know,” Shaker said, his color returning to its normal ruddy shade. “Sister, do I have your permission to strangle Crawford?”

“No, dear, he’s not worth going to jail over.”

“We have to get even.” Tedi, too, was disturbed at this underhanded ploy.

“Oh, Tedi, we will.” Sister returned to her impossibly rich chocolate ice cream.

All four people realized Crawford had secretly paid to bump up Doug’s salary. Not only would this make the huntsman’s job more attractive but it would help Sister Jane accept that Doug should be at Shenandoah Hunt, not a particularly well-heeled club. Much as she wanted him to carry the horn, she didn’t want him to starve doing it.

Sister realized Crawford wasn’t motivated by a desire to help Doug, but rather one to weaken Jefferson Hunt. Doug was an inspired first whipper-in, and one reason for the club’s success in the field. Crawford was betting on his substitute, like any rookie, making mistakes. If the season wasn’t as good as it might be, if other clubs boasted better seasons, a certain amount of unrest would bubble up in the club. The hardened hunters knew better, but the fair-weather hunters and newcomers to the sport could be easily discouraged by a lackluster season. Especially if other clubs were having a good one.

Then he’d move in, and fan the unrest. As he was fanning, he would make certain everyone would become aware of the many fine things he could do if he were master, but you can’t expect a man to spend his hard-earned cash in lavish amounts if he isn’t going to carry the title of joint-master.

Tedi leaned back.“He’ll stop at nothing.”

“That idiot will be joint-master over my dead body.” Shaker’s eyes blazed.

“Don’t say that—not under the circumstances,” Sister gently corrected him.

CHAPTER 23

Spotty scent kept the hounds picking on the morning of September 10. They’d find a thread of enticement in the woods at Foxglove Farm, tease it toward the hayfields, then lose it in the middle of the hay, bent low under a steady wind slicing down off the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Days like this tested hounds, huntsman, and staff. During formal hunting, if the field was running and jumping, they usually paid little mind to the hard work of hounds, the conditions of soil and wind. But most of the souls who roused themselves to be at the fixture at seven-thirty in the morning knew hunting and were respectful of hound work. Cubbing brought out the best.

The tails, down, on Sister’s old brown hunt cap flapped as she reined in one hundred yards from the huge chestnut in the middle of the hayfield. Two jumps beckoned enticingly in the fence line, but there was no telling if the hounds would head in that direction.

Walter took off work to hunt Thursday mornings, but as this was Tuesday, she found she missed him. Most wise employers in Virginia Horse Country will allow their employees one morning off, especially if the employee will work late another day. Beneficent as this sounds, it’s a little bit like the schoolteacher who wishes everyone well on the first day of deer season and suspends classes. They’re going to go, so you might as well make the best of it. City people frothed at the mouth over this when they moved to these parts to start a business. They often left declaring the eternal backwardness of Southerners.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, the numbers in the field remained low until Opening Hunt, perhaps ten to twenty depending on the weather. During formal hunting, Sister Jane averaged about twentyfive on weekdays and sixty on weekends.

Today, Tedi, Edward, Ralph, Xavier, Ronnie, Jennifer Franklin, Crawford, Marty, and Sari Rasmussen, a school friend of Jennifer’s, waited with Sister in the hayfield.

The fox whose fading trail they’d been following, Grace, was a vixen from Target and Charlene’s litter last year. Slender with a lot of black on her mask, she loved to fish in the ponds at Foxglove Farm. These two ponds on different levels had a waterwheel between them, moving water from one level to another, aerating the water. Grace’s mother would shake her head and wonder why any child of hers preferred fishing to sauntering into the barn to eat grain and a few fat barn mice. Foxglove’s house dog, a German shepherd, betrayed no interest in chasing foxes.

Once Grace heard Dragon’s big mouth, she took off, running up the creek, over the rocks, and finally bursting into the hayfield. She knew hounds were far behind her and struggling with scent, so she doubled back on her track and slipped into her brother Reynard’s old den. Reynard, killed last year by an act of human malice, had a roomy den that no other creature currently used. Grace’s den was under one of the barns at Foxglove Farm. She could walk to work, as she put it.

She curled up for a well-earned snooze.

The field waited for ten minutes as the morning sun changed from scarlet to pink to gold.

Betty Franklin, on the left side today, stood at the edge of the hayfield. Sister figured Sybil was still in the woods to the right. Every now and then she heard Shaker’s “Whoop.”

He could blow a beautiful hunting horn but preferred to use his voice until hounds found scent, then he’d call other hounds to the line. When hounds burst out of the covert he’d blow “Gone Away.”

The riders watched the hounds fan out over the field. Sister was very proud of her members, even Crawford, as they didn’t automatically chatter and gossip at checks like this. Since he so desperately wanted to be joint-master, Crawford was now listening intently and making certain his behavior was unimpeachable in the field.

Target heard the hounds as he was heading home from the south side of Hangman’s Ridge. He trotted across the sunken fields, crossed Soldier Road, then loped across the floodplain fields until the earth rose in front of him. He crossed under a three-board fence and entered the swaying hayfields directly across the farm road from where Sister waited.

Every now and then he’d catch a word or two in the distance from Dragon. He laughed to himself.

He walked through the hay, jumped on top of a coop, and sat, waiting for someone in the hayfield opposite to notice him. He was, at most, four football fields distant.

To add insult to injury, he groomed himself.

Edward had kicked his feet out of the stirrups to let his long legs dangle. When he picked up his stirrups again he looked across the field.

“Tallyho,” he whispered.

Tedi passed it up to Sister.“Tallyho.”

Sister’s eyes followed the direction of Edward’s cap. He’d taken off his hunt cap, pointed his arm straight toward the fox, and also pointed his horse’s nose toward Target.

Crawford saw and foolishly bellowed,“Tallyho!”

He should have remained silent. Since hounds diligently kept their noses to the ground, he didn’t spoil anything except he again demonstrated how slender his grasp was of both the necessities and proprieties of hunting.

“Tallyho, yourselves,”Target murmured, and continued grooming.

On ascertaining that Target, whom she recognized, was in no hurry to depart, Sister cupped her hands to her mouth, being certain to holler in the direction of her huntsman. She let out the rebel yell,“Yip yip yo-o-o-o.”

That particular cry alerted Shaker that it was the master viewing and the master was unlikely to“tallyho” a groundhog, house cat, or fawn, each of which had been tallyho’d at one time or another by a member of the field.

He raised his voice to a high pitch.“Come to me. Whoop. Whoop.”

Trinity, although on her very first hunt, knew she was being called back to the huntsman, so she obediently turned, as did her sister, Tinsel. Delia, the mother of Dragon, Diana, and Dasher, called out to the others. Delia, moving a step slow these days, proved invaluable in steadying young ones. If she ran at the back of the pack she didn’t much mind. She’d had her day up front and she didn’t straggle, she stayed with the pack. A hound like Delia is a godsend to a huntsman.

Even Dragon, who resented interference, as he saw it, from Shaker, wanted to chase a fox. If Shaker was calling them, something must be up.

As the hounds returned to the huntsman, Sybil, who had been shadowing the pack on the right side, swung back with them.

Shaker wished to speak to his hounds, not humans. Sybil knew enough to stay on the right, so he merely waved her forward a bit. He was sure she’d learn the ropes quickly, but he hadn’t realized how much he had relied on Doug Kinser, who would have been across the farm road by now.

“Let’s find a fox.” Shaker smiled down at the upturned faces, then squeezed Hojo, a loud paint, his Tuesday horse, into an easy gallop. They moved smartly through the hayfield where the happy sight of the entire field, caps off, pointing to Target, poised on the far coop, greeted him.

Shaker slowed to a trot, let his hounds get up front of him, then urged them toward the farm road. The point was to give Target a chance to run; it would have been unsporting to do otherwise.

He let out a loud“whoop” to wake up the fox.

“What an ugly sound.”Target looked brightly at the huntsman.

Wind swept the golden hay where hounds were working toward him; he could see sterns aloft. Target knew his scent was being blown away from the hounds but, as they closed in, they’d pick up his scent when he moved off. His pads would leave a scentprint for hound noses.

Betty quietly moved forward on the left, at a walk, no need to make a show of it.

Sister held her breath.“What is Target doing?”

“Dragon?”

Dragon lifted his head at the sound of Target’s voice.

Tinsel and Trinity lifted their heads, too. No one had told them about this part.

“You couldn’t find a fox with radar,”Target taunted Dragon, then lifted off the far coop, swirled in midair, and ran flat out through the hay toward the sunken meadows. He figured he’d make a burst straight for his den, only zigging and zagging when he had to throw them off.

“I’ll break your neck!”Dragon roared back, his deep voice sending shivers down the spines of the humans.“Follow me,”he called over his shoulder.

Target had vanished into the hay, but Dragon relied on his nose to find him. He knew he could be fooled by sight and his eyes weren’t as good as a fox’s or a cat’s. But his nose—his nose was superb.

He leapt over the first coop. Why go under the fence line? Give everyone a show! He reached the second, cleared the coop without even touching it, put his nose right to ground on the other side, and let out a soul-stirring note in his rich baritone.

“I’m on!”

Shaker cheered the other hounds toward him. Delia double-checked Dragon’s findings. Dragon was now about fifty yards ahead.“Scorching!”

The young ones got a nose full of burning scent and became so excited that they tumbled over themselves. They picked themselves back up, hoping no one noticed.

All voices lifted to celebrate the thrill of the chase.

Shaker and Hojo smartly sailed over the first coop, raced across the farm road, sunken perhaps a foot below the hayfields, then went up and over the second.

Sister, heart racing, a grin from ear to ear, rode Keepsake over both coops and was thankful they’d just rebuilt them. Behind her she heard the rap of hooves as someone got in too close. Mostly she heard the “oomph,” “oomph,” “oomph,” of humans exhaling as they landed safely.

She kept about forty yards behind Shaker, fighting the urge to go right up with him.

“Squeeze him over,” she heard Marty Howard calling behind her. Sister glanced back to see that Crawford had gotten stuck on the farm road between the two jumps.

Under these circumstances, a rider is supposed to circle and go to the rear or wait, if he can’t circle, and let everyone else by. Crawford, however, bottled up the rest of the field. No one wanted to thunder past him for fear of spooking Czapaka or, worse, crashing into him. He didn’t have sense to go down the road and get out of everyone’s way.

Finally, with a terrific squeeze and smack of his crop, he lurched over the second coop. Ronnie Haslip, not deigning even to look at Crawford, effortlessly sailed over both coops, flying by Crawford perched on his big, beautiful warmblood. Ronnie was followed by the two high school seniors, Jennifer and Sari, who didn’t want to get stuck behind Crawford again, just in case.

There was an old stone fence line on the south side of the hayfield. After that pretty jump it was open country, Soldier Road, more open country, and up Hangman’s Ridge or the long way around it at the bottom.

Betty, thinking ahead, was already over the stone wall on Magellan, a horse who had a tendency to stand back and leave a half step earlier than her trusted and true Outlaw. She and Magellan were still getting accustomed to each other, but she was thrilled at having two horses to hunt.

The day was turning out to be so good, she felt half guilty about leaving Bobby at work—but not so guilty she wouldn’t do it again.

Sybil didn’t move fast enough, and Shaker preceded her over the stone wall at a low point where a few gray stones had fallen down. She swung in behind him, then tore out to his right side. He didn’t criticize her since he knew she already understood she was not in the right position.

Keepsake, a handy fellow, thought the stone wall a lark. He liked taking different types of fences and he really liked having Sister on his back. She was much lighter than his former owner. Sister felt like a feather on his back.

This time Crawford took the jump last and cleared without incident.

Hounds streamed across the sunken meadow filled with the last of the black-eyed Susans and the first of the Jerusalem artichokes. Pendulous blackberries marked its eastern boundary.

Sister paused a moment at Soldier Road. She couldn’t hear or see any motor traffic. She trotted over, jumped the old sagging coop—it needed replacing—and rode into the sunken meadow on the north side of the road. She galloped past more black-eyed Susans, Jerusalem artichokes, cornflowers, Queen Anne’s lace, and white morning glories, their magenta throats pointing to the sun. Purple morning glories tangled through the grasses.

Hounds screamed. Their music gave her goose bumps.

Target, putting on the afterburners just to prove a point, shot straight up Hangman’s Ridge, which at its summit was seven hundred feet above the watershed meadows below.

“Force those damned hounds to climb—and the people, too, if they’re dumb enough,”he thought.

Sister, however, wasn’t going to push anyone that hard quite this early in the season. If it had been December, the air cool, the horses 100 percent fit instead of 85 percent fit, she would have climbed up. Today she circled around to the old rutted wagon path. It cost her precious minutes and she’d have to hustle once she reached the ridge to make them up. This she did.

Target, for effect, had raced to the hanging tree, left a mark at its base, then charged straight down the other side. He could now hear Dragon behind him. The hound was fast. Target had indulged in too much chicken the previous evening. A straight shot to his den might not be the best plan after all.

So he hatched a diabolical new one. Once at the base of the ridge he crossed the farm road there and dashed through Sister’s old apple orchard.

Sister, now on the ridge, saw the last of her hounds go by the hanging tree, then straight down the ridge. The wagon path on the other side of the ridge connected to her farm road. If she pushed Keepsake toward it, they’d have to cover a quarter mile to reach it.

The wind, always stronger on the ridge, whipped at her face. As she passed the ancient oak, its heavy branches moaned in the wind, as if the souls punished there were crying for release.

She banished that thought, slowed to account for the steeper grade down. The footing was slick in spots. At the bottom she pressed on into the apple orchard.

Target ran right up to the kennel.“Wake up!”

Diana lifted her head, as did Cora, Trinkle, Trudy, Trident, Asa, Dasher, and all the others.

“Target! Fox! Fox!”everyone screamed at once.

Golliwog, on her way to the kennel to remind the benighted canines there that they were lower life-forms, saw Target scurry around to the front of the kennel. She was between the stable and the kennel, and the big red ran straight for her.

Golly puffed up and jumped in the air as high as she could go. She looked like she’d sucked on an air hose, she was so big.

Target flew right under her, laughing.

As she came down she cursed,“You stupid ass!”As the hounds weren’t far behind she considered it wiser to get out of their way than to continue to upbraid Target, who was never properly deferential to her. She did not like the attitude of the reds. She hurried to the bending hickory near the barn, unleashed her claws, and reached the lowest limb just as Dragon appeared by the kennel yards.

“Target! In the stable!”All the kenneled hounds ran back and forth, the hackles on their necks up, their sterns fluffed.

Dragon sped toward the stable. Target was already through it and could hear the hounds getting a little closer than he preferred. Well, he had other tricks up his sleeve.

The whole pack roared through the stable, knocking over buckets in the aisle, even slamming into the hay bales stacked at the aisle’s end to be distributed for the evening’s feedings.

Target reached Sister’s colorful fall gardens, ran smack through them, then into the gardening shed, and leapt out the open window on the back wall.

No chance of turning back toward his den now. But there was a good hole with lots of entrances and exits just behind the hound cemetery. He sped through the cemetery.

Zinnias were squashed, red and yellow petals sprinkling the ground as the pack chased Target. Shaker trotted Hojo between the flower beds, cursing as he rode.

“Damn that sly son of a bitch!” Then he heard the crash of breaking glass and moved faster over the manicured lawn only to see the pack jammed into the gardening shed, howling their frustration.

Sister came up behind just in time to see Dragon jump through the window, followed by the others. They tore the window clear out of the jamb, the sound of tinkling glass a counterpoint to their cries.

Across more beautiful lawn, through an all?e of locusts and hollies, curving through another all?e of still-green scarlet maples into the usually peaceful hound cemetery bounded by a wrought-iron fence.

The gate, open as always, let hounds in. The line of the scent went out the other side, which had no such gate. Dragon in his fury turned and literally ran through and over the pack, out the gate again, and around the other side. With some confusion and cussing, the rest followed, running around the sculpture of a hound in the middle. It was as though the stone hound was running with them. Sister pulled up hard behind Shaker by the iron fence.

“Oh, thank God!” Marty exclaimed.

No one else said a word, they just panted for breath.

Hounds found the den, digging and claiming victory for all they were worth.

Target, safe inside, made a mental note that Dragon, in his second year, had learned a great deal from his first year’s experiences. He wasn’t going to be easy to fool anymore. The ferocious drive that misled him last year had become more disciplined. Target would need to take this fellow more seriously. He would have to be more clever and he would have to teach him a lesson. Today would only build the handsome hound’s confidence. Dragon needed to be knocked down a peg or two. Aunt Netty had been right.

Target also thought he’d better tell his offspring, especially the youngest over at Mill Ruins.

Hojo stood quietly while Shaker walked to the den, stood, and blew the notes of triumph. He praised each hound, then led them away with Betty’s and Sybil’s help.

“Another excellent day,” he said, reaching for the reins.

“I didn’t think we’d do much today.” Sister smiled and turned. The faces behind her, flushed with heat and excitement, radiated happiness as well as relief. Ralph breathed hard, laughing at himself for being a bit out of shape. Xavier huffed and puffed.

“Well, what do you think?” Shaker, back in the saddle, asked the master.

“I think we call it a day.” She turned to Marty and asked, “And what were you thanking God for?”

“That you didn’t jump the wrought-iron fence into the graveyard.”

Tedi and Edward flanked Sister as they rode back across her lawn, the pathetic remains of her garden testifying to the fervor of the chase.

“Janie, winter is coming. You’ll just prepare the new beds early.” Tedi made light of it.

“You’re right.”

“You’ll need a new window.” Edward nodded toward the gardening shed. “I’ve got an extra. I’ll have Jimmy bring it over and put it in for you.”

“Thank you, Edward. You are the most generous soul.”

“Well, he is, but don’t be too impressed. You know we have the top of the old bank barn filled with Edward’s treasures. Old windows, mantels, heart pine flooring. You name it, Edward’s got it.”

Edward smiled. He was a pack rat by nature, but he had compromised early in their marriage by storing his finds outside the house. When he’d swear these items, such as cartons of oldEsquiremagazines, the large kind from the forties and fifties, would be worth something someday, Tedi would always reply,“Yes, dear.”

Sybil had inherited the pack rat gene. Nola, on the other hand, never saved anything.

As people dismounted at the trailers, talking about the terrific run, sharing a thermos of coffee, a cold beer or a ham sandwich, Sister rode with Shaker, Sybil, and Betty to the kennels. Once the hounds were inside she turned toward her own stable. Shaker would be busy with the hounds, washing out cuts and scratches from the gardening shed episode.

Jennifer and Sari, with no prompting from Betty, met her as she dismounted.“Sister, we’ll clean up your horses for you.”

“Why, girls, thank you so much.”

“And Mom says I can work here on weekends if that’s okay with you.” Jennifer wanted desperately to work with Sister. She wanted to learn everything about hunting.

“Jennifer, you’ll be a big help to me.” Sister could never refuse a young person in love with hunting.

Sari, her dark eyes almost black, timidly spoke up.“Master, I could work, too, if you need an extra hand.”

“Why, yes. You can start right now. I’ll pay you for the day.”

“No, we’ll clean the stable because we want to,” Jennifer said just as her mother joined her. Magellan was now tied to the trailer.

“Tell you what, I’ll accept your generous offer for today. And you can ride Rickyroo, Lafayette, and Aztec. Ask Shaker about Showboat and Gunpowder. At least a half hour of trotting for those guys.”

“Okay.” The two girls were thrilled.

“Ten dollars an hour.”

“Sister, that’s too much,” Betty protested.

“Good help is hard to find. Ten dollars an hour.” Sister, feeling fabulous, winked at them all.

Jennifer took Keepsake into the stable as Sister joined the gang at the trailers for an impromptu breakfast. She liked these tailgates better than the big affairs.

She complimented Sybil on her second day as first whipper-in.

“I got behind at the stone wall.”

“You made up for it. Whipping-in is a lot different from riding in the field. You can never stop thinking, reaching.” Sister popped a deviled egg into her mouth.

When she walked back to the barn later, the two girls were cleaning away. Tack was hanging from hooks. Keepsake, washed, was content in his stall, telling the other horses just what a fine day it was.

Sister loved having young people around. She walked outside, listening to the girls talking, laughing. She heard the big diesel engines of the vans fire up, detected the throaty roar of the pickup trucks for those pulling goose-necks. People called good-bye to one another, called“good night” to her, which was proper. One said “good night” to the master at the end of a hunt even if it was ten in the morning—which it was.

She walked across her desecrated lawn thinking the destruction was worth the fun. Golliwog, Raleigh, and Rooster sashayed alongside her. They had been very upset at the goings-on. Golly, of course, bragged about how she faced down Target just spitting at him, her claws unleashed.

They followed Sister under the hickories and hollies, past the scarlet maples that would turn flaming red in another month. They could smell the apples on the trees in the far orchard. Sister walked through the wrought-iron gate. Under the walnut tree in the middle of the graveyard was a graceful stone statue of a hound running. On the front was inscribed: REST, DEAR FRIENDS, WE’LL HUNT AGAIN SOMEDAY.

Bronze plaques, each bearing a hound’s name, were attached to the base, representing forty years of Jefferson Hunt hounds. Although the hunt was founded at the end of the nineteenth century, the graveyard was only forty years old. Newer plaques were affixed to the wrought-iron fence. A special tombstone had been erected for Archie, her great anchor hound, a hound she had loved as no other.

“Archie, you missed quite a day. And that pup whom you hated, Dragon, actually did very well, very well indeed.”

As they left, Rooster asked why Archie had his name on a plaque and a tombstone, too.

“Her fave,”Raleigh answered.

“Will we be buried here?”Rooster asked.

“No, we’ll be buried up under the pear trees behindthe house.”Raleigh liked the idea of being by the house close to Sister.

“Not me,”Golly bragged.“I’m going to be crematedand when Sister dies she’ll be cremated, too. We’ll go inthe ground together.”

“You are so full of it.”Raleigh laid his ears back.

Sister walked on over to the den.“Target, quite a show.”

He stuck his nose out of the largest opening.“I am thegreatest.”

Raleigh and Rooster knew not to do anything or Sister would tell them,“Leave it.” She always told them what to do, and since she didn’t give a “whoop” they looked down at the fox, even larger than he was last year.

Golliwog huffed up and spit, and as they walked away she bragged,“He’s afraid of me.”

The two house dogs thought it better not to answer or a nasty fight would explode.

Sister stopped again at the hound graveyard. Leaning on the iron fence, she remembered something about the first day of cubbing in 1981. She just now recalled a check at a remote part of After All Farm. They’d had a good hard run and finally lost scent at the estate’s easternmost border where an old, well-tended slave graveyard reposed, small, smooth worn tombstones standing out against deep green grass, the whole bounded by a low stone wall. Most old graveyards were marked off by stone walls or wrought-iron fences. This graveyard belonged to the Lorillards, an old central Virginia family, both black and white. These were the original black Lorillards.

She’d stepped a bit away from the field, listening for Shaker or a hound. The hounds were casting back into the covert by a narrow creek bed. She’d turned to look back at Nola, Sybil, Guy, Ken, Ralph, and Xavier, off from the others, a small group of the younger set. Now she remembered seeingNola, radiant from the run, at the center, the object of all male eyes, while Sybil cast her gaze down, then looked back into the Lorillard graveyard.

She remembered thinking to herself at the time that that tableau moment said it all.

CHAPTER 24

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inky, behind them, stepped out of the fog.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raleigh growled, putting himself right in front of Sister.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Dammit!”

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

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

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

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

Even Inky’s ruff stood up on end.

“God, that’s awful.”Raleigh blinked.

Sister got hold of herself and started back toward home.

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

“Why don’t they leave?”Rooster asked.

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

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

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

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

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

Instead, there was a knock on the back door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, I had a scare.”

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

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

“I don’t want his money!”

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

“I can’t.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Even the murderers?”

“God’s grace.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And what was it you felt?”

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

“Me too.”

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

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

“You think?”

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

“Or two or three.”

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

“You, too?”

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

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

He shook his head.“Not me.”

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

“Cruel. Nola was cruel to men.”

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

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

“I don’t get it.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Did men dislike him?” Sister asked.

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

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

“No. Funny, I don’t think he was.”

“What about her?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Ralph Assumptio, for one.”

“Who else?”

“Fontaine.”

“Jesus.” She paused. “Raymond?”

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

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

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

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

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

She waited, lowered her voice.“Sybil?”

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

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

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

“Nola?”

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

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

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

“He held a grudge.”

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

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

“That the killer is going to break cover.”

“And?”

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

“Everyone said he got loaded the night before.”

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

“Their marriage seems happy enough.”

Shaker shrugged.“Who knows?”

“You’re right. Who does know?”

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

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

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

“Would he have killed her?”

“I don’t know.”

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

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

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

“They were fixing to fight sooner or later.”

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

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

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

“Uh-huh.” He nodded in agreement.

“Well, have you told Ben Sidell?”

“I did. He’s okay, Sidell.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Women like Nola provoke people.”

“This sounds suspiciously like blaming the victim.”

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

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

“And?”

“Just some information,” she said, smiling.

“Cupid.”

CHAPTER 25

The Board of Governors of the Jefferson Hunt met the third Wednesday of each month except for July. This month’s meeting would be September 18, which gave Sister a little time to gather the votes for Shaker’s pay raise. She hoped the discussion about when and where to locate the Hunter Trials would wear them out so the raise would slide through.

As Thursday’s hunt and Saturday’s hunt both produced bracing runs, the buzz around town was that this was going to be a good season. Sister knew the numbers in the cubbing field would swell and she could expect a sizable field on Saturday, the twenty-first. She was already wondering which young entry to subject to the increased numbers of people and had an evil moment where she thought about pushing up the first cast to six-thirty in the morning. They’d revolt. No, she’d keep it at seven-thirty but deliver a little lecture about cubbing’s purpose being for young entry, hounds first, last, and always.

Monday was her town day, meaning errands, including the most hated shopping for groceries. Well, she’d combine politicking with shopping. Her first stop was Ken Fawkes’s office, in a discreet modern building that blended into the landscape. Unlike most of her contemporaries, Sister liked modern architecture so long as it was good. Perhaps she preferred Palladian architecture, but something as beautiful as the Seagram Building in New York City deserved to be praised.

This was Ken Fawkes’s first year on the board. She’d called ahead and was instantly ushered into his office, decorated in a minimalist style that was a total contrast to the way in which Sybil had decorated their home. She realized she’d never been in Ken’s office and this reflected something new about him, an aesthetic sensibility all his own.

“How good of you to stop by,” he greeted her, his white broadcloth shirt offset by a simple royal blue tie.

“Well, you’re kind to let me barge in. I won’t take much of your time.”

They sat down facing each other over a coffee table of highly polished black marble with thin green veins snaking throughout.

“Coffee? Anything to drink?”

“No, thank you. Ken, I’ll get right to the point. As you know, thanks to Doug leaving to take the horn at Shenandoah Valley, we have his salary in the till.” He nodded and she continued. “Shaker hasn’t had a raise in four years, and that one was negligible, another thousand a year. We’ve just got to give this man more money.”

“I agree.” He folded his hands together, his elbows on his knees, and leaned toward her with a grin. “Means you want to keep my wife as a whipper-in, does it? She’s free.”

“She has talent.” Sister smiled. “Where would we be without your contributions, the contributions of the Bancrofts? I am grateful.”

He demurred.“That’s foxhunting. If you have it, you give. Like church.”

“I find I’m closer to the Good Lord out there than with my butt parked in a pew.”

“Me too.”

“You know, I have this terrible confession.” She leaned toward him, their heads closer over the exquisite marble. “I can tell you this because you’re an Episcopalian, too. I’ve always thought of Episcopalians as junior varsity Catholics,” she said, grinning mischievously.

He laughed, leaning back into his seat.“Wait until I tell that to Sybil.”

“Ken, I may not get to Heaven with thoughts like that.”

“You know, they say foxhunters don’t go to Heaven because they have their Heaven on earth.” He paused. “Of course, you have my full support for a raise. Would five thousand dollars be acceptable?”

“Yes, I think that would be.” She beamed at him. “Now, one more thing. Ralph Assumptio has been a true-blue hunting member and I value him, but he is obsessed with money matters. I actually think that helps us on the board because he goes over every single thing with a fine-tooth comb.”She cleared her throat. “I expect resistance from Ralph. He’ll be swayed by you before he’ll be swayed by me.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, but I will talk to him.”

What neither acknowledged was that Ken had sent Ralph a lot of business over the years. Ralph could just keep quiet and come through on this one thing.

Sister thanked him and as she reached the door she asked one more question.“You know, I recalled a lovely picture of you and Sybil. Funny how things come into your mind. I was remembering that first day of cubbing back in 1981 for the obvious reason—well, we’d such a good run and we pulled up at Lorillard graveyard. Do you remember?”

“Vaguely.”

“You, Sybil, Ralph, Nola, Xavier, Guy, all together, all so young, flushed from the run. It was a pleasant memory. Being up front, I can’t see what goes on behind me on a run. Did you see Guy bump Ralph?”

“Oh, that long coop. Ralph was touchy. It wasn’t that bad.”

“Not bad enough to induce murder?”

His eyes widened.“Ralph never really liked Guy. He just hated that we called him Hotspur. Said it glamorized the bastard. Pardon my language.” Ken cleared his throat. He’d been taught not to swear in front of a lady. “But kill Guy? No.”

She left, stopped by Franklin Printing. Betty and Bobby offered their full support for the raise.

By noon she’d called on every board member except for Ralph. She’d give Ken the day to reach him and then she’d have a word with Ralph at tomorrow’s cubbing.

She pulled up to the feed store. Given all the stops she needed to make, she’d left Raleigh and Rooster home. She missed having them in the truck with her. She enjoyed their “conversation,” as she told friends. She’d chatter away to her dogs, who always seemed so interested in everything she had to say.

She bumped into Alice Ramy emerging with a dolly loaded with chicken feed.

“Alice, let me help you.” Sister unloaded the fiftypound sacks onto the back of Alice’s pickup. Alice, although a few years younger than Sister, was frail with tiny, light bones.

“Thank you.” Alice shut the tailgate. “Sister, I’m told I can have Guy back. I don’t know what to do.”

“Would you like me to make arrangements? It might be easier.” Alice nodded as Sister put her arm around Alice’s waist. “Tell you what. I’ll follow you home and unload the feed. You make a cup of tea, or even better, a gin rickey. It’s still warm enough for a gin rickey. I’ll call Carl from your house.” Carl Haslip, Ronnie’s cousin, owned the best funeral home in the county.

An hour later, the feed safely stacked in the chicken coop, Sister called Carl, who lifted this burden off her shoulders.

Alice wanted Guy placed next to his father. She didn’t want a service. Enough time had passed was how she put it.

The two women sat on Alice’s back porch, where a canopy of wisteria draped over the crossbeams, for the back porch was under a huge pergola. Alice had taste in some things, plus she made a wickedly delicious gin rickey.

“Thank you, Jane.”

“I was glad to help.”

“I haven’t been a good neighbor. Wasn’t much of a neighbor to Peter, either.” She mentioned Peter Wheeler, whose farm adjoined hers to the south. “I miss him. I don’t know why. All I ever did was complain to him or about him.”

“He was a good man. I miss his sense of humor.”

“Guy adored him.”

“Mutual, I think.”

“You know that fellow who is in there now? Walter, the doctor? He puts me to mind of Raymond.”

“Oh?”

“Different coloring, but same size and build, and even the bone structure of his face.” She sipped a deep draft. “A quieter man than Raymond.”

“My husband liked being the center of attention.”

“And how. Guy was like that, too. Don’t know where he got it. Both Paul and I were quiet-living people even when we were young.”

“He was beautiful. Beauty generates its own energy.”

Alice watched her cat, Malarky, climb up the wisteria to nestle in a branch and gaze down at them.“Yes, he was beautiful. He took after my grandmother. Same eyes, same black curly hair. I always wished I looked like her. She was beautiful even in old age.”

“Now, Alice, you’re an attractive woman.”

“Liar”—she stretched her legs out—“but I thank you all the same.” Malarky shifted his weight, sending wisteria leaves twirling downward. “Fatty,” she called up to him.

He ignored her.

“Won’t be long before the leaves turn, even though it’s seventy-four degrees today. The other morning I walked out in the fog and it was chilly.”

“Lot of fog now. Earth’s warmer than the air.” She turned to face Sister. “Since they found Guy I’ve thought about things. I guess I knew he was gone. He would have found some way to reach me even if he had killed Nola. He wouldn’t have killed her, but even if he had. I just don’t know who killed him, but I think we’ll find out.”

“Yes, I think we will, too. Alice, did Paul ever tell you anything he’d discovered?”

“No. He said he could account for people’s movements. I guess you’d say everyone had an alibi. He didn’t really have suspects.”

“Did Guy ever talk about someone he hated or who might have hated him?”

“Mmm, sometimes Ronnie Haslip would get on his nerves. Guy thought Ronnie was flirting with him. I just laughed at him. And he and Ralph started bickering. They’d got on well as children and all through high school. But those last months of Guy’s life they were at odds.”

“Did you know why?”

“No. You know, the night before he died, he stopped off home. I was watching an old movie,Dark Victory, with Bette Davis. He sat next to me on the sofa and said he was getting bored with everyone. He needed a change.”

“Do you think he meant Nola?”

“I don’t know. He wasn’t very specific. But he said the time had come for him to do something with his life. He wasn’t upset, just kind of sober. I can’t think of a better word.”

“Did Paul find out anything that upset you?”

“No. I knew Guy partied too much with all those rich people. I knew he had some growing up to do.”

“Ronnie Haslip, Xavier, and Ralph weren’t rich then.”

“No. But the Bancrofts, the Taylors, the Jansens. Too much too soon. All of them.”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever worry that Ray would fall in with that crowd, or their younger sisters and brothers, when he became a little older?” Alice sipped her drink, held one of the ice cubes in her mouth, then released it on the next swallow of gin rickey.

“I did.”

“Well, you and Raymond weren’t poor. I suppose Little Ray could have kept up with the Joneses.”

“That was Big Ray’s department. But Alice, I don’t think Raymond or I would have tolerated that behavior in our son even if we could have afforded it. This county is full of people who just suck off their trust funds.”

“Most don’t amount to a hill of beans.”

“I don’t begrudge them the money. What I can’t stand is that they don’t do anything for anybody else. They party, golf, hunt, travel, ricochet from one thing to another. They marry, have children, divorce, marry again, and think the world belongs to them. I have to tolerate the ones in the hunt club, but I sure don’t have to socialize with them.”

Alice smiled.“I’ve never heard you talk like that.”

“Alice, you’ve never heard me talk,” Sister bluntly replied.

A silence followed, then Alice spoke.“I haven’t liked myself much since Guy disappeared. I lived for my family, and when they were gone I didn’t have any friends. Well, you are right. I haven’t heard you talk, really talk. I haven’t heard anyone talk. And how much life do I have left? I don’t want to live it like this. My son has come back to me. Not as I wished, but he’s come back and, you know, he reproaches me. Guy wouldn’t want me as his mother now.”

Surprised by this outburst, Sister softly said,“Love never dies. His love is as real today as the day he died. He would want you as his mother. He wants you to be happy.”

“Do you think so?”

“I do. I draw on Raymond’s love every day. He wasn’t perfect. Neither am I. But he loved me and so did my son. I live with that love.”

Alice finished her drink.“I never thought of it that way. I only thought of what I’d lost. Well, I’ve cried through many a night. I cried when Ben Sidell told me they’d found Guy. The more I cried, the more I knew I had to do something. I can become someone my son would like to know.”

“What are you going to do?”

“The first thing I’m going to do is take some classes at Virginia Tech. I’ll have to commute, but I checked out the classes on the computer. I can take classes on Mondays and Wednesdays. I’m going to get a little apartment in Blacksburg, go down Sunday nights and return Wednesday afternoons. I heard that Lorraine Rasmussen wanted to get out in the country, money’s tight for her, and I’ve rented her rooms upstairs. We’ll share the kitchen, the living room. She’ll take care of Malarky and my chickens.”

“Well, Alice, that’s wonderful.”

“Do you want to know what I’m going to study?”

“Of course.”

“Poultry science and cattle breeding. I’ve always wanted to breed high-quality cattle, but Paul wouldn’t let me do it. He said the market was like a roller coaster. Well, he’s gone. I’m going to do what I want to do.”

“Good for you.”

“And one other thing. You were always nice to me even when I wasn’t nice to you. So if you want to go through here when you hunt, you go right ahead.”

“Alice!” Sister leapt out of her chair and gave Alice a hug.

“See, I knew all this time you just wanted to hunt my land.” Alice, her face red, laughed.

It wasn’t until she was halfway up her own driveway that Sister realized she never did buy her groceries.

CHAPTER 26

Each board meeting rotated to a different board member’s home. Ralph and Frances Assumptio hosted this one. Frances spent her time and energy cleaning and decorating. The place, farther west from Sister’s down Soldier Road, had a warm feel to it full of handsomely worn oriental rugs, old silver, and overstuffed club chairs.

One of the rules of the Jefferson Hunt was that no food or liquor could be served until after the board meeting. Past experience proved the necessity of this rule.

As usual, the entire board showed up. Shaker’s raise passed unanimously. When Ralph wasn’t looking, Ken winked at Sister, who winked back.

They had checked off everything on the agenda when Bobby Franklin, as president, asked pro forma,“Are there any new items not on the agenda?”

Crawford, wearing a flattering turquoise shirt, spoke.“I’d like us to consider building a clubhouse and showgrounds. We lack a central meeting place—neutral territory, if you will—and showgrounds would help our horse show committee immeasurably. We’d have a permanent home for our activities.”

“Wait a minute. This club has no debt. You’re talking about running up mountains of debt,” Ralph piped up, his eyebrows knit together in concern.

“One of the reasons we have no debt is because Raymond and Sister built the ‘new’ kennels on their farm at their own expense,” Bobby said, quickly giving credit where credit was due. He knew perfectly well what Crawford was up to.

“What happens when Sister leaves us?” Crawford blurted out.

“I’m not leaving,” Sister said, enjoying watching him squirm. “I would never willingly leave the Jefferson Hunt. You might vote me out, but I won’t leave on my own.”

“Never!” Betty vehemently spoke.

The rest rumbled their agreement.

“Well, what I meant to say is, what if you have to leave us, what if it’s not your idea?” Crawford recognized his blunder and wished these damned Virginians weren’t so subtle. And how they prized it, too. Made him sick. Everything took twice as long because of their damned subtlety.

“You mean if I died?” Her gray eyebrows raised quizzically.

“Well—yes,” Crawford sheepishly replied.

“The kennels will still belong to the Jefferson Hunt Club, as will the rest of Roughneck Farm.” She had dropped a bombshell.

No one knew what to say.

Betty started to cry.

Bobby also wiped away tears.“Now, we don’t have to go into this. It’s not our business.”

“You know, I wasn’t withholding it to be obstructionist.” Sister folded her hands on the table. “It’s just no one likes to think of their own demise. When Peter died, it shook me.” Murmurs echoed this sentence, as it had upset all of them. “He’d had good, long innings. I never thought Peter would die. He was made of iron, but the last year when he didn’t ride anymore, I guess deep down, I knew. When a foxhunter stops riding, well?” She shrugged, and the others knew what she meant.

“You aren’t going anytime soon. Only the good die young.” Bobby recovered himself.

Everyone laughed.

“I should live forever, in that case. But I had to think about how I had arranged my effects. And I’d pretty much left everything as Raymond and I had once decided. But that time is past. I have no true physical heirs, but I have plenty of hound children and horse children— and your children.” She smiled warmly. “The Jefferson Hunt will always have a home. I wish I could leave you more money. Who knows what the future will bring. But you have the physical plant.”

“Hear! Hear!” Ken applauded.

The others followed his lead.

“So we don’t need to go into debt.” Ralph Assumptio’s long face lit up.

“I rather wanted this to be a surprise, but Crawford, your concern, which is quite legitimate, forced my hand.”

“I certainly had no idea. I didn’t mean to.” He truly meant it.

“And I agree with you, Crawford, that a showgrounds would help us,” Sister said. “We might even be able to rent it out to other groups and make a bit of money. Imagine that, a hunt club more in the black than in the red.”

Everyone laughed again.

“You have an idea about the showgrounds?” Crawford ran his forefinger and middle finger over his lips, an unconscious gesture of thoughtfulness.

“I think it’s a good idea, but I really don’t want it at Roughneck Farm while I’m alive. I couldn’t stand the commotion.”

“What if I bought a piece of property near your place?” Crawford suggested.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Ken said. His voice carried authority, an authority he didn’t have in his youth. “Naturally, I’ll need to discuss this with Tedi, Edward, and Sybil, but there is a triangle of land, those acres on our western border. The old logging road goes into it. Perhaps we could donate that to the club and start on the showgrounds next spring, if all goes well.”

“Still taking on debt,” Ralph grumbled, lowering his head like a bull. He’d been sullen lately. “Bulldozers, grading—why, just the preparation for a ring can easily cost thirty thousand dollars. It’s the drainage that gets you. Now, I don’t want to discourage your gift, Ken, assuming your wife, motherin-law, and father-in-law agree, but a building program would still mean debt—a grandstand, fencing, fencing around the show ring, that cash register starts ringing up. And you need a sprinkler system, otherwise you’ve got a dust bowl in the summer. You need a tractorand harrow to drag the ring. You need night lights. You need P.A. equipment, otherwise no one will know what’s going on, and I can tell you right now a bullhorn isn’t going to cut it. That’s for starters, folks. And how big do you want the ring? Big. Doesn’t do you a bit of good to build a small one.”

“Now, Ralph, we can figure these things out.” At that moment Crawford wanted more than anything to strangle Ralph.

“He’s right, though,” Betty chimed in. “It’s a long-term project, but if the land is donated, with effort and a lot of bake sales, hunter trials, and hunter paces, we could raise the money over the years and then build it.” Betty feared debt, too. She and Bobby struggled to pay their mortgage sometimes.

The last thing Betty, Bobby, or Sister wanted to do was wear out the members by always trying to squeeze money or work out of them.

Ronnie Haslip, uncharacteristically silent for most of the meeting, said,“If you build a ring, you should build it three hundred feet by one hundred and fifty feet and board it solid so you can also play arena polo there. Could bring in a little more revenue. And you might want to think about stables, the kind that used to be at the Warrenton Fairgrounds. Then you’ve expanded your versatility.” He held up his hand as Ralph opened his mouth. “And your budget, I know.”

Bobby twiddled with his pencil, then spoke, a rather high voice from such a large body.“How can we do this without exhausting our members? This is a huge project. If we add more obligations like more shows, hunter trials, bake sales, you name it, we are going to plain wear out our people. Today, just about everybody works a real job and they don’t have time.”

“Well, what if I headed up an exploratory committee?” Crawford suggested. “Maybe we could float a bond so people aren’t going crazy with these nickel-and-dime projects.”

“My nickel-and-dime project brought in fourteen thousand dollars last year,” Ralph reminded them. He was justifiably proud of his horse shows, one of which was A rated.

“No disrespect, Ralph, but those shows are a lot of work,” Ronnie said. “If Claiborne and Tom Bishop didn’t give us the use of the Barracks,” Ronnie named their large indoor arena, “gratis, we’d be lucky to make a thousand dollars. And it takes just about everyone in the club to work that big show you do, the A one.”

Shows were rated by the American Horse Shows Association. Tempting though it was to think of it as a report card, it usually reflected the level of competition, the courses, etc. A show rated B wasn’t necessarily a bad show, it was just somewhat simpler and didn’t attract many professional riders who wanted to gain points, rather like professional tennis players trying to keep their rankings on the computer.

Sister kept out of most board discussions unless they related to hounds, hunt staff, hunt territory. She kept out of this one but was listening intently.

“Crawford, do you have dollar figures in mind?” Ken short-circuited Ralph’s indignation. “These horse shows are a godsend to us even if they are a lot of work. How much more could we bring in if we had this facility?”

“You could charge the polo club, homeless since the old fairgrounds were torn down, at least five thousand a summer. Other groups would be charged on a day rate. I can get figures from Expoland, Commonwealth Park, and the Virginia Horse Center.”

“Those are big operations.” Bobby tried not to let his personal animosity for Crawford cloud his judgment.

Crawford was struggling with the same problem in reverse.“I also thought I could see what the Albemarle County Fair brings in. And I will get a variety of construction figures based on different types of footing, ring sizes, stuff like that. I expect the exploratory process will take four to five months.”

“The fair suffered the last two years, rained out,” Betty flatly stated. “It’s a huge problem.”

“Which is why we also need an indoor arena if we’re going to do this right,” Ronnie said, gathering steam. “And I don’t want to do this if we aren’t going to do it right. Have any of you ever seen the Mercer County Fairgrounds in Kentucky or the Shelbyville Fairgrounds? They’re beautiful. Right out of the 1890s. If we’re going to do this, then we must do it properly and it should be a thing of beauty.”

“And a joy forever.” Ken laughed partly because Ronnie had turned so serious.

“He’s right, though,” Bobby said. “And I don’t want to go into debt. Crawford, I am underlining that thought three times. But I agree with Ron. If we do it, we do it right.”

“Well, would any of you care to serve on my exploratory committee?” Crawford threw down the gauntlet.

“I will,” Ralph said. “To keep an eye on you!”

Everyone laughed.

“Me too,” Ken agreed.

Betty nudged Bobby. He ignored her as she spoke up herself.“I’d be happy to do some research on this. It’s exciting.”

Sister said,“Might I suggest you ask Walter. He’d be invaluable in dealing with details like handicap access, sanitary facilities. And he’s got a wealth of common sense, too.”

“Good idea,” Betty said. She liked Walter.

“All right, if there’s no further discussion, will someone make a motion that we adjourn?”

“Wait. One more piece of hunting news,” Sister said, and rolled her eyes heavenward as if announcing a miracle from Heaven. “Alice Ramy will let us hunt through her land.” Just then an enormous thunderclap startled all of them. “Perfect timing.” Sister laughed. The power wavered, then went out.

“I’ve got candles. Don’t worry.” Frances bustled in from the kitchen as Ralph lit the graceful hurricane lamps on the mantelpiece.

“How did you do it?” Betty was agape.

“You know, I didn’t do a thing. If we give credit to anyone, let’s give it to our former member, Guy Ramy. His memory changed his mother’s mind.”

A silence followed this.

Ken finally said,“Well, that’s wonderful. I think each of us board members should make the effort to call on Alice and personally thank her.”

“Hear. Hear!” Bobby lightly rapped the table with his gavel. “Excellent development. Excellent idea.”

A flash of lightning, another thunderclap, and a torrent of rain dropped out of the sky.

“I don’t ever remember this many thunderstorms. This year’s been peculiar,” Ralph said. He struck a safety match, lighting more candles.

Everyone talked about the weather, Alice, and local events while Betty and Sister helped Frances bring out the food. Ralph opened the bar.

After everyone had a drink in hand, Ralph pulled out a flask holder from behind the bar.“Would you look at what my lovely wife bought me?”

Bobby Franklin reached for it; the British tan leather was cool to his touch. He put his thumb under the small metal button knob, popping up the leather flap that secured the top. Carefully he lifted out the silver-topped flask. Holding the glass to the candlelight, he whistled and said,“Handblown.”

“Let me see that.” Ken took the flask. “Even got your initial on it.”

“Frances thinks of everything,” Ralph boasted.

“Wonderful woman,” Ronnie agreed. “Only ever made one mistake.”

“What’s that?” Ralph’s eyebrows knitted together.

“Married you,” Ronnie said, and laughed.

As they ate, talked, joked with one another, Betty said to Sister,“Bet we don’t hunt tomorrow.”

“It will clear up.”

“You always say that.” Betty dabbed her mouth with a linen napkin. “That Frances makes the best deviled eggs. Guards the recipe with her life.”

“Hounds are going out unless it’s a monsoon.”

And that’s what it was. So hounds stayed in the kennels and Sister finally knocked off her overdue grocery shopping. She knew, given the moisture, that Saturday’s hunt would be slick but that scent ought to hold. She couldn’t wait.

CHAPTER 27

Aztec’s ears swept forward and back. Although possessed of 360-degree vision, give or take a degree, Aztec couldn’t see more than three feet in front of his well-shaped nostrils thanks to persistent fog. Relying on his hearing, he could tell hounds, on a light line in front of him, were working hard to stay with scent. He knew scent should have been glorious, but it wasn’t. Foxhunting is a humbling sport, and Nature makes a volatile partner.

Sister listened for hounds, Shaker’s voice, the horn, and for the horses behind her. She couldn’t move out too quickly because the field, twenty-four strong this early morning, would be scattered like ninepins in the blanket of fog. Mostly they walked and trotted. If hounds hit a hot line, she’d need to use her knowledgeof the territory to try to keep up without losing people or running into a barn.

The fog hung over them, refusing to lift. Foxes, knowing the night would bring a full moon, stayed in their dens resting up for what they hoped would be a party night. Lunacy didn’t just apply to people.

Fortunately for the hunters, the trails of scent from the night before still lingered. Those late coming home, around sunup, left even fresher scent, but as yet the pack hadn’t hit it.

Betty Franklin, on the left side, crept along Snake Creek’s bank. The ground was soggy, but she knew where she was. If hounds really moved off she thought she could stay with them until they entered either the hayfield about four hundred yards to her right, or ran straight through the woods and came out into the cornfield bottom. Once in an open field, Betty knew she’d become disoriented. All she could do was ride to cry, but ultimately that’s all any whipper-in can do under harsh conditions.

Sybil, feeling jittery, hoped she wouldn’t get in the hounds’ way. Hounds met at her parents’ big house at After All. Under normal circumstances, Shaker and Sister together with Betty and Sybil would have met at the kennels and roaded them over. This would give hounds time to settle, horses and humans time to limber up, but the fog prevented that. Instead, they loaded everyone on the hound trailer and drove to After All, parking down at the barns.

Even though Sybil was born and raised on this land, the fog transformed the most ordinary things into the extraordinary.

She jumped, startled, as the covered bridge appeared before her like the gaping mouth of the mask of tragedy. Her fear made Marquise, her horse, leap sideways.

“Sorry, Sweetie.”

They clip-clopped over the bridge. She thought Betty was up ahead. In a situation like this, Betty would go forward on the left side and Sybil would come behind on the right side. Sybil could hear hounds ahead of her moving along the creek bed. She had no idea where the field was but reminded herself that Sister knew the land even better than she did. Sister had had twentyfive more years to study it.

She climbed the low ridge, sending small stones rolling down the slick mud behind her. She pulled up by her sister’s and Peppermint’s graves.

“Nola, you’d enjoy today.”

Never having spoken to a grave or a dead person before, she felt slightly foolish, but there persisted deep within her the idea that Nola was near. Not just her remains, but her spirit. And that spirit loved her. Yes, when small they fought like banty roosters. As they became teenagers, Sybil swallowed her resentment of her sister’s beauty, her extroverted personality. Alone upstairs at night, one or the other would slide down the polished hall floor, socks barely making a squeak. Then they’d sit together on the bed, compare their days, make fun of everyone else, study the models in SeventeenorVogue magazine, and talk endlessly about horses.

When Ken Fawkes courted Sybil, Nola fought with Tedi and Edward right alongside her. She even told her father he was a snob. Ken might be poor, but he wasn’t stupid and he made Sybil happy. She loved Nola for that. Somehow she hadn’t even minded that at her wedding the maid of honor unintentionally outshone the bride.

A ripple of anguish washed over her as she wondered, yet again, what Nola’s last moments were like. Was she terrified? Perhaps. Defiant? Most likely. Did she know she was about to die? Sybil prayed that she did not. Perhaps her murderer was merciful in that he didn’t torture her. Maybe he killed swiftly and Nola never knew what was happening.

Ken told her not to dwell on it. They couldn’t change the past. Focus on the present, on their life together and their sons.

He was right, but she couldn’t keep her mind from playing Nola’s last day over and over again. Nothing unusual ever stuck out like a red flag. The day’s cubbing had put everyone in high spirits. The party that evening at the Burusses’ filled them up with food and spirits of a different, more liquid sort. Nola didn’t lean over and confess any “sins” to her. Actually, Nola confided in Sybil less once Sybil was married. She’d tease her by saying she didn’t want to upset a proper matron.

She shook herself. Concentrate on today. Listen for the hounds.

She wondered where the field was. Ken was with them.

At that moment they were moving, creeping, really, up the right side of the creek, heading upstream. Even Athena and Bitsy, who often enjoyed shadowing them, stayed in the rafters of the stable. Why fly around in the fog when mice scampered right under your talons?

Ralph Assumptio and Ronnie Haslip rode side by side. Everyone out that day wanted to ride next to a buddy and in view of the riders in front, if possible. No one spoke.

Sari and Jennifer rode together; Walter and Ken, Crawford and Marty hung right behind Sister, which irritated Ken, who thought Crawford had no business being up front. Bobby and Xavier brought up the rear, doing their best to keep the twenty-four riders from fading into the fog. That’s all they’d need today, someone out there riding around, turning foxes, getting in the way of hounds and finally hollering their damned head off because they were lost and scared.

Tedi and Edward, also furious at Crawford for his pushiness, stuck with Ken and Walter until the path narrowed as the creek forked sharply left, northwest. They scooted in front of the two men, who graciously nodded,“Go ahead.”

“Whoop. Whoop.” Shaker’s cry faded away up front.

Sister knew they’d be in the cornfield soon enough. The corn was planted north to south because of the lay of the land. If she hugged the end row, which she’d have done even if she could see, she’d come out on the farm road leading up to Hangman’s Ridge.

Cora and Dragon, brimming with drive, wanted to find a better line than the tattered trail they currently followed.

“If we could bolt Charlie, we’d have a run,”Dragon said. Charlie was Target’s son from last year’s litter who had a den close by.

“You might be able to bait him,”Cora said. She was glad that Asa, Diana, Dasher, and the others were close behind. The fog didn’t bother her as much as the humans and the horses, because she relied on her nose even in the brightest of weather. Still, it’s always reassuring to see one’s surroundings.

Charlie’s den had fresh earth scattered outside as he’d been housecleaning. It emitted the sweetish, skunky odor of fox. Charlie, an ego as big as his luxurious brush, wanted every male animal in the universe to respect his territory. He even intruded on Uncle Yancy’s territory and marked that.A loud lecture followed this insult.

Not only did he hear Dragon coming, he smelled the sleek hound.

Dragon crawled halfway into the entranceway before his shoulders proved too broad for further movement.“Iknow you’re in there.”

“So does everyone else in this kingdom.”Charlie thought of his territory as a kingdom. His mentality was truly feudal.

“Give us a run. I’ll give you a head start. How about ifI let you get to the other side of the cornfield?”

“I wouldn’t trust you any farther than I could throw adead mouse.”

Charlie, who was full of himself and eager to make Dragon eat his words, slipped out his back exit. Dragon, butt still in the air, continued hollering down the front entrance. It took Dragon about five minutes before he realized he’d been had. Then he put his nose to the ground.“Hot! Hot! I’m right.”His rich baritone reverberated throughout the woods, echoing deeper as the hound was engulfed in the thickening fog.

The rest of the hounds sped over to Charlie’s den. Dasher could see Dragon’s pawprints. He followed the prints as well as his nose to the exit hole.

His sister was right behind him. He spoke low, then she spoke louder.“It’s good!”

Cora called to the others moving through the fog.“Burning scent! Burning scent!”

“Hurry hounds, hurry,”Asa encouraged them.“Allon. We want to be all on.”Then under his breath he whispered to Diana,“Especially in this pea soup.”

Within seconds the hounds converged on Charlie’s den, picked up the escape route line, and flew on it. All could hear Dragon up ahead by perhaps a quarter of a mile, too far ahead.

Charlie, flying fast and low, wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and Dragon.

Shaker couldn’t see anything, but he blew “Gone Away” as he recognized Dragon’s voice, then Cora’s, Diana’s, Asa’s, and the young entry who yelped as much as sang. Sounded like the whole pack, to him. He heard no stragglers.

The first problem was to get through the woods, over the coop in the fence line, through the corn to get up with his hounds. Like most huntsmen, bravery came naturally to him, but he was old enough not to be stupid. This was a day to let Gunpowder pick his way. He trusted his horse more than he trusted himself.

Betty, already in the cornfield, as she’d had the presence of mind to move forward while hounds were picking at the old line, cantered through a line of corn, the long green leaves swishing. She knew she couldn’t get into too much trouble if she stayed in a row. Once out of the field, the old zigzag fence between the corn and the farm road was easy enough to jump even in the fog.

That couldn’t be said of the coop between the woods and the cornfield. Shaker and Gunpowder found it and got over because Gunpowder, long-strided and with the ?lan of a thoroughbred, trotted two steps and arched over effortlessly.

Sister heard her hounds, then the horn. She’d fallen farther behind than she realized.

Sybil, too, was jolted out of her reverie. She pushed along the low ridge, leaving Nola’s grave behind her, but she knew she’d gotten thrown out. Right now she was utterly useless to the huntsman. She cursed herself, then the fog as she tried to make up the ground without breaking her neck.

Sister hugged the creek bed and crossed where the smooth rocks led down into the creek and where Snake Creek fed into Broad Creek. The footing, still slick and deep, was better here. Aztec, his light bay coat oddly translucent in the strange muted light, reached the other side of this part of Broad Creek with no problem. When Sister looked back to see if the person behind her, now Tedi Bancroft, had made it across, she couldn’t see anyone. And she could only hear her when Tedi appeared by her side.

“We’ve got to kick on, Tedi.”

Edward charged out of the fog, then held hard, pulling sharply back on the reins.“Sorry, Master.”

“Can’t see the hand in front of your face. I was telling Tedi, we’ve got to kick on and hope for the best.” She cupped her hands. Normally she wouldn’t speak much during a run, but the hounds were well ahead. She wasn’t going to cause any hound heads to come up and she wasn’t going to turn a fox, either. “If you can hear me, listen for hoofbeats. We’ve got to move out. If you can’t hear the hoofbeats, ride to cry.”

“All right,” Walter called back.

Bobby, bringing up the rear, had visions of picking up people like scattered croquet balls. But he was a foxhunter, and foxhunters stay with hounds.

Sister trotted along, spied a rock outcropping, its red streak glistening like blood in the moisture-laden air. Curious. A narrow path forked off from the left of this rock, which would bring her near the coop much more quickly than if she stayed on the wider path. She decided to chance it.

She squeezed her legs, Aztec extending his trot; he had a lovely floating trot, easy on an old back. The club hadn’t brushed back this trail, one of those jobs waiting to be knocked out before Opening Hunt. She crouched low, her face alongside Aztec’s muscled neck.

“Take care of me, honey.”

“Piece of cake,”he snorted.

Ralph, Xavier, Walter, and Ronnie cut left by the rock, hoofbeats fading away in front of them. Wordlessly they moved out. Behind them came Ken, Jennifer, and Sari, excited at hounds in full cry and the wildness of the morning.

Bobby kept pushing up stragglers.

Enough people had slid by Crawford when they had the chance that he and Marty rode in the middle of the group, which he didn’t like. He so wanted to be in the master’s pocket on this day, but he couldn’t hang in there. He wasn’t quite enough of a rider. Czapaka, a big warmblood and not as nimble as some of the other smaller horses, bulled through the narrow path; a low-hanging pine bough smacked Crawford in the face, disturbing a squirrel up above.

“Watch it,”the squirrel chattered.

“You’re nothing but a rat with more fur,”Czapaka called over his shoulder, which caused the squirrel to throw pinecones on following riders and scream at the top of his lungs. Squirrels aren’t known for their emotional self-control.

Sister emerged from the overgrown path knowing the three-board fence should be twenty yards in front of her; Jimmy kept all the fence lines clear. This fence line was the dividing line between After All Farm and Roughneck Farm, with Broad Creek cutting through both properties as it flowed in a southerly direction. The old boundary had been set with squared-off stones back in 1791, when the original land grant was subdivided. The stones stood to this day.

Sister slowed. She didn’t want to run into the fence, plus she knew Aztec, bursting with talent, would just lift off and clear the fence. She thought it unwise to ask some of the riders behind her to follow suit. The coop, once she found it, would be more prudent.

Off in the distance she heard Diana’s voice, and Cora’s bel canto.“Fly! Fly! Fly!”The other hounds in chorus,“Yes.”

“Where is that damned coop?” she whispered, eager to be with her hounds.

A blackened shape interrupted the fence line.

“That’s it.”Aztec curved to the right, then swung to the left with long, fluid strides to hit the spot perfectly in front of the coop, the rain-soaked earth squishing underneath his hooves. He gave an extra surge of power because of the footing, clearing the coop with a foot to spare, which made Sister laugh as she hadn’t expected Aztec to jump so big. He was still young, inclined to overjump.

“Good boy.” She patted his neck.

Behind her she heard Tedi land, then Edward, both superbly mounted, as always. She headed left again, following the face of the corn.

Shaker was in the cornfield, behind his hounds. Betty sat now on the farm road, waiting for the hounds to emerge like small ghosts from between the straight-planted rows.

She heard Shaker’s high-pitched “Whoop.” If he was going to turn or call them back, she’d hear the horn, the three or four long, piercing notes of equal length.

Betty hoped Sybil was on the far side of the cornfield. She couldn’t see a thing, contenting herself with the knowledge that no one else could, either.

The bulk of the pack now ran thirty paces behind Dragon. Delia, bringing up the rear, was fifty paces behind.

Charlie scampered over the zigzag fence, ran between Outlaw’s legs for effect.

“Gotcha!”he shouted over his shoulder.

Both Betty and Outlaw, hearts in their mouths, had to settle themselves for a second, then Betty laughed. The gall of that fox.

“Outlaw,” she whispered. “Steady yourself. The whole pack is going to run right through us.”

He twitched his ears forward and back.“Okay.” Within two minutes they did just that, then Betty jumped over the fence on the opposite side of the farm road and was swallowed by the fog. She was heading for the orchard. Had she been able to see she would have spurred on Outlaw the minute Charlie ran between her legs, but she couldn’t. She thought the wiser course was to let the hounds blow through her; she wouldn’t hurt anyone that way and she could ride hard through the orchard, a kind of shortcut.

Sister, face wet from corn leaves, heard the flap, flap, flap behind her as other riders were getting it full in the face. There was no ducking the corn, the silken red tassels loaded with the moisture.

She felt clammy. The dew point was soggy to the max. Then Sister felt the first drops of a drizzle. She blasted out of the corn row, lifted over the zigzag fence, hooves sunk into the farm road, the red clay now viscous. She hooked left.

Shaker, ahead, blew them on.

Before she knew it, she’d jumped over the zigzag fence on the opposite side of the road and headed straight into the apple orchard. The scent of the apples, almost ready to be picked, filled the air.

The voices of the hounds suddenly stopped.

Trident whispered,“What happened?”

Diana said,“We’ve lost the scent.”

Dragon, furious, growled,“I was right behind him!He’s got to be here!”

Shaker rode up to his hounds.“Try on. Eee-lou.”

Dutifully, all hounds put their noses to the ground, but nothing. A youngster wanted to run heel, but Cora put her right.

“But it’s good here,”Rassle whined.

“I know, but you’re heading backwards. Must stay forward.”Diana confirmed Cora’s correction.

The field finally caught up. Betty stayed on the other side of the apple orchard since Shaker didn’t blow her in.

Sybil was at the foot of Hangman’s Ridge; having gotten herself turned around, she finally found her way out by following first the creek bed, then emerging into the north side of the cornfield. She followed a row in the fog and drizzle to the farm road at the base of the ridge.

Sister rode up to Shaker.“You know, we’d better call it a day.”

“Damn, how could he give us the slip like that!”

“I don’t know. He’s got some kind of mojo, but the fog isn’t lifting. If anything, Shaker, it’s thickening and my built-in weather station”—she tapped her collarbone broken in the seventies—“tells me this drizzle will be a downpour soon enough.”

“Okay.” He put his horn to his lips, blowing in his whippers-in.

“Thank God,” Betty thought to herself as she picked her way through the fog back down into the apple orchard.

Betty couldn’t understand how Charlie could turn his scent off. If he’d ducked into a den, they’d know. But he’d vanished. Not a trace.

Sister turned to face the field, huddled together, exhilarated that they’d survived the fog hunt, as it would come to be known. “Folks, well done. This wasn’t an easy task, but it was an exciting one.” She turned to Edward. “Do you mind leading people home? Since I’m here I thought Aztec and I would road hounds back to the kennels. We’ll come back to pick up the hound wagon.”

“I’d be happy to take everyone back.” Edward touched the brim of his cap with his crop.

“Shaker, ready?”

“You read my mind.”

“Sybil,” Sister addressed a bedraggled Sybil, who had just joined them, “Shaker, Betty, and I will put hounds up. You ride back with the others.”

“Thank you.”

After each field member said,“Good night, Master,” and rode off, Sister turned to her hounds.

Edward took the riders back over the zigzag fences and followed the edge of the corn row. Tedi rode up front with him. Folks tried to stay within sight of one another.

The fog, pewter gray now, swirled droplets of moisture. People waited to jump the last coop into After All Farm, although you could barely see it until one stride in front of it.

Ralph Assumptio, boot to boot with Xavier, passed his old friend his flask.

“You know what? Let’s walk the fence line and find the gate. This is stupid. We have the whole rest of the hunt season in front of us, and I, for one, don’t want to buy real estate during cubbing.”

Xavier savored the marvelous port in Ralph’s flask. “You got that right, buddy.”

“I agree,” Ken called from in front of them, although they couldn’t see him.

“Me too,” Sybil chimed in.

The sound played tricks on them in the fog.

“Ron, you still with us?” Xavier asked.

“To your right.” Ron gently squeezed his horse, who walked forward, the two of them appearing spectral in the swirling mists.

Xavier handed Ron his flask.

“What do you have in yours?” Ralph asked Xavier.

“Schnapps.”

Ralph wrinkled his nose.“You carry that stuff so the rest of us won’t drink it.”

“I like it.”

Ken’s voice floated toward them. “Xavier, admit it.”

“Admit what? I like schnapps. I like sweet stuff. My waistline ought to prove that. Sybil, where the hell are you? Not with your husband, I hope. The entire point of foxhunting is to depart from one’s spouse.” He knocked back some of his schnapps. “Within limits, of course.”

“I’m on your left,” she called out.

Ken laughed.“Xavier, don’t give my wife ideas.”

They heard a rub up ahead at the jump. Someone’s horse’s hind hooves literally rubbed on the jump.

“If I recall, the hand gate is maybe two hundred yards down the line, wrong direction from the house, but we can follow the fence line back once we’re through the gate.”

Rolling his shoulders, Ralph replied,“Well, let’s do it. It’s too damned raw out here.”

Ken’s voice again reached them. “I’ll go first. Why don’t we fall in line and try to keep the horse in front of you in view.”

Ron moved toward the fence, or what he thought was the fence.“I don’t hear anyone up ahead.”

“Must all be over.” Xavier picked up his reins.

“Or unconscious from missing that jump.” Ron laughed.

“We’d have heard the screams,” Ken called out, his voice moving farther and farther away.

“Sybil, where are you?” Ron asked.

“I’m the rear guard.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Ralph raised his voice so she could hear, but the fog carried sounds strangely; little sounds were magnified.

“I’m here,” she called back reassuringly.

They walked along, silent for a few moments. The squish, squish of their horses’ hooves accentuated the increasingly dismal day.

A soft whisper in his ear made Ralph sit up straight in his saddle. It sounded like“I’m going to kill you.”

“What’d you say?” Xavier, too, heard the whisper.

“Nothing,” Sybil replied, soaked and cold.

Ralph, the fence line to his right, now heard,“I know it was you.” He couldn’t quite recognize the voice. A knife edge of fear ripped at his stomach.

Ron turned in his saddle.“Where the hell is the gate?”

Xavier grumbled,“I don’t know.”

Ken called,“Keep up.”

“We’re behind you,” Ron called back. “Just moving slower.”

“Gate, please.” Ken uttered the traditional foxhunting command that directed the last person to close the gate.

Ralph thought he was between Ron and Xavier, but he could no longer see them.

Ron reached the opened gate, passing through.“Sybil, gate please,” he bellowed.

“Okay,” she responded, her voice fading away.

The voice whispered in Ralph’s ear again. “Time to join Hotspur.”

Ralph pressed with his right leg, and his horse swerved left. He didn’t pass through the gate, but instead he tore off through the cornfield.

Ron heard him take off.“What the shit is going on?”

Xavier clucked to his horse and caught up to Ron.“What’s going on?”

“That’s just what I said.” Ron frowned. “Ralph!” No response. “Sybil.”

“Here I am.” She appeared out of the silver.

“What’s going on?” Ron again asked.

“I don’t know.” Sybil shrugged.

“Well, Ralph’s not here.” Ron yelled, “Ken!”

“Yo,” Ken called back, from an indeterminate distance.

Xavier leaned forward.“Look, we’re going to get lost out here. Let’s trot. The sooner we get back the better.”

“Yeah, but where’s Ralph?” Ron, truly worried now, pointed his crop at Xavier.

“I don’t know.” Xavier knocked his crop away with his own crop. “What are you so worried about? For all we know, he’s ahead of us. Maybe he’s ahead of Ken.”

“We can’t leave him.”

“You two go back. I know this country. I’ll look for him,” Sybil calmly replied.

“Sybil, we can’t leave a lady out here. I’m telling you, there’s a storm coming up,” Ron said sternly.

“Don’t think of me as a lady. Think of me as a whipper-in and there’s a lost hound. I’d be out then. Just tell Ken when you see him that I’ll be late getting in and not to worry. If the weather turns nasty I’ll put my horse up at Sister’s.” She disappeared into the fog.

“Sybil! Sybil!” Ron shouted.

Then they both heard a light rap on the coop.

“She’s going the wrong way,” Xavier exhaled, thoroughly tired of the whole thing. “Come on, Ron.”

“Something is really wrong. I don’t think we should leave them.”

“Leave Ralph? We don’t know where he is, and Sybil’s right, she does know the territory even if she is heading in the wrong direction,” Xavier said.

Ron’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know it was Sybil who just took that jump?”

“Look, old buddy, I’ll grant you that things have been really crazy. But maybe Ralph got sick of crawling through the mist. Maybe he spurred on and he’s halfway back to the trailers by now.”

“He turned in the opposite direction. I heard him hit the corn.”

“What do you mean?”

Ron shook his helmet as a raindrop hit the velvet top.“I heard the stalks, the leaves, you know, the long leaves. I heard them hitting him.”

Xavier sat silent, then spoke.“Hear anything else?”

“Just that rub on the fence when Sybil jumped in. She should have headed back toward Sister’s.”

“We have to go in. We do. We can’t do anything to help. It’s going to rain. It’s already raining.” Xavier peered up into the deepening gray as the drizzle slicked his face. “If they aren’t there, then we can worry. Come on.”

With reluctance, Ron passed through the gate, waited for Xavier to walk through, then he leaned over from atop his kind, patient horse and closed the gate, dropping the metal kiwi latch, shaped like a comma, through the steel circle.

Ralph galloped through the corn. His face wet, broad flat corn leaves were hitting him. He thought he heard hoofbeats behind him. He reached the farm road as the first raindrop splattered. If he had been in better command of himself he would have prudently turned left, jumped into the orchard, and ridden to Sister’s barn, perhaps a fifteen-minute trot. But panic had overtaken him, and he turned his horse right, pushing toward Hangman’s Ridge.

Inky heard him pass as she snuggled in her den. Five minutes later she heard a second set of hoofbeats, only this horse wasn’t running. This horse moved at a deliberate trot. As the weather was filthy, her curiosity was dimmed. She wasn’t going out to see what was going on.

Ralph, breathing heavily, eyes wide, transmitted his terror to his horse as he urged the animal up to the right. They reached the flat plateau of Hangman’s Ridge.

“Oh shit.” Ralph shook his head. He hadn’t wanted to come up here, but his mind was fuzzy. Hands shaking, he reached down for his flask, flipped open the leather case, now slippery, and pulled out the heavy, handblown flask. He unscrewed the top and emptied the entire contents. The fire wiggled down his throat, into his belly. He took a deep breath.

Clutching the flask, he moved toward the giant oak, ignoring the warning snorts of his horse, a far better judge of danger than Ralph.

“Trooper, get a grip,” commanded Ralph, whose spirits were now stronger thanks to those he had imbibed.

The enormous glistening tree loomed out of the fog. A shrieking sound so unnerved Trooper that he shied, all four feet off the ground. Ralph hit with a thud, his flask rolling across the wet grass.

Trooper turned and fled back toward the farm road. The horse smelled another horse moving up through the narrow deer paths on the side of the ridge. He didn’t bother to whinny. He lowered his head and ran as if his life depended on it, the stirrup irons banging at his sides.

Ralph, cursing, picked himself up. Only then did he see, or think he saw, the hanging corpse of Lawrence Pollard, the fine lace of his sleeves drooping in the wet.

“And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” Lawrence quoted Philippians, chapter two, verse eight. Then he moaned, “Obedient unto death, even death on a hanging tree.” The wind that always blew on the ridge carried his voice away.

Ralph, sweat running down his face, his hands wet with sweat, backed away from the tree. He turned to follow his horse in flight. Running, slipping, sliding, falling, picking himself up—only to run smack into another horror.

“Oh God,” Ralph sobbed.

“You’ll see Him before I do.”

Down in the kennels, Sister and Shaker were removing collars from hounds who had hunted. The boys were then released to go to their side of the kennel, the girls to the other side. This allowed the master and huntsman to inspect each hound, making sure no one’s pads had been cut, no ears sliced by deadly Virginia thorns.

A crack brought hound and human heads up.

“What was that?”

“No one’s sighting a rifle today,” Shaker said, hands fallen to his sides. He looked toward the north.

“Sound plays tricks in this weather. Could have been a backfire on Soldier Road,” Sister said halfheartedly.

“Small caliber,”Asa told them.

“Handgun,”Diana added, her ears lifted, her nose in the air. Although there was nothing to smell inside the draw pen, she still trusted her nose above all other senses.

“All right, boys.” Shaker led the boys to their door.

“Come on, girls.” Sister did the same for the gyps.

Once the hounds were in their proper kennels, both humans, without speaking to each other, walked out the front door of the main kennel to listen.

Far away they heard hoofbeats, trotting. As the sound came closer, they walked through the intensifying rain to the stable.

The girls inside had finished cleaning the tack.

“Can’t see a bloody thing.” Shaker felt uneasy.

“We came in in the nick of time.” As Sister reached for a towel hanging on a tack hook, Sybil materialized out of the fog, leading Trooper.

“Sybil?”

“Sister, I found him wandering through the orchard. Guess he jumped the fence by himself.”

A shaking Trooper stared wild-eyed at the people. The other horses, munching hay in their stalls, stopped.

“Girls, gently, gently, put him in the end stall, take his tack off, and wipe him down.”

As Trooper passed the others, he rolled his eyes.“Isaw the ghost. Ralph wouldn’t listen,”he kept babbling.

Keepsake, hoping to calm him, said,“There are a couple up there.”

Sybil dismounted as Jennifer took her reins.“Somehow Ralph became separated from the group, so I went out to look for him. Can’t find anything in this.”

Sister, worried, said,“He could be walking back here or to your farm. No telling.”

“Or he could be hurt.” Shaker said what she was thinking.

“Girls, take care of Sybil’s horse, too, please.”

“Yes, ma’am. Then can we help you look?” Sari asked.

She waited a moment, her mind racing.“Yes. Take care of Trooper and Marquise first.” Then, voice lower, as if speaking to herself, she murmured, “Trooper is a sensible horse.”

Shaker, his shirt soggy against his skin, touched Sybil’s elbow. “When did you last see Ralph?”

“At the gate between the cornfield and our line. The hand gate. Of course, couldn’t see anything, but that’s where I heard him last. Ken, Xavier, Ron, Ralph, and I decided to go through the gate to get back home. You couldn’t even see the coop anymore until you were right up on it. No sense getting hurt. But we got strung out.”

“The first thing to do is call your mother. It could be that everyone is back safe and sound.”

Sister hurried into the tack room, knowing in her bones that all was most emphatically not safe and sound.

CHAPTER 28

“And why weren’t you out hunting today?” Tedi, steaming cup of hot chocolate in hand, asked Cindy Chandler, the owner of Foxglove Farm.

The pretty blonde smiled.“I was going to go.”

“Sure, Weenie,” Betty Franklin, nursing roped coffee, teased. She’d roaded hounds back to the kennel and left her horse there. As a whipper-in, her concern was the hounds. And Sister never minded Betty putting her horse up in Sister’s barn. She’d driven Jennifer’s car to After All since Sister asked her to go on ahead and be her standin while she and Shaker removed collars.

“I really was. Cat Dancing and I are ready,” she mentioned her beloved mare, “but Clytemnestra and her calf, Orestes, broke down the back side of the fencing and escaped. Still haven’t found them.”

“Cindy, can’t you call that damned cow Bessie? Does it have to be Clytemnestra?” Betty checked her watch. “God, it’s terrible to have to work for a living. I’d better roll on.”

Tedi scanned her living room.“Sybil’s still not back.”

Betty frowned a moment.“Maybe she’s at the barn.”

Members had carried cakes, biscuits, and sandwiches they’d packed for a small tailgate into Tedi’s dining room. As with most spontaneous gatherings, it proved much more fun than the arduously planned variety.

Edward had shepherded the field back to his barns. Not often acting as field master, he had neglected to make a head count.

“Have any idea where the cow headed? Tracks?” Betty returned to the case of the missing cow and calf.

“I tracked her across Soldier Road but lost her trail in the wildflower meadows. This fog is unbelievable. Don’t know how you all were out there without getting lost.”

“Well, that’s another story.” Betty laughed.

“We were never lost. No, not the trusty Jefferson Hunt Club.” Ken sipped his coffee, a shot of Irish Mist adding immeasurably to his pleasure since he was wet and chilled.

“Rain dropped buckets on me, like the heavens had unzipped, so I went back home, took a hot shower, and then came over to ask Tedi and Edward to keep an eye out for Cly and Orestes. I’d better alert Sister, too,” Cindy thought out loud.

“Once this fog lifts, we’ll find her. She’s hard to miss,” Tedi said.

Clytemnestra, the black and white Holstein cow, was quite flashy. Her pastures, rich in redbud clover and alfalfa, should give the cow no reason for complaint, but Cly liked the excitement of escape. Also, she was nosy and wanted to see what was happening on other farms. She was teaching her offspring her tricks. Although still a little fellow, he eagerly absorbed his mother’s lessons. Their jailbreak over the summer when Sister, Walter, Shaker, and Doug built the new in and out jumps only inflamed them to further adventures.

People slowly began to head home. They checked on their horses in their trailers, then drove away.

“Hey,” Betty said, poking her head back inside the living room. She had left, gone to Jennifer’s car, then returned. “Ralph Assumptio’s trailer is down at the barn, but he wasn’t at the breakfast.”

“Edward,” Tedi called, and her husband came in from the library.

“What, dear?”

“Did you see Ralph at breakfast?”

“No, don’t think so.”

“Ken?” Tedi asked her son-in-law, who wanted to change clothes and head for the office.

He shook his head.“No.”

“Good God, he must still be out there.” Tedi blanched.

“Bobby brought up the rear,” Betty said. “We might reach him in the truck.” She walked into the kitchen to use the phone. Tedi followed. “Oh, Bobby, glad I got you. I’m still at the Bancrofts’. We can’t find Ralph.”

“What?”

“His trailer is here but he’s not, and no one remembers seeing him at breakfast.” Betty’s eyes met Tedi’s.

“The last time I saw Ralph was at the coop between the cornfields and the woods. A couple of guys were back there,” Bobby recalled.

“Let me talk to him.” Ken took the phone from Betty. “Hey, Bobby. Ronnie, Xavier, Ralph, and I had a drink while everyone was negotiating the coop. Sybil was back there with us, too. That’s the last time I saw him. You’re sure he didn’t come in and go home with someone else? Maybe put his horse on their trailer?”

“No.” Bobby felt terrible. His job was to bring up the rear.

Edward felt responsible, too.

“Ralph wouldn’t leave his trailer here without asking,” Tedi said, truly worried now.

As Ken talked to Bobby, the other line rang. Ken put Bobby on hold and heard Sister’s voice.

“Is Ralph there?” she inquired.

“No. We just noticed. I’m on the other line with Bobby.”

“We need to look for him. I’m sending Sybil to where Snake Creek feeds into Broad. She’ll follow the creek back to your covered bridge. Ralph’s smart enough to use the creek. Put Betty on.”

“Let me say good-bye to Bobby.”

“Tell him to stay at work. We have enough people to find Ralph. Okay?”

Ken relayed her message to Bobby, pressed the flashing button, and handed the phone to Betty.

“Boss?” Betty’s voice rose.

“Take Edward. Go to the Bleeding Rock. Retrace our steps that way. You’ll come out at the coop. Maybe he came a cropper at the coop.”

“Okay.”

“Ask Ken and Tedi to drive along Soldier Road. He might be walking on the road.”

“Where are you going?”

“Cornfield and all around the base of Hangman’s Ridge. If we don’t find him in an hour I’m calling Ben Sidell. In fact, tell the others to take their cell phones. If no one finds Ralph, call me on my cell in one hour.”

“Roger.”

“Oh. Jennifer and Sari want to help. Do you mind?”

“No.”

“Good. I’ll put them in the orchard and tell them to follow hound tracks backward to the cornfield in case Ralph tracked hounds.” She hoped the tracks hadn’t completely washed away.

“Okay.”

“One hour.”

“Right.” Betty hung up and gave the others Sister’s orders.

They threw on Barbour coats or Gore-Tex jackets and hurried out of the house.

Sister scribbled her cell phone number on a pad and handed it to Jennifer.“Call us. We’ll be in the cornfields and then around the bottom of Hangman’s Ridge. If you don’t find anything when you finally reach the cornfield, come straight back to the barn. Don’t leave the barn until you hear from me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jennifer said.

With that, Sister and Shaker hopped into the truck. They parked and combed the cornfields, rain pouring down, fog as dense as ever, but found nothing unusual.

Then they climbed back into the truck, mud caked on their boots, every new step seemingly heavier than the last, and they checked the base of the ridge. The rain had washed away any tracks.

“We might as well go to the top of the ridge. At least we can drive up,” Sister said, water running off her coat and onto the floor.

“Why would he go up there? Even in the fog he’d know Hangman’s Ridge. He’d have to have climbed up,” Shaker sensibly said.